Over the final days of the first week of campaigning, Briar learned, with ever more sinking dread, that singing had not changed things.

Well, it had not changed things with Frieda.

Neither Briar nor Ben heard from or saw Frieda for a full day after. It sent Ben back into his shadow of focused work, and whenever Briar tried to speak with him, he brushed her off with a forced smile and a witty remark and excused himself.

She could not decide whether to be furious at Frieda or heartbroken; whether to storm to her rooms and scream at her or try to figure out some other way to get through to her.

The biggest praise for her performance with Ben came from, surprisingly, Briar’s vassals. Briar had won over the Electors with her ability to command a room. She had held the ballroom in thrall, and that, alongside her peaceful solution for the made-up territory dispute and the way she had spoken with Johann during their chess match, meant that the Electors placed her as one of the front-runners alongside Frieda and, surprisingly, Johann. Her vassals told her he was favored entirely because of his age and the fact that it made him easy to manipulate.

Another reason to try to win, then, for his sake now, too, as he did not seem at all interested in winning emperor, and was concentrating on being more aware of the way he treated his attendants.

With each subsequent event that finished out that first week, meals and more gaming afternoons and even a performed drama, Briar found herself seeking Frieda and Johann every time she entered whatever room hosted them, only able to relax once she saw that they were both present and unharmed. Ben reported no attempts on either of their lives—no rumors of any, at least—and when Briar demanded her vassals and aunts tell her if any moves had been made against her, they averted their eyes and assured her that she was safe.

Filibert was still so ill that he had withdrawn his candidacy and returned to Lüneburg.

His brother, Gottlieb, still had not been seen, and was presumed to have returned to his home as well. Ben uncovered no new rumors about him.

Three other candidates were called back home by disasters: a burned estate, a suspected uprising, an ill relative.

Briar could not believe the validity of those explanations, seeing only the connecting thread of candidates removed through nefarious means. Each event she arrived at felt smaller and smaller, as the crowd shrank, and it began to feel as if the walls were closing in.

By the start of the second week, there were only five candidates remaining.

Her vassals rejoiced. Her aunts congratulated her. She was one of the front-runners, one of five candidates to rule, and she had no idea how to feel about that.

Relieved, she supposed; she was one step closer to ensuring that Bavaria did not seize the empire and oppress Austria with nothing to stop them. But she was feeling more and more the weight of what it would mean to be empress—events with the Prince Electors were beset with tests that showed what her life would be like in that role. Levying taxes, enforcing law, determining guilty or innocent parties, judging whether foreign slights amounted to acts of war.

These were tests only, coming from the Prince Electors, but they were not tests, were they? They would be real situations that affected real people if she were empress, and Briar was too aware of the fact that no matter what choice she made, people would suffer, and that kick of compassion was both blessing and curse. And alongside these tests, the threat of poisoning, attack, and death would remain, wouldn’t it? As empress, she would be targeted, even more so than as Queen of Austria.

Frieda, though, was emboldened by Briar’s rising prominence, and she and Matilda emphasized Bavaria’s known lust for war—only now, they framed it as simply not allowing good people to be taken advantage of. As Briar listened to Frieda’s responses to tests posed, she had to admit that, on occasion, it made sense to defend small border towns with shows of strength rather than let them be trampled by neighboring aggressors—that sometimes, violence was necessary—but Briar could not see when that was the case until Frieda had presented her arguments.

It was an exhausting push-and-pull. Dinners and dancing, but tension wove through every interaction, and Matilda did not let Frieda out of her sight anymore, did not allow propriety to force her to interact with Briar and her group.

This campaign was what Frieda had said it would be: a competition between her and Briar.

Because they had both been cursed by Maleficent.

Because there were forces at work on their lives that Briar did not understand, and it terrified her that she and Frieda were playing into a larger game that neither could see.

How had the curse manifested for Frieda? What had Maleficent done to her?

