A Small Request

Roina. Roina, where are you... what in the world are you doing?

Thoughts like that had made her clumsy of late. The crown prince, watching her stumble through her duties, had grown worried enough to give her the day off at last—and that said everything. She let out a long sigh and trudged on. The ambition that had once shone so brightly, to catch the crown prince's eye and become crown princess, mother of the nation in time, had lost its luster long ago. Mayli did not want to admit it, but these days her only real worry was whether Roina was safe.

Leaving the Imperial Palace... what if someone's tormenting her again somewhere? That fool can't even look after herself. Don't tell me some dark mage has kidnapped her?!

Lost in the thought, she wrecked her carefully arranged hair in a most unladylike fashion, and she did it dozens of times without even noticing.

She had not understood, while Roina was still here. Now that the girl had vanished all at once without a word, the worry was driving her mad. If she had known it would come to this, she would have made herself speak to her properly, even once.

"That slave—where on earth did she go?"

A voice reached Mayli's ear then. They were talking about Roina. The sound drifted through a door left slightly ajar in the waiting room, and she found herself listening before she could think better of it. It never once occurred to her that eavesdropping was no business for a noblewoman.

"His Highness showed her a little favor, so she forgot her place and ran. That's all it is."

"Oh my, do you really think so? Serving in the Imperial Palace is the highest honor there is. What could possibly be so hard? And you know, don't you."

The reason so many women in the bloom of youth worked in the Crown Prince's Palace.

One maid dropped her voice to a whisper. The crown prince's maids were as good as candidates for crown princess. Into that place a former slave had slipped, alien as a crow among swans, and they all wanted her ignored, or gone. From birth she was not a creature who could be treated as their equal. That someone of slave stock should stand among them was, to them, an insult in itself.

"Perhaps he simply returned her to the place she was meant to be."

A mature voice cut in among them. The woman with chestnut hair combed neatly down—Veronica. A strange certainty lay in her tone. Mayli's brow arched. What was that? Did she know something?

"His Highness is wise. He will have handled it properly. Let us not waste our hearts on useless things, and attend to our work."

Handled. An odd word. Not a word one ought to use of a person. The thought came to Mayli unbidden. Then again, few in this place looked at Roina as a fellow human being. Even the lowest of them, down to the stable hands, were the same.

But Roina isn't merely a slave.

It stung. Mayli thought it before she could stop herself.

Click, click. Footsteps approached the door. Mayli ducked swiftly behind a pillar in the corridor. She had always thought a maid's uniform hopelessly unfashionable, since one could not wear a petticoat beneath it—but a skirt that did not billow was convenient at a time like this.

Veronica vanished down the far end of the corridor with a proud stride, heading a different way from the other maids. Mayli lifted her chin with feigned dignity and followed in quick little steps.

She had no solid proof, but she was certain. Veronica knew something the others did not.

Veronica walked without hesitation. It was the gait of a woman with a clear purpose, and Mayli trailed her at a distance that hovered just short of being caught.

And then—

This is...

Veronica stopped at a certain door and lifted her chin with haughty grace. The arrogance peculiar to one who has been chosen clung to her. She announced her arrival, and after a little while permission came from within. She went inside.

That's the crown prince's office.

Mayli went cold with shock. Why on earth was Veronica entering the crown prince's private rooms?

For days, Roina was not permitted a single step outside the crown prince's bedchamber, or the rooms that opened off it. The confinement was stifling enough. Worse were the lessons whose meaning she could not grasp, and a cruelty from the crown prince unlike anything that had come before. He toyed with her at all hours, and he did not hesitate to order Ethan to take her by force.

All the while, Roina watched the man who never left her side.

The man who, at the crown prince's command, had given her a horrific experience.

And the man who had told her he was sorry.

And...

On impulse she took one step closer to Ethan. He flinched, barely, and turned his gaze away from hers.

He's aware of me. There's no doubt.

A strange feeling came over her. Since she had come to this world, no one had ever shown her kindness—not once. And for that kindness to be romantic interest? It was absurd.

Could this man help me get out? Could he?

