Chapter 4

Edmund hadn't moved from his post near the door.                                                                    Jade could feel his eyes on her, though he kept turning his face towards the corridor. It wasn't curiosity, it was something closer to unease. She couldn't blame him, she felt just as out of place in her own skin, with the pounding of her heart and goosebumps rising on her body.

The king stood by the fire with his hands clasped behind his back. He hadn't stopped looking at her since he'd entered the room, his eyes locked and stiff. The fireplace gave sharp snapping sounds from the burning wood, the flames casting restless shadows across the stone walls, but there was nothing restless about him. He was still, perfectly composed.  As though he hadn't ordered to free a girl dragged out the slums hours ago. As though he hadn't watched her nearly lose a hand.

At last, Edmund cleared his throat. "Your majesty." The king didn't turn or move an inch.

"Shall I fetch the physician?" Edmund said, looking down at Jade's cracked knuckles and blood-stained face.

"No." The answer came too quickly. "Fetch nothing. Speak to no one." Edmund hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, and took a step back.

The king finally looked over his shoulder, eyes cold and piercing. "Whatever happened in this room tonight," he said, "did not happen."

A deep, uncomfortable silence settled in the room, only the sound of their breathing could be heard. Edmund's jaw tightened. "Understood," his voice came through, almost forced.

Jade pushed herself upward from the ground, her wrists and shoulders burning with pain, but she refused to show it. She had spent too many years learning that pain was safest when kept quiet. "Am I allowed to ask what's happening?"

The king turned his gaze slowly towards her. "Or am I still just the thief you nearly took a hand from?" That made his expression harden, the lines on his jaw were visible.

"You have not been granted permission to speak to me so freely."

Jade almost laughed, biting down the low chuckle forming in her throat. "Then perhaps you should stop giving me reasons to."

Edmund's eyes flicked towards her, sharp and surprised. The king turned fully from the fire, and for the first time Jade got a proper look at him than earlier, sweat and blood in her eyes had blurred her vision even as he'd held her face.                                                                        He wasn't a comforting sort of man; there was no warmth in his eyes. Whatever grief he carried, he had buried it beneath years of command until there was hardly any sign of it left.                                                                         His gaze travelled over her face. Not like a father looking at his child, but like a man inspecting something he had purchased.

"Your name."

Jade just stared at him, like he was asking a rhetorical question.

"You already know it," she said bluntly. His expression stayed intact, he didn't snap or furrow at her defiance.

"Say it."

"Jade."

He repeated her name quietly, like there was something unsettling about hearing it in his own mouth.

"Three months ago, I lost my daughter." His voice came out ugly and cold enough that it made Jade's stomach tighten.

"Princess Aurelia," she muttered to herself. Tension in the room tightened; even Edmund went still.

"I thought she went abroad for some course of study?" Her voice came through again, testing him. King Adrian only looked down at the floor, slightly unbothered.

"The kingdom doesn't know," Adrian continued. "And it will not know." He said avoiding her question.

Jade's brows furrowed at his words. "You've hidden the death of your own daughter?"

"I have to protect my kingdom," he gritted.

"From what?"

"Consequences." His answer was immediate. "The demise of my daughter could attract certain consequences that would do no good to our kingdom. I have to stop whatever is coming."

Jade stared at him with a mixed expression. "So if I'm right, you probably want me to replace her?"

"Certainly. I want you to become her."

"No bloody way." The word slipped from her mouth before she could stop it. Adrian's eyes narrowed. Edmund took a step forward but was stopped by the king's gesture.

"No?" His voice was steady and sharp.

"I've lived in the slums all my life. I don't know your court. I don't know your manners. I don't know you or your dead daughter," she said.

"You will learn," he said, with no emotion.

"And if I don't?"

He remained cold and quiet. "You will."

Jade felt anger rising in her chest. "You can't simply decide that."

"I already have." She stepped closer despite the ache in her body. "Find someone else."

"There's no one else."

"Then let your precious alliance fall apart."

Something flashed in his eyes, not grief but anger. He crossed the room slowly, tapping his index finger against his robe above his knee. "You seem to have mistaken your position, lass."

"You seem to have mistaken mine," she snapped back.                                                      For a moment, neither moved. Their exchange left Edmund in shock, his mouth going slightly ajar as he tried to read the king's face.

Adrian stepped a few feet closer, then stopped abruptly. "You have her face." His voice lowered. "That's the only reason you are standing in this room, intact." The words struck harder than she expected. "You have no title. No family of consequence. No education. No influence." He stopped right in front of her, ensuring their eyes met. "You are a street thief who happened to possess something I desperately require.". Jade's fingers curled, anger seething inward. "And you think that makes me grateful?"

"I don't require your gratitude."

"What do you require, then?"

"Your obedience, your silence." He paused, up "Your face."

Jade swallowed hard. "So I'm not your daughter."

"No." The answer was so blunt that even Edmund shifted. Adrian didn't soften, never had. "Not yet," he added, turning his head toward the window.

The door burst open before Jade could answer.  The Queen stood in the doorway, still in her nightclothes, a robe thrown hastily over her shoulders, her hair unbound and wild around her face. Her eyes found Jade instantly, and everything in the room seemed to stop.

She crossed the floor without a word, her steps unsteady, and stopped in front of Jade like the ground had shifted beneath her. For a long moment she only stared, her breath coming in short, shallow pulls, her hand rising slowly to hover near Jade's cheek without quite touching it.

"Aurelia," she whispered, the name breaking apart in her throat.

"She isn't Aurelia," Adrian said quietly, though there was something almost gentle in his voice now, aimed at his wife rather than at Jade. "Margaret—"

The Queen didn't seem to hear him. Her fingers finally landed against Jade's jaw, trembling, and Jade went stiff under the touch, unsure whether to pull away or let it happen. Up close, the Queen's eyes were rimmed red and swollen, the eyes of a woman who had been crying long before tonight, every night probably, since the day her daughter died.

"You have her eyes," the Queen said, tears spilling freely now. "Her mouth. Even the scar above her left eyebrow " Her voice cracked entirely, and she pressed her palm flat against Jade's cheek, as though she could make the resemblance into something real. "Where has she been? Where have you been, my darling.."

"Margaret." Adrian's voice sharpened, a warning.

The Queen blinked, some clarity returning to her eyes, and for one terrible second Jade watched a mother's grief twisted into something colder, the realization landing all at once. Her hand fell away from Jade's face like she'd been burned.

"She's not her," the Queen said hollowly, staring at Jade like she'd only just truly seen her. "You brought a stranger into this room and let me believe" Her voice broke again, this time with fury instead of grief. "How could you do this to me? How could you do this to her."

Jade stood frozen between them, caught in a grief and rage that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with a girl she'd never met, a girl whose face she now wore, whose mother had just touched her cheek and called her by a dead child's name.

She understood, in that moment, that impersonating Aurelia wasn't only going to be dangerous. It was going to be cruel, to a mother who would have to grieve her daughter twice.

*Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying the story so far, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 💛*