The pitcher of ice water struck Mara before she could protect her face.

Mara sat on the edge of the massive canopy bed in the Princess’s quarters—a room that had remained locked and preserved like a shrine for seventeen years.

She wore a gown of soft lavender silk, but she felt entirely alien inside it. The room smelled of dried lavender and old paper, so different from the damp, drafty cellar beneath the kitchens where she used to sleep on a sack of straw.

The heavy oak door creaked open, and King Alden walked in, carrying a small silver box. The lines of fatigue were deep on his face, but his eyes held a warmth Mara had never seen before.

"I brought you something, my child," Alden said gently, sitting beside her on the edge of the bed. He opened the silver box to reveal a delicate golden filigree necklace set with a teardrop sunstone. "Your mother wore this on the day you were named. I kept it beside my bed every night since she passed."

Mara looked at the sparkling jewel, then down at her calloused hands. "Your Majesty... I don't know how to be a princess. I know how to scrub copper pots, mend linen, and curtsy to lords who spit on the floor. I don't know how to rule."

"You do not need to rule tonight, Aurelia," Alden said, taking her hand gently. "You only need to heal. Tomorrow, I will summon the Great Council and formalize your succession. No one will ever harm you again."

After the King kissed her cheek and departed, leaving four elite guards stationed outside her heavy double doors, Mara tried to sleep. But the silence of the room was overwhelming after years of hearing the scullery rats and the palace cooks shouting.

Suddenly, a subtle sound caught her ear.

It wasn't from the hallway. It was from the deep stone fireplace across the room.

Mara sat up, pulling the thick velvet blanket to her chin.

A hidden panel behind the hearth slid open with a scrape of stone on stone. Two men wearing dark leather armor and black face masks slipped into the room, their daggers glinting ominously in the dim moonlight filtering through the window.

Mara didn't scream. Years of surviving in the palace depths had taught her that screaming bought no time—action did.

She grabbed the heavy silver water pitcher from her bedside table and hurled it with all her strength at the first assassin. It struck him full in the face, sending him stumbling back into his partner.

"Quiet her!" the second assassin hissed, recovering quickly and lunging across the rug with his blade pointed at her heart.

Mara rolled off the far side of the bed just as the daggers slashed through the silk sheets. She grabbed a heavy brass candelabra from the desk, holding it out like a club.