Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

J ust as the physician had predicted, my injury was a simple sprain, and back to normal within two days. Korth was far more relieved than I was about how minor the injury was. With how attentive and caring Korth was while my ankle was healing, I wouldn’t have minded if I’d broken it and had him wait on me for several weeks. He brought me a small brass bell with instructions to ring it at any time, and instructed the servants to keep the doors to the dumbwaiter shaft open so the bell could be easily heard in his room. If he wasn’t caught up in meetings, he would always try to dash up so he could be the one to answer my call.

My guilt about ringing for service the same way Odette had done to me was quickly overshadowed by the delight that swelled in my chest each time Korth bounded into view, eager to show me how much he cared through his actions. I thought he would tire of it, but he either didn’t or else disguised it well. As Korth wasn’t much of an actor, I was inclined to believe that it was the former. If anything, it seemed like a relief to him that he wasn’t required to give gushing orations about his feelings and instead was able to do something for me to display his affection.

While he was with me, I filled any silence with idle chatter, talking about whatever came to mind as Korth sat at my side with rapt attention. Though Korth wasn’t much of a natural conversationalist, he was an excellent listener, asking for more details at just the right time or nodding his head to show he was paying attention. At first, I remembered to occasionally slip in hints about my hopes that Haven Harbor would send the military reinforcements soon and asked probing questions about how much longer we needed to wait, but I soon found myself describing my dreams for the future and recounting childhood experiences Odette and I had, phrasing it with our roles reversed.

When Korth bade me farewell each evening, it was always with a smile and a promise to see me as soon as possible the following day. Under Godfrey’s watchful eye, Korth didn’t dare do more than brush his lips against the back of my hand before he left.

“I’m going to visit my grandmother today,” Korth told me once my ankle was healed. “Will you come with me?”

My heart sank. I’d made so much progress with Korth; I couldn’t afford to have suspicions aroused again. “She won’t remember that you promised to see her,” I told him evasively.

The look he gave me was a somber, piercing one. “But I remember.”

“She doesn’t like me,” I whispered. “I don’t want to make her upset again.”

“Please? For me? I care about both of you.”

I swallowed. Korth had done so much for me while my ankle had been mending; it was the least I could do to go with him to see his grandmother, even if she didn’t like me. I took heart at the fact that she had rejected me twice now and yet Korth was still falling for me.

“I’ll come with you.”

Korth brightened and offered me his arm. “Maybe it will be different this time. It’s been a few weeks.”

“Maybe,” I answered without enthusiasm.

Korth had to knock three times before the nursemaid answered the door. With one look at the nurse, I knew that Nona would be in one of her moods and braced myself for taking the criticism that was sure to follow.

“Orion? Is that you?” Nona’s creaking voice came from the window seat overlooking the gardens.

“It’s Korth. I brought Odette to see you again.”

“Who?”

“I’m Korth, your grandson,” Korth repeated, speaking slowly and clearly without even a hint of annoyance. “I’m Orion’s son, and I brought my fiancée, Odette, to see you.”

I shuffled forward, still holding Korth’s hand tighter than was necessary. Nona squinted as she observed me, then transferred her gaze to Korth.

“Orion’s son?”

Korth nodded. “That’s right. I’m Korth, remember?”

“No, I don’t,” she murmured sadly. “I missed a lot, didn’t I?”

Korth released my hand so he could crouch down to be on eye level with his grandmother. “No, you didn’t miss anything. You’ve always been there for me, Nona. And soon, you get to be at my wedding. This is my fiancée, Odette.”

Nona stared at me and for the first time, her features didn’t contort into something angry. “Are you happy together?”

“Yes, we are,” Korth answered immediately.

“I want to hear it from her.” Nona didn’t take her eyes off me.

“Your grandson is truly a remarkable man, and he does make me very happy. I wish more men shared his values.”

Nona nodded slowly. “You must be good for each other.”

My heart swelled as I crouched down next to Korth, who looped his arm around me. “I think so.”

“I hope I remember your wedding when the time comes,” Nona said, placing her gnarled hands over mine. “You’ll be a beautiful bride, and I hope you make my grandson happy for the rest of his life.”

My abdomen contracted painfully. “I’ll do my best,” I said. This charade was becoming more difficult by the day. “I want him to be happy.”

