I am not alone.

  The thought strikes me with such force that my breath stutters in my chest, as though some invisible hand has pressed sharply against my ribs. For a long moment I remain folded over the stone bench, fingers twisted deep into my skirts, caught between disbelief and dread. The garden—my garden—has never betrayed me before. It has never watched. It has never held secrets from me.

  I tell myself, fiercely, that this is nothing more than the residue of tears. That grief has made me fanciful, hysterical, prone to imagining threats where none exist. My governess’s voice echoes faintly in my mind, admonishing me for indulgence, for dramatics unbecoming of a future queen. Princesses do not invent dangers simply to feel important.

  Yet the sensation does not fade.

  It coils instead, slow and deliberate, winding itself along my spine. I feel it settle between my shoulder blades, cold as the stone beneath my palms.

  I draw in a shuddering breath and press my hands harder against my eyes, as if I might force the feeling away by will alone. Tears leak through my fingers anyway, warm against skin already numb from the cold.

  I am to be married.

  The words sound foreign even now, like a sentence spoken in another language—one I have been told I must learn, whether I wish to or not. I see again the prince’s face: the careful smile, the assessing gaze that lingered just a fraction too long, as though he were inspecting a horse rather than greeting a woman. There was nothing overtly cruel in him. That, perhaps, is the worst of it.

  I felt nothing.

  No flutter. No thrill. No spark of recognition that poets insist must come when one stands before their destined other half. Only unease, and a creeping sense of being weighed and measured.

  I swallow hard.

  In nineteen years of life, I have never loved a man.

  The realization settles slowly, dangerously, like a truth long avoided. I have admired them, certainly. Envied their freedoms. Respected their strength, their authority. But love—real love, the sort that tightens the chest and steals the breath—has never found purchase there.

  Unbidden, my thoughts drift elsewhere.

  To the soft laughter of ladies-in-waiting echoing through marble corridors. To the brush of gloved fingers during winter balls, fleeting and electric. To the way my heart has betrayed me, time and again, fluttering traitorously at the sight of a woman’s smile, the curve of her neck, the warmth of her presence lingering just a second too long.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Such thoughts are dangerous. Forbidden. Unnatural, according to the priests and scholars who dictate what love is permitted to look like. I have buried them deep, trained myself to ignore the quiet ache they leave behind.

  But marriage—marriage will not merely bury them.

  It will kill them.

  A sob wrenches itself from my throat as the weight of it crashes down upon me. Marriage will mean surrendering what little of myself remains untouched by duty. It will mean obedience not just in public, but in private. Even my thoughts will no longer be my own.

  And this—

  I lift my head slowly, gaze drifting over the snow-laden garden. Over the winding paths and carefully pruned shrubs. Over the fountain whose steady murmur has soothed me since childhood. This place, more than any other, belongs to me.

  My mother understood that.

  She used to walk these paths with me when I was small, her gloved hand warm around mine as she spoke of choices and consequences in the same gentle breath. Even queens must have somewhere to be only women, she once told me, pressing a jasmine blossom into my palm. Promise me you’ll keep a piece of the world for yourself.

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  I promised.

  Now even this is threatened.

  Marriage will mean shared spaces. Watched moments. No corner left untouched by expectation. No solitude unsupervised. The thought tightens something sharp and panicked in my chest.

  I am not ready.

  I will never be ready.

  A sound breaks through my spiraling thoughts.

  Soft. Subtle.

  I stiffen, breath catching painfully as I listen.

  Nothing.

  Only the wind threading through branches.

  I exhale shakily, chastising myself for foolishness. Grief makes cowards of us all.

  Then—

  Another sound.

  This one closer.

  Snow shifts beneath unseen weight. A branch trembles, shedding a fine spray of white that glitters briefly in the sunlight before vanishing against the ground.

  My heart begins to pound.

  I rise from the bench slowly, senses sharpened, dread and curiosity warring within me. My gaze sweeps the garden’s edge. Nothing. Only trees and shrubs and shadow.

  “You are imagining it,” I whisper.

  The words do little to convince me.

  A flicker of movement catches my eye to the left—gone the moment I turn fully toward it. My pulse spikes. I take a step forward, then stop, uncertain.

  Silence again.

  It stretches, taut as a drawn bow.

  I nearly laugh in relief when nothing follows. Nearly.

  Then I hear it.

  Crunch.

  Unmistakable. Intentional.

  Fear curls icy fingers around my spine. I should run. I know this. Every sensible instinct screams for me to flee back through the doors, to summon guards, to reclaim safety.

  But another part of me—reckless, starved, furious at a lifetime of restraint—holds me fast.

  “I am not afraid,” I say aloud, though my voice trembles.

  The lie hangs between the trees.

  A shape begins to emerge from the shadows.

  Slowly. Carefully.

  They do not rush. Do not hide. They step into the light as though uncertain they are permitted to exist there at all.

  For a long moment, I can make out nothing but darkness. Then—

  Eyes.

  Red.

  They gleam unnaturally against the winter gloom, catching the light like embers buried beneath ash.

  My blood turns to ice.

  A witch.

  The word slams through my mind, heavy with every warning I have ever been taught. Witches are cursed. Twisted. Corrupted by forbidden power. They lure. They deceive. They destroy.

  I cannot move.

  The stranger remains still, as though aware that any further motion might shatter me entirely. Silence stretches between us, thick and unbearable.

  I should scream.

  I should run.

  Instead, I stare.

  Because the longer I look, the more impossible it becomes to reconcile terror with what I see.

  The red of their eyes is not cruel.

  It is… beautiful.

  The thought horrifies me.

  I am mad, I think distantly. Grief has finally unseated my reason. And yet I cannot tear my gaze away. There is something arresting in the way the light reflects there, something almost gentle.

  The stranger shifts, perhaps sensing my turmoil.

  “I—” they begin, voice low, hesitant.

  The sound breaks the spell.

  Fear crashes back in full force.

  I scream.

  The sound rips from my throat, raw and uncontrolled, echoing violently against stone and ice. Panic obliterates thought. I stagger backward, heel skidding on frozen stone.

  “No—!”

  Time slows.

  The world tilts. My arms flail uselessly as I fall, the sky and trees spinning wildly overhead. The edge of the fountain slams into my back, pain blooming bright and sharp.

  Then cold.

  Agony.

  The water engulfs me, vicious and merciless, stealing my breath in an instant. Ice fractures violently around me, shards scraping skin as my body convulses in shock.

  I cannot breathe.

  My thoughts scatter, fragmenting into flashes: red eyes, snow, jasmine, my mother’s smile. The cold gnaws at my bones, burrowing deep, relentless.

  My head strikes stone.

  White light explodes behind my eyes.

  Somewhere, impossibly distant, I think again of those red eyes—how beautiful they were, how wrong that beauty felt.

  Then even that thought slips away.

  Darkness claims me.