Not now. Her own feelings were too tangled. Was it right to sacrifice someone merely to escape? Knowing the crown prince as she did, he would never leave unpunished a guard knight who helped her flee.

But if it were only one very small favor—surely that would be all right?

"Sir Ethan."

"......"

"I know you're listening."

The crown prince was away today. By the rules of this life that was imprisonment in all but name, she was to remain inside Roberto's bedchamber, and each time Ethan, Roberto's knight, stayed behind to watch her.

Sandy-brown hair, brows a little thick, a mouth pressed shut, a squared jaw, sun-browned skin, a solid build—everything about him large and unmistakably male. He looked cold enough at a glance, and yet he was unmistakably conscious of her. Even now, called by name, he would not turn, as if on purpose—but for an instant the sword hilt he had been fidgeting with was gripped hard, then released.

Unless the crown prince commanded it, he tried never to come into contact with her at all. The night he had whispered that he was sorry felt so unreal she might have dreamed it.

But when an order came and the reins were loosened, he wavered, little by little, and his feelings showed.

He liked her. She was sure of it. If not that, then at the very least he carried guilt toward her.

Roina leaned into the sofa in a corner of the crown prince's bedchamber, drew her knees up, and murmured.

"I want to see the garden."

"You may not."

The answer came at once. She sighed, long and deep, and felt his shoulders twitch.

"Why do you follow His Highness, Sir Ethan?"

"......"

"Were you a slave, like me, and then saved?"

"......"

He might as well have been made of wood. There was no trace of the man who had licked her so attentively, stirring her until she came apart.

She unfolded the knees she had been holding and sat a little closer. With the distance narrowed, his back looked near enough to touch.

"Don't be like that. Ethan."

At the sweet, laughing lilt—so unlike her usual voice—he flinched, a fine tremor. She laughed low in her throat and reached for him.

Use a man? Call it corruption? What did any of that matter now? Roina had decided she would rather become a little wicked than bow to this hateful crown prince and live as his dog.

He did not shake off the hand the maid extended as she lounged against the sofa. Turned by that slight strength, he swallowed hard, his throat working. The face he showed her was a strange one—as if he were ashamed, and as if he were glad.

Then he flushed at the sight of her. When she had shifted, her skirt had fallen badly out of order, the hem riding up over the white of her thighs. It was a look the woman who always tried so hard to seem proper had never shown. The knight covered his face with a large hand.

"...I was a defeated soldier of the Kingdom of Kastelro."

Whether he spoke or not, Roina slipped her fingers inside his sleeve and stroked the inside of his wrist. If the touch was blatant, then it was blatant. Even trying not to notice, she could feel the front of his trousers swelling.

"A knight of a fallen realm either dies, or becomes a slave."

She hesitated only a moment, then thought she had nothing left to lose and laid her hand at his waistband. She did not seize him at once where he strained, but stroked slowly along his waist and touched the soft skin beneath his clothes.

A tense breath slipped between his teeth. He caught the hand circling his waist and, reversing their places, bore her down. It happened in an instant. Roina lay on the sofa; he held her wrists and mounted her.

"I have no honor left, and no pride. My life, and the living of it, I have offered to the sun that is yet to come."

He spoke quietly, burying his lips against her neck and breathing out heat. He seemed to squeeze his eyes shut.

"I cannot betray him. Please treat me as though I am not here. I beg you."

He looked down at her, his voice quiet and pleading, and seemed about to lift himself off her—until she caught him by the collar and pulled him back down.

"If I grant what you're asking, what will you do for me?"

She saw his startled eyes waver.

Roina met them straight on, defiant, and spoke so there could be no mistake.

"Your master holds my leash as well. I cannot betray my own light either. What I'm asking doesn't break his command. I swear it."

Somehow she had turned the fall on him. He had kept retreating, and she had kept coming closer, until their faces were so near their lips might meet at any moment. Perhaps they already had, the barest brush.

"It's only a small request. Nothing difficult. Grant me that, and I'll do as you say."

Just so, she leaned past his face and whispered at his ear. Very softly, so that only he could hear.