She had kept her attire simple that day.
Her long burgundy hair was pulled into a crossed bun, with a few loose strands framing her ears while the rest fell freely down her back.
A single ebony pin held it in place, supported by a few plain silver pins.
There was nothing extravagant about her appearance.
She wore a mist blue linen blouse beneath a moon white half sleeve, paired with a plain white gauze skirt bearing only the faintest woven pattern.
Nothing about her clothing demanded attention.
Yet as she stepped through the firelight, with the dark hills rising behind her, she looked like something from an old tale, as though she had stepped straight out of the woods.
“Princess Aisling of Ardmore presents a dance in honor of this alliance!” the Master of Ceremonies announced.
Hearing the announcement only confirmed her suspicions.
Her stepmother and Lady Neala had planned every part of this beforehand.
She could see it in the way people’s expressions changed and in the quick, uneasy glances passing between them.
It was strange, and everyone knew it.
Two princesses playing music was one thing, but putting royal blood on display to dance as though she were some hired entertainer was another matter entirely.
Had the Riordans truly lost every scrap of decency they had left?
There was no way out now.
Refusing would only shame the king in front of his own court.
Aisling’s mind raced.
She bowed politely, then lifted her head.
“My skill is modest and unworthy of such an occasion.
But I will offer a sword dance, for the health and long life of this alliance.”
That much, at least, was true.
Aisling genuinely did not know how to dance.
In her old life, illness had kept her from ever learning.
In this one, she had been just as frail, and her family had been far too protective to let her try.
Dancing was not something noblewomen were expected to know anyway, so no one had ever bothered teaching her.
When she had been around ten years old, she had watched her cousins train with weapons and desperately wanted to join them, health be damned.
She could not manage the real training, so she had simply copied a few of their movements, sparring with them like it was a game.
The movements had been meant for combat, not performance, but the entire Delaney household doted on her far too much to ever tell her no.
Her cousins had always humored her.
“Granted,” King Cathal said with a nod.
Aisling looked around and spotted one of the royal guards nearby, a sword hanging at his hip.
She stepped toward him.
“May I borrow your sword?”
The guard immediately unbuckled it and offered it to her with both hands.
Aisling closed her fingers around the bronze hilt and drew the weapon, tightening her grip as she found the strength to pull the blade free.
The scabbard rang with a sharp metallic note.
She stepped back into the open space, holding the sword at an angle across her forehead, its tip pointing downward.
Two fingers of her other hand rested lightly against the flat of the blade.
She turned her face slightly.
The polished steel caught the firelight, reflecting her cold eyes like distant stars.
Her wide sleeves lifted in the night wind like rolling clouds, a stark contrast to the stillness and control of the rest of her body.
She had not even begun moving, yet something about her posture already held the attention of everyone watching.
Ronan, without realizing it, straightened where he sat.
He leaned forward, his green eyes burning with something fierce, his hands slowly curling into fists.
Aisling closed her eyes and recalled the few movements she remembered from all those years ago.
Then she opened them.
Her feet moved.
Her arms followed.
A lifted knee.
A thrust.
A turn into an upward slash.
Her plain white skirt bloomed beneath the dark sky like a lotus opening.
She had not practiced in years, and the sword was heavier than she remembered.
Her strength was not what it should have been, and her movements were stiff and unpolished.
But heaven had never been fair about such things.
The truly beautiful carried something beyond their features alone, a kind of presence that drew the eye even when they stood completely still.
Whatever she lacked in skill, something about the way she moved still captivated the people watching.
Even the rough, unfinished parts of the performance appeared breathtaking, as though she were wrapped in moonlight, alone and otherworldly, like something taken straight from an ancient poem.
Everyone had fallen into that dreamlike moment when a sharp, piercing sound suddenly cut through the night.
Arrows.
They came raining down like falling stars.
One tore through Aisling’s sleeve and buried itself in the ground beside her, its fletching still trembling.
She stumbled but caught herself. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
More arrows whistled through the air, striking the ground and structures around her.
If she had not shifted her stance a heartbeat earlier, the first arrow would have pierced her chest.
Something inside her understood instantly that everything had gone wrong.
There was no time to be afraid.
No time to figure out what was happening.
She hesitated for only a heartbeat before raising the sword and cutting through her own pinned sleeve.
The moment she was free, screams erupted across the banquet.
“Assassins!”
“Protect the king!”
Guards drew their weapons and formed a wall around King Cathal while ministers and nobles scattered in chaos.
Braziers toppled over, setting tables and curtains ablaze.
Fire spread rapidly through the banquet grounds.
Aisling stood directly in the middle of it all, making herself an obvious target.
She saw men dressed in black emerging from the shadows, cutting toward both the king and Ronan.
She did not think.
She simply grabbed her sword and ran toward the noblewomen’s banquet.
She could only hope that the assassins wanted those two men and would have no interest in the women.
The women’s banquet was less than a hundred steps away in the neighboring pavilion.
Even from there, the women could hear the fighting, and panic had already taken hold by the time Aisling reached Bríd and Róisín.
Finding them again steadied her somewhat.
“My lady!”
“My lady, are you hurt?”
Everyone around them was in a state of complete panic.
Aisling quietly pulled Bríd and Róisín toward the garden outside the hall.
Then she realized, with a sinking feeling, that some of the assassins who had failed to reach the king and Ronan had turned their attention toward the women instead.
