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Beads of sweat slipped down Tanwen’s neck as she dug her gardening shovel into the rich soil.

Despite the setting sun, the heat remained thick and oppressive within the royal greenhouse, her wide-brimmed hat offering little reprieve from the suffocating warmth. But so was the necessary atmosphere for jadüri to thrive, especially when transplanting their seedlings.

With her brow puckered in concentration, Tanwen took care when lifting the small, frail plant from its container—gloved hands cupping its roots—before lowering it into the larger gardening box.

She released an anxious breath, pushing off her hat before wiping at her brow.

She stepped back, admiring her day’s work.

Tanwen’s row now housed dozens of young jadüri, soon to be fully grown buds that would bloom, ripe and ready to be plucked under Maja’s and Parvi’s wide gazes.

It never ceased to amaze Tanwen, the sight of the royal gardens. The botany that was cultivated outside the greenhouses was just as fragrant and rare as the vegetation within the large conservatory. However, nothing compared to the glass-covered field of jadüri where she currently stood. Under the full moonslight, the blossoms opened to create a radiant blue sea, emitting a sweet and pure fragrance that could make one weep.

Working in the garden was the one enjoyable part of Tanwen’s atenté duties, reminiscent of her tasks at home with her mother. Though their own plot was minuscule compared to the royal gardens, it still boasted a variety of herbs and vegetation crucial for their tonics, ointments, and elixirs.

At the thought of her mother, Tanwen’s chest grew tight, the tasks she had yet to accomplish for them to be reunited forever looming.

As Tanwen’s gaze ran over her row of adolescent jadüri, her thoughts tumbled forward, wondering if these would be the very plants she’d collect to enable her escape. A hum of anxious anticipation fluttered awake in her chest. The other ingredients for the elixir were thankfully less precarious to acquire. Most could be found around the palace’s grounds or rummaging through the royal kitchen.

What Tanwen needed to figure out was how she’d eventually get past the guards with extra jadüri in hand. Kidars were peppered throughout the greenhouse, bored and overheated, which made them prickly to interact with. Especially when it came time for them to count their blooms after a full moons’ harvesting. Each atenté was meant to leave with only a dozen for their allotted mixture of docüra that they’d be making later that evening. Tanwen would need to be quick and clever with how she collected the additional six buds.

Though it was not merely the soldiers she’d need to elude.

Her fellow atentés worked around her in the various rows. Huw was stationed closest but thankfully at her back. He’d need to turn fully around to eye what she was doing.

A laugh drew her gaze to Gwyn and her friends posted up in a far corner of the greenhouse. They preened and tittered from where the glass windows gave way to one of the soldiers’ training grounds.

Tanwen frowned.

Now, they were who she would need to look out for.

Always.

Gwyn had been less than pleased with Tanwen’s return, seeing as they were once again splitting their services to the princess.

But Tanwen didn’t care to appease Gwyn or any of the palace staff.

She’d be gone from here soon enough, and the problems they posed would be in the past.

Tanwen blew out a tired sigh, fingering off her gardening gloves before taking a sip from her canteen.

The water was warm but relieved the dryness building in her throat, though it did nothing to ease her aching joints.

She had not been sleeping well since the day of the execution in the palace. And not just due to the burdens she carried but also because the sounds of the two lovers’ throats being cut replayed in the darkness as she lay in bed.

Tanwen couldn’t shake the feeling that the sentencing happening on the eve of her return to Galia was an act by the Low Gods to give Tanwen more evidence why the king was unfit to continue his tyrannical rule.

It definitely reinforced her belief that he needed to be removed as king, but being the one tasked with eradicating him ... well, she was in the business of healing and saving lives, not ending them.

Killing the king, no matter the motivation, would mar her soul.

A rock of nausea hit Tanwen at the reality of her circumstance, the impossibility of carrying out such an order—to murder a man who was quite arguably the most powerful being in Cādra.

She would have laughed at the absurdity of it, but as it was, the reality of her predicament she didn’t find funny in the least.

Tanwen still had no plan for how to use Maryth’s tear, which she had now sewn into the lining of the pouch at her hip. Madam Arini had made it clear that her atentés could only wear jewelry she had approved.

