Maren spent a great deal of time after her conversation with the Prince trying to make sense of it all. In a way, nothing had changed, she had only become aware of things that had already been happening, but her perception of both princes had changed so radically that it was hard to keep track.

She had not liked Prince Kieran on the occasions they'd interacted. Now that she knew more, she thought it was perhaps some sort of animalistic instinct that was warning her of danger. And he was far more dangerous than she had previously thought.

She still shuddered to think about stealing powers. It was the most horrible thing she could imagine. And truly she could not imagine just how horrible it would be to have the Light, her Light, ripped out of her body. She'd sooner have her heart torn out.

She had thought that execution or perhaps torture followed by execution would be the worst end she might meet. But she was wrong. Execution would be far preferable to having her powers stolen.

She resolved to avoid Prince Kieran as much as possible, but wasn't sure that would be enough. 

Her perception of Prince Donovan had also changed radically. He certainly was under no obligation whatsoever to share what he knew. He had said he felt indebted to her, but she was not convinced that fully accounted for everything he had said.

She found the concept of an alliance intriguing. She had never considered that someone else would ever be on her side. Her parents, of course, loved her, but they preferred to pretend she was not a Wielder. And Karlyn had helped her tremendously, but it was in the role of teacher and guide, not as an equal.

But apparently, at least concerning the matter with Prince Kieran, Prince Donovan saw her at least more or less as an equal. Truly, that was shocking.

She knew he had taken her into his household despite — or rather, as she now understood, because of what she was — but that didn't mean he had to treat her well. And to be fair, he hadn't harmed her, but he hadn't been particularly kind either.

But he had apologized to her, even though she was a witch. If she had been a more suspicious person, she likely would have thought he was trying to trick her for some reason.  But he had seemed completely genuine in everything he had said to her.

And he had given her an oath. It was not about anything to do with witches or powers, but he had honored it completely, even though he was under no real obligation to do so. It wasn't as though she'd be able to tell anyone he'd broken it if he had. Still, she thought it rather compelling evidence that he was truly an honorable man, even when it came to do with her.

What a surprise.

She wasn't sure what to do with her new perception of the Prince, though. She could now see of course why it was important to pretend to be actual lovers — if Prince Kieran knew the true reason Prince Donovan had taken her, she would have her powers stolen to be sure. But beyond the public pretense, how should she interact with the Prince? Continued bland civility? Should she be more candid with him? Should she be friendly?

She felt that the safest choice was to continue with bland civility, at least until he demonstrated otherwise. Which was precisely what she planned to do until just a few days after their talk, when she failed at that entirely.

The failure wasn't entirely her fault, she was simply too furious to be blandly civil. Although, interestingly enough, for the first time since coming to the palace, she was furious with someone apart from the Prince.

She had decided she desperately needed to ride a horse. At home, she rode at least a few times a week, and going almost two months without riding felt like an eternity.

So that day she dressed in her riding clothes, trousers with a sturdy blue shirt and boots, and arrived at the stables, intending to inform Mr. Gregory that she would like to take Snowdrop for a ride. He had no objection—Maren assumed that he had been expecting that—and told one of the assistant grooms to prepare Snowdrop for her.

Maren wanted to object. She preferred to tack up the horse herself, but she decided it was best to allow Mr. Gregory to do things his way. At least for the moment.

And then the groom brought Snowdrop out into the paddock wearing a sidesaddle.

Maren categorically refused to use a sidesaddle. She felt they were outrageously dangerous. They generally weren't used in the North at all for that reason. If you were using a horse there, you needed to get somewhere, and presumably, you wanted to get there without being thrown from your horse. She supposed they must be more common in the South, where horses were used by the nobility primarily for sport or leisure.

She was annoyed, but simply took the sidesaddle off the horse and thrust it back at the groom.

"Do, please bring me a proper saddle," she said.

He looked baffled, but went back inside the stables. However, Mr. Gregory came out instead of the groom.

"There is a problem with my saddle, my lady?" he asked, as though daring her to complain to him.

"I'm sure it's a perfectly fine saddle for someone who does not wish to ride astride, but I absolutely will not ride sidesaddle," Maren said.