For all her posturing about not being helpless again, she had no choice but to try to win empress. She felt as she had when she’d approached Maleficent’s spindle: hypnotically drawn to what she knew would be a violent end, but all else was dark and shapeless and there were no other options.

So she would touch this spindle.

And she would just have to hope that she would wake up on the other side again.

Little princess, my gift shall be…

The woman in blue faced off against a man in an opulent ballroom. She was focused in rage, hands clenched, but she was terrified, a terror that was palpable through the heave and ripple of the dream.

At her side appeared a woman in a sumptuous gown of lace and airy silk, and as the woman in blue scowled at the man, the other woman put her hand on her friend’s arm—she was a friend, that was the overwhelming feeling—and the woman in blue’s face relaxed.

Other people appeared around the woman in blue as the dream shifted and flickered. Men in fine clothing, a portly chef in a knit cap, a child, too; others, all with the same overwhelming feeling: friendship, companionship, support.

Tiny princess, my gift shall be…

The woman under the five shooting stars stood on a battlefield, her face sweaty and dirt-streaked, a sword at her side. For a moment, she alone faced an army of thousands, their bodies stretching into the horizon as one solid mass of impending consumption. The woman was fierce and ready, but she would be destroyed by this army.

A flash, and people appeared around her. Women by the dozens; soldiers armed and determined.

They all faced the army now, together.

Sweet princess…

Creatures half-man, half-beast corralled a screaming group in a grand ballroom. Serpents appeared, lashing scaly tails, smoke thickening the air as the people cried out for help. The woman who had snuffed the flames stood among them, one of them, and she would make a shield of herself to save them—

Until others appeared with her, broadening that shield, protecting her as well. A man with a cockeyed grin; a tiger, fierce and snarling; a…flying carpet? That couldn’t be right—and there were women, too, one who bowed low and mouthed, “Your Majes—Your Majesty.”

What will you do with these visions, Briar, Aurora?

Little princess. Little princess.

Did I give you a gift after all?

Briar came awake, not with a jolt but with a smooth emergence into awareness. She lay still for a moment, curved against Phillip’s chest, her eyes closed, feeling the lingering threads of her dream, as always. The dreams haunted her every night now.

And there had been other emotions—not merely fear and threat and terror. Under the curse, and up until now, there had only ever been fear and threat and terror, things to torment her.

But this time…

There had been support. Encouragement. Things that left Briar reeling, her mind aching.

Her first thought was that this couldn’t have come from Maleficent. Maybe her mind had finally broken free of that curse, and she was formulating her own dreams now, taking those pieces left behind and building them into something grand.

But…she had heard that voice still.

Maleficent’s voice.

What will you do with these visions, Briar, Aurora? Did I give you a gift after all?

Briar lay in the dark, eyes still shut, her breath quickening yet her pulse sluggish.

Had her other dreams shown positive things, too, only she had been too blinded by the fear to see them?

Briar clenched her jaw, refusing to answer that question.

Frieda’s words were getting to her. That Maleficent’s curse was not a curse, but a fairy gift. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be true.

There was nothing positive she could gain from these visions. There was nothing to be gained because of the agony Maleficent had caused, and even if there was a gift in these things, Briar did not want it.

Even so, her mind pulsed with the memory of the women standing tall against their struggles, friends at their backs.

They felt the same things she did: fear, anxiety, terror, loneliness. And yet they had friends, they had victory, they had support, and that was what helped them overcome the darkness.

Beneath her cheek, Phillip’s chest twitched. “Are you all right?” came his soft whisper, gently coaxing in case she still slept.

She arched up, nestling her face into the bend of his neck. By the dull light slitting through their bed’s drapes, she knew it was morning, though only just.

“Of course,” she said into his smooth skin there.

Phillip curved his arm across her shoulder, toying with the lace edge of her shift’s collar where it gaped over her shoulder. “Liar.”

