Chapter 3

"She's not breathing!"

Nora's scream tore across the courtyard.

"Your Highness! My Lady isn't breathing! Please call the physician!"

Adrian had just reached the courtyard gate.

He stopped dead.

"Get the physician. Now!"

Within minutes, Royal Physician Alden Mercer, head of the imperial medical staff, came stumbling into my chambers with his robe barely fastened.

The moment he saw me, his face changed.

"Lady Elara Ashford?"

He rushed to the bed, checked my breathing, then seized my wrist.

"How long has she been bleeding?"

"Almost... almost two hours," Nora sobbed.

"Two hours?"

Mercer swore under his breath and immediately began treatment.

Without even turning around, he shouted at Adrian.

"Your Highness, Lady Elara has a severe congenital clotting disorder! Why wasn't I called when she'd been bleeding for two hours? Another few minutes and you'd have had a corpse on this bed!"

Adrian stood in the doorway with a deep frown.

Lillian leaned against him.

"Adrian," she whispered, "Her Highness has lived with this for years, hasn't she? I heard she's been copying people since she was a child. Nothing ever really happened before..."

Adrian nodded slowly.

"She's had this problem for more than a decade. I didn't realize it was this serious."

Mercer's hands stopped.

He looked up at the Crown Prince as though he could hardly believe what he'd heard.

"Your Highness, have you ever wondered why His Majesty arranged a marriage between the heir to the throne and a famously sickly girl?"

Adrian said nothing.

Mercer returned to his work.

"Because the best physicians in the entire Aurelian Empire serve here at the Crown Palace.

"Lady Elara's condition can't be cured. Ordinary physicians can't manage it. There are perhaps three people in the empire capable of keeping her alive, and I'm one of them."

He turned sharply.

"His Majesty married her to you so this household could protect her, not so you could leave her here to bleed to death.

"Before General Ashford left on campaign, His Majesty summoned me personally. His exact order was that if anything happened to Lady Elara under this roof, the entire imperial medical staff would answer for it."

The room fell silent.

For one brief moment, Lillian's expression slipped.

Then her eyes filled again.

"I didn't know she was that sick... I thought she was only playing when she copied me..."

Adrian was quiet for a long time.

"I understand."

His tone finally softened when he glanced at me.

"Physician Mercer, use whatever you need. From now on, the Crown Princess receives the highest medical allowance in the palace."

Then he added, "And beginning today, Lillian and the Crown Princess are not to meet. Each household will remain in its own wing."

Mercer worked until deep into the night, pouring two bowls of restorative into me, before he finally dragged me back from the edge of death.

When I woke, morning light was already spilling through the windows.

He was packing his medical case.

Seeing my eyes open, he checked that no one else was nearby and lowered his voice.

"Your Highness, General Ashford left something with me before he went to war.

"He said that if your life was ever endangered inside the Crown Palace, I was to give it to you."

He pulled a folded note from a hidden compartment and slipped it into my palm.

Then he left.

There was only one line on the paper.

My girl, if anyone wrongs you, say the word. Your father's hundred thousand cavalry can flatten the Crown Palace whenever you want.

The next few days were peaceful.

I drank my medicine, slept, and watched the wound on my wrist slowly close.

One afternoon, Nora entered carrying a bowl of tonic with a rare smile.

"The physician says two more days and you'll be allowed out of bed."

She tucked the blankets around me and sighed with relief.

"At least the palace has finally been quiet. His Highness's order seems to have worked—"

Bang.

The door flew open before she finished.

Lillian stood there smiling.

Nora immediately stepped in front of me.

"Miss Lillian! His Highness explicitly ordered—"

Lillian tilted her head.

"Adrian left for the military camp outside the city this morning."

Her smile widened.

"He won't be back for three days."