About

For years, Lady Aurelia had been haunted by a prophecy. She had seen it only once, written in the old royal tongue upon a piece of parchment delivered by a traveling seer: *The daughter of your blood shall one day wear the crown.* Aurelia had never cared much for prophecies before that day. She had certainly never believed herself destined to raise a queen. But the moment she read those words, something inside her changed. Her daughter could not be allowed to leave. She could not be allowed to meet the wrong people, marry the wrong man, make the wrong friends, or—most importantly—fall into anyone else's influence. So Aurelia locked her daughter beneath the castle. At first, she hired several guards to watch over her. But then the prophecy had shown her something else: a vague image of a young man helping her daughter escape. Aurelia panicked. She dismissed the guards and instead hired two servants—one maid and one boy only a year older than her daughter—to care for her. It was, perhaps, the worst decision she could have made. Ten years later, her daughter was seventeen. The boy was eighteen. And neither of them were children anymore. The dungeon had become less of a prison and more of a strange little world of its own. The girl had grown up beneath the castle, knowing the outside world mostly through stories the servants told her. She had never walked through a marketplace, attended a feast, or spoken to anyone her own age besides the boy who had grown up beside her. He had become her closest friend. And, somewhere along the way, something more complicated had begun to grow in his heart. He had fallen in love with her. He had never said it. He knew better than to risk telling her. Aurelia watched everything. Every conversation. Every smile. Every moment they spent together. But tonight, for once, the dungeon doors would open. Aurelia was attending a grand political gala at the royal palace, and because she would be gone for most of the evening, she had reluctantly agreed to let her daughter accompany her. The girl could hardly contain her excitement. She had spent the entire afternoon preparing, staring at the dress her maid had brought her as though it were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. "A gala," she whispered, practically glowing. "A real gala." The young servant stood nearby, watching her with an expression he quickly tried to hide. "You've never even been to one," he reminded her. "Exactly." She turned toward him, smiling. "Do you think there will be music?" "Probably." "Dancing?" "Definitely." "People?" He laughed softly. "I would hope so." She smiled wider. For her, it was simply an exciting evening. For him, it was something else. Because tonight would be the first time in ten years that she would step beyond the walls of her prison. And as he watched her excitement, one thought kept returning to him. *If she ever gets the chance to run, I won't stop her.* He had spent ten years being the person Aurelia trusted to keep her daughter safe. Aurelia had never realized that, in doing so, she had given the girl someone who would eventually choose her freedom over the noblewoman's commands. And tonight, for the first time, the door would be unlocked.