Chapter 2

Three days later, I was removed from my chambers.

Mother claimed Rowan needed the eastern apartments for his heir trials. They stood close to the training yard and council hall, while I, being an "adult with no official duties," could temporarily move to the North Tower.

The North Tower had once stored moth-eaten tapestries and rusted armor. Ivy covered the windows so completely that moonlight couldn't get in. The maids stacked my books and gowns against the wall and hurried away without unpacking them.

Rumors spread before nightfall.

The curse hadn't failed, some whispered. It had changed shape. Others said I had survived by draining luck from the kingdom. A few suggested Rowan might now be the one marked for death.

Father didn't lift a finger to stop them. Mother dismissed the two women assigned to my rooms because the crown shouldn't "waste servants on an idle princess."

I tried to prove I wasn't a burden.

I checked the guest list for Mother's winter ball, copied tax ledgers for Father, sorted herbs for wounded knights, and climbed onto the stable roof with the servants before a blizzard. I worked until my fingers cracked and my eyes burned.

No one thanked me.

When the chapel bells began tolling backward at midnight, Father summoned me to the council chamber.

"Were you anywhere near the bell tower last night?"

I hadn't left the North Tower after sunset, but before I could say so, the chancellor bowed and murmured, "Strange things have happened since the princess survived the night the astrologers named."

When Rowan placed second in swordsmanship, Mother slapped his score sheet onto my desk.

"He spends every lesson wondering whether you'll hurt him. How is he supposed to focus?"

"I've never hurt Rowan."

"Then why are you still here?"

The words flew out before she could stop them.

We stared at each other. Something dull and heavy pushed through my chest.

That evening, the venison came out burned. Mother set down her knife and said, "Nothing in this palace has gone right since she crossed her eighteenth birthday."

Every noble at the table went silent.

So did I.

It became clear that as long as I existed, every broken hinge, failed harvest, and bad decision could be laid at my feet. If my family admitted I was innocent, they would have to face an uglier truth: they had treated Rowan unfairly for years, not because I demanded it, but because they had dressed fear up as love.

If I had died, their favoritism would have become a beautiful sacrifice sung by court poets. Because I lived, it was merely shameful.

Still, I tried to make amends for a crime I hadn't committed.

I returned my moonstone crown to the treasury. I had my gowns altered for younger noblewomen. I gave Rowan the white stag Father had promised me so he could ride it in the heir's procession.

Soon, all I owned fit inside the North Tower: a narrow bed, an old wooden chest, and the farewell letter I had written on my birthday.

I should have burned it when morning came and I was still breathing.

Instead, I kept it beneath my pillow.