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After what felt like hours of sitting in the ostentatious Great Hall picking at her plate, she arrived outside the lance yard. The large, encased arena had been scattered with melting candles, the glow from the setting sun the only natural source of light. The crowd grew as people began taking their seats amongst the grandstands. A billowing breeze danced over her exposed skin, the sheer fabric doing nothing to warm her.

Plenty of guests reveled in the drunken political atmosphere of the ball, but a much larger portion were seething with anticipation for the tournament. It was the official start of the Sundance. Weeks before the actual Summer Solstice, grand events took place in all eight kingdoms. Venmore’s most notorious soiree being the jousting tourney.

Guests coming here were fully aware they’d have a better opportunity to dance and feast all night long when Mara was married. They didn’t come just for her betrothal; they came for the violence. The bloodshed.

She wondered if the brooding man from earlier was here to joust. She would bet everything against him purely out of spite.

Lost in her macabre daydreams, she hadn’t noticed the knight from the Sun Court approaching the stands. Mara looked at the grounds as she made it to her seat near the king and found the man peering up. He lept against the railing, taking purchase effortlessly, and spoke directly to the king. Her father chuckled at whatever he was saying. Her neck began to sweat despite the cool chill rising inside her, slowly putting pieces together. Could this knight actually be the Sun Prince?

She watched with wide eyes, open in surprise at his hardihood, speaking to her father like they were well-acquainted equals. She took notice of his sharp profile from this angle, his face free of any hair. He reminded her of the fae, but his ears were rounded just like hers. His lips were quipped up like a sly fox, making Mara’s heart race.

For the second time that night, he turned to look at her. It was subtle enough that his attention was still centered on the king, but Mara knew he had caught her staring. She tried to suppress the crimson blush that was surely blooming across her face in embarrassment, hoping the candlelight would disguise her features enough, preventing him from making out her bashfulness, her arms crossing against her chest in tune with the sweeping wind.

He hopped down, his knees bending as he caught himself a solid five feet below, turning on his heels and strutting down the arena.

Mara bit her lip and caught sight of a beige skirt by her feet. Jessamine carried a tray of sugarberry scones to set before the lords and ladies waiting to be entertained. She gave Mara a nod, clearly having spotted the knight and Mara’s rapt attention on him. Jessamine’s lip quirked in a subtle smirk making Mara playfully roll her eyes.

As Jessamine set the tray down before the king, he stood up, silencing the crowd. Jessamine continued to set the tables with scones as another maiden filled their cups with red-mulled wine.

“As you all know, tonight marks the beginning of summer and the Sundance celebrations, as well as the first and twentieth birthday of the Glass Princess.

“During our grand competition of chivalrous knights jousting for not only the esteemed credit they will grant to themselves but the people of the kingdom. Usually rewarded in the golden color of summer. Instead, the winner this year will be granted my daughter’s hand in marriage. A jewel far more valuable than any sum of coins.”

Mara felt the whites of her eyes nearly cover her entire face. Her hands went cold, a hard breeze cooling the heat of her cheeks. Her heartbeat calmed for a moment, then vibrated rapidly when she let her father’s words sink in.

She heard gasps in the audience, a quick flow of whispers before her father evinced, but the rest of her father’s introduction fell silent on her ears, nothing but rambling that echoed through her clouded brain. He promised.

Mara knew she had too many faces studying her to allow herself to cry. She knew if she tried to say something to her father, the tears would come in a cascading avalanche.

As if this moment wasn’t terrible enough, her mind wandered back to him. To the self-assured knave she met in the halls. She wanted nothing more than to punch him repeatedly in the chest for being right—perhaps taking her anger on her father out on this stranger. As much as she enjoyed jousting and the fighting ring, she never reveled in the bloodshed. But now, she prayed that the knave was part of the tournament, willing to watch him bleed out on his knees before his superiors— before her .

