The light was colder than I expected.
It hit my face in a flat, pale sheet as I stepped out of the carriage, a different kind of spotlight than the one in my ballroom — harsher, more honest. No chandeliers to soften it. No polished marble to bounce it back in glittering shards.
Just sky. And eyes. So many eyes.
The west market was already awake.
Voices tangled together in a low, restless hum — vendors calling out prices, children shrieking as they wove between grown-up legs, carts creaking over uneven stone. The air was a stew of smells: bread, smoke, sweat, brine from fish barrels. Underneath it all, something sour and metallic. Fear, if fear had a scent.
I swallowed. My fingers tightened involuntarily around Axel's.
"Breathe," he murmured under his breath, his mouth barely moving.
"I am breathing," I lied.
He squeezed my hand once, then let go. For show.
We were supposed to look effortless. Regal. Unbothered by the fact that we'd just walked, willingly, into the exact place every guard and general had spent days warning us away from.
I forced my shoulders back, lifted my chin. Look up, Rome. Make them believe you are unshakeable.
Captain Joren's plain-clothed guards were already moving through the crowd — a brown coat here, a patched sleeve there. Invisible if you didn't know what to look for. I did. I could almost feel them, like a second skin around us.
"Remember," Axel's voice drifted softly to me as we began to walk, "they're already talking about you. You might as well give them something true to use."
"Is that your way of telling me not to faint?" I muttered.
"Yes," he said. "Preferably."
We left the shadow of the gate and stepped fully into the square.
The murmur shifted. Parted.
"Is that—?" "Princess—" "Can't be—"
The crowd drew back in instinctive ripples, like we were a stone dropped into a pond. No one knelt. No one bowed. They just… looked.
I realized, with a cold twist in my stomach, that this was the first time most of them had ever seen me without distance in between. No balcony. No soldiers. No polished version in some artist's painting.
Just me.
A woman with a too-heavy tiara and a heart currently trying to punch out of her ribs.
A little girl clutched her mother's skirt, staring up at us with enormous eyes. A man with flour on his hands crossed his arms, expression unreadable. Two teenagers on a crate fell abruptly silent, their easy laughter dying as they took us in.
On the edge of the square, the old well squatted like a forgotten tooth. Its iron cap gleamed too bright. The stone around it was scrubbed too clean.
A faint scratch, half-erased, caught the light.
Broken.
I tore my gaze away.
If I stared at that symbol, I'd lose my nerve.
"Rome," Axel said quietly.
He didn't have to say more. My feet moved.
We walked toward the fountain.
It sat exactly where Farron had said — a cracked ring of stone at the center of the square, its basin only half full, water catching what little light the sky offered. Someone had wedged a pair of wilted flowers into a gap in the lip. An old ribbon, sun-bleached pink, fluttered from a nearby post.
A few guards stood at discreet points near the fountain — Joren at the edge of my vision, a woman balancing a basket that I knew hid more than loaves, a boy who seemed far too alert to be a mere errand runner.
Beyond them: faces. So many faces.
I forced myself up the two worn steps onto the fountain's base. The stone was cold, even through my shoes.
The crowd didn't surge forward. It didn't cheer. It just… waited.
My throat went dry.
This is it, I thought. The moment where I stop being a painting and find out if they want the girl inside the frame.
Axel stepped up beside me. His hand brushed mine, briefly, a flicker of contact like a borrowed heartbeat.
"You go first," he murmured, eyes on the square. "You're better at terrifying them."
"Flattering," I muttered.
I took a breath. Then another.
"Good morning," I called, my voice carrying further than I'd expected in the chilly air.
A rustle answered me. Not words. Not yet. Just the sound of people shifting their weight, adjusting their grip on baskets, making room for the ones straining to see behind them.
"I'm Rome," I said.
Not Princess. Not Your Highness. Not anything but the name my father whispered the first time he carried me into the gardens.
A few eyebrows rose. Someone near the front — a man with a scar cutting through one brow — snorted softly.
"Iris knows me," I went on, glancing briefly toward the side of the square where familiar colors clustered — softer fabrics, pale shawls. "You've watched me grow up from a distance. Seen my mistakes. My parties. My speeches." I let my mouth twist. "My terrible hat choices."
