The scent of cinnamon and roasted apples floated through the palace as the Autumn Ball approached. Tapestries were dusted, candles polished, wine casks rolled into storage rooms guarded by stern-faced men. Outside, nobles flooded the city, their silks rustling like leaves in the wind, while the people below whispered rumors of the coming celebration, who would dance, who would wed, who would fall.
The painter moved like a ghost through these preparations, always with a brush in hand, a smudge on his cheek, his pass tucked securely in his coat. But his real tools were tucked in a hidden satchel, strapped beneath his cloak: a small vial of venom distilled from nightshade and viper root, and a twin vial of antidote, just in case. The poison was slow and clean. No scent. No taste. The king would simply falter, then fall.
The fire would be blamed. Or age. Or fate.
He had only to find the right cup.
That morning, disguised as an assistant to the sommelier, he entered the royal cellar under the guise of sketching the wine racks for inventory. He spent hours studying the room, noting which decanters would be placed on the high table. He watched as servants rehearsed how to uncork the finest vintage.
He marked the goblet, the king's own, with the golden rim and the engraved lion crest.
And that night, he returned.
The cellar was silent, cold. He moved quickly, pulling the vial from his pouch and letting a single drop slide into the dark red wine. It dissolved instantly.
He stared at the cup.
"Eliza will sit beside him," whispered a thought.
He crushed it, forcing himself to turn away.
But as he exited, he collided with someone.
A servant girl, barely more than a child, wide-eyed and pale. She gasped.
"I,I didn't mean..."
He gripped her arms gently. "You saw nothing."
She trembled. "Yes, sir. I, I'm sorry."
He released her. Her eyes reminded him of Eliza's. And that thought nearly made him turn back and spill the wine. But he didn't.
He couldn't afford softness now.
The following night, he returned to the lower districts. He needed distraction. Release.
He pushed through the heavy velvet curtain of Madame Corinne's brothel and made for the back chamber, the one reserved for him. For years, this had been his sanctuary, aside from the tavern. A place where skin and breath could silence the war in his head.
Tonight, it failed.
The courtesan, a woman with long legs and a knowing mouth, sat astride him, lips pressing to his throat, her breasts brushing his chest. She moved with practiced grace.
But it wasn't Eliza's gasp he heard. It wasn't Eliza's scent.
He remained still.
Dead still.
"I can't," he muttered, pushing the woman away.
She blinked. "You're already paid, darling."
"I said I can't."
He stood, yanking on his shirt. Fury burned beneath his skin. Not at her. At himself.
He threw gold at her feet and stormed out into the rain-slick street. His trousers strained. His hands clenched.
She had cursed him. That damn red-haired princess.
He would kill the king. And then he would vanish. Leave this cursed city. Escape before her softness ruined him.
Alone in his quarters, the painter sat in silence, his fingers stained with a mixture of ink, ochre, and wine. The canvas before him was still damp with strokes of anguish, an unfinished portrait of Princess Eliza, but not as she had looked when she fell into his arms. No, this version of her was broken.
Her face was pale, mouth parted in a silent scream. Her eyes wide with grief. Her hands clawed toward something unseen toward someone being taken from her.
Toward a dying king.
He dropped the brush.
It clattered against the stone floor.
He leaned back in the chair, the worn wood creaking beneath him. Moonlight poured through the window, slanting across the painting like judgment. The longer he stared, the tighter something coiled in his chest.
"Fool," he muttered to himself. "You painted your guilt."
But it was more than guilt.
It was grief, his own, transposed onto her face. The grief he imagined she would feel when the king, her father, collapsed from the poison he'd already delivered. He had tried to sketch her as the girl he'd seen on the garden path, cheeks flushed, breath catching on her lips, but his fingers had betrayed him.
"You are falling for her."
The realization came not as a whisper, but a storm.
He pushed away from the table, standing too fast. His boots scraped against the flagstones as he paced the room, one hand at his mouth, the other clenched at his side. The walls felt smaller. The air tighter.
You cannot afford this.
She was the daughter of the man he had sworn to kill.
He walked to the window and pushed it open. The cold air hit his face like a slap. The city sprawled below, the palace looming in the distance, its towers silvered by starlight. Behind one of those glowing windows, she was likely asleep. Oblivious.
He turned from the window and he walked to the chest at the foot of his bed, the old iron-banded one no servant dared open. He knelt and pried it open. Inside, wrapped in faded blue silk, lay a letter yellowed by time and a lock of dark hair, almost black.
He lifted the letter, unfolding it with trembling fingers.
The script was neat, deliberate.
"They came for us at dawn. We were not warned. I have hidden you with the nuns. If I do not return, remember this: he signed the order. The King. It was his seal. His word. I love you always. Forgive me for leaving you."
He had read it a thousand times.
Each time, it burned anew.
His mother had been a servant once, no more than a chambermaid. She had overheard things, things she shouldn't have. Rumors of betrayal, of treason in the highest places. When the court purged itself of dissent, she was swept away. Silenced. Only he remained.
A boy. Raised in shadows. Fed on vengeance.
He became an artist to get closer. To walk the halls unnoticed. To be granted keys and access in the name of beauty.
He earned their trust so he could one day burn them all.
But he hadn't counted on her.
Eliza, with her red hair and wild laughter. Her unguarded curiosity. Her defiance.
Her softness.
And now he stood on a knife's edge.
He could not undo the vow. He could not resurrect his mother. But if he killed the King, he would extinguish Eliza's light.
He did not sleep that night. He only painted.
Painted and remembered.
And wondered if a man could keep a vow and still save the thing he never meant to love.
Just before dawn, a knock came at the secret door beside the fireplace.
Three quick taps. A pause. Then two more.
He opened it to find a boy, one of the rebel runners.
A message sealed with the mark of the Black Fox: the rebel leader who had taken him in.
He tore it open.
"You've done well. The wine is confirmed. The fire is set. All exits are in place.
There will be a final meeting two nights before the ball. One last adjustment. One last oath.
Don't waver now. The kingdom depends on it."
He crushed the paper in his bloodied fist.
His hand trembled.
The kingdom, they said.