She stilled, lips to his skin, and in lieu of trying to convince him of what he well knew was, indeed, a lie, she kissed the tendon that bundled in his neck when he tried to look down at her.

“Go back to sleep,” he told her. “We have a few hours yet.”

“A few hours,” she echoed, and laid her cheek back on his chest, her mind working—what was today? “You joust this afternoon.”

“Mm.”

“You should be the one going back to sleep,” she said, lethargic, exhaustion potent and relentless, and she wanted to sleep without dreams, she wanted to sleep without fear, she wanted—

Phillip had already been awake.

She leaned up on her elbow, blinking down at him through the gray atmosphere of their curtained bed. “Have you slept?”

He ran his fingers through her hair, and after a long moment of silence—again, silence as an answer; she hated it from her vassals, hated it more from Phillip—he propped himself up on his elbow to match her posture and kissed her.

She groaned into his mouth. “I know what you’re doing.”

He rolled them both, trapping her beneath him on the bed. “I am kissing my wife in our bed. I should hope you know what I am doing.”

His teeth pressed down on the lobe of her ear and she momentarily forgot everything—the dream, the question he had not answered.

“One day,” she gasped, “you will answer my question, Sir Knight.”

He stilled over her, lips resting on her ear, now brushing the sensitive skin there. “Not now,” he whispered, and it was too raw, too pleading. It altered the mood entirely, drowsy teasing to a scrambling handhold at something solid and fortifying and real.

She knew that desire too well. To find solace in him.

“Not now,” she heard herself agree before she could think it through.

It had been Not now for weeks. He had avoided any mention of his discomfort or why he did not sleep or the way he still occasionally got that look on his face, a suggestion of the panic that had incapacitated him.

“Phillip,” she tried. “You can—”

But he kissed her again, more intently, open mouth and soft tongue, a wordless reassurance as he slid his arm beneath her hips to hold her against him.

I am fine, the kiss said, the motion of his body, the resolution in his touch. I am fine, I promise.

And so she made her kiss a response. I am here. I am here, and I’m not going anywhere.

The jousting list was impressively large, spanning the whole width of the castle, with multiple areas for competitors. It spanned the whole width of the castle, multiple areas for competitors to face off, all of it rimmed by stands for the crowds that even now packed the arena. The event had been opened to the people of Frankfurt, with one section kept exclusively for the election candidates and their parties.

That was where Briar stood, at the edge of the balcony box, with Merryweather next to her.

One of her aunts was always with her now.

She’d asked them about this change. They had forced smiles and told her not to worry.

One morning, Fauna had been whispering with Flora over Briar’s breakfast spread. Briar had been leaving her bedchamber, and her aunts had not spotted her yet, so Briar heard Fauna choke out a horrified “…found poison—” before Flora noticed her and gave another masking smile.

She knew she would be targeted. She knew she had been targeted, and that her aunts and vassals weren’t telling her.

But she couldn’t make the reality settle in her mind. It felt absurd, as fictional as a tavern song. She was starting to move through her days in a state of delirium; she felt hysterical most of the time, on the edge of dissolving into laughter.

She was a top candidate for empress.

People were trying to hurt her. Kill her, even.

Frieda had been cursed by Maleficent, too.

How was she expected to handle one of these things, let alone all of them?

From this balcony, Briar could see to where Ben was helping Phillip adjust the last few pieces of his armor, off to the side. There would be five rounds for the candidates to show off their athletes. Phillip was part of the third pair to ride, with the two others ahead of him mounted already, horses dancing in anticipation of the crowd’s peppered cheering.

Briar’s dreams rang through her. The women, standing strong because of their own internal fortitude, but backed by support.

An attendant banged his foot on the floor of the balcony and she jumped. “The joust will commence—candidates only, please stand at the railing.”

Briar, already there, gave Merryweather a tight smile. “Presentation for the crowds, I suspect?”

But Merryweather only took the barest step back from her. Staying close.