He looked at her appraisingly, apparently, he had only just noticed she was dressed for riding astride.

"It's not very proper, my lady, there'll be talk," he said. "And talk that I let someone in a royal household behave improper like will do me no favors."

"Would you prefer that I be injured because I am riding in an unsafe manner? You know as well as I do that you cannot ride properly in a sidesaddle. And surely, you know that where I come from we simply do not ride sidesaddle," she said.

She knew he, the consummate equestrian, knew her points were valid, but he still refused.

"I like you fine, Lady Maren, and you're good with the horses. But I like my job better. Get permission from the Prince and you can ride however you like. Otherwise, it's a sidesaddle or not at all," he said.

She was furious.

But she also did not want to scream at Mr. Gregory just for trying to protect his job. Well, she did, but decided that would have been far ruder than she was willing to be.

"Very well," she said and stomped back to the palace. She returned to the Prince's apartment and satisfied herself by stomping around the receiving room.

She recognized it was rather childish to be so furious about the situation, but it was patently ridiculous. Furthermore, she likely was a better rider than most of the men at Court, but still had to use the ridiculous contraption that was the sidesaddle. Or she could ask the Prince for permission. That made her even more furious.

The idea of asking his permission to ride a horse properly was appalling and humiliating to her. What did she care if there was talk at Court about how she rode a horse? Worst-case scenario, it damaged her reputation to the point that the Prince could not find a particularly good husband for her at the end of her year imprisoned at the palace. Not much of a tragedy as far as Maren was concerned.

"My lady?"

She spun on her heel and glared at whoever had interrupted her stomping.

It was the Prince. He looked surprised to see her glare at him. She quickly rearranged her face and curtsied, which probably looked very odd in trousers, but there was nothing she could do about that.

"Apologies, Your Highness, I was frustrated by another matter," she said.

She did not really want to apologize to him, but it would be worse to return to hostility with the Prince just because she was angry at the Court's insistence on propriety.

His surprise appeared to turn into something more like amusement.

"Is this some new fashion statement? I'll admit I am not familiar with these things," he said.

She scowled. "Apparently, the notion that I would like to ride a horse properly instead of dangerously dangling off the side of the animal is scandalously improper."

He furrowed his brow. "You want to ride astride?" he asked.

"I have no idea if you know the first thing about horses, but I assure you that you would not want to ride sidesaddle either," she said.

He looked surprised. "Ah...no... I never have, of course, but I've ridden enough to know I wouldn't want to ride sidesaddle."

She was mildly surprised to hear he had ridden at all. It did not seem like something many people at Court did.

He kept talking when she did not respond, "To be honest, it did not occur to me that a woman would want to ride astride, but I've no objection if you do—clearly you know what you're doing. Did someone tell you not to?"

She scoffed. "Mr. Gregory informed me it would cause too much talk. And of course, I would rather not jeopardize his position, but gods, it's so ridiculous."

"There would be talk," he said.

She shrugged. "Considering what has brought me to the palace, I expect there's talk about anything I do."

He chuckled. "Likely so. I'll tell Mr. Gregory I've no objection to you riding astride if you like."

She sighed. "Not to sound ungrateful, but I'm extremely annoyed that I need your 'permission' to do something I've been doing since I was about five in the first place," she said.

He looked surprised. "Have you really been riding that long?"

She nodded. "If you'll recall from Lady Callista's tone-deaf conversation at the dinner we had with the King and Queen, they're the only practical way to travel in the North."

He laughed. "Gods, I had forgotten about that. She did not know when to let a topic go."

Maren laughed despite her frustration, that had been an exceedingly ridiculous conversation.

"For what it's worth, I'd be quite annoyed if I were you," he said.

"I thank you," she said, and then excused herself to put on something more suitable for dinner.

Later, she reflected on the exchange. She had done a poor job of maintaining bland civility, but the Prince didn't seem to mind. They had even had a fairly cordial dinner together afterward. Perhaps having an ally would be more pleasant than she'd thought.

