I had meant what I said to Jules that morning. There was always a choice in any situation, and I despised the saying “there was no other choice” because it was a lie. Simply because the other choice might suck goose balls, didn't mean it was any less of a choice.

In light of that, I had a choice.

I had several choices, if I were being honest with myself.

None of them were particularly great, but they were still there.

So, I chose. I chose to live and fight another day.

It may have felt a whole lot like I was rolling over and admitting defeat, playing the part of Bloodeye’s perfect little protégé just as I had for my whole life, but that was far from the truth. He thought I could make it to the end, and that gave me a certain level of confidence in my chances. But the idea of me, an imposter, becoming queen of Teich and then just handing over the kingdom to a criminal like him… it was laughable.

If he truly thought I would go through with his plan, he didn't know me at all. And it was this that I banked on.

That night, I remained stoic as Jules dressed me for dinner in a strapless, floor-length gown that glittered like starlight when I moved. My shoulder had healed enough that it no longer needed a bandage, and I rejected the wrap Jules tried to give me to hide the wound.

As I secured the matching mask to my face, looping the ribbons under my pale purple curls, Jules made a pathetic, sobbing sound that snapped my resolve to ignore her.

“What did he threaten you with?” I asked softly, hoping, praying she would have a plausible reason to betray me. Or at least a damn good story.

“Nothing,” she whispered back. It was the answer I’d both suspected and dreaded, but it in no way shocked me. The lives we’d led, just like the lives of thousands of others who'd lost everything during the Darkness, they didn't make us into altruistic people.

Pond dwellers looked out for themselves and no one else.

“So he bribed you, then?” I felt sick saying the words, hearing how little our years of friendship meant to her. She nodded miserably and didn't offer any more explanation.

Sighing heavily, I left the room and made my way to dinner with the weight of my choices dragging at every step. Juliana had looked out for herself, and now it was my turn to do the same.

When I swept into the great hall, I was no longer an imposter. I was Lady Callaluna of Riverdell, and gods help anyone who stood in my way.

“Oh great,” Sagen sneered at me from across the table when I located my place card and stood behind my chair to await the royals’ entrance. “I get the pleasure of dining opposite a purple-haired freak of nature. Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll be the one drinking poison tonight.”

Determined to ignore her childish jabs, I simply smiled and stroked my pale purple curls, which I'd left out for the night. “It's a shame it's already fading,” I sighed. “I feel like it really helped me to stand out.”

“It certainly did,” a husky man-voice agreed, and Prince Louis took the empty space beside me. “Not that you needed any help in that department, Lady Callaluna.”

Sagen spared me a glare, then quickly turned on the charm for the prince who was to be dining with us that evening. She hadn't even bothered with a proper mask, instead sporting one painted on with glittery makeup so her heavy lashes weren't hindered as she batted them in Prince Louis's direction.

“Prince Louis,” she cooed. “How lovely to have you join us. I was hoping to get the opportunity to converse with you tonight after your brothers made such excellent dining partners last night.”

The prince's mask was almost complete, only showing his face from the lips down, but even so, I could spot a fake smile when I saw one.

“Your Highness,” he murmured back. “A pleasure. When my father told me you would be joining the Royal Trials, I was most surprised.”

Sagen laughed a throaty, sexual laugh but the tension in her brow made me feel like I’d missed a subtle insult somewhere in Prince Louis greeting. “Surprised in a good way, I should hope?”

“Of course,” Prince Louis responded, but the brief hesitation made a liar out of him, and I bit back a laugh as I pulled my chair out to sit. “Allow me,” he said, placing his hands on the back of my seat and pushing it in for me as I sat. Like the perfect gentleman. Or a prince.

“Thank you, Your Royal Highness.” I forced a polite smile onto my face as I thanked him and met his eyes for the first time without flinching. Surprisingly, they weren't the eyes of the murderous bastard I'd been expecting. Instead, they were... almost kind.

