Her Highness, Lilah Sinclair, had not smiled a true smile in ten long years.

Not since she was a twelve-year-old girl clinging to the petticoats of her mother- the revered Queen Rienne of L’Vera- hiding her face shyly against the back of her mother’s bodice while the Queen handled the affairs of Court.

Her mother had always been her shield; a woman who thrived in a world built by men, ruled by men, and ruthlessly dictated by men. Lilah had learned early to look to her mother for guidance in such a place. There were three things Lilah Sinclair knew with absolute certainty: the sun rose in the east and set in the west, water was wet, and there were many within the kingdom who despised that the only heir to the throne was a girl.

She needed no further proof than the first time insurgents crept into the royal nursery and tried to slit her throat when she was scarcely three years old.

Queen Rienne had never wielded swords or commanded armies. She waged her wars with sharper weapons: words honed to razors, smiles hidden slyly behind silk fans, a mind sharper than any blade.

It wasn’t until Lilah grew older and found herself without the warmth of her mother’s protection that she understood just how fiercely Rienne had shielded her. Her mother had quietly dismantled the ambitions of acolytes and advisors who would have used Lilah’s position for their own gain, cutting down their machinations before Lilah even knew they existed.

To the men of the Court, girls were simple creatures: good only for entertainment, marriage, bedding, and the bearing of sons.

But to those who understood power, a future Queen Regnant- one who would one day command an entire nation- that was something altogether different.

Rienne had protected her well enough that few dared reach for Lilah’s crown too obviously. And her tongue had been so sharp that oftentimes her words wounded more fatally than any blade between the ribs ever could.

Lilah adored her mother with all her heart. She had known her mother was her shield. But she had not grasped how heavy that shield had been until the day Queen Rienne died of a wasting sickness and Lilah could no longer press her face into her embroidered skirts to hide from the world.

Instead, Lilah stood alone, a child thrust onto a battlefield she had barely begun to understand, surrounded by men who mistook her youth and delicate beauty for weakness.

They did not realize that she was also her mother’s daughter. That she had spent her entire childhood learning how to sharpen words into weapons and how to smile sweetly while stabbing ambitions in the heart.

Perhaps she might have lingered longer in her mother’s shadow, might have learned more at Rienne’s side. But the world was not kind to heirs, and even less so to girls who carried crowns.

Thus, at twelve years old- when she should have been worrying about boys, etiquette lessons, debutante balls, her handwriting, or shy questions to her nursemaid about when her first bleed would come- Lilah Sinclair instead squared her narrow shoulders, lifted her chin high, and stepped into Court.

As her mother’s funeral wound through the Month of Mourning, Lilah took her place not as a child, but as a future Queen- silent, solemn, and unyielding.

And she did not smile.

- - -

Wesley Yves was twenty-six years old when His Majesty, Horace Sinclair, summoned him before the Court.

It was hardly a surprise. Wesley had spent his life rising swiftly through the ranks, his promotions owed as much to his audacity as his ability to do what others often could not: bring most, if not all his men, home alive again and again.

He had trained for knighthood since he could lift a sword, his name well-known across L’Vera. Three months earlier, he had led a battalion into the brutal cold of the Veylnspire Peaks to eliminate a cell of traitors rumored to be practicing forbidden magic: black magic that twisted flesh and soul alike.

His mentor had grimly warned him that it was a suicide mission. The traitors would be ready, should see them coming from miles away. The terrain was treacherous, the magics darker than anything they were trained to face.

Nobody was expecting Wesley or his men to return.

But they had- all of them.

Battered, crippled in some cases, but alive; a feat even the most optimistic advisors had considered impossible.

So when the summons arrived, no one was surprised. The Court expected Wesley to be rewarded handsomely. Wesley himself expected perhaps a title, perhaps land. He was not expecting the honor that was offered instead.

Not just the promotion to the Royal Guard, already one of the highest honors a knight could receive, but an even rarer role: personal guard to her Highness Lilah Sinclair, heir to the throne.

There was only one answer he could give: “It would be my honor, Your Majesty.”

- - -

The first thought Wesley Yves had when he finally laid eyes on the Princess- days later, after acclimating to the palace under the watchful tutelage of the Head Guard- was that he was utterly, completely ruined.

She was… he could not find words for what she was.

At twenty-two years old, Lilah Sinclair stood as a woman grown- graceful, poised, and heartbreakingly beautiful. It was like seeing the sun for the first time after a lifetime of gray skies, so blindingly beautiful it hurt. His breath caught somewhere between his chest and his mouth and refused to move, trapped like a bird flinging itself helplessly against glass.