A tiny ripple of uneasy laughter. Good. Breath.
"But Darkstorm…" I looked to the other side — darker cloaks, sharper lines, the weight of Lucia's country pressing against the iron of the gate. "You've only heard stories. About the garden girl who killed rebels in her own halls. The one who sings to birds instead of swords. The spark someone threw into your storm."
A murmur there, sharper. The word spark hissed at my feet like something alive.
"I won't tell you those stories are wrong," I said. "I did kill men in my own corridors. I do sing to birds. I am a spark." I let the word sit on my tongue a second longer. "But a spark alone doesn't burn a kingdom. It just shows you where everything's too dry."
Silence.
Behind me, I felt Axel's attention sharpen, like a blade checking the weight of its own edge.
"You've heard speeches," I continued. "About unity. About peace. About how this marriage will fix everything." I spread my free hand. "I won't insult you by pretending that one dress and one day solved the hunger in those stalls or the missing sons at your tables."
In the front row, Marla — flour on her sleeves as always — lifted her chin, watching me with that same shrewd calm from before.
"You don't need more promises," I said. "You need to know whether we see you. Whether we're willing to stand on the same stone you use every day and hear the things you only whisper when you think the walls aren't listening."
I paused.
A baby fussed somewhere in the middle of the crowd. A dog barked once, sharply, then fell silent.
"I am not here," I said slowly, "to tell you the broken crown is wrong about everything. Taxes are high. Work is hard. War has taken too much from all of us." I let the words hang. "But I will tell you this:
The people painting symbols on your walls don't care which of you dies first, as long as something burns."
A low, restless rustle. Unease.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Joren's hand drift toward the knife hidden at his belt.
"That crown they draw?" I nodded in the direction of the well. "Half dark. Half light. Cracked. Bleeding. They want you to believe that the only way forward is to shatter both our kingdoms and stand in the ashes."
I stepped to the very edge of the fountain, my skirt whispering over stone. I felt Axel move with me, close enough that the heat of him warmed my right side.
"I'm not asking you to love this union," I said. "Or to forgive everything that brought us here. I'm asking you to see that if this experiment fails, people like us"—I gestured to the balconies of the palace in the distance—"will survive it in silk." I looked back at the faces in front of me. "You won't."
That, at least, landed. A muscle ticked in Marla's jaw.
From somewhere near the back, a voice called out.
"And what are you going to do about it?"
It wasn't angry. It wasn't respectful. It was… tired.
A murmur of agreement followed.
I shaded my eyes, scanning until I found the speaker — a man with a fisherman's shoulders and a mended coat, standing on a low crate.
Farron. Of course.
He watched me with that same quiet, measuring gaze from the courtyard.
"You came down from your balcony," he said. "Fine. You see us. Fine. But sight isn't bread. Words aren't work. What changes today, spark?"
Every head near him turned back to me.
Spark.
Axel shifted, as if to speak. I shook my head the tiniest bit.
"Today?" I said. "Today, nothing changes. If anyone promises you more from one speech, they're lying to you. Today is just…" I searched for the word. "A crack. In the right direction."
Murmurs. Some skeptical. Some simply… listening.
"In three days," I went on, "the council wants to raise levies on the western road again — the one your carts use to bring food into the city." I nodded to the merchants. "They'll say it's to pay for more guards. More walls. More safety."
Marla's mouth tightened.
"I will stand there," I said, "in that room, with those men, and I will say no. Loudly. Every time they ask. Because a kingdom that eats its markets empty isn't safer. It's just quieter. For a while."
"And when they ignore you?" someone else shouted.
"Then they'll ignore me while I'm there," I said. "Not because I sat here smiling on a balcony pretending I didn't hear you."
A harsh laugh from the scar-browed man near the front.
"You think we care what they ignore in their pretty hall?" he called. "We care what happens when our ledgers are empty."
"I know," I said softly.
The girl with the kindling bundle — the one who'd slipped Adam that note days ago — stood near Farron now, eyes bright and sharp.
"And what about their prince?" she piped up, chin jutting toward Axel. "He going to let his mother keep grinding us down while he dances?"
Dozens of eyes snapped to him.
I felt, more than saw, the way his spine straightened.
He stepped up beside me, our shoulders almost touching.