But that made no sense, so I chalked it up to the dim candlelight and shoved it out of my mind. I had a job to do, and the fact that it would piss off Princess Sagen only gave me more incentive to do it well.

“Call me Prince Louis,” he said with a small, almost mischievous grin. “Titles can get so impersonal.”

I gave a small nod but said nothing more for fear of betraying my real feelings toward him.

Operation Flirt with a Coldhearted Royal Bastard was officially underway. I just needed to get through the death of another rival before the appetizers were served.

As expected, moments later the waitstaff appeared with glasses of sparkling wine, placing them down on the table in front of each dinner guest. A tense silence swept through the room as each lady eyed her own drink with fear and dread. Beside me, though, a petite brunette was starting to hyperventilate.

“Are you okay?” I whispered to her, noticing her chalky, pale face and beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

She shook her head frantically, not taking her eyes from the glass in front of her. “I can't do this,” she whispered back in a panic. “I can't. I can't do it. I can't.” Her hands trembled so hard on the edge of the table that her cutlery began shaking, so I placed a hand over one of hers to try and calm her. “It's me,” she insisted, still staring at the wine. “I know it’s me. I can't do it, though. I can’t die like this; I'm too young and-and-and—”

“Shhhhh,” I attempted to sooth her as her breathing came in faster gasps. “You can't know that for sure. There was no clear loser today, and Ty never announced anyone's scores except mine and Her Highness's.”

“True,” Sagen chimed in from across the table. “But you did fail pretty hard, so it could totally be you tonight.” She shrugged with a callous disregard for the other girl's feelings, then turned her fluttering lashes back on Prince Louis.

This only served to panic the girl even further, and she began making a high-pitched whining noise that could only be a whole new level of freak out.

“Hey, listen to me.” I tried to get her attention in a soothing voice. “You don't know it’s you. Not for sure. Just take a few deep breaths and find your center of calm. You'll feel so much better for it.”

It sounded like a whole bunch of bullshit, and it was. Find your calm? What the fuck use would that be if her wine really was poisoned? Still, my conscience wouldn't allow me to simply sit there and ignore her panic attack.

“Look, I bet I can smell if it is or not,” I suggested, peeling my hand from hers where it gripped the table. “They wouldn't poison more than one of us, so if they smell the same...” I trailed off with a shrug and picked up the flute of wine in front of her.

Bringing it to my nose, I hesitated just the briefest moment. What if it was the type of poison that started working when inhaled? What if it didn't even need to be ingested?

“It should be safe to smell,” Prince Louis murmured under his breath so quietly that I was sure no one else heard him. “Concentrated cyano algae need to be consumed to do any real damage.”

His words made me glare sharply in his direction, suddenly remembering he was there and at least partially responsible for whoever died in a matter of minutes. “Cyano algae?” I repeated, frowning. “You mean this poison is made from red-tide?”

Prince Louis's lips tightened as he stared at me. “You know it?”

“I know it's incurable,” I responded in a voice dripping with venom. “And a horrifically painful way to die. You royals really are a bunch of sick fucks.”

Fuck the plan to flirt with this asshole; it was all I could do not to throttle him right there at the dinner table. Cyano algae were a type of algae that only grew in the Pond, to the best of my knowledge. Locals called it red-tide because of the painful, spreading rash it caused when it came into contact with skin. Everyone knew how dangerous it was, and I was shocked to hear that someone had distilled it down into a poison to kill off ladies in the Royal Trials.

I'd come into contact with it a time or two myself, so I could vouch for how painful the rash was. I could only imagine how excruciating it would be to feel that from the inside.

Unfortunately, it emitted almost no odor, so it'd be impossible to smell it when mixed with wine. Not that I was going to let on about that; my poor dining companion was in enough of a state as it was. So I took a quick sniff of her glass, then picked up my own and did the same.

“Totally identical,” I reassured her. “Not even a hint of poison to be smelled.” I replaced the glass in front of her and was relieved to see her breathing slow back down a little.

