Page 32 of Fit for a Prince (Fit For A Crown #1)

Chapter twenty-nine

I will be remembered, even in death.

That was the stupid thought that had torn through my mind when I slapped a crown prince of Aemastia. That, and the fact that I was already as good as dead.

It had been three days since that fateful moment, and just as long since I’d seen any sort of food.

King Septimus seemed to get some sort of sick pleasure out of starving his enemies.

I had expected a public hanging, but perhaps that was too good for my crimes.

Withering me down to flesh and bones before presenting me before the public would be the most theatrical way to kill me off.

I shouldn’t have expected anything less from the king who’d sired Lochlan.

“How are you feeling, my lady?” Mara asked, her voice scratchy from her parched throat.

She’d been trapped inside my room with me ever since I was pulled out of the dining room. The guilt that ripped through my gut was worse than any hunger pain I could have endured. Septimus was killing Mara right along with me, just like he’d promised.

“I feel fine,” I lied. “How are you? Do you need something else to eat? I have a few more rations stored up.” I moved to the bed frame, reaching under the mattress where I’d been secretly storing my extra tea cookies ever since I was first starved.

“Here, have an almond one. It’s a bit more substantial than the butter cookie. ”

She looked longingly at the almond cookie but softly shook her head. “No, I’m all right. You should eat it.”

I couldn’t. No matter how hungry I grew, I couldn’t possibly take a bite when Mara was being punished unfairly.

“I had one last night,” I lied again, the taste of my words so bitter compared to the sweet scent of the stale cookie. “Please, eat one. It will help me rest better knowing that you’ve had something to eat, too.”

She pressed her cracked lips together. They were so dry. I couldn’t blame her for not craving the cookie when what we really needed was water. We’d polished off the water from the flower vase this morning, and even that had been scarce and contaminated with the faint taste of orchids.

“Are you certain?” she asked. I took her hand and pressed the cookie into her palm. It was hardly big enough to hold the almond baked in the center of it, and it would only make her thirst worse, but it was all I had to give her.

“Yes,” I assured her, my stomach grinding as I let the cookie go. “You fed me once, remember? Let me feed you.”

Mara gave me a pained smile as we thought back to the biscuits she’d snuck me during my last period of forced fasting. I hadn’t had the strength yet to tell her that this one was unlikely to ever end.

“Thank you, my lady.” Mara nibbled the cookie, savoring every bite and not letting a single crumb fall to the ground. The pain in my stomach eased as I watched her eat. I’d never officially been a princess, but it still felt right to take care of my people, even in the most hopeless of situations.

After she’d eaten, we went back to conserving our energy. For Mara, that meant lying down on the settee and watching the fire burn. For me, it was sitting in front of the servants’ door and trying to pick the magic-enforced lock.

It didn’t matter what method I used; the enchanted metal of the lock didn’t follow the laws of physics. Only magic could open it, and the only kind I had wouldn’t fit in a keyhole.

I twisted my ring. The purple hue on my skin had faded a bit now that the opposing magic had been around for a while.

The itching was gone, but the discoloration was still easy to spot if you looked for it.

It would have been so easy to take off and let my flesh return to normal, but taking it off felt like truly isolating myself when I was already in a cage.

I clutched the ring to my chest as I feared for Beckham. The guards had locked the door on me and Mara the second I’d returned from breakfast three days earlier. No one had come in or out since. I prayed that he’d simply been assigned another job and nothing worse, but there was no way of knowing.

I started picking at the lock again with a hairpin. Even if it was useless, I needed to feel like I was doing something. Mara was starving, Beckham was still marked for holding magic, and I had done nothing to save either of them.

Just let me save them. That would be enough.

I didn’t know what ethereal being heard my wish, but the second I pulled my hairpins from the lock, the doorknob started to wiggle. My heart nearly pounded out of my chest, and I jumped back from the door only a millisecond before it flung open.

“Beckham!” I nearly threw myself at the servant but stopped before I could tackle him to the ground when an Aemastian servant came up behind him .