"My mother," he said evenly, "doesn't grind anyone's grain. Her lords do. Her laws do. And I have spent most of my life being told to enforce them without question."
A dark murmur at that. No one likes the word enforce.
"But," he went on, voice tightening in a way I recognized now as courage forcing its way past fear, "I meant what I said in the Temple. I will not be the kind of king who pretends he doesn't know where the food comes from or where the coin goes. I won't promise I can fix everything in a week. Or a year. I don't know if anyone can."
He paused. His gaze swept the square.
"What I can promise," he said, quieter now but somehow more dangerous, "is that when someone in my court says your lives are an acceptable price for their comfort, I will make sure they never say it twice."
There was something in his tone that made even Marla's eyes widen, just a little.
"And if you fail?" Farron asked.
Axel didn't look away.
"Then you'll still see me," he said. "Here. Not just in paintings. And you'll know exactly whose door to paint your symbols on."
A strange sound rose from the crowd then — not a cheer, not quite. But not derision either.
Something shifting.
The girl with the kindling grinned suddenly, teeth flashing white in her smudged face.
"Reckless," she declared to no one in particular. "I like her. I'll decide about him later."
A ripple of actual laughter spread outward.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
"Questions," I said, before fear could creep back in. "You have them. We're here now. Ask."
A dozen voices started at once. Taxes. Bread. Conscription.
A woman shoved forward, apron stained, eyes shining more with exhaustion than anger.
"My son," she said, voice shaking. "He was taken last winter. They said it was for 'peacekeeping' at the border. No letter since. No coin. No word." Her gaze locked onto mine like a hand around my throat. "Do you know where he is?"
My tongue felt thick.
"I don't," I said honestly. "But I know which ledger his name is in. Give it to me after this, and I will find out who signed it."
"And then what?" she demanded. "You'll send me a nice apology when they tell you he's gone?"
The words hit like a slap.
I didn't flinch.
"If he's dead," I said quietly, "you deserve more than an apology. You deserve the name of the man who decided not to tell you. I can give you that, at least. It isn't enough. But it's more than you have now."
She stared at me, as if weighing whether that was worth anything.
Slowly, she nodded.
More questions.
Some shouted. Some almost whispered.
We answered what we could. Admitted what we couldn't.
The square, at some point, stopped feeling like a stage and started feeling like… a room. A hard one. A necessary one.
Time blurred.
I only knew we had to leave when Joren's voice brushed my ear from somewhere behind the fountain.
"Your Highness," he murmured, low enough that only I could hear, "we're at the edge of our window. The watch has seen movement on the roofs. Nothing certain. But enough."
Enough. Enough to die.
I met Axel's gaze.
He gave the faintest nod.
"We have to go," I called, lifting my voice again. "Not because we're done. Because your guards will drag me out by my tiara if I don't obey them occasionally."
A few scattered snorts.
"But we will be back," I said. "Not with fanfare. Not with doves. With ledgers. With names. With questions of our own. You want to paint crowns? Fine. Paint them on doors that deserve it. Just make sure you know who's really holding the brush."
I let my gaze flick deliberately toward the wealthier edge of the market — the noble carts, the finer coats.
A few of them shifted uncomfortably. Good.
"And if some fool throws a bomb at this fountain," I added, "don't let them tell you it was for your sake. Ask whose table got safer. It won't be yours."
That landed harder than anything else I'd said all morning.
We stepped down from the fountain.
A path opened, thinner this time.
As we moved through the crowd, people didn't part in the same way. Some reached out, fingers brushing my sleeve. My skirt. Axel's coat.
Not in reverence. Not even in affection.
In curiosity. In testing.
As if to make sure we were solid.
At the edge of the square, near the alley to Farron's courtyard, the little girl with the kindling darted up to me, thrust something into my hand, and disappeared before I could react.
I looked down.
A small, roughly carved wooden charm. A bird.
I didn't know what it meant. I tucked it into my pocket anyway.
We reached the carriage.
Only when the door shut behind us and the wheels began to roll did my knees finally threaten to give out.
I sagged into the seat, hands shaking so hard I had to clench them into fists.
Axel watched me for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't mocking. It wasn't amused.
It was the wild, disbelieving sound of someone who's just walked across a tightrope and realized, belatedly, how far down the ground is.