“If you're so sure,” Princess Sagen commented with a cruel twist to her mouth. “Why don't you swap glasses?”

“Excuse me?” I blinked at her in shock. Surely she wasn't serious.

She grinned like a razor-toothed drachen. “You heard me, Callaluna. If you are so confident that her glass isn't poisoned, why don't you drink it? Or were you just lying to make her feel better about impending death?”

“Were you?” the panicked girl whimpered on the edge of another meltdown.

There was no time to argue, though, as the king stood and tapped his glass with a metal teaspoon, calling for everyone's attention. His speech was the same as every night, full of bullshit and thinly veiled threats, so I felt no need to listen.

All the while, Sagen glared her challenge at me.

“Fine,” I growled, when the king raised his glass in a silent command to drink up. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I switched glasses with the girl beside me—whose name I still couldn't remember—and took a long sip.

Several of the ladies who'd been watching in fascination gasped in horror, and even Sagen's brows rose in surprise. Guess she’d really underestimated the size of my ovaries.

Well, that and the fact that I’d had no sparks from my natural intuition when I'd handled the glass to smell it. It was the one thing that had kept me alive this long, so it seemed stupid not to continue trusting it now.

Everyone else drank as they were commanded to, and it turned out to be another girl further down the table who drew the short straw that night.

“I can't believe you did that,” the trembling girl from beside me breathed as she watched the unlucky victim being carried out of the dining hall.

“Neither can I,” Prince Louis snapped from my other side. “Of all the stupid, reckless, arrogant things—”

“Arrogant?” I spluttered, cutting him off and pinning him with a death glare. “Oh, you're a fine one to go throwing that word around, Your Royal Highness.”

“I would save the venom if I were you, Lady Callaluna,” Prince Louis warned me, leaning in close so that only I could hear his words. “You're already walking thin ice after running from the dance the other night.”

I snorted my severe lack of care for what he thought was best and opened my mouth to tell him as much.

“Please, My Lady,” he cut me off, placing a firm hand on my knee under the table. “Just let's suffer through this dinner without any more deaths. Things are depressing enough without you getting dragged to the dungeons for disrespecting your monarchs.”

As badly as I wanted to tell him exactly where to shove his concerns, I really did need to bite back my temper. My new objective was to endear myself to the princes, no matter how palatable I found the task, and my current attitude was far from endearing.

“Of course,” I replied in a falsely calm voice, offering him a tight smile. “Please excuse me, Prince Louis. I think the sight of ladies dying night after night must be affecting my temper.”

The young royal pulled back a fraction, removing his hand from my leg and staring at me intently, like he was frowning under his mask. “Yes, I imagine that's to be expected,” he murmured.

Anything else he might have said was—thankfully—interrupted by Sagen once more. She really was determined to make an impression, and for once, I was happy to let her command attention. I needed the reprieve to pull my shit together, anyway.

Little did I realize just how accomplished she was at keeping that attention once she had it. I found myself not needing to say a single word until halfway through the main course, and even then it was only because Prince Louis turned to me very deliberately and asked my opinion on the subject of discussion.

“My apologies,” I simpered, swallowing the piece of bread I'd just bitten into. “I wasn't listening to a word Her Highness was saying. Can you repeat the question?”

The corners of the prince's lips twitched, like he was fighting a smile, but he politely obliged. “Her Highness was just commenting on the state of some of the outlying townships of Teich and those that border with our neighboring kingdoms. Apparently some have become completely deserted in recent months.”

I blinked at him, feeling like I was missing something. We'd been hearing about these mysterious disappearances for some time in the Pond, where gossip seemed to run more rampant than the palace. Entire towns full of people were just disappearing like they'd never existed, leaving no trace of where they might have gone.

“So, what was the question, Your Highness?” I repeated, failing to see what he was actually asking me.