I dropped the hairpins and swept my skirt over the evidence of my futile escape attempts.

The Aemastian servant reminded me of a vulture, with beady eyes, hunched shoulders, and a bald head that elongated his crooked nose.

He rested a talon-like hand on Beckham’s shoulder, gripping him like he was the fresh mouse he’d caught for dinner.

Beckham stood straight, his buttoned-up collar making him appear three inches taller than he truly was.

“You.” The bird-like man pointed a boney finger at Mara. “Get back to your quarters and rest up. He’ll take the next shift.” The servant pushed Beckham into the room a bit more forcefully than necessary, but Beckham didn’t miss a step.

“Her quarters?” I glanced back at Mara, terrified to let her take a step out of my line of sight. “Why can’t she rest here?”

“Prince’s orders,” the bald servant grunted as he motioned for Mara to come. “Now hurry up. Your breakfast won’t be hot for long.”

Mara’s face lit up at the word breakfast . She hurried to the door, but I stepped in front of her before she could leave.

“ Which prince?” I asked.

“No idea, my lady ,” he said snidely. “But whichever it was, you don’t have the power to defy him.

” He snapped his fingers at Mara and she hurried around me, flicking me an apologetic look before slipping out the door.

The servant turned to Beckham. “Now hurry and get the lady ready. Her escort will be here soon.”

“Escort?” I tried to pry more out of the servant, but he was already closing the door on me, taking Mara away with him. “Wait! What escort? When will Mara be returning? Hold on!”

The door slammed shut, and I pulled on the handle only to be met with the infuriating resistance of the magic lock. She was gone.

“We must hurry, my lady.” Beckham placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, and the reminder that he was alive was enough to settle the panic in my heart. “You’ve been summoned. I’m sure Mara will return to us after she’s recovered.”

You don’t know that. You don’t know what they’ve threatened.

“Is it the king?” I asked, my shoulders deflating under Beckham’s touch. “Has he finally prepared the gallows for me?” Or for Mara...

“No, my lady.” Beckham’s grip tightened. “It’s Prince Lochlan.”

It didn’t surprise me that Lochlan finally wanted to address me. He was too weak of a man to face me when I was at my full strength, so instead he had waited until I had withered down to a frail girl he could properly push around.

Beckham had snuck in a flask of water to help quench my thirst. I drank the cool liquid greedily, feeling more energized with every gulp.

It wasn’t until I looked up from the empty flask that I noticed the subtle smile on Beckham’s face.

I looked back into the flask, licking my tongue over my lips as I tasted the faintest tang of metal in the liquid.

He’d placed healing magic in the water for me.

I opened my mouth to thank him, but he shook his head silently as he took the flask back.

I couldn’t imagine the risks he’d taken by enchanting that water, and the last thing I wanted to do was endanger him further by mentioning the gift aloud.

Instead, I smiled and mouthed the words thank you as he tucked the flask out of sight.

The escort knocked only seconds later, and I stepped out of my chambers feeling like I was standing on the sparks of magic alone.

The escort was a guard this time, but only one.

It was mildly insulting that Lochlan assumed only one guard would be enough to keep me in check, but I didn’t want to cause trouble when I was curious to see what he had left to say to me .

The guard left me at the doors to what I presumed was Lochlan’s study, but it was hard to guess since I’d never been in any of his personal spaces before.

I considered knocking but ultimately decided that I wasn’t in the mood to be polite after I’d already lost Mara, potentially forever. I stepped inside.

The room was dark and moody, with no windows and only an oil lamp lighting up the desk in the center of the room.

Unlike Cedric’s study, there were no cushy armchairs, no tea table, and little to no clutter anywhere in the room.

The desk was pristine, with only a neat sheet of parchment lying on the top beside a seal and a well of ink so fresh I could smell it the instant I stepped through the door.

Sitting at the desk in a hard-backed chair was a lone prince with his head lowered and eyes scanning over the single document.

But when the eyes looked up, they weren’t Lochlan’s.

“Atlas?”

“Hello, Diaspro,” he said in that crisp, husky voice. “Come in.”