He understood then why men wrote poems and composed ballads about women. Every limb in his body ached with the restrained it took not to fall to his knees. He wanted to sink his hands into her soft brown ringlets. He wanted to feel the press of her curves against him, the way her long legs would wrap around his hips. He wanted to bite down into her warm, tea-colored skin until her taste was seared into him forever.

Wesley was damned. He knew it instantly.

Especially when her amber eyes lifted to meet his and he realized he could happily drown in their depths.

He understood too why men lost their minds over beautiful woman. He had never felt this way before, despite meeting many women, and despite sharing many beds.

None of them had made his tongue feel useless the way it felt now.

Later, he would blame that very tongue, stupid and clumsy, for why it took so long to notice a truth: Her Highness, Lilah Sinclair, did not smile.

Not with her pretty pink mouth and certainly not with those hollow, haunted eyes that shadowed her every movement.

And for reasons he could not yet name, that absence of light in her undid something deep inside of him.

- - -

It was two weeks after Wesley had been officially installed as the Princess’s personal guard when the first real test arrived.

The Royal Gala of Stars- an annual event held in the gilded halls of the palace- was meant to honor the veterans of the kingdom’s military, the artisans of the city, and the Noble Houses who had contributed to the welfare of L’Vera.

In truth, it was a battlefield dressed in silk and gold, where alliances were bartered behind fans and old vendettas sharpened their teeth under the cover of toasts and music.

Her Highness entered the ballroom with her head high and her face as serene and unreadable as the moon. A thousand glittering eyes turned towards her, some in admiration, some in resentment, and far too many in calculation. Wesley, standing a half-step behind her shoulder had caught it all.

He did not like the way many of the men were looking at her, like she were something to be possessed instead of something to be revered.

And he especially did not like the way Lord Hadrian Morvelle approached. High Chancellor of Trade, trusted advisor onto King Horace. A man of impeccable reputation on paper and a rot beneath the surface that Wesley could smell from twenty feet away.

He was tall, sleek, silver-haired at the temples, with a smile that never reached his cold gray eyes. He was a man who had clawed his way to the top, not by virtue, but by cunning. And judging by the way he was fastening himself to Lilah’s side tonight, whispering far too close to her ear under the pretense of polite conversations, Wesley could see that Morvelle had plans.

Plans involving Lilah.

She endured it with a flawless composure; an artful tilt of the head, a careful lift of her fan.

But Wesley was close enough to see the tension in her shoulders, the slight narrowing of her amber eyes. A war was being waged in the invisible space between them, and Lilah, bound by politics and the watchful eyes of the Court, had no sword to swing but patience.

Still. There were limits.

When Morvelle’s hands brushed her bare arm under the guise of guiding her towards the refreshments- a touch that lingered far too long- Wesley’s fists curled.

He stepped forward without thinking and bowed, low and formal, as a knight ought to do.

“Your Highness,” Wesley said, voice smooth and deferential but pitched just loudly enough to interrupt the Chancellor’s oily murmur. “Forgive the intrusion, but the King has requested your presence immediately.”

There was no such summons and Wesley would take the punishment for the lie later.

Lilah, to her credit, didn’t so much as blink. She folded her fan with a delicate snap and turned a serene smile towards Morvelle. “Duty calls, my lord. I am sure we will finish our conversation another time.”

Morvelle bowed, but Wesley caught the flicker of irritation beneath his mask.

Good.

Wesley offered Lilah his arm as a courtesy, and she took it lightly, her fingers barely touching the heavy fabric of his uniform. Together, they wove through the crowd, smiling, nodding, playing their parts until they slipped through an arched doorway into one of the palace’s quieter corridors.

Only once the music faded behind them and the golden glow of the ballroom softened into the dimness of empty halls, did Lilah release a breath.

Wesley waited a beat, ensuring they were truly alone, then glance sidelong at her and said, sotto voce: “I must apologize, Your Highness. I fear the King was not actually requesting you. It was a desperate cry for help from the pastry table. The lemon tarts were under siege from an invading force of the Chancellor. As a knight, I’m duty bound to save the less fortunate and I’m afraid if the Chancellor had been left to linger at the refreshments a moment longer, the whole lot would have spoiled before the other guests could have their fill. Very serious matter.”

For a heartbeat, there was nothing except the soft sound of her slippers against marble.

Then, the smallest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

So fleeting most would have missed it, but Wesley caught it. The flicker, the crack in the ice. Her almost-smile from the woman who had been rumored to not smile in ten years.

Victory tasted sweeter than any medal he’d ever been awarded.