Too close. Her face was severe.

Briar’s gut twisted as the other candidates filed into position. She felt exposed. “Merryweather?”

Her aunt shook her head. “You focus on your campaign, dear. I’ve got it.”

“It?”

Merryweather’s eyes flicked to the other candidates lining up. Briar followed her gaze.

She had seen Frieda and Johann here when she first arrived, and so had dismissed the rest.

But now she did a count.

Counted again.

There were only four candidates present. Eckhardt of Hesse, Johann, Frieda, and Briar.

“What happened to the fifth candidate, Merryweather?” Briar whispered.

Merryweather grumbled. “Blasted business, this whole damn thing. I can see why Flora wanted to keep you locked in that cottage during your early years.”

Briar had the odd, humbling realization that she would have gladly consented to being locked in that cottage now, if it meant being back in Hausach.

“What happened?” she pressed again.

Merryweather relented with a sigh. “Injured. This morning. An attacker tried to kill him but only managed to stab his side.”

The breath left Briar’s lungs in a huff, like she’d been punched. “What? How?”

It had all been subtle thus far. Candidates called back home. Vanished. Ill.

This—this was a direct attack. A violent one.

“His security was lax.” Merryweather’s voice was barely audible, low and hard in Briar’s ear as the area around them hummed with the energy of the coming joust.

“Who did it?” Briar tried. “Do you know?”

Merryweather hummed. “The attacker was not found. No evidence remained. But don’t you worry, though. No one will touch you.”

Briar nodded, because Merryweather would expect her to agree, but it was a hollow gesture.

Was it one culprit behind all of the sabotage, or each candidate’s team prepared to do whatever it took for them to win? Was it one threat, or many? Did it matter? The campaign was nearly halfway complete and that made this castle no longer just a den of vipers, but of hornets and snarling mountain cats and poison-tipped thorns.

Her heart wrenched with each bruising beat.

Frieda’s words in the garden came back to her. How easily she had pointed out Briar’s aunts’ flaws.

And with Frieda in her head, and thoughts of the candidate being stabbed, and memories of Stefan bleeding on the throne room floor, Briar threw a panicked look at Merryweather.

What of Johann? She kept her voice almost silent, mouthing the question so he wouldn’t hear. If he had not been told of this campaign’s truth, she did not want to worry him.

But Merryweather smiled, reassuring. “He is well looked after by his people.”

“Someone has been stabbed, Merryweather. He’s a child. If anyone—”

“Briar.” Merryweather put her hand on Briar’s arm. “We will keep an eye on him as well. We are using what magic we can to monitor you, and we are stretched thin as it is. At least, I am. Flora refuses to look after—” She stopped.

Briar frowned, but then caught the spark in Merryweather’s eye. “Frieda?” she finished. “You watch out for Frieda, too?”

Merryweather gave a little shrug.

Briar faced the list. She didn’t say anything else, afraid she would fall apart into questions about whether Frieda and Matilda were at the center of the attacks to begin with. Did Frieda need protection, or was she the only one immune to attack?

Just down the railing, on the other side of her from Johann, Frieda looked as sleep-deprived now as Briar felt, haggard if not for her painted face and vivid, lively gowns. The aura of wanting to be here, of being wholly on her mother’s side, had faded. Now, as Briar glanced at Frieda, she noticed her friend was watching her already, and she saw, for a moment, a flash of grief.

But the flash held. Frieda’s eyebrows bent in regret.

Briar forced a steadying breath. Tried to shift her face into something like a question, a plea of offering. She did not expect Frieda would receive it.

A horn blew, an announcer introduced the first pairing of jousters. One rode for Eckhardt of Hesse; another was a career jouster from Frankfurt.

“Your king rides today?” Johann shifted closer to ask.

Briar looked down at him. Frieda faced the list.