She had been foolish. A stupid, silly girl who thought she might foresee a future that broke way of the tight and rigid boundaries princesses usually followed. To choose her own suitor. While not unheard of for a princess to get to select a husband from a pool of approved options, she shouldn’t have been surprised that the men in her life could control her fate with something as blithe as the victor of a jousting tournament.

The loud clapping from the audience woke her, the tournament beginning in a rumble of clamor. She looked over at her father who felt her regard. “Not a word,” he asserted. Mara’s chest tensed in shock; her father wasn’t the most agreeable man, but he was more detached than usual. He had spoken to her like he would chide a servant.

She couldn't help but think how unlike her father this was. Always so particular and calculated—the reason Wrens Reach was allied with all the kingdoms—she couldn’t understand why he’d do something so insouciant as to marry his daughter off with an uncharacteristically blasé attitude.

A loud, rhythmic pulse echoed in her ear. She shifted her fingers, finding one of her gold bands, and twisted it around and around. She swallowed her tears, turning her head and watching the tournament like a statue, unwavering apart from her trembling lip.

She spotted a knight approaching his horse at the right end of the track, taking his jousting stick from his squire. His short stature surprised her, his face obscured behind his silver helm. Down at the other end, Sir Orion mounted his mare. He was dressed similarly to the other knight sans the head covering. Mara wondered if it was because he didn’t want to hide his golden hair and chiseled chin. He knew all the ladies of the court would be watching and fawning over him.

As the men prepared to begin, it hit Mara that Sir Orion stood a chance at winning. Her stomach flipped. There’s no way she would let him marry her. She would kick and scream if she had to. However, Mara knew that no amount of resistance within her could recant a proclamation of the king.

The men sat on their steeds at either end of the grounds, shifting between their feet in pent-up energy as they waited anxiously to parade their prowess. Her father stood beside her and slowly raised his hands, the crowd growing eerily silent. Finally, he clapped, only once, and the crowd awoke again. The knights charged at one another, their horses galloping at a speed that made Mara wonder how they were even able to concentrate on what they were doing.

Sir Orion was far taller than his opponent, the difference noticeable even atop their horses. As they neared one another, the building apprehension inside her flourished. She didn’t want to look, and yet she never once shifted her eyes away. Sir Orion’s joust slammed into his opponent’s armored chest and flung him off the back of his horse. Mara winced as the knight landed with a generous thud, bouncing off the ground before laying still. She stood with a gasp. The crowd cheered as Sir Orion rode around in a victorious loop, waving at the audience. The knight on the ground slowly began to move, standing up and lacing his arm over the shoulder of his squire. In relief, Mara shifted her gaze to Sir Orion who was looking at her with a wicked grin.

Mara’s hands grew moist, nervously wiping her palms on her dress. Now, she only prayed someone could beat Sir Orion to the cessation. But that meant a random knight was going to own her hand by the end of this.

Mara stifled her cries, her breathing making her lightheaded.

An hour ticked by and Mara grew tired, but her attention refused to slip from the knights as they knocked each other off their horses, claiming victory. Her head rested on her hands as she leaned forward, trying to keep her eyes from watering.

That’s when she saw the knight who seemed to transcend normal sense, picking her out of the crowd with ease. Mara’s face automatically flushed again despite her will to dampen the heat. His armor gleamed a dark obsidian, a stark contrast to Sir Orion’s ivory attire, with a large sun imprinted into the front of his chest plate. Swirls and spikes lined his legs and arms, making him appear predatory. He was smaller than Sir Orion, at least in stature, but it only made him more serpentine, lithe, and sleek.

“Prince Acastus. Sun Prince to the Solar Sect and Prince of Solstrale,” the herald rattled. “Sir Orion, honored knight of Branwen of the Icewoods.”