"You," he said, shaking his head, "are absolutely out of your mind."
"Yes," I said weakly. "I know."
He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, eyes bright with leftover adrenaline.
"They're going to have my head for that," he went on. "My mother. Darius. Your ministers. Cassian. Every lord who thinks 'listening' is a luxury."
"Mine too," I said. "We can share a pike."
His mouth curved.
"They looked at you," he said quietly. "Not like they look at a portrait. Like they were… considering."
"Considering whether to riot," I muttered.
"Considering whether to hope," he countered.
Hope.
The word sat uncomfortably in my chest. Like a stone I'd swallowed without meaning to.
For a moment, the carriage was just the sound of wheels over stone and both our breaths trying to slow down.
My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
Axel noticed.
"Come here," he said softly.
I didn't think. I just obeyed.
He shifted to sit beside me, close enough that our thighs pressed together. One of his hands found mine, pried my fingers gently open, lacing his through them.
The other rose, almost hesitant, brushing a stray curl from my cheek.
"You did it," he murmured.
"So did you," I whispered back.
"We survived," he said.
"For now," I replied.
His thumb traced a small circle on the back of my hand. Slow. Steady.
The world outside the carriage — the shouting, the stalls, the broken crown scratched into stone — felt like it belonged to another life.
This one was smaller. Sharper.
"Rome," he said after a long moment, voice rougher than before.
"Yes?"
"If we make it through this," he said, "through markets and crowns and rebels and all of it… I want you to remember something."
"What?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.
"That today," he said, "when the world could have turned on us, you didn't hide. You didn't smile from a balcony. You stood there and let them see you shake." His gaze held mine. "And they didn't turn away."
My throat closed.
"I was terrified," I said.
"I know," he replied. "So was I."
I studied his face — the faint line between his brows, the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the way his eyes still held a flicker of the square's reflection.
"We're idiots," I whispered.
"Completely," he agreed.
We were still holding hands.
I became acutely aware of it then. The warmth of his palm. The way his fingers curled around mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"We should…" I began, meaning we should talk about what we'd said, what we'd promised Farron, what this meant for the broken crown.
Instead, the carriage hit a small bump. I lurched forward.
Right into him.
His free arm went around my waist on instinct, steadying me.
My chest pressed against his.
The world stuttered.
"Careful," he murmured. But his voice had dropped, low and warm. Too close.
I should have pulled back.
I didn't.
For a heartbeat, for three, we just stayed there — breathing the same thin slice of air, our foreheads almost touching, the taste of the market's dust still on my tongue.
"Rome," he said, my name a warning and a question all at once.
"Yes?" I breathed.
He swallowed. His eyes flicked to my mouth.
I knew what was going to happen before it did.
And this time, there would be no balcony. No doors creaking open. No parents clearing their throats in the doorway.
Just us.
"We should talk to your father," he said weakly. "About the levies. About—"
"Yes," I said. I didn't move.
"About patrols," he went on. "About extra guards. About—"
"Axel," I cut in softly.
He stilled.
"Later," I said.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Later," he agreed.
He didn't kiss me.
Not yet.
The carriage wheels rattled over a rough patch of road, jostling us together again.
My heart leapt into my throat.
He exhaled, eyes closing briefly like a man making a decision that might change everything.
"Rome," he said again, voice barely above a whisper.
"Mm?"
"Remind me," he murmured, "to thank the gods for uneven roads."
I laughed. I couldn't help it.
The sound dissolved something tight between us.
He smiled then — wide and honest, not the crooked, careful thing he wore for courts — and for a moment, the carriage didn't feel like a box hurtling toward more responsibility.
It felt like a door.
One we were both finally, finally considering opening.
The palace walls rose ahead in the small window, familiar and unforgiving.
"Back to the board," Axel said, releasing my waist but not my hand.
"Back to our crowns," I agreed.
But even as the gates swung open and the guards snapped to attention, I could feel the shape of something else coiled between us:
Not just duty. Not just alliance.
A tension we'd both been pretending was practice.
And now, after standing on a cracked fountain and asking a whole kingdom to decide whether to trust us, there was only one question left:
When would we stop pretending with each other?
Soon, a traitorous part of me thought.
Too soon.