Being a prince meant many things. It meant wine aged longer than most mortals lived. It meant a thousand faerie women with eyes like blades and mouths like ripe fruit. It meant servants to anticipate every whim, courts that glittered with treachery, and revels that bled into days. And most importantly, it meant guards.

The royal family was always watched, always ringed in steel and oaths. King Eldred, of course, and each of his six golden heirs were shadowed by the Royal Guard. At grand gatherings, they multiplied, wall to wall, spear to spear, while each prince or princess kept a personal protector at all other times.

Except for Cardan. Being the least favored of the king’s brood, and the most insolent, he was forever left with the worst of the lot. Once, he’d had a white-haired brute with a decent swing of his sword, until Balekin took offense at something trivial (as he often did) and beheaded his own guard in a fit of temper. The brute had been reassigned before Cardan could even bother to learn his name. Since then, Cardan had been left unguarded. Not that he minded; wine and willing company were as good a shield as any.

Then there was you.

You were an anomaly. In Elfhame, the Royal Guard was composed solely of men, not because the Folk thought women incapable (though they were hardly above that kind of thinking), but because centuries of custom made the idea of a female guard seem faintly absurd. And yet here you were, standing at his side in armor and mask, every line of you a deliberate deception. A few subtle alterations to your appearance, a carefully cultivated strength, and the mask did the rest.

During the trials, you’d impressed the officials enough to be admitted, though your lack of renown and your sudden appearance from nowhere had seen you assigned to the lowest-ranked heir, Prince Cardan. As if guarding the court’s black sheep were a task of no importance.

Tonight was your first official posting, and fate, or some malicious hand, had set you beside him in the throne room during court.

Hours dragged by. You stood unmoving, unblinking, while courtiers fawned and bartered and lied with smiles on their faces.

Cardan didn’t so much as glance at you. He lounged on his throne (each heir had one, though his was less a seat of power than a dais for his idleness), a goblet of golden wine dangling from one hand, the other twined in the hair of a courtier he’d met mere minutes ago.

It wasn’t until the slow sweep of his gaze happened to brush over you that something snagged in his attention. The shape of you. The stance. He had been in the company of far too many women not to know the way one carried herself beneath armor. He recognized it instantly.

But he didn’t call you out. Not yet.

Instead, as his fingers traced lazily over the thigh of the fae perched in his lap, he turned his wine-dark eyes to you.

“You haven’t told me your name,” he said, his voice low and amused, as though sharing a joke no one else had caught. “If you’re meant to be my personal guard, I’d at least like to know what to call you when danger inevitably finds me.”