Tanwen’s necklace had been “too crude” for the palace, she had informed her.

Eli hadn’t been pleased with his new cold companion, but Tanwen had been too frightened to leave it anywhere else but on her person.

Tanwen. Her name shouted in her mind caused her to jump. Tanwen, Eli called again.

By the Low Gods, she silently breathed, finding the gray field mouse by her shoe. You nearly stopped my heart.

So long as I succeeded in stopping your chaotic brooding, I can live with that, he said, whiskers twitching as she bent to pick him up.

I was not brooding, she replied, offended.

Eli jumped from her hand to the ledge of the gardening box. Worrying? he offered instead.

Can you blame me if I was?

No, there’s much we must do, he agreed.

We.

The word provided the supportive embrace she hadn’t realized she desperately needed.

She wasn’t in this alone.

She would always have Eli.

Even if he was only a mouse.

A mighty mouse, Eli added emphatically.

Tanwen smiled just as a distant bell tolled.

Her shift in the greenhouse was done.

Tanwen readied to place Eli into his pouch when a tingling of awareness prompted her to look up, finding Gwyn’s attention.

Two rows away, Gwyn’s gaze caught on Eli cradled in Tanwen’s hand.

Tanwen’s heart stilled, fell, fled.

Go, she ordered Eli, her panic surging as she moved her hand so he could jump into a bed of soil.

What’s happened? he squeaked in concern.

Go! Tanwen urged again, pulse stumbling and fumbling as it restarted. Gwyn saw you. Hide!

Eli did not question her further as he disappeared into the maze of raised garden boxes.

Tanwen worked hard to keep her expression neutral as she concentrated on gathering her supplies before heading for the door.

“Are you all right?” asked Huw, who had fallen into step beside her. “You look pale.”

“I merely need some fresh air,” she replied, just as another voice sounded at her back.

“And here I thought they were silly rumors,” said Gwyn, “that the princess’s favorite pet had a pet of her own.”

Tanwen closed her eyes, chest constricting with her dismay. Fool, she chastised herself. Fool. Fool. Fool. Why hadn’t she been more careful?

Gwyn sidled up to her other side, Efa and Owen close at her back.

“What are you on about, Gwyndolen?” accused Huw.

“Oh, just wondering what Her Royal Highness will say once she learns the hands that make her precious tonics are tainted with vermin piss and scat?”

Tanwen could sense Huw’s concerned gaze on her as she clenched her teeth, grip tight on her basket. He had warned her of being careful regarding Eli. What had she been thinking by so publicly interacting with him?

An unhelpful voice sounded in her mind. You needed the comfort.

As their group exited the greenhouse, the other atentés gave them a wide berth, clearly sensing drama was afoot. None cared to intervene when Gwyn and her gang came out to play.

“And here I thought I’d have to find another way to get my position back serving the princess,” mused Gwyn.

“You never lost your position with Princess Azla,” Tanwen reminded her curtly before immediately regretting her words. She needed to stay quiet and fade away. To provoke Gwyn further was the definition of idiotic.

Gwyn’s brown eyes lit up, a pleased lioness regarding her prey. “I might not have lost my position,” she said, “but don’t you know by now? I loathe sharing.”

Owen and Efa chuckled at their backs.

Tanwen’s annoyance flared.

Gods. She had no time for this.

“In fact, I was reminded how much I hated sharing during your absence,” continued Gwyn as they shuffled from the greenhouse to the cool open air of the pillared walkway.

Despite the relief the breeze left on Tanwen’s skin, she would have gladly remained in the hot glass garden if it meant she could escape her current companions.

“The princess even stopped mentioning you while you were home. Thank the gods ,” huffed Gwyn. “Seeing as I am just as capable, if not more, of keeping her in her comforts as dear Ms. Coster ,” she finished in a mocking tone.

“If that is true,” said Tanwen, unable to stop herself from facing Gwyn, “then I see no reason for you to be threatened by my presence.”

It was as if she had slapped her. Gwyn’s chin pulled back, her eyes widening. “ Threatened? ” she seethed. “There is nothing about a rodent-loving straight horn that threatens me.”

If Tanwen hadn’t been called many other slandering names since she was young, Gwyn’s words would have hit their mark, but as it was she merely scoffed, flashing an amused smile.