A man had lifted a flag. It came down, and the jousters took off from opposite ends, long lances outstretched before them, horses thundering the dirt. A fence separated the two paths, over which they would meet in the middle and attempt to either unseat each other or break their lances on the other’s body.

Briar had never seen a joust, much less seen Phillip joust, and as the first pair clashed with a violent spray of wood and metal clanking, she jumped, biting the inside of her cheek.

“My husband, yes,” Briar said. Oh, he will be bruised tonight.

“Ah.” Johann was barely tall enough to see over the railing, and he rested his chin on it. But the moment he did, an attendant hissed a warning of Posture, sire, please, and Johann straightened. “How long are jousts? Terribly long? I have new spells to memorize.”

“Spells?”

The question came from Frieda.

She looked at Johann in honest confusion.

“He is a sorcerer,” Briar explained.

Frieda’s eyes lifted to hers. There was a beat of Truly? and Briar smiled, because this was such a normal conversation, but bare and fragile.

“Yes.” Briar smiled at Johann. “Are the spells from Flora?”

The jousting pair reset; three matches, three lances, would determine the winner.

Johann nodded. “She said she could teach me how to make a coin vanish.”

Now it was Briar’s turn to think, briefly, Truly?

Merryweather, at her back, whispered, “Sleight of hand.”

Briar didn’t drop her smile at Johann. “Formidable. As long as you can make the coin reappear, I should think—no sense magicking away your kingdom’s funds.”

Johann scratched under his crown. “I wish I could magic myself away from here. Everyone is dreadful. Well, not you.” He looked up at her. “But everyone else.”

And he surprised Briar by giving a pointed grimace at Frieda, who was still watching him.

The jousting pair completed their round. A winner was declared, not Eckhardt’s jouster, but all celebration would be reserved for the end, when the remaining candidates would present the prizes.

Frieda’s face went red. But she nodded at Johann. “That is earned. I have not given you reason to like me, have I?”

Johann scowled. “Your mother is devilish.”

Briar choked a laugh, half horrified, half impressed. He was not wrong.

Frieda’s eyes went wide.

Matilda, who had been clustered not two paces back with vassals and attendants, must have heard, for she crossed the space and positioned herself behind Frieda, a mirror of Merryweather to Briar.

“Face forward, daughter,” Matilda snapped with a look of distaste for Johann.

Briar had been very good about not openly glaring at Matilda. She was cordial and proper, even if Matilda was barbaric.

Now, though, she couldn’t help a snarl from escaping her throat.

“How like Austria,” Matilda muttered, and put her hand on Frieda’s shoulder as she faced the list.

Something shifted in Frieda’s attitude, in her bearing. Briar’s longing to speak with Frieda had not been alleviated, had merely gone dormant, and it raged now, awake and desperate.

“See?” Johann whispered to Briar. “Devilish.”

Briar edged closer to Johann, keeping her gaze on the side of Matilda’s face for one beat longer.

Matilda’s presence cast a shadow over any conversation. They watched the next jousting pair play through their three matches in silence. One of the contenders this time was a jouster for Johann, going against a man who represented one of the Prince Electors, and when Johann’s man proved victorious, he whooped and clapped and spun around to point at the Elector.

“I have bested you!” Johann cried, not a gracious winner, but Briar couldn’t help smiling at his excitement.

Frieda, too, had a smile on her lips. But Matilda was still at her back.

Merryweather was right—this was blasted business, this whole damn thing.

The next pair was announced.

“King Phillip of Austria, more commonly known as the Pain from Lorraine”—the announcer paused for a cheer from the crowd, and Briar couldn’t help but grin at her husband’s notoriety, for letting other riders pummel him with sticks, but still—“rides on behalf of Queen Aurora of Austria.”

Phillip cantered Samson into place, lance in hand, the face shield up on his helmet. He was armored head to toe, the heavy metal glossy and gleaming in the high afternoon sun. There was distance between him and the balcony, and Briar tried to catch his eye, but he kept his focus ahead as Samson stopped at his mark.