While Korth attended his meetings each afternoon, Tess normally came to keep me company. When I’d first arrived, she had wiled away the hours by playing her musical instruments or practicing her penmanship, but lately, she came for shorter periods of time and on each occasion, her young forehead was lined with stress until finally one day, she didn’t come at all. That afternoon, I didn’t have a single dress fitting or decisions to make about colors or table settings for the wedding. I briefly toyed with the idea of going to visit some of the members of the rebellion before remembering that all but Curdy and Garrik were in the process of traveling to Ebora to prepare for the impending coup. As much as I wanted to see how Odette was adjusting to life as a gooseherd in a mildewy, leaky shack, it was pouring down rain.

For an hour, I stared at a blank sheet of parchment, trying to decide how to word a letter to my father that would both convey my genuine concern for him and the well-being of the other rebellion members while also maintaining my charade in case the letter was intercepted. My fingers drummed lightly on my desk as the sound of the relentless rain filled my head and drove every thought of an encrypted missive from my mind.

Finally deciding that no words would come, I shoved the parchment back into the desk drawer and corked the ink bottle and took to wandering the long corridors, staring at the windows and counting the flashes of lightning.

What else was a princess to do when she wasn’t part of the committee meetings that took up the bulk of her fiancé’s day? I could have gone to the library to read but didn’t feel much like sitting. My wandering feet took me to Tess’s room, but when I knocked, a maid answered the door and said in hushed tones that Tess was resting and not feeling well, no doubt from the stress of her first trial compounded with the ever-fluctuating weather.

“Can I get her anything?” I asked, desperate to do something, anything .

“Odette?” Tess’s voice croaked from within the darkened room. The maid hurried to the bedside, switching out the cloths on her face.

I stepped inside. The curtains had been drawn and the only light came from a few flickering candles that the maids had set on tables, giving just enough light so that they could tend to their mistress. “I’m here. I heard you aren’t feeling well.”

“Blah.”

I grinned. “A very accurate description. I hope you get feeling better soon; I missed seeing you today. Do you want anything?”

“Pudding.”

“Consider it done,” I told her. “I’ll fetch some now. Any particular flavor?”

“Banana.”

“I’ll be back soon,” I promised, quietly closing the door behind me.

My steps were quick and purposeful after that. After all, what were sisters for if they couldn’t fetch pudding when the other was feeling poorly?

The kitchens were on the ground level, easy to find when all I had to do was follow my nose. After relaying Tess’s request to one of the cooks, I occupied myself with examining the tapestries around the kitchen while the pudding was prepared. Most depicted great feasts or sumptuous dishes being served to nobility or else consumed by a variety of creatures. My favorite was a dragon lapping up chocolate mousse beside a flaming castle.

An extensive trestle table was laden with hearty-looking meals along the longest of the kitchen’s walls, and servants frequently entered one of the side doors, picked up some food, and either ate quickly or else carried it off through a door on the opposite side of the kitchen.

Just as the cook brought the pudding over, topped with a mound of whipped cream, a cherry, and chopped walnuts, Curdy entered the side door, toting a sack and so wet that water dripped from his clothes and hair to puddle on the floor anywhere he went. The cook handing me the pudding took a long look at the sopping floor, heaved a long-suffering sigh, and turned, calling a kitchen boy to collect a mop and tend to the mess.

Curdy’s eyes darkened when he saw me, then he sharply inclined his head. “Da—Princess Odette. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Resentment tinged his voice, and he glanced down at the sumptuous pudding in my hands. “I see you’re eating well.”

“It’s for Princess Tess. She’s ill.”

His eyes narrowed and his mouth became the thinnest of lines. “And what better way for a royal to heal than with decadent desserts?”

I frowned, wondering if Curdy had become more spiteful or if I simply had become less so during my time in Haven Harbor. I didn’t like what I was seeing in Curdy and didn’t want to imagine such characteristics in myself, even if they had once been true. “She’s not like that.”

“Is he ? I’m surprised you aren’t here with him . It seems like you spend every moment together.”

I quickly glanced over my shoulder to ensure that we wouldn’t be heard over the clanging of pots and pans. Cooks and the kitchen staff bustled around, not paying us the least mind. “A walk every day is hardly spending every moment together, and you know I need to gain his trust.”

A vein ticked on Curdy’s neck, and his grip tightened around the bag he held. “You’re doing all that just to gain his trust? No other reason?”

