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They didn’t know about the secret stairs that led away from the palace and down into the city below; a route with a magic gate only openable by the Royals of Windhelm. They couldn’t know about it. It was one of the most well-guarded secrets in all of the Winter Kingdom, known only to me, my brother, and my parents.
Once I made it out of the palace’s side door undetected, I made a quiet run for the secret gate that would take me directly into the heart of the city. These stairs weren’t always here. Over twenty years ago, during my mother’s battle with the Veridian, she had to go through the main gate to fight her way into the palace. That fight cost Fae lives. If she’d had a quicker way in, fewer lives would have been lost.
All I had to do was touch the gate, and it unlocked. Together, Tallin and I rushed down the stairs and headed into the city. It was the dead of night, and there wasn’t a soul out on the streets. Either way, we stuck to the back alleys and side streets to avoid detection, making a run for the main portcullis—the only way into and out of Windhelm—once it was within view.
I wasnotexpecting to hear someone call my name from across the quiet street. I was expecting to find Lord Cyr standing there even less.
“Princess Amara?” he asked.
I stopped dead in my tracks, but I didn’t turn around, and neither did Tallin. “What… the hell,” I whispered. “What is he doing out here?”
“I don’t know!” Tallin hissed. “Maybe you should turn around.”
“Is that you, Princess?” he asked.
“Uh… no…?” I ventured, trying to deepen my voice. “I’m… a man.”
“Princess…” he sighed. “Why do you play games with me at such a late hour?”
Fuck.
I slowly turned around to face Lord Cyr, who had been steadily approaching ever since he saw me. “Heh, you caught me,” I said, smiling.
He seemed genuinely perplexed. What was I doing here? Where was I going? Why had I been running across the street in the dead of night? I could practically hear those questions, and more, rattling about in that brain of his. I had questions for him too, of course. He was also incredibly out of place down here, so close to the city’s exit…exactly where I was.
“If I may ask,” he ventured, “What is her Highness doing out of the palace so late?”
“You may ask…” I said, trailing off.
Lord Cyr smiled and wagged at me. “Good,” he said, “Very, very good. Because you’re a Princess, and I’m just a noble son of a Duke or something.” He burped, and even from here I could smell the Claire de Lune on his breath.
I grimaced. “Looks like you’ve been hitting the blue wine pretty hard, there.”
“Only a drink… or six. The pub’s closed, now. Kicked us all out. Well,me. Thought I’d go for a stroll and lament my failures.”
I frowned. “Failures?”
“With the Royal Selection. With my parents. Withyou.”
“I’m not sure I get your meaning,sir.”
“It’s Cyr,” he said, waving his hand across the air to show me which way the inflection was supposed to go. “But you wouldn’t care about that, would you? Why would you? Look at you. You’re the Princess.”
“And you’re drunk. Go home.”
“Why? What’s the point?” he staggered toward me, stopped himself, stood upright. “What’s the point in any of it?”
“I ask myself that question every single day.”
“I…” he paused, his eyes watering. “Loveyou, so… so much.”
I winced at his words. “You don’t mean that.”
“No, I do. All I do is think about you, and me, and us. I’m perfect for you. Perfect. The best. You won’t find another man as willing to die for you as I am.”
“Right now, all I want you to do is go back to your room and sleep this one off before you wake the neighborhood.”
“I will, I will,” he said. “I just… I have some things I want to get off my chest first.”