A gesture she’d come to regret, for Gwyn took a threatening step toward Tanwen, but whatever cruelty she readied to set loose was interrupted by the booming voice of a nearby herald.

“Make way for His Royal Highness!”

Heads turned, breaths caught. Gwyn and her friends jumped to the side as all came to a bow.

Tanwen’s pulse thrummed as she staggered back with the rest of the group.

The air was snatched from her lungs. By the twin moons, she thought.

Zolya approached like a sleek jungle cat, grace and power and beauty, his backdrop an enormous entourage of kidets, along with Kidar Terz keeping pace at his side.

But what made heartbeats falter and the servants’ stares linger beyond propriety was that they were all entirely without shirts.

The soldiers stomped through the hall in their uniforms for their weekly game of pavol.

Tanwen swallowed hard, a fevered blush erupting across her skin as she drank in Zolya’s chiseled perfection. His tucked-in white wings framed his broad shoulders. His rippling of abs drew her attention to where they dipped into his trousers. His tawny skin was smooth and luminous against the midday sun. As he walked forward, the clouds beyond the hall seemed to shift directions so they might follow along with him, but these all became blurry details as the prince’s azure gaze collided with Tanwen’s.

It was an arrow to her chest.

A flood of heat between her legs.

A rippling of awareness to her skin.

With her breaths getting lost somewhere in her lungs, Tanwen dutifully lowered her eyes. She concentrated on the woven blue thread making up the rug beneath her feet, held tightly to her gardening basket as Prince Zolya and his procession of soldiers passed.

Despite not looking at him, she could sense his lingering attention. Her cheeks burned, neck growing flushed. Her body was forever a traitor, reacting, heating, desiring his whenever near.

And then he was gone, his entourage turning a corner, heading for the Recreational Lawn.

The silence of the hall was replaced by excited chatter.

Tanwen took an unsteady step back, Gwyn and her companions having forgotten her existence. Their giggles erupted as they followed the rest of the staff, who were now headed to watch the games.

The entire palace would be redirected for a few dips of the sun.

One benefit from His Royal Highness’s sudden appearance.

But Tanwen’s relief was cut short as she noted the watchful eye of Huw, who remained at her side.

“Are you all right?” he asked, head tilting curiously as he, no doubt, took in the flush along her pale skin.

Tanwen cleared her throat, feigning poise. “I fear the heat of the greenhouse has gotten the better of me,” she explained.

“Yes,” he mused wryly. “It must have been the greenhouse’s fault for why you’re as splotchy as a sun-scorched fruit.”

Tanwen shot him a sardonic glare. “As always, Huw, your colorful observations remain unrivaled.”

He flashed her a charming grin. “It’s why I’m so good at my job.”

“Indeed,” Tanwen placated. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m clearly in need of a drink.”

“But the kitchens are the other way,” Huw called to her as she practically fled from his side.

Tanwen ignored another of his unwanted observations as she hurried from their hall to turn a corner into the next. It was blessedly empty, more proof that everyone had been drawn like moths to muscular torsos, following Zolya and his company of soldiers toward the games.

All the better for Tanwen.

She finally released her breath. She needed to calm the chaotic flutter of her pulse. Between her row with Gwyn and the sight of Zolya, Tanwen’s nerves were a mess. Something the nearby fowl of the palace appeared to pick up on. Parakeets danced and flittered along the capital of each column she passed, a tweeting, anxious canopy.

Please, she begged of them. I thank you for your concern, but I am well.

They didn’t appear to believe her as they continued to chirp and flutter, following her hurried footsteps.

Tanwen’s frustration soared.

Now of all moments, she couldn’t afford a scene. Not after Gwyn had seen her with Eli. Or after yesterday’s execution. The palace hummed with distrust.

A gust of wind pressed against Tanwen, the tell of a Volari landing nearby.

The corridor plunged into silence as the parakeets dashed away.

Fear leaped up Tanwen’s throat, the fowls’ terror not reassuring.

But as she turned, eyeing who approached, she understood their desire to flee.

Tanwen would have as well if she had wings.

Instead, she remained rooted in her panic, watching the prince approach.

Shirtless.