“That’s my purpose in being here, just as yours is to keep an eye on your sister. How’s she doing, anyway?”

Some of the bitterness fell away as Curdy managed to grin mischievously. “She’s completely miserable.”

“How are the lodgings?”

“Smelly, damp, and loud. Normally it would bother me, but”—he shot me a knowing look—“it bothers her more.”

“And therein lies the beauty of it,” I said. “I wish I could see it.”

“You could come visit, you know.”

“I actually thought about it today, but it was raining, and princesses have to be proper and ladylike and not catch cold.”

“Though apparently if you do fall ill, you get pudding.” His jaw relaxed slightly and he lowered his voice so I had to bend forward to hear him. “It’s all just a charade, right? Everything between you and the prince?”

My gut contracted painfully. “You and I both know it won’t last. It can’t.” I touched my ear, then lips, and finally my forehead. “We all have to do our parts, and for me, that includes taking pudding to my future sister-in-law.”

At my last words, Curdy frowned slightly, but then hastily rearranged his features. “I need to get a meal over to Garrik and O—my sister before they float away in this downpour.”

As I turned to go, Curdy burst out, “Wait!”

Several kitchen staffers quieted and looked around at us curiously. Curdy worked his jaw back and forth, glancing at the onlookers then back at me. “You don’t have a spoon, Your Highness.” He held the utensil out to me.

When I took the spoon from him, his fingers brushed mine. “Don’t forget why we’re here,” he murmured.

My steps were slow and silent as I made my way back up to Tess’s room. I’d assumed that this mission would be so simple and straightforward. Pretend to be Odette, seduce her betrothed so that he would send an army to aid the rebellion, even if he didn’t realize who he was helping, then leave once Raquel had been overthrown. But now…

Of course I would still go through with it, even if I wasn’t looking forward to turning on Korth. The lives and futures of innocent people were counting on me.

“Thanks, Odette. You’re the best.” Tess’s croaky words clawed at my ears as she accepted the pudding.

The best? I was a fraud masquerading as royalty and actively planning to exploit her kingdom’s resources. I was the farthest from best that it was possible to be.

“Get better soon,” I told Tess quietly as I left her room.

The bleak weather mirrored my mood perfectly. Grey rain slid down the windows that cast a gloomy haze over the labyrinthine corridors, and a depressing darkness threatened to take hold of my mind. Each step felt heavier than the last as the weight of my constant charade settled over me like metal armor, something necessary for my protection but agonizingly heavy all the same.

There was no way to tell whether the rebellion would be a success. There were so many flaws in our plan, and so much relied on hope when our people had only known despair for so long. I paused at a glass door, staring at the balcony beyond. Rain hammered down, droplets re-bounding off the surface as they burst to create a mist that hovered knee high. I had to keep Curdy happy as he was part of the rebellion, but his hatred of any royal was blinding him to the goodness in Korth and Tess. Not everyone was as horrible as Ebora’s royal family.

As much as I wished I had someone to confide in, it would never come to be. Who would I tell? I couldn’t explain my true motivations and allegiances to Korth, nor could I confess to the other rebels that I didn’t think Korth deserved to be used. Even amidst this bustling castle so crowded with people, I’d never felt more alone.

“Odette!” Korth called from down the hallway. “I just saw Tess; she said you stopped by to visit her and bring her pudding.”

“Of course. What are sisters for?” I unfolded my arms and hoisted a smile onto my face.

“I’m glad my two favorite women get along,” he said while a pattering of feet sounded from behind him. Godfrey hurried into view, gasping for breath and eyeing me with great suspicion.

“Too bad we aren’t by the lake,” I whispered to Korth, nodding meaningfully at our overly diligent chaperone.

He bit back a laugh as the corners of his lips curled upward. A strange sense of pride surged as I saw his smile. Eliciting some sort of emotion from Korth felt more satisfying than any insult I could hurl at Odette, and I felt the loneliness from before ebb away.

“May I accompany you back to your room?” he asked, rearranging his features back into calm passivity.

I looped my arm into his, but my steps were slow as I continued to watch the rainstorm at every passing window. If only I could prolong my time with Korth, unburdened by the weight of my treasonous mission. As things were, I couldn’t afford to let my heart soften. And yet…how would I ever be able to find happiness amid such deceit?