—

"So, when it's all said and done, we will have a substantial tax surplus this year. I propose we consider one or two special projects, unless Your Majesty has something else in mind?" the Minister of Finance said.

The Minister had just finished a rather long and boring discussion on the matter of the Crown's income, and had taken an inordinate amount of time to get to the key point.

The King nodded thoughtfully. "No, I think a special project or two would be wise, any ideas, gentleman?"

Donovan had at least two or three ideas, but he preferred to sit back and listen first while the other King's Council members jockeyed for attention.

Their suggestions were fairly predictable. The Minister of Culture wanted to fund an archeological expedition where he thought there might be an old temple worth digging up. He suggested something like that regularly, even though the King had no interest whatsoever in resurrecting historical religions.

Then, of course, the other ministers wanted funding for their areas of responsibility. The Minister of Justice wanted more constables and magistrates. The Minister of Military Affairs wanted more weapons and speeders. And the Minister of Commerce wanted more subsidies to private businesses.

Finally, Donovan was tired of listening to the proposals and brought forth his own.

"I'd like to see investment in infrastructure," he said.

The Minister of Infrastructure seemed surprised but very pleased. Infrastructure projects rarely got attention.

"I thank you, Your Highness. Several of the roads that run east and west of the Capital need repaving," he said.

Donovan doubted that very much and even if they did need repaving, it probably was not urgent.

"Actually, I was hoping to see improvements on the North Road, between Blackstone and Clifton. According to the Duke of Worthingham, it's quite difficult to support the fort at Clifton," Donovan said.

The Minister of Military Affairs nodded in agreement. Donovan didn't need him to, the Duke himself commanded roughly half the military forces, so he knew his information was good. He had written to the Duke to ask about supplying that particular fort after he had heard from Lady Maren via Alec that horses were the primary mode of transportation in the North.

"They generally have to bring a separate speeder just with spare parts to replace the ones that break along the way," the Minister of Military Affairs said.

"There are a number of other infrastructure improvements that would also be beneficial in the region and could follow road repairs. Electrical and telegraph projects would be a suitable start," Donovan said.

"That's quite a bit of investment in one region," the Minister of Finance said.

"The North has historically received little investment. Now is as good a time as any to rectify that," Donovan said.

"Donovan, if you want to impress your mistress, buy her something shiny, don't derail the council," Kieran said.

A hushed silence fell over the meeting. Donovan clenched his teeth. Kieran rarely came to council meetings, but this was a special afternoon meeting to discuss tax revenue so, of course, he had come. The one small mercy was that Donovan was far more popular than Kieran, and no one laughed.

"The North accounts for nearly twenty percent of the population of the kingdom," Donovan said. He would have liked to shout and perhaps punch Kieran in the face, but knew he needed to stay calm.

"Yes, well, the rest of the kingdom has more pressing needs and from what I can tell the Northerners like their horses," Kieran said.

Donovan glared at Kieran.

"What do you propose?"

Donovan knew there was no point in trying to argue with Kieran, at least not in front of the rest of the council.

"Well, the Trackers are in desperate need of additional funding. We simply cannot keep up with the arrests and interrogations and trials. And we are also on the cusp of a technological breakthrough that will revolutionize how we handle witches," Kieran said.

Donovan wanted to slam his fist on the table. As soon as he heard Kieran say "technological breakthrough" Donovan knew he had lost the council's interest altogether. It didn't matter if the gold that went towards infrastructure improvement in the North would have tangible benefits, while giving it to the Trackers was unlikely to accomplish anything useful. Any promise—even unfounded—of improvement in the capture of witches would receive the entirety of the tax surplus.

Donovan barely listened to Kieran ramble on about some sort of captivity collar, he doubted very much it even existed. Instead, he spent most of his energy trying to appear as though he weren't furious. Throwing a tantrum before the council would accomplish nothing and only serve to amuse Kieran.

As Donovan predicted, with the council's recommendation, the King decided to allocate the tax surplus to Kieran. Donovan pretended to have very little interest in the outcome and left the meeting with good-natured remarks about how sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. However, the further he got away from the meeting, the angrier he got.