Ben hung back by stacks of extra lances. He, at least, looked up at the balcony.

At Frieda.

He turned away to cup his hands around his mouth and shout something at Phillip, who nodded back.

“And his contender,” the announcer continued, “Lady Corinna of Munich, riding on behalf of Princess Clara of Bavaria.”

Briar didn’t move. She wanted to. She wanted to see what expression Frieda’s face held, but she could only stand in stunned absence, feeling her stupidity. She had not asked whom Phillip would ride against, and no one had offered the information.

But of course it would be this.

Had Matilda arranged it?

That question led to a revelation, one that soured her stomach and had her muscles turning to stone: If she had, was this a trick of some kind? Had Matilda planned something far more menacing?

Briar’s senses became raw and alert, sweat breaking down her spine. She briefly considered shouting to stop the match, but how would that look? And besides, Phillip had jousted many times before; he knew what he was doing. It would be fine.

It had to be fine.

With each blink, Briar envisioned knife wounds, blood…

Lady Corinna directed her horse into place opposite Phillip. Her visor was down already, her armor black, her lance done in black to match.

There was a green dragon painted on her breastplate.

Was Munich’s insignia a green dragon? Briar didn’t think so; she knew Bavaria’s was not.

What was the purpose of that dragon?

“Oh-ho!” the announcer cut back in, bellowing from a place in the stands nearby. “Our contender ups the challenge—we have here a re-creation of King Phillip’s famous clash with the dragon Maleficent!”

No.

No, no—

Briar’s lungs emptied in a gasping rush and she grabbed the balcony’s edge, her eyes fixed on Phillip, begging him to look up at her.

She spun toward Merryweather. “I need to go down there.”

Merryweather’s eyes widened. “In the middle of the joust?”

She couldn’t do that, could she? Of course not, but this was cruel. Any mention of Maleficent set Phillip off in a panic, and for it to be here, like this, in an already heightened situation—how did Matilda know? How had she found out this weakness of his?

Was this a calculated move against him, or was it merely as the announcer said: a reenactment of what Phillip was well known for?

The crowd cheered and Briar spun away from Merryweather to see the flag drop.

The joust began.

Her heart lodged between her ribs, too big, the beats too painful.

Lady Corinna took off, lance poised, dragon insignia gleaming.

Phillip didn’t move.

Ben shouted at him, the noise muffled and lost beneath the cacophony of the crowd and the thundering in Briar’s ears.

Finally, he kicked Samson and started to gallop down the path.

His face shield was still lifted.

“Your shield!” Briar shouted. She didn’t care if it broke decorum; she cupped her hands in imitation of Ben and shouted again, “Phillip, your face shield—”

Samson carried him, gaining speed. Lady Corinna’s horse matched his, and what should have taken only rapid seconds stretched out, and all Briar could see was that dragon, racing toward her husband.

Lady Corinna’s lance was angled perfectly, the easy effort of a seasoned jouster.

Phillip should have been just as composed. But his grip shifted, lance jostling, and Samson’s gait faltered with the motion.

The lance slipped from Phillip’s grip, hit the ground with a hollow clatter of wood on packed dirt that Briar could hear even over the crowd.

He looked down at it, then back up at Corinna, and Briar could see the whites of his eyes with a pulse of fear—

Corinna’s lance crashed into the center of his chest in an explosion of splinters and chunks of wood.

Phillip grasped at the reins, the saddle, but the action only heaved his body around so he didn’t drop back behind the path his horse had taken; he hit the separating fence, the impact so hard his helmet flew off, and momentum carried him up and over so he dropped to the dirt directly in front of Lady Corinna’s still-galloping horse.

Briar screamed. She nearly vaulted the balcony’s railing, but Merryweather grabbed her and hauled her back into place.

Lady Corinna rode hard. This had happened in seconds, less than that, and Briar watched those hooves tear up mounds of earth mere yards from Phillip’s supine body.