Mara’s hands gripped her seat, so focused on the prince that she didn’t even notice the brooding man beside his squire. His eyes had landed on her, her slippers now a silvery color replacing the broken violet heels he had seen her with earlier. His face flashed with disgust. The man loomed so far in the distance though; her cynicism could have been playing tricks on her. Maybe she wanted him to look at her with smug authority, to allow her anger to brew in his name instead of her father’s—the man she desperately desired to trust.

Acastus stretched his arms as Mara looked at her new adversary. Mara returned the knave’s gaze, her eyes shooting daggers, pissed that he was standing there with the knowledge that he had been right. And there was no hiding it, the king announced it loud enough for all to hear. She expected him to smirk, to taunt her in some way, but he solemnly looked away and said something to Prince Acastus as he mounted his horse.

Acastus sat upon an ebony steed that matched his armor, a caparison draped over its back with a sun in gold. His garniture was a gray, steely color, complimenting his dark hair. She couldn’t see the ladies off to her right, but she heard them giggle as they watched Acastus prepare for his turn.

He took position on his side of the tilt, placing his lance in the arret that protruded from his breastplate.

Clad in shining armor that had never seen a day of wear, Sir Orion spurred his steed, determination gleaming in his eyes as he set forth toward his opponent, lance at the ready. The thunder of hooves echoed through the arena as he charged, ready to prove his valor to the king.

With imperturbable composure, Acastus rode toward Sir Orion, both of their lances missing each other by a thin hair. The crowd simultaneously held their breath. She prayed Sir Orion wouldn’t win.

But did she want Prince Acastus to win instead?

That would mean a lifelong commitment to the Sun Prince

Her last bit of hope in the gods rose as she silently prayed for a better outcome than any of this. But Mara’s desolate daydreams were cut off as the roaring stampede of the two knights’ horses took off, heading toward one another again.

It all happened so fast that Mara could barely make out the course of events slotting into place in front of her and the other few hundred people watching. Acastus leaned forward, his smile menacing as he notched his lance in the throat of Sir Orion, knocking him off his horse. When Mara looked back up at the victor, she gasped at the blood splattering across his chest and face. He looked feral with violent victory. Her eyes flickered back down to Sir Orion who lay convulsing on the dirt ground, blood gushing out from around his neck, his hands ineffective in their attempts to stop the bleeding.

The crowd seemed to mirror Mara’s reaction, but in mere moments they were clapping and cheering. She—obviously—never liked Sir Orion, but watching him shake and choke on the ground, no one around to kneel beside him as the light faded from behind his eyes, she felt pity. She wouldn’t wish him dead, at least not in such a gruesome way. Her eyes were locked on Sir Orion, his body gently coming to a halt, but the blood never seemed to cease. She wanted to turn away, to be sick, but she stared at him like a sentry, entranced as a man leaned down and scooped his body up. Through tears that she hadn’t realized began to fall, she identified the man as the knave.

So, was this his job—scut work? Is that what he was here for? To attend to the motionless corpses that no respectable person would want to clean up?

Her vision blurred as she watched the large man sling Sir Orion over his shoulder, burgundy blood showering him, and marched away behind the stands. With the crude insults he had thrown at Sir Orion when Mara stood alone with him, she could only imagine the sadistic joy he got from holding his lifeless body.

Once he was out of sight, she turned to her father who was clapping and admiring the victorious prince as he rode around the track on his horse, waving. She was startled by the droplets of blood on his face and armor like he was decorated in red stars as he collected a laurel crown from a lady stretched over the balcony. When he put it on his head, a rush of fear made her heart beat erratically. He looked terrifying as his eyes slowly met hers.

It was more uncommon for such esteemed knights to die at one of these events, most of their knighthood seemed to be purely for show. Usually, the blood would tumble from the veins of lower-ranking attendants, even squires who were forced to defend their knight’s honor. There, in the hands of inferiors, the blood would bleed. Sir Orion’s death was likely to spark wildness throughout the kingdoms, especially at the hands of someone like Prince Acastus.