“Are you well?” Korth looked at me with such genuine concern that my shame at exploiting him redoubled.

“I miss home,” I confessed quietly. “I don’t get much information, and that troubles me.”

Korth nodded sympathetically. “That would be difficult.”

“I knew less communication would happen when I came here, but it just feels particularly burdensome today. I worry about my father.” Everything felt burdensome, and I didn’t have anyone to share the load with me. It was a struggle to find the will to continue the charade when it threatened to break me more each day. “I don’t like wallowing in misery,” I hastened to explain. “But I just…I just can’t find anything to be happy about right now.”

A cool breeze blew through the corridor as the footmen ahead opened the doors for us, and Korth led me into one of the ballrooms. A shiver ran down my spine. How desperately I wished I could purge all the negative thoughts and worries from my mind. Would I be able to live with myself once all this was over?

“Tess played a gratitude game with me once,” Korth said. “Would you like to try?”

I didn’t think any sort of game would help with my current pressures. “Gladly.”

“Look around the ballroom,” Korth prompted. “Don’t say them aloud yet but think about all the things you see that are red. Count them and try to remember each one, because I’m going to ask you to list as many as you can.”

“Am I supposed to tell you why I’m grateful for each one?” I teased gently but did as he had asked. There were several vases full of tropical flowers that were a deep scarlet color, as well as the wings of a bird depicted in a tapestry hanging on a wall, and the cuff links on Korth’s sleeves. The longer I looked, the lengthier my list became, and I did my best to remember each one. My shoes had some red, and I could even claim bits of the candle’s glow did as well. As I continued to search, more and more red popped out at me, until I knew it would be a useless cause to remember them all.

“Now close your eyes,” Korth told me.

I did so and prepared to regurgitate as many of the items I’d spotted as possible.

“Now, without opening your eyes, tell me all the blue things that are around us.”

I kept my eyes closed but furrowed my eyebrows into one long line. “You mean red?”

“No. I mean blue.”

“That isn’t what you told me before!” I protested. “You told me to look for red.”

“Try anyway.”

I struggled to think. “The rainclouds outside were a little blue, and my dress is.”

“Good. What else?”

The only things I could visualize were the red things that I’d spent so much time committing to memory. “The sky in one of the tapestries,” I said slowly, struggling to think of anything else.

“So three. How many red things did you find?”

“Dozens.”

“You can open now,” Korth told me. He smiled as he watched me scan our surroundings, instantly finding more than ten blue things that I could have listed off. “Whatever you look for in life, you’ll find. The number of red and blue things present never changed, but your focus did. There are difficulties and struggles in life. There are always those red things, but there are also so many other things that exist in the same space. We don’t always see the positive immediately, but that doesn’t stop it from being there. We simply need to learn to find it.”

I let out a soft breath as my heart panged. “What is positive now when I’m so far away from home?”

“You’re safe. I’m planning to send two regiments of soldiers soon to aid your father, and they’ll be able to send word once the uprising is dealt with. I know it’s hard for you to be away from your family, but I’m glad you’re here. I enjoy your company and I’d like to think you aren’t averse to mine as well.”

I shot him a sly smile and murmured, “I’d enjoy your company more if Godfrey wasn’t with us.”

Korth’s ears burned bright red. “We can always find things to be grateful for. There is positivity everywhere.”

“But we mustn’t be blind to the injustices people suffer.” It was all well and fine for a prince to claim that positivity was everywhere, but for those of us struggling to even put bread on the table, positivity wasn’t even a priority. Survival was.

“That is also true,” Korth said, nodding. “Simply because I don’t see the injustices doesn’t mean they aren’t there. That is why I have a system of advisors whose job is to uncover those flaws in my kingdom and report back to me. I can’t be in a hundred places at once, but I can take reports on them. I don’t want to ever be so blinded by my station that I forget that everyone matters.”

“You’re amazing,” I whispered.

Korth shrugged modestly. “Tess is the one to thank. She came up with the game. I’m just glad I can pass it to someone else.”

As I entered my bedroom, the rainclouds had cleared, and from my balcony, I saw that the darkening town was alive with activity, bustling to string up the new colored lanterns for the Night of Masks Festival, the old ones likely ruined in the rainstorm. Music drifted toward me, and the itch to vacate the castle grew unbearable. If Godfrey wouldn’t leave us alone, I needed to find another way to sneak time with my fiancé.