Mouse stood on the green of the bailey, shoulders slumped in disappointment. She had risen early in the hope of finding the archery pitch empty, but instead found it already bustling with yeomen who had come to claim their time on the butt before their superiors could take it for themselves.

  Mouse had not touched her bow in weeks and had been looking forward to the practice as much as she had the solitude, but she had neglected to consider the fact that with the tournament now only two weeks away, there was not like to be any time of day during which no one else was occupying the range.

  With a sigh of resignation, she retreated to the armory steps where she spent the next hour or so watching the men take their aim at a row of Arosian suns.

  Archery had grown considerably in popularity in recent years, especially among the nobility, ever since the abolishment of the edict mandating archery practice. Though the idea might seem somewhat contradictory, the fact was that archery was now no longer the common man’s employ. It was a sport that was chosen, rather than forced, and like horsemanship, had become another way for wealthy young men to demonstrate their skill.

  That was the way of peace times. Men spared the rigors of battle had to find other ways to demonstrate their valor, to win the spoils of war without ever stepping foot on the battlefield and garner the favor of fair women throughout the land.

  Even in the lower orders, where weapons were as infrequently provided as they were afforded, there was always some kipper telling tales of the lists and urging his countrymen to ride their farm horses down a broken fence.

  Mouse watched as the men changed to the clout. The sun was now beginning its slow climb above the wall, and it would likely not be long until Mouse found herself wanted.

  She pushed herself to her feet and made her way across the bailey, still damp with morning dew, before turning to ascend the steps of the keep. But no sooner had she rounded the corner of the rail than she found herself face to face with Johannes.

  “How now, little Mouse?” the nobleman crooned with a crooked grin. “Back from the north, are you?” The purple bruise on his cheek had faded entirely, leaving no trace of the mark that Mouse had given him.

  Mouse ignored him, trying to step around the nobleman, but he persisted in blocking her path.

  “I am surprised you came back at all,” he said. “I know how much you love northerners.” Johannes stepped quickly in front of Mouse as she attempted again to circumvent him, sneering down at her from the step above. “You know, I bet you never once got out of bed the entire time you were there.”

  Mouse clenched her jaw, her hand balling itself into a fist, but still, she made no reply. She had determined herself not to rise to the nobleman’s provocation, if for no other reason than because this time she had nothing with which to strike him.

  Mouse looked into the nobleman’s laughing green eyes and tried to think of something to say, something which might dispel him. But in such a moment, her wit abandoned her, and all she could do was silently seethe with vexation.

  “Tell me,” said Johannes, “did you find Sir Conrad as irresistible as Lady Margarethe seems to?” He smiled, stepping out of Mouse’s way and allowing her to resume her ascent as he followed close behind. “Of course you must have done so,” he said, “else why would he have written asking for your hand?”

  Mouse paused, involuntarily coloring at the nobleman’s words. She knew better than to give credence to the sort of things that Johannes said, but it did seem rather an odd thing to contrive. After a moment, she resumed her course up the steps. She had formed no impression that the knight had taken any particular interest in her; she assumed he had merely been trying to curry favor with the Empress, to be civil and accommodating where his lord would not. But he had written for her hand—for Mouse's hand. Did that mean that he had known all the while that she was not the Empress? And if Sir Conrad knew, who else might have?

  “Got a taste of something he liked, did he?” Johannes smirked.

  Mouse stopped at the top of the step and turned to face the nobleman. For a moment, she thought of pushing him, giving him a nice strong shove with both hands in the middle of his chest, one that might send him all the way back down the long stone steps. But instead, she drew a deep breath and turned back to the keep. Just pretend he is not there, she told herself, and sooner or later, he will disappear.

  However, just as she was about to cross the threshold, Mouse felt something grab her by the arm and pull her back.

  “Do you think you’re clever?” Johannes asked, wrenching Mouse’s arm so that she could not pull away. Mouse’s eyes went wide with surprise. The nobleman’s face, now inches from hers, was twisted with anger, his green eyes no longer laughing. “Do you think I do not see what you are up to?”

  Mouse winced as he twisted her arm back painfully.

  “I do not know what you are talking about,” she said, meaning every word.