He was supposed to walk in the gardens with Lady Maren, so he knew he needed to calm down, but he stormed through the halls to his apartment. He couldn't help it; Kieran was ridiculously irritating. Donovan did at least have the presence of mind to take a deep breath and try to calm down before knocking on Lady Maren's door.

"Come in," she called.

He opened the door and went into her sitting room. She was standing and curtsied to him.

"My lady," he said with a nod.

He must've done a poor job of hiding his frustration because she looked taken aback.

"Would you perhaps like to cancel?" she asked.

"No," he grumbled. "It's fine."

She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"It isn't you, I was just in a very frustrating meeting," he explained.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked. She sounded uncertain, as though she wasn't sure if that was an appropriate question to ask him.

He scoffed. "I'm not supposed to talk about council business."

She nodded seriously. "I am a very poor keeper of secrets."

He couldn't help but laugh.

"I suppose you can be trusted," he said.

"You flatter me, Your Highness," she said in a pleasant tone and gestured for him to sit down.

He decided he probably needed to at least tell someone about the meeting even if he wasn't supposed to, so he sat down across from her.

"We were discussing what to do with a tax surplus and of course, every minister just wants the funding for themselves," he said.

She nodded.

"I proposed various infrastructure investments on the road from Blackstone to Clifton. The military has a difficult time supplying the fort, and you told me you can't even count on a damn telegram, so it seemed like a decent idea to at least repave the blasted road. But then Kieran swoops in with a rude remark and promises of some technology I'm sure is imaginary, but the damn council doesn't care, and they completely stop thinking and throw money at him to make the witches go away and all I could do is sit there because no one can possibly argue against that."

It was only after he rambled on that he realized he was perhaps discussing things that were rather important to the lady without much care. She looked fairly surprised but didn't comment, or at least didn't comment on what he thought she would.

"What did he say?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Prince Kieran," she said.

He growled in the back of his throat.

"He said that if I wanted to impress my mistress, I should buy her something shiny and not derail the council meeting," he snarled.

He could tell she was trying not to laugh.

"I do rather like shiny things," she said.

He stifled his own laugh.

"I know it was terribly rude and not funny, it's just such a misguided statement on so many levels," she said.

"Well, Kieran tends to think he knows more than he does," Donovan said.

"For what it's worth, I agree with you. Although I expect that's rather obvious," she said.

He nodded. It was, but it was still nice to be validated.

"I know eventually I will be king and essentially do whatever I like, so I recognize that it's somewhat petty to complain, but it is frustrating."

"I don't think it's petty. What you want to do would actually be helpful to people. It's hardly petty to be annoyed when you have to sit on your hands for who knows how many years. And it's not like the infrastructure inequity will improve if everyone keeps ignoring it," she said.

"That is...an excellent way of putting it," he said.

She shrugged.

"You don't seem particularly angry about this," he said.

She chuckled. "Gods, if I got angry every time the Crown did me wrong, I'd have died of a heart attack a long time ago."

He hadn't considered that.

"I expect there are few subjects who have been quite as wronged as you," he said.

"Well, perhaps of those still here to speak of it," she said.

He grimaced. "Apologies."

She waved his apology away. "I recognize you've likely never heard the perspective of someone like myself."

That was true enough. He'd rarely had anyone speak so freely with him about their opinion on the running of the kingdom. He found he both liked and disliked it.

The general sentiment of the King's Council was that they were doing a particularly fine job when it came to running the kingdom. Donovan found it uncomfortable to be confronted with the reality that there was quite a bit of room for improvement, but he felt it was good for him to hear it.

"I appreciate your candor," he said.

"Well, I reason that if you aren't going to turn me in for treason, you won't do it for sedition either," she said.

He chuckled. "Fair enough."

Then he sighed, "I suppose all I can really do is keep trying. Perhaps eventually they'll tire of giving Kieran money."

"For what it's worth, and speaking on behalf of the northerners who will never know about this, I appreciate you trying," she said.

"Well, do be sure to tell everyone the next time you're there," he said, and then rose.

"Would you like to come to the gardens? I'm tired of complaining," he said.

"That sounds lovely," she said, and they left together for the gardens.