Fit For a Princess Sneak Peek

   Warning! This Prologue contains major spoilers for Fit For A Prince. Please refrain from reading unless you have already enjoyed book 1, or spoil at your own risk. 

Ivalon

The night of the siege

The smell of smoke woke me up. I sat up in bed, my senses on high alert as I caught a glimpse of the thin wafts of smoke floating through my chambers. It was enough to blame on a faulty chimney, but it was too warm out for anyone to light a fire for the night.

And then there was the screaming.

I heard it out of my window first. There were shouts from guards, but also cries from female servants. The smoke got thicker.

We’re under attack.

The compression shirt I wore under my nightshirt emphasized the pounding I felt in my heart. I jumped out of bed, rushing to stuff on a pair of boots and tie my hair back. The screaming grew louder, and I could hear servants and soldiers stampeding through the floors below me. Panic threatened to sneak down my throat and choke me with the smoke, but I swallowed it back. This was no time to lose focus. I grabbed my sword and ran into the fight.

Thick smoke poured through the doors the moment I pushed them open. I held my breath and ran through it, squinting my eyes to look for the guards who were usually posted outside my room.

“Harian! Harian, are you there?” I shouted through the halls, nearly unable to hear my own voice over the echoes and screams filling the palace. “Har—”

My boot made contact with something on the floor. Or someone…

Harian.

I sucked in a tainted breath, my lungs burning as I stared down at the fallen servant. Whoever was here had already made it up to the palace’s upper floors. They were coming straight for the royal family.

Mother!

Before I could make a run for her chambers, a flash of steel cut through the smoke and swung toward my skull. I raised my sword, blocking the blade with ease and pushing them back.

“It’s the prince!” Another voice came from behind me, foolishly alerting me to their position. “Kill him!”

I spun around on my heel, using the smoke’s cover to my advantage as I tricked the two enemies to clash blades with each other by directing them toward each other. The fools struck each other down in seconds, and I ran back to their fallen forms to uncover their faces but only needed a glimpse at their armor to know who I was dealing with.

Aemastians.

My sword felt heavier. The king had always suspected that the Aemastians would desire revenge, but he’d never thought them bold enough to go through with it.

I ran like never before. The smoke was thinner the deeper into the palace I ran, but the body count was still high. I tried to take the more obscure routes, but the Aemastians were infesting the castle from every side.

“There! Prince Damon!” An Aemastian spotted me and I readied my sword. “Over here, men!”

Four more armored men appeared around the corner, and my confidence sank with my blade. I couldn’t take them all at once in that armor. The floors were hot under my boots, warning me that the fire was closing in on the rear castle rooms.

Forgive me for running from a fight, Father. I’m doing it for her.

I dashed back the way I came, running from the attackers and slipping into the first servant door I could find. The smoke was thicker in the tight corridors, and the heat was almost unbearable, but I couldn’t give up on finding her.

The servant halls deposited me right outside the queen’s doors. I rushed for the entrance but paused when a bloodcurdling cheer filled the halls of my home.

“The king is dead!”

Horrible cheers and shouts of victory echoed all around me. My hand froze on the doorknob despite how burning hot the brass was. The world was burning around me, and I’d barely even seen the flames.

The sound of incoming footsteps snapped me out of my paralysis, and I finally burst into the room and slammed the doors behind me. I wasn’t sure how close those men had been, so I grabbed the nearest chair and wedged it in front of the door.

I was halfway through letting out a held breath when someone grabbed me by the shoulder. I swung my sword around, preparing to fight my way free, before stopping my blade an inch in front of my mother’s soft features.

“Damon!” She didn’t even flinch at my blade, pulling me close and squeezing the rest of the air out of me. “You’re alive!”

I dropped my sword, hugging her back as I ran my hand through her soft golden hair. She was still alive. Oh, thank the heavens.

My nose scrunched up the way it did when I was close to tears, but I hardened my face until the urge faded. The king was dead; my people needed their prince now more than ever.

“Mother, they’re coming.” I pulled away, my hands gripping the fabric of her nightdress like I was a child again. “They…they killed the king.”

Her face paled and she dug her hands into my shoulders, the two of us clinging to all that we had left.

“He’s dead…” she breathed, the words loaded with the joy of a wish and the pain of a curse. “They’re going to come for you next.” Tears spilled down her beautiful face, blurring her sapphire eyes.

She was right. They wouldn’t kill the king just to leave his son standing. I brushed my thumb over her cheek, wiping away the tears. She had spent her entire life protecting me; I wasn’t going to die now.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to let that happen.” I bent down to pick up my sword, her fingers grasping my other hand like she was afraid I’d be pulled away at any moment. “We’ll get out of here. I can protect us until we make it outside, and then we’ll—”

A harsh fist banged on the door, rattling the chair I’d used to block it with. Mother jumped back, dragging me away from the door with her as she pulled me deeper into her rooms. Her grip on me was like iron, digging into my skin as she dragged me into her bedroom and locked the door.