She sensed the danger before she could explain it.
Aisling bolted toward the hall’s exit, with the others screaming and scrambling behind her.
The assassins kept coming.
Gráinne heard there were assassins loose and thought immediately of Aisling.
She searched through the chaos until she found her, then hiked up her skirts and ran after her as quickly as she could.
Aisling had always been the person Gráinne instinctively followed.
Something inside her simply could not stop chasing after her, like a child who had lost her mother and only felt safe when she was nearby.
In the dim light, however, Gráinne failed to notice something beneath her feet and fell hard.
One of the black clad men saw his opportunity and strode toward her, weapon raised.
Halfway through the swing, something slammed into him from the side.
His curved blade struck the ground only inches from Gráinne’s ear.
Her entire body locked in shock.
She had never come so close to death before.
Róisín came rushing from the side and grappled with the man.
Young as she was, she had trained in Ardmore since childhood, and it showed.
She was quick and capable, holding her own against him even as he fought back fiercely.
Bríd grabbed a knife and moved to help, but the struggle moved too quickly, and she hesitated, terrified of striking the wrong person in the darkness.
Whatever luck Aisling had used up avoiding the first arrow seemed to have run out.
More assassins spotted her and came straight toward her.
The women’s banquet had no guards left.
Every soldier had been pulled away to protect the king.
The sprawling grounds were wide open, leaving nothing to slow the attackers.
The second man reached Aisling before she could properly register his movement.
He raised his weapon.
Just as he was about to strike, something seized him tightly around the waist from behind.
Gráinne, barely back on her feet, had thrown her entire body onto his back.
“Sister, run!”
The assassin drove an elbow backward to break free.
Aisling saw it land.
She saw something in Gráinne break beneath the force of the blow.
Yet somehow, that fragile girl found more courage than Aisling had ever seen in her.
The assassin finally shook her off.
He turned back toward Aisling.
Something cold flashed before his eyes.
The next instant, a blade pierced straight through his chest. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
The prop sword had suddenly become a real weapon.
His eyes went distant.
Slowly, he looked down at the blade buried in his chest, disbelief written across his face.
He had never imagined that he would die at the hands of a noblewoman.
As he collapsed, blood sprayed across Aisling’s white dress, splattering her face crimson.
She had already seen plenty of bodies by then.
The bloody road out of Ardmore only weeks earlier had made certain of that.
But she had never killed anyone herself.
She could not put a name to what she felt.
Her entire body went numb.
Her hands shook violently.
Before she could steady herself, the assassin still fighting Róisín saw his companion cut down by a woman.
Something inside him snapped.
He shoved Róisín aside, tore the curved knife from Bríd’s grip, and charged straight toward Aisling.
He raised the weapon high.
The cold silver crescent gleamed against the dark sky.
Then he brought it down toward her head with everything he had.
Aisling raised her sword on instinct, but she was not fast enough.
At the final moment, an arrow struck the blade with enough force to send a sharp metallic ringing through the air.
Aisling staggered backward.
Then she was caught.
An unfamiliar arm wrapped firmly around her waist and pulled her against a chest far taller than her own.
Her sword slipped from her hand and struck the ground.
Cold wind brushed across her cheek.
Ronan, unmatched in battle, had already cut through the first wave of arrows with his men.
Once the fight had come down to blades, the assassins were no match for him.
After cutting down several attackers and breaking free, he remembered which direction Aisling had run.
He went looking for her.
What he found was something he would never forget.
Under the dark sky, amid the chaos spilling across the palace grounds, he had seen a delicate woman raise a sword with steady hands and drive it into a man’s heart.
Blood bloomed across white silk like red flowers, terrible and beautiful at once.
Whatever Ronan had felt when he first saw her on the road, this struck him even harder.
Something in the image of her that he had created in his mind cracked apart.
In its place emerged something sharper and clearer.
That was the kind of woman he wanted to marry.
A woman like that was worthy of someone like him.
Having pulled Aisling out of danger, Ronan kept one arm around her waist while using the other to cut down the remaining assassins.
His strength was almost unnatural.
Every movement was swift and merciless.
The last of the assassins fell quickly, and the rest of Ronan’s men arrived soon afterward to finish the fight.
The danger passed almost as quickly as it had begun.
Aisling slowly lifted her head from Ronan’s chest.
She saw the sharp line of his jaw and finally recognized him.
The Prince of Dunmara.
She placed one hand lightly against him, testing her balance.
Whether Ronan did not notice or simply did not care, the arm around her waist did not loosen.
If anything, he was holding her more securely, almost lifting her off her feet rather than simply supporting her.
Although she was safe now, something about the closeness still made her uneasy.
She could not tell whether he had deliberately saved her or whether it had simply been chance.
Either way, the closeness unsettled her.
Had Lady Neala’s plan actually worked after all?
There was nothing else she could do.
Aisling remained where she was, lifted her eyes to his, and spoke with genuine gratitude.
“Thank you, Prince of Dunmara.
You saved my life.”
Her voice still carried a rasp from the running and the fight.
To Ronan, however, it sounded better than every note of music that had been played that night.
He did not seem to register her thanks.
Instead, he tilted his head downward, studying her face with those strange, deep green eyes.
Something unreadable lingered in his expression.
Then he asked,
“What’s your name?”