Corinna pulled hard on the reins, veering her horse, at the last moment leaping over Phillip so her mount and its hooves cleared his body in one arc.

Phillip did not react to it. Did not stand.

Briar shoved away from the railing, through the people pressing close behind her to see. A few cried out to her, apologies or worry, but she ignored them all, only managed to see Merryweather, who flew in front of her and began bodily heaving people aside.

Down they went, two long sets of stairs, until Briar tore out of the stands and sprinted across the list’s packed dirt, skirts in hand, legs straining.

Ben was there already, reaching Phillip now.

She slid to the ground next to Ben. Phillip lay on his back, and she took his head into her lap. “Phillip!”

His eyes were open. They locked on her, and she would have wept relief if not for the immediate spasm of anguish that contorted his face. “I can’t—can’t breathe—”

Ben dove into action, rapidly undoing the straps of Phillip’s breastplate, yanking it up and off. Briar helped, trying to be gentle, but Ben was on a tear, careless for kindness, and he ripped away the padding beneath until Phillip was left in only his sweat-stained undershirt.

“Surgeon, we need a surgeon!” Ben shouted off toward the entrance.

“One is coming,” Merryweather said, and took off toward the man who was racing across the list for them.

Phillip rolled out of Briar’s lap, onto his elbows, gasping between Ben and Briar, his whole body shaking, sheened in sweat.

“Don’t,” Ben said. “Don’t move. If you’ve broken anything—”

“Nothing broken,” he managed to say. “Can’t breathe.”

“You could have cracked a rib. You might not feel it yet. The shock of it—Don’t move.”

“Nothing is broken,” Phillip snarled. “I can’t breathe, I just need to—to—”

He swayed. Briar grabbed his shoulders.

He pushed her away.

She sat, hands extended, her body not yet feeling the full force of these last moments, but she felt this.

Ben was just as still as she was.

“Phillip,” she tried.

He crawled, swaying as he did so, his gasping, grating breaths coming too fast, not deep enough. He reached the fence that divided the paths and clung to it, using it to pull himself to his feet.

The surgeon arrived, but Phillip bowed away from him, too. Everyone around was silent, listening to him try to breathe as he bent over the fence, shoulders wound tight with strain, body shaking.

Briar stood, Ben with her, and she wanted to go to Phillip, to touch him, but she paused, waiting, a crack slithering up through her chest.

“Phillip,” she tried again.

“I’m sorry.”

Briar spun. Frieda was behind her, winded from running. Matilda was far back, not running but approaching them all the same. Two Prince Electors were coming as well, hurrying as fast as decorum allowed.

“For my jouster,” Frieda added.

That made Briar’s worries roar back on her.

Matilda had planned this.

She had known, somehow, that it would affect Phillip this way.

“She shouldn’t have struck him once his lance dropped,” Frieda was saying. “It was a surrender, and she continued the match anyway. I’m sorry, on behalf of her—”

Matilda grabbed Frieda’s arm. “We offer no such apology!”

Attendants and the Prince Electors stopped at Frieda’s apology, eyes widening briefly.

“What a rare show of empathy from Bavaria,” one said.

It cut like a knife. That was why Frieda had apologized? To garner favor? Briar’s rising anger changed into disgust, but Frieda made a cry of objection.

“That is not my purpose! Bavaria shouldn’t have—” She noted the pressing crowd, the gathering people. “Back!” Frieda shouted at them. “Everyone, back! Give them room!”

Briar blinked, dazed, as people hesitantly obeyed Frieda’s gravelly shout.

Matilda stepped in front of Frieda, speaking half to her, half to the Prince Electors. “Bavaria offers no apology and admits no wrongdoing. This is jousting! And this—”

She glared at Phillip where he was still curved over the fence, his back to them.

“How is this the prince who killed a dragon?” Matilda sneered.

Briar’s whole world funneled