  The nobleman’s breath was hot on her face, rage burning in his eyes, and for a moment, Mouse was afraid. Johannes pulled her closer, the heat of his body oppressive against hers as he leaned in and pressed his face in her hair.

  “The next time my name leaves your lips,” he said, the words brushing against Mouse’s ear so that the hair on her arm stood on end, “I assure you, it will not be in accusation.”

  Mouse sat in the window, looking down at the archery pitch below. A man in a brightly colored tunic slid an arrow from the quiver, nocking it in place and drawing in one fluid motion. The arrow sailed up high into the sky, forming an arch before plunging back to the earth below. Mouse rubbed her arm as she watched, the place just above her wrist where Johannes had grabbed her tender and warm to the touch. The anger that she had initially felt when she had been accosted by the nobleman and the fear that had followed had since faded to a kind of numbness, a vacant resignation that she was as helpless as ever.

  “Well then, child,” said the old man who sat behind the dark acacia desk, his fingers laced across his stomach, “have you come to once again regale me with tales of your travels?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Mouse watched the man in the bright yellow tunic below slide another arrow from the quiver.

  “What should you like to hear first,” she muttered, more to the window than to the old man, “how the General incessantly insulted me, how Lady Margarethe kept in hiding, how the whole of Pothes Mar was probably laughing at me the entire time I was there?”

  The melancholy that Mouse had tried so hard to outrun had been waiting for her. She had hoped that perhaps she would return to the capital and find that things had somehow changed, that she had changed. But of course, this had not been the case.

  She picked at a loose thread sticking out of her sleeve, head hanging into her lap so that she would not have to meet the old man’s eyes as she spoke.

  “I thought that perhaps I had been given an opportunity to prove myself,” she said, “to prove to myself that—” She paused, pulling the thread loose and holding it out in front of her for a moment. “—that perhaps that you were right.” She let the thread slip from between her fingers and float to the ground, drifting through the sunlight that illuminated flecks of dust as they danced in the air. “But it’s not true, is it?”

  She looked up at the old man who peered across the room at her from beneath bushy white brows.

  “What’s not true?” he asked.

  Mouse thought a moment.

  “Any of it,” she said. “The necklace, the mallows, the man from Silver Lake. None of it means anything, does it?”

  She held the old man’s gaze, searching his pale grey eyes for something, something that might tell her whether she was right or wrong. She had come to him not for answers outright, but for confirmation or contradiction of what she believed to be true.

  “You told me once,” she began with a sigh, “—you told me that my parents wanted more for me.” She paused and shook her head. “But I’m afraid that this is who I am,” she said, “and this is all I will ever be.”

  Mouse turned back to the window. She had thought that everything she had gone through the past few months had been a trial, something that would serve to strengthen her. But she could see now that that was not the case. She was weak and servile, and all it had taken was one brief encounter with Johannes, one twist of her arm, one whispered threat, and she had been frightened right back into her little corner. It did not matter what sort of stories Ludger tried to tell her; daughters of emperors were not meek and cowardly. They did not keep quiet when they should speak up, they did not suffer those around them to be mistreated, they did not cower as their enemies berated and abused them.

  Johannes was the embodiment of everything Mouse hated most—the cruelty of those she was bound to serve, the lies that abounded everywhere she turned, and worst of all, her own helplessness in the face of it all. She touched her arm where he had grabbed her and twisted, her eyes squeezed shut. Her stomach turned at the memory, not just for the pain of him wrenching her arm back or the feel of his breath on her skin, but because it was in that moment that Mouse realized she hated herself more than even the nobleman.

  I am a mouse, and I will never be anything more, she thought to herself, and to pretend otherwise is hopeless.

  “But that’s alright,” Mouse said now, opening her eyes and turning back to the old man. “Because if none of it is true, maybe that means that none of it is my fault.”

  The old man’s brow twitched in amusement.

  “So you are hoping that in shunning responsibility, you will also absolve yourself of guilt,” he said.

  Mouse considered this a moment.

  “Perhaps,” she said, her gaze unfaltering as she held the old man’s eyes.

  She thought of Jasper locked in the tower even as it burned, the smell of smoke pungent and choking. She thought of his mother and how terribly frightened she must have been for the only son who had lived to be old enough to walk. And she thought of Sir Hugo lying in the road, his eyes wide with surprise as he lay there bleeding to death.

  Mouse had not realized until now that she blamed herself for what had happened on the road east of Hallovie. But it had been she who had begged the knight to return with them, and if not for her, the man might still be in Pothes Mar, under the General’s command but unharmed.

  “Or perhaps,” Mouse said, “I am simply tired of all this foolishness, all this pretending.”

  The old man weighed Mouse’s words for a moment, seeming to consider the sincerity of them, before unlacing his fingers and sitting forward in his chair.

  “Very well, then,” he said. “Let us rid of all this foolishness, as you say.” And with that, he resumed his task of leafing through the stack of parchments before him, glancing over each one back and front before separating them into piles.

  Mouse sat still in the window. She did not know what she had expected of the old man, but she did not think it was this.

  “Goodbye, Maudeleine,” Ludger said without looking up from his papers. “I wish you all the luck in your future endeavors to remain inconsequential.”

  Slowly, carefully, Mouse pushed herself down from the ledge of the window. She watched the old man, wondering if he would not try and stop her, before crossing to the door, pausing in front of his desk only a moment.

  “Lest I forget,” Ludger’s voice stopped her just as she placed a hand on the doorknob. “This came for you, by way of Marius.”

  Mouse turned to see the old man holding out a folded sheet of parchment in his knob-knuckled fingers.

  Why Lord Marius should have brought her a letter, she was certain she did not know, but she took the parchment nonetheless, murmuring her thanks, and left the room, this time for good.

  Mouse walked down the long hallway toward her chambers feeling slightly abused and more than a little confused. She had not expected the old man to release her so readily. In truth, she did not know what she had expected, but she would be lying to herself if she said that she had not been wounded by his hasty dismissal.

  The parchment she had been handed had been folded up and tucked into her sleeve, for worry that once opened, Mouse might once again find a perplexing set of words, a riddle, the answer to which would come too late.

  She had nearly made it to her rooms, when she noticed a familiar figure moving toward her. It was Agatha. As she drew nearer, Mouse could see that the girl’s face was pale and drawn, as though she had not slept in days.

  “Agatha,” Mouse said, knitting her brows together in concern. “Are you not well? What has happened?”

  The girl looked at her through round, blue eyes damp with unshed tears.

  “I spoke with the Empress,” she said, her voice quiet and trembling, “about Sir Frederick.” She shook her head. “I did just as you said I should, but—”

  The girl broke off as tears began to spill down her cheeks.

  “Oh, Agatha,” said Mouse, placing a hand gently on the girl’s arm. “I am so sorry. I know how very fond of Sir Frederick you were.”

  Agatha’s chin quivered but she did not attempt to speak.

  “Let me speak to the Empress on your behalf,” Mouse said, her heart aching for the poor girl who stood silently weeping before her. But Agatha shook her head.

  “No, I thank you,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I do not think it would help. The Empress does not like you much, you know.”

  Mouse smiled weakly.

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose you are right. But if there is anything that I can do—”

  “You have done quite enough, I thank you,” said Agatha, lifting her chin despite her tears.

  Mouse recoiled at the girl’s tone. She had not expected that Agatha might blame her, but she wondered whether the girl did not regret running away with Sir Frederick when she had had the chance.

  “I know it all seems hopeless right now,” said Mouse, reaching for the girl’s delicate hands even as she pulled away, “but I assure you that it is not.”

  Mouse looked into Agatha’s eyes, and felt her heart begin to throb with guilt, the pain on the girl’s face a knife driving deeper and deeper into the place she had tried so hard to protect.

  Why was it, Mouse wondered, that she had thought she somehow knew better than Agatha? Why had she made it her place to tell the girl not to run away?

  She reached again for Agatha’s hands, and this time, she did not pull away. The girl’s fingers were thin and cold, Mouse reflected as she squeezed them gently.

  “It is never hopeless,” she said. Agatha forced a smile to her lips and nodded.

  But even Mouse knew that it was a lie.