“Mother, what are you doing? We’re going to be trapped—”

“Take off your boots,” she instructed, her tone firm and commanding as she ran into her closet. “Hurry, my love. There isn’t much time. Put down your sword and let your hair down, quickly!”

A thousand questions ran through my head, but the urgency of her tone forced me to obey. I did as she asked, feeling strange as my blonde locks hung loose by my shoulders. The second I set my sword down, mother was stuffing a dark-red dress over my head, nearly strangling me in the fabric as she wrestled it over me.

“M-Mother! What are you doing?” I asked the question, but the answer was already prodding at the back of my mind. The dress, the hair, the sword…

“Hold still.” She rushed behind me, reaching into the back of my dress to rip apart the compression shirt under my clothes with her bare hands. She pulled out the offending fabric, along with the shirt I’d worn to bed, then yanked the ties on the corset enough to tie it off. The pressure wasn’t as tight as my compression shirt, but I still couldn’t breathe with everything happening.

“Mother, wait…” I reached for her hand, stopping her before she could run toward her closet for slippers. She met my eyes, the determination in her stare haunting. “Let’s…let’s talk about this.” I squeezed her hand, my voice wobbling. A loud crash echoed outside the bedroom doors, followed by a parade of shouting men. They’d broken through the first door, but I could barely focus on that now. “You can’t possibly mean…”

She took both my hands, squeezing them so hard I thought I might break a finger. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life.” Her throat sounded tight, and I tried to convince myself that it was from the effects of the smoky room and nothing more.

My legs were shaking, and the fear I’d swallowed back started to chew at me from the inside out. I couldn’t abandon Damon, not when he still had people he could protect.

“N-no.” I shook my head, my dry tongue failing to say anything else.

“Listen to me!” She placed her hands on my shoulders, shaking me until my head stopped moving. “From this moment forward, you are no longer Prince Damon.”

I think I blacked out for a moment. Everything went dark, and the noise outside the door blurred into ringing until my mother released my shoulders. I blinked back into the moment, watching as she pulled her ring off her finger and held it out to me.

“What are you—?”

“I love you, my girl,” she said, tears once again spilling from her eyes. My heart skipped a beat, the words my girl touching a piece of my heart I’d always refused to acknowledge. A soft glow radiated off the ring, only bright enough to make it stand out in the smoky air. She took my hand, slipping the ring onto my finger, where I felt it bind itself to me. “You are Diaspro Onelle, the daughter of a forgotten family and the cherished betrothed of the crown prince.”

The prince’s betrothed?

“Damon is dead. Promise me you’ll leave him behind. Do you understand me, Diaspro?” She said my new name like she’d been practicing it for a lifetime, and I hated to admit that it felt like I already owned it.

Damon is dead.

“No,” I squeaked. “No, I don’t understand. No!”

How was Diaspro going to save anyone?

The doors burst open, and an army of men stood before us. My mother froze, and I’ll never forgive myself for doing the same.

“The queen!” The first soldier pulled out a sword, giving me only seconds to react. I needed to grab my own weapon while I still could.

I can still save her!

“Mother get back—”

Thud.

Another soldier fired an arrow over the leader’s shoulder, plunging it directly into my Mother’s heart. She collapsed into my arms, as gracefully as any queen could. I fell with her, cradling her in my lap as the first tears I’d shed in years poured down my face.

“M-Mother?” My heart begged her to respond, to look at me one last time, or to tell me this was all a dream.

My ring warmed, her love for me illuminating the magic inside as her cold lips twitched one final time.

“I love you, my daughter.”

The light faded from her eyes, and the queen died in my arms.

“Daughter?” one of the soldiers echoed behind me. The entire group stood spectating the death of the queen like it was some sort of sport. “Who is that girl? Some sort of lady’s maid?”

How clever of you, Mother…

I shed my last tear and it fell on her cheek. I wiped it away, brushing her hair out of her face as I gently pressed her eyes closed. She’d named me Damon’s fiancée to pass me off as her daughter. A princess-to-be isn’t worth the same effort to hunt down as a prince.

“Girl! Who are you?” one of the men spat at me, the sound of an arrow nocking pricking my ears. “Answer us!”

I pressed a kiss on her forehead, wishing her one final goodbye before I rose from the ground. My boots were still scattered across the floor, shreds of my more masculine clothes were stained in my mother’s blood, and my dress was probably lopsided at best.

Talking my way out of this wasn’t going to be good enough. I needed Damon one more time.

“You heard her,” I said in an icy tone, picking up my sword with a steel grip. “She was my mother.”

The first arrow fired and I deflected it with ease. The men ran in all at once, and all I remembered was seeing red and burning with rage. There were at least three of them, maybe even more, but I didn’t bother to count the bodies when I was done. Mother had chosen my dress well; the red hid blood beautifully.

The room had gotten hotter, and the smoke made my lungs too tight to even cry.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I know that wasn’t very ladylike.” I dropped my sword, not looking back as I left behind my mother, her killers, and my crown. “I promise. From now on, Damon is dead.”