A Throne of Thorns and Roses

Princess Jasmine of the Sunstone Throne had three rules for surviving court: never speak first, never refuse a dance, and never look the servants in the eye. She broke the third rule before breakfast. The new groundskeeper was kneeling in the Royal Veridian, sleeves rolled to the elbow, palms stained green from the queen’s prized moonlilies. He wasn’t supposed to look up. No servant did. But when Amara’s silk slippers crunched the gravel path, his head lifted anyway. His eyes were not deferential. They were assessing. Like she was the intruder in his garden. “You’re late,” he said. Jasmine stopped. Late? The princess was never late. The world adjusted around her. “I beg your pardon?” “The frost got the eastern bed,” he said, nodding toward blackened stems. “If Her Highness wanted to see the moonlilies bloom tonight, someone should have opened the glasshouse at dawn.” Her Highness. Not Your Highness. The difference was a knife’s width, and he’d walked it barefoot. “I don’t open glasshouses,” Amara said, because her voice needed to go somewhere. “I don’t garden.” “Clearly.” He stood, and she realized two things: first, he was taller than any man at court dared to be around her. Second, he had a scar cutting through his left eyebrow, thin and silver. It made his face unsymmetrical. Dangerous. Human. “What is your name?” She hated that she asked. Princesses did not ask. They were told. “Kian.” He didn’t bow. “Just Kian.” A laugh almost escaped her. Just Kian. As if names were things you could strip down to the bone. In the palace, names were titles, alliances, warnings. Princess Jasmine of House Deyr, Heir to the Sunstone, Betrothed to the Northern Peace. Every syllable a chain. “Just Kian,” she repeated. “Do you know who I am?” “You’re the reason the moonlilies matter.” He turned back to the ruined bed, crouching again. “The queen wants them for the Crimson Banquet tonight. To impress Prince Caelen.” Her betrothed. A man she’d met twice. Once when she was twelve and he’d called her a pretty little bird. Once last winter when he’d catalogued her teeth like a horse breeder. “The moonlilies won’t bloom,” Amara said, surprising herself with the honesty. “Not without heat. Not after frost.” Kian’s hands stilled in the dirt. “Then we make heat.” We. No one said we to her. There was the Crown, and there was everyone else. We implied a side-by-side that didn’t exist in the palace geometry. Before she could answer, the sound of heels on stone cut through the garden. Lady Mirea, her mother’s chief attendant, rounded the hedge with the speed of a woman who’d been hunting wayward princesses for eighteen years. “Your Highness.” Mirea’s eyes flicked to Kian, then back, sharp as a tax audit. “The dress fitting. Now. The Nordish delegation arrives at noon, and the prince—” “Yes, the prince,” Jasmine ine said, too fast. “The prince must have his flowers.” Mirea’s mouth thinned. She didn’t look at Kian again. She didn’t have to. In her world, groundskeepers were part of the landscape. You didn’t address the hedges. As Mirea steered her away by the elbow, Amara glanced back. Kian hadn’t bowed. He’d already pulled a pane of glass from a cold frame, angling it to catch the weak morning sun. Directing it at the soil like he could scold the frost into retreat. “Who hired him?” Amara asked before she could stop herself. Mirea’s fingers tightened. “The Master of Grounds replaces servants monthly. They break, or they steal, or they look. This one won’t last the week.” Look. He had looked. And for the first time in twenty years of protocol, Amara wanted to be seen. That night, the moonlilies bloomed. The Crimson Banquet was a war fought with table settings. Nordish furs against Deyrani silk. Ice wine against sunwine. Prince Caelen against the very idea of Amara having thoughts. He was explaining, at length, how Nordish hounds were bred for obedience. “The b***h must know her place,” he said, carving his venison. “Else the whole pack suffers.” Jasmine’s fork paused. Across the hall, beyond the gilt and the gossip, the great glass doors to the Veridian had been left open. And there, glowing under hastily hung lanterns, were the moonlilies. Impossible. Defiant. Alive. “How?” she whispered before she could hide it. Caelen followed her gaze, then smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Your father’s gardeners know their place. As do his daughters.” A servant stepped forward to refill his wine. It was Kian. He was dressed in palace livery now, the deep blue of the house, but he wore it like borrowed skin. His sleeves were still rolled. There was dirt under his fingernails. And when he leaned to pour, his eyes found hers for half a second. It was not a servant’s glance. It was a we. We made heat. Caelen noticed. Of course he did. Men like him collected slights the way other men collected coins. “You,” Caelen said, and Kian stilled. “What’s your name, boy?” The hall quieted. Servants didn’t have conversations. They received orders. Kian set the wine down. “Kian, Your Grace.” “Just Kian?” Caelen laughed. “No house? No father?” “No, Your Grace.” “Then you’re nothing.” Caelen turned back to Jasmine , dismissing Kian with a flick of his fingers. “You see, my bird? Even the dirt has a hierarchy.” Amara’s hands were ice in her lap. She should nod. She should smile. She should be the pretty little bird who knew her place in the pack. Instead, she looked at Kian. Really looked. At the scar. At the soil under his nails. At the man who had forced spring to happen by will alone. “Thank you,” she said. Two words. A declaration of war. Kian’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. A warning. Then he bowed, exactly as deep as protocol demanded, and vanished into the shadow of the pillars. Caelen’s knife hit his plate. “You thanked a servant.” “He saved your flowers,” Amara said. Her voice didn’t shake. She was proud of that. “The queen would have been displeased.” “My flowers,” Caelen repeated. He leaned in, breath heavy with ice wine. “Everything in this palace will be mine, Jasmine . The flowers. The throne. You. Best remember that before you start collecting strays.” He took her hand. His rings were cold. From the shadows, Jasmine thought she saw Kian go still. But when she looked again, there was only blue livery and candlelight, and the crushing weight of the gilded cage. She had broken the third rule that morning. By midnight, she’d break the first two.