“Her Highness suggested someone may be forming a people’s militia. It's common knowledge that our rule over Teich is not universally supported, so what do you think?” Prince Louis pinned me with the full weight of his attention, and I ate another piece of bread while I considered a diplomatic response.

“I think it is possible some people may do that, sure. But whole townships? Women, children, elderly... animals? I think that is implausible for this specific discussion.” I shrugged and used the rest of my bread to soak up meat juices from my plate.

The prince made a humming noise, like he wasn't too sure what his own opinion was on the matter.

“Oh, okay. I didn't realize you were an expert in this area, Callaluna.” Sagen snorted an ugly sound and rolled her eyes. “So what is your explanation for it all?”

I frowned at her, considering just how dumb she really was under all that bravado. “Magic, obviously.”

There was a confused silence, as everyone who'd been partaking in the discussion stared at me.

“How so?” Prince Louis prompted me, and I sighed. Conspiracy theories about the balance of magic were not lighthearted dinnertime conversation.

Dabbing at my mouth with my napkin, I collected my thoughts and condensed them. “It's the same as what's happened to the Wilds. The same as the Darkness and the Plague. Our land's magic is still not satisfied with the balance, and it's punishing us.”

“That's insanity,” the girl beside Sagen chuckled. “That stuff is all in the past; the princes fixed it all when they cured the Plague.”

“Are you sure?” I challenged her, and her smile faltered.

“Yes?” she replied, sounding less sure of herself. “Nothing bad has happened in the ten years since then. Isn't that proof enough?”

I scoffed a laugh. “No, nothing has happened here. In Lakehaven. Can you say for sure that nothing strange or unfortunate has happened in other cities? Or other kingdoms?” I raised a brow at Sagen. “Has Asintisch been the picture of health in the past ten years?”

Sagen's mouth tightened so much I worried it might disappear, but she didn't deny my implications.

“Interesting theory,” Prince Louis commented, sipping his glass of claret. “What do you suppose would be the way to fix it?”

Smiling sweetly at him, I took a sip of my own wine. “I haven't the slightest clue, Your Highness. None but the royals possess magic anymore, so how could a mere aristocrat hope to find answers to what may be the death of our entire world?”

Louis narrowed his eyes at me, and I stared back with an innocently neutral expression. It was hard to tell in the candlelight, but his eyes seemed lighter than his brothers. Maybe green or blue?

“Ladies!” a herald boomed, standing beside the king's seat. “We have a special surprise for you tonight. All the way from Her Highness the lovely Princess Sagen's home kingdom of Asintisch, the talented Tanzer and Kunst.”

Everyone applauded politely, and Sagen beamed like they were applauding her and not the two lithe young acrobats who were descending from the ceiling on strips of silk.

Seductive music accompanied their performance, played by two men with cellos in the corner of the room, and the two acrobats held everyone’s full attention. They were utterly mesmerizing as they defied gravity, twisting and spinning, climbing and dropping.

It was when their performance was drawing to a close—evident by the increasing tempo of the tune and dramatic way the young girl paused in her partner’s grip like she was checking to make sure everyone was paying attention—that my scar tingled and my gut clenched with foreboding.

Something bad was about to happen.

All of a sudden, the female performer tumbled from her partner’s embrace. The gathered audience of diners gasped as one, their horrified eyes glued to the girl’s fall, so no one was watching when a dagger whispered through the dimly lit room and flew directly toward Prince Louis's heart.

No one except me.

With no time to think, I simply reacted.

My hand shot out as quick as lightning, and I hissed in pain as my fingers closed around the moving blade. It had been a reckless choice, for sure, but my hand could heal a few slices from a flying dagger. I doubted Louis could heal from four inches of steel through his heart.

Time seemed to slow, and I blinked at my blood dripping onto Louis's dinner plate, scarcely believing it had worked. I'd stopped the blade.

Louis sucked in a sharp breath, staring at the bloody blade in my grip just an inch from his chest. His lips parted to say something, but Princess Sagen's scream drowned out whatever it was he said. All I caught was “...Calla...” before the entire room flew into motion.

In hindsight, it probably didn't look great. Everyone had been focused on the death-defying tricks above the banquet table until the girl landed her fall safely. Clapping and applauding, they'd all looked around the table once more to gush over the performance and found me with a dagger poised over Prince Louis’s heart.

Shit.

“Lady Callaluna tried to murder the prince!” Sagen screeched like a banshee, shoving back from the table and pointing an accusing finger at me. “She's a murderer!”

Other ladies joined in, shrieking and babbling with all the intelligence of a pillow full of feathers, and I really needed to fight an eyeroll that could strain my eyeballs. The whole thing was utterly absurd. For one, I could hardly be a murderer if no one was dead, and for two, I wasn't stupid enough to attempt an assassination in such a public arena.

“She did not,” Prince Louis snapped, scowling at Princess Sagen even as he placed a gentle hand on my wrist to lower it to the table. “Any idiot can see she just saved me. Look.” With strong fingers, he opened my hand and revealed the mess inside.

Until I saw it, it’d been just a dull, burning sort of pain. But the second I saw it, the pain seemed to increase by roughly six thousand times. The throwing dagger had been sharpened to a paper-thin edge and had sliced through my palm and fingers like they were made of warm butter. In some patches, gleaming white bone and cartilage showed through, but for the most part it was just a bloody, shredded mess.

“You need medical attention,” Louis muttered, and I refrained from pointing out how painfully obvious that statement was. Around us, the commotion was only getting worse with the king storming toward us and guards hovering all around, unsure who the hell they should be dragging to the dungeons.

“I'm taking Lady Callaluna to the medical wing,” Louis announced to his father, who had just arrived beside us and was glaring down on me with a face like thunder.

“You're going nowhere until we work out just what in Zryn's name happened here, son!” the king bellowed, and I found myself tensing against the sheer volume he projected.

Prince Louis shoved his chair back and stood toe-to-toe with his king and father. “If she doesn't receive help now, she will lose the use of that hand. I won't reward her good deed like that, sire, nor should you ask me to.”

There was a tense pause before the king grunted and moved back a fraction of a step to allow Louis to help me from my seat. “This isn't over, son. No one brings weapons to my dinner table and gets away with it. Am I perfectly clear?” This question was aimed at me, but I was too dizzy with pain to do much more than nod meekly.

Prince Louis plucked the blade from my bleeding mess of a hand, then wrapped a handkerchief around my palm before leading me from the dining hall.

“You saved my life,” he murmured as we hurried through the silent corridors toward the medical wing. “I didn't think you’d care much if someone tried to assassinate us royals. After all, we're not the rightful ruling family, are we?”

I made a noise in my throat, clutching my hand to my chest. “Like I care who is rightful or not. There was a power vacuum, and your parents stepped in to fill it. Nothing to be ashamed of there.”

“Huh,” he grunted. “So why do you dislike us all so much?”

I gritted my teeth together hard, fighting through waves of agony to keep on my feet and not pass the hell out. “Can we discuss this another time?” I asked him, feeling sweat roll down the back of my neck. “Like when all my fingers are firmly reattached to my body?”

He snorted a laugh, which I found highly inappropriate given the circumstances. “They haven't come off, Lady Callaluna. They're just... less attached than they were.”

I rolled my eyes but said nothing. If that was meant to be a joke, he had a crappy sense of humor.

“I am just curious why you'd take such a grievous injury when you could have just as easily let me die. I didn’t even see that blade coming, so no one could have accused you of failing to stop it.” He turned his head slightly, watching me from the corner of his eye as we walked.

Sighing heavily, I answered as honestly as I dared. “Because unlike you and your royal family, I don't casually discard human life like that. If I can prevent it, I will.” I paused, and he said nothing. “Now please, shut the hell up? I'm really in pain here.”