Cliffs on Every Side

By the time the hand clasped in Damon's had gone damp with sweat, I could bear it no longer and told him it was over.

"I would like to end our contract after tonight's banquet, Your Highness."

It was fair to say that the moment the title passed into my hands, there was no longer any reason to keep this arrangement alive. After all, the only reason I had proposed a contract relationship to Damon in the first place was to escape my father's pressure to marry.

I had expected one of two reactions when I asked to end things: rage, or indifferent acceptance.

"Bella, did you really think I didn't know your father had been nibbling away at my money, bit by bit?"

I hadn't imagined he would actually resort to threats. I drew in a sharp breath of air gone suddenly cold. From the moment that dress, heavy with nothing else, was placed in my hands, I had suspected Damon might know about the embezzled crown funds.

Even so, I wouldn't have flinched if he tried to blackmail me with it. Damon knowing the truth meant he was tangled up in the affair himself.

But.

"I know you can't get that damned knight out of your head, either. Leaving me? Bella, do you really think there's anything I can't do to a count with no backing?"

What I hadn't seen coming was him dragging Rihard into it.

I'd been a fool.

Why hadn't that occurred to me?

"I have no intention of making a spectacle of this. The notion of betraying Belois over a few paltry gold coins is laughable, and I'm hardly small-minded enough to be jealous of a green first love. You'll be my wife soon enough; I ought to be gracious."

For the first time in twenty-eight years, I learned that fury could wring tears from me.

Damon had truly been thinking of marriage. Of making the Duchess of Belois his crown princess, and in time his Empress, so that he could swallow the entire House of Belois whole.

That was why he had said nothing when I took the title. He had known everything from the start, watching me the way one watches a play unfold.

"I trust I don't need to explain what happens if you run?"

In his arrogance, Damon seemed convinced the embezzled crown funds were what had me by the ankle.

But the thing holding me back was something else entirely.

"You know better than anyone how easily a green noble who's only just become a count can be snapped in two."

Rihard.

By the time the music wound down, only one thought filled my head.

If Damon truly moved against Rihard, then just as he said, Rihard, with his foundations still unsteady, would be uprooted without effort. And he would never rise again.

Absolutely not.

I gripped the railing.

"Become Empress, Bella, as your father wished."

There was a cliff on every side. I could neither retreat nor press forward.

Should I warn Rihard? Tell him Belois would stand with him, that if he sheltered beneath my shadow he could hold out somehow?

This time, surely, I would be repaid with that look of contempt.

What am I supposed to do...?

Click.

Startled by the sound of the door, I spun around. Hadn't I locked it? Surely Damon hadn't followed me here?

"Bella."

The man who strode onto the terrace with the dazzling lights at his back was neither Damon nor any other noble.

"You. Why are you crying?"

Rihard Winston.

The man filled the doorway as he came toward me. Behind him the gleaming glass doors swung shut; the lock slid home without a sound, and the crowd laughing and clamoring among themselves vanished beyond the jet-black curtains.

And then.

"I asked you why you're crying."

With a voice sunk terrifyingly low, a rough, calloused hand swept across the corner of my eye.

"Was it the crown prince who made you cry, Bella?"

He wore such a savage expression that if I answered yes, he seemed ready to bring back Damon's head that very instant.

With his back to the terrace doors, the man looked larger and stronger than the one I remembered. For a moment I was seized by an absurd delusion: that perhaps Rihard really would listen to me.

Then I pushed him away.

"Why do you even care why I'm crying?"

It would be a lie to say I missed the hairline crack that split across Rihard's face at my retort.

Rihard had told me he would help. Had asked what was wrong. But I brought my hand down on that crack with all my strength, until it shattered completely, so that Rihard would never throw himself into a fight he couldn't win.

"I'd advise you to stop concerning yourself with other people's affairs, Count Winston."

The moment I met his wounded eyes as he fell back a step, I sensed something had gone terribly wrong. But by then it was already too late.

"Agh, agh, aaagh!"

I thrashed myself clean off the bed. At the thud of my landing, several maids came running; I waved them off with a flailing hand and buried my face in the mattress.

"I'm losing my mind. Honestly."

I had clearly gone briefly insane. What else could explain saying such a thing to Rihard? At this rate, was I any different from the girl I'd been ten years ago?

And Rihard was no better. What on earth had possessed him to keep asking me what Damon had done?

"What was I supposed to do about it!"

Kill Damon?

The stray thought made my head jerk up. No, it couldn't be. Rihard was a count now, a man who, freed of Damon's interference, could swiftly consolidate his position on the strength of his vast territory and formidable knights and take root in the capital.

So what could a man like that possibly be missing?

"Your Grace!"

One of the maids I had just chased out came rushing back into the room. I moved to send her away again, but then I saw what she carried, and my brow creased.

An envelope stamped with a golden seal.

It had come from the imperial palace.

"A letter has arrived from His Highness the Crown Prince. His attendant pressed me to deliver it to you at once..."

"I'm sure he did. It's all right, give it here."

I soothed the fidgeting maid and accepted the envelope. Promising to bring me a warm cup of tea, she slipped out of the room.

I must have looked as wretched as I felt.

Clutching my throbbing head, I tore the envelope open. The damned man, at least, had elegant handwriting.

Everything that followed was nothing but a string of meaningless words. I let them slide past, then stopped short.

Rihard had an audience with His Majesty the Emperor?

First thing in the morning, no less?

Rihard, as Sasha's guardian.

Over and over, I read that single sentence atop a letter that was, in the end, one long threat. No one could dispute that Sasha, who had spent so many years away from the capital, needed a guardian. Ordinarily the role went to an elder of the imperial family or the head of a house closely bound to the throne.

But the present imperial family had no one suited to it, and the heads of every house of any real standing were, to a man, Damon's men.

So I knew the Emperor had been struggling to find a suitable candidate, and yet...

Why Rihard of all people?

Damon, it seemed, had wondered the same, for the letter went on to speculate at the reason.

I couldn't begin to fathom how so much had happened in barely half a day. The Emperor had been too unwell to attend the banquet in the first place, hadn't he?

"Damn it."

I didn't need to read what came next. I shot to my feet.

"Oh, Your Grace. Where are you going?"

The maid, just arriving with the tea, went round-eyed at the sight of me. I took the cup from her hands, cooled by then to the perfect temperature for drinking, and gulped it down.

The Imperial Hunting Festival, held every October at the first edge of late autumn, was traditionally prepared by whichever house stood closest to the imperial family.

By the Ducal House of Belois.

And right now, back at the estate, Noah was racing to close the gap.

I ground my teeth and said,

"I'm going to the imperial palace. Have a carriage readied."

I had no idea how much Damon knew, but the worst had to be stopped.