Chapter 2
The royal edict arrived three days later, naming me Crown Princess. While the entire Parsons estate erupted in celebration, I found the whole spectacle absurd.
In the end, there was little separating me from Marina, the courtesan from the pleasure house. We were both assets, evaluated and traded.
Yet Marina was the fortunate one. She had found someone who looked past her origins, who saw only her.
More remarkably, Marina knew her own desires and possessed the courage to seize them.
Five years ago, when Lawrence's horse bolted in a panic, she had thrown herself without hesitation before its hooves, seizing the reins.
Upon waking, her first groggy words were to ask if he was unharmed.
The act left her abed for two months and secured her a permanent place within the walls of Lawrence's Eastwatch Palace.
"Speak!" Lawrence's command cut through my reverie, sharp with impatience. He turned my face to his, forcing my gaze to meet his stormy one.
"What would you have me say, Your Highness?" I retorted, the words brittle. "That my heart is shattered? That I cannot breathe without you? Would you believe a single syllable?"
The pressure of his fingers on my chin intensified, a painful anchor to the present.
"You despise me, do you not?" he accused, his voice low and rough. "You have always begrudged Marina her place here."
"But was it not you," he pressed on, "who first showed her kindness? Did you not yourself encourage me to keep her company?"
He was still weaving a narrative of petty jealousy, a tale that demanded a scorned woman at its center.
"Yes," I admitted flatly. A flicker of knowing passed through his eyes.
"It is because I understand it was never her fault. She had no more choice in her fate than I had in mine. In truth, Lawrence, I envy her." The confession left my lips, stark and simple.
"You envy her?" The satisfaction in his gaze vanished, replaced by pure bewilderment.
"Indeed. But not because you love her."
What I envied was the fierce, unapologetic protection she inspired. Someone had claimed her boldly, in the full light of day.
Unlike me, who had watched every precious thing slip through my fingers.
The memories rose unbidden: my mother on her deathbed, pressing the Parsons family seal into my palm, her eyes holding a worry that even death could not erase.
Mack dismissed me with casual instructions to await my wedding day as if it were a minor errand.
Thomas waited at the city gates until dawn, the light in his eyes guttering into ashes.
"No one has ever fought for me," I said, my voice chillingly steady. "And I have failed to protect anyone I ever cared for. Let us end this, Your Highness."
Lawrence loomed above me, his face cast in shadow, grim and forbidding.
"You think you can simply walk away, Julieta? To Thomas?" His laugh was a harsh, mirthless sound. "He is dead. His bones are dust!"
"And you—" his voice dipped into a venomous sneer, "you have borne my child. How could you ever dare face his memory?"
A dam burst within me. Years of coiled anger erupted, obliterating all caution.
Ignoring the sharp protest from my body, I shoved against his chest with surprising force, sending him stumbling back from the bed.
"The child needs to nurse," I stated, my voice like ice. "You may leave, Your Highness."
That night, after the confrontation, Lawrence stormed from the palace, taking Marina with him to one of his country estates.
Let him vanish. It would not alter my resolve.
But even in his absence, I was not granted peace.
Cradling my son, I gazed at the cold moon beyond the window.
Thomas, was the moon over the Northwilds as vast and clear as you promised?
A familiar, oppressive scent of sandalwood and cold stone shattered the reverie, wrenching me back to the present. I stiffened, pulling my child closer.
"Mack," I said, my voice tight. "If you seek Lawrence, you are in the wrong wing of the palace."
He stood behind me, then pressed his chin against the curve of my neck, his arms locking around my waist like iron bands.
I gasped, wrenching myself away, but in one fluid, practiced motion, he plucked the sleeping infant from my arms.
He held my son with a disturbing familiarity, as if he had imagined this moment a thousand times.
"This is the Crown Princess's chambers," I hissed, lunging for the child. He sidestepped me effortlessly.
His finger traced the baby's petal-soft lips. "I am here to see my son. It's a father's right."
"Shut your mouth!" My voice was a strained whisper.
He would not dare be here, in the dead of night, unless he was certain of his security.
Still, I hissed at him, keeping my voice low, afraid someone might overhear.
Mack's low laugh was a sly, intimate sound. He pulled me back against him, his grip possessive, as if both the child and I were mere chattels.
"Julieta, I secured that title for you. I can just as easily bestow it upon another." His tone was smooth, layered with unspoken threat.
"To Lawrence, I possessed greater value than you," he sneered.
My son's and my future, even Lawrence's standing, seemed to be all in his control.
He spoke as if he held all the threads, as if the world bent to his will.
When I was ten, starving and feverish, I stumbled to the Parsons' grand gates, clutching my mother's seal.
Taken for a beggar, I was shoved aside, only to collide with Mack, returning from his studies.
He had taken the seal from my hand, glanced at my desperate face, and with a detached air, decided my fate. "Place her with the other girls."
From my very first day in those opulent, gilded rooms, I understood my purpose.
The Parsons lineage was thinning, their direct daughters few.
To spin a vast web of political alliances, they scoured the branches of the family for girls of tolerable breeding and passable beauty.
For a girl born with nothing, to be selected for a strategic marriage without ever lifting a hand, it was, in their eyes, the greatest fortune imaginable.