The Blacksmith's Apprentice

It had been six years since Duke Alix’s visit to Greenborne. 

In the servants wing of the castle, where the princesses were forbidden to loiter, Mariselle, the youngest, had graduated from raiding the larder to raiding the staff.

She had him pinned to the wall, not the other way around. The blacksmith’s apprentice, Henrick, with hands strong enough to snap horseshoes, had never stood a chance. 

His trousers were at his ankles, his shirt yanked open at the throat, while Mariselle’s own dress was half unlaced, skirts high around her thighs, hair wild from the apprentice’s hands.

Henrick sucked bruises into the crook of her neck.

“By the gods, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, voice thick with awe and stupidity.

“Don’t get sentimental,” Mariselle said, rubbing her fingers between her legs and shoving them, saltily, into his mouth. “Just finish what you started.”

He was only too happy to oblige. His hands found her hips, lifting her thigh, and the sound that came out of him was halfway between a whimper and a prayer as he began thrusting. Mariselle bit his ear, hard enough that he’d remember.

Then the door was kicked open so hard it rebounded off the wall.

Tristan filled the doorframe like a storm fills a valley. He had the build of a human from the North, tall and thick-shouldered, but it was the anger in his face that made the temperature drop ten degrees.

Tristan didn’t bother with words. He seized Henrick by the collar, wrenched him off his feet, and drove a fist into the apprentice’s face. Henrick went limp, sagged to his knees and toppled sideways.

Tristan pointed at the door. Henrick staggered out, clutching his trousers, not daring a backward glance.

Mariselle rolled her eyes and pretended to fix her sleeve. “It’s not what it looks like,” she said, mostly to see if it would work.

“You,” Tristan said, not a trace of fondness in the syllable.

Mariselle lifted her chin. “He’s the only amusing thing in this entire castle,” she shot back, pretending her hands weren’t shaking as she straightened her dress.

“You are a Greenborne princess. Not a market strumpet.”

“I’m the fourth daughter,” she said. “No one cares what I…”

“Upstairs. Now.”

There was no mistaking the finality in his voice. She turned to go, but not before she glared at him, eyes a perfect match for the ferns outside the windows.

On her way out, she nearly tripped over two laundry girls pressed flat against the wall, faces white as goat’s milk.

The corridor beyond was already alive with the sound of whispers. Past the kitchen, up the stairs, into the guards’ room and the steward’s office. By the time Mariselle reached her chamber, there were at least four different versions of the story, each one improving upon the last.

Upstairs, she darted inside her room, bolted the door and leaned against it, breathing hard.

Through the wood, she heard Loren’s voice, calm and imperious: “Mariselle. Is it true you’ve been exiled to the stables for gross indecency?”

Mariselle grinned, despite herself. “Give it an hour,” she called back, “and I’ll be promoted to Queen of the Blacksmiths.”

A softer voice, Sybille’s, floated in: “You’ll be lucky if Father doesn’t chain you to the spinning wheel. Again.”

Mariselle could almost hear Sybille’s smile. Sybille had never once tattled. Neither had Loren, though she’d memorized every one of Mariselle’s crimes for use at a later date.

She collapsed onto her bed and stared at the ceiling, watching dust motes dancing in a beam of light. There would be a reckoning, of course, but for now there was only the sound of her own heart thumping and the distant clang of the forge.

She’d take her victories where she found them.

***

They were summoned at dusk, with no more ceremony than a knock and a command: “To the King’s chamber. Now.”

Loren was first to arrive. She walked in alone, shoes silent on the stone. 

Her father stood at the table, head bowed over parchment. He didn’t look up as she entered. 

Tristan was already there, in his usual spot near the fireplace. He’d been part of the household since before Mariselle was born but still carried himself with the caution of someone who expected to be told he was in the way. His dark brown hair, tangled and never quite tamed, caught the firelight and made him look younger.

Sybille arrived next, pale as candle wax. She moved with liquid precision, her skirts never so much as brushing the furniture. She stood, eyes lowered. 

Her father hated lateness, but he hated nervous chatter more.

Rowan and Mariselle arrived together, Rowan with her chin up and mouth already half open to protest, Mariselle still pink in the cheeks and determined not to look at anyone, especially not Tristan. 

When all four daughters stood before him, the King lifted his head. The silver at his temples betrayed the years since their mother died. Loren recognized the set of his jaw, the line between his brows and braced herself for what was to come.

“What happened this afternoon in the servants’ wing is not the cause of what I am about to say. It is simply the final straw.”

He let that hang in the air, like the smell of rain before a storm.

“This household cannot go on as it has,” he said, voice firm. “I have permitted too much latitude. I have failed you all by not preparing you for the world beyond these walls. That ends now.”