1
ALISTAIR
The surefooted mountI selected this morning from the castle stables abruptly sidles left, nearly unseating me.
“Damn you,” I mutter, caught off guard and fighting to remain upright. Irritably, I kick his sides. The horse lurches forward, then balks. A flutter of dull fabric catches the corner of my eye.
I nearly ran someone down. Inattentiveness has plagued me for months, ever since she left. Ran away, if I’m being honest with myself. But honesty is for those with no sense of self-preservation—a luxury a prince cannot afford.
I value honesty in others. Demand it, even. Yet lies are my mother tongue.
“Watch out!” an onlooker shouts.
The horse rears. I clamp my knees tight and grasp for purchase on the horse’s mane, the pommel—anything to avoid the ignominy of falling off my horse in the middle of Belterre City. A blur of faded fabric and unexpectedly nice feminine calves dart heedlessly in front of my surly mount. Despite what people say about me, I am not so cruel as to deliberately crush a person. Fighting my horse back down to earth without striking her requires all my concentration and strength.
She flings her arms up, an instinctive stance to ward off the horse’s flailing hooves. When I wrest the animal to the side, she relaxes and peeps through the gap. I glimpse a flash of blue eyes, and my heart stops.
The interaction takes no longer than a few seconds. Then, my horse shifts and I’m forced to focus. By the time all four hooves are back on the cobblestone pathway, she’s gone.
Not Briar.A tight band around my ribs binds my breath. Disappointment rakes its sharp claws down my insides. She was a mere peasant, not my princess.
Her eyes were the wrong shade of blue. More aquamarine than the blue of clear skies. Her hair was wrong, too, the color of autumn leaves on a sunny afternoon. Still, it’s the first flicker of interest I’ve felt toward a woman since Briar Rose left me standing at the altar and ran off with my personal knight and onetime friend, Killian.
Why did she run?
The question plagues me. I concede that I have flaws. No more than your average prince. Lying, for example. I do what is necessary to ensure peace and the continuation of the Belterre royal lineage.
Still, there was no good reason for her to choose Killian, a lowborn knight, over me. I could have protected her from the curse that caused her own parents to abandon her.
Having lost the woman I swore I would make my queen, I am now resigned to taking a highborn lady for my wife. My father, on his deathbed, refuses to expire until hisworthless, arrogant fool of a sonfulfills his duty. Direct quote, and a direct hit.
I scan the crowd, searching for the mysterious woman. She’s gone. There is no sign of her distinctive bright-red hair.
I’m not even sure Killian had the decency to marry Briar properly. I suspect she doesn’t care one way or the other. She was rather wild that way. Wouldn’t have made a very good queen, in hindsight.
“Find that woman,” I snarl at my hapless new guard, Othmar. He’s capable enough with a sword, but he’s no intellectual and he’s overly deferential to me. That was Killian’s best and worst quality—he never took me too seriously. We were friends. The only one I’ve ever had.
I point in the direction where I think the girl with the nice legs fled. The royal guards exchange a glance, but they move to do my bidding.
Within minutes they’re back.
“Couldn’t find her, Your Highness.”
I grit my teeth. Killian wouldn’t have stopped looking after such a perfunctory effort. He’d have hunted her down and brought her back to me like a dog fetching a grouse.
He probably would’ve seduced her along the way, too. If one can call what he did with women seduction. The fairer sex are fools to desire him, yet they did. Killian was barely housetrained, a cur off the street I took in out of pity. He’s not handsome; I am much better-looking. Yet his hard-hearted arrogance caused women to flutter their lashes and fall onto their backs, legs parted, begging for him for a tumble.
Before Briar, I never questioned my appeal to women. As the prince of the realm and soon to be the king, I never had to put in any effort. Killian didn’t either, but we mostly honored an unspoken gentleman’s agreement not to go sniffing around one another’s conquests.
Briar changed all that.
He stole her right out from under my nose, the bastard. After everything I’d done for him.
But now, there’s a girl who might appreciate my attention. It’s not every day a woman gets plucked from obscurity to become a prince’s consort. Regardless of her birth, she was beautiful enough to pass for nobility, even with that flaming-red hair. Cleaned up and dressed decently, she’d be a passable, meek queen.
I shall have to invent a story. Hardly a challenge. Once I am king, I can grant her family a title and turn the lie into truth. Her papa can be the Tattered Earl, and she, Lady Ragamuffin.
“Keep searching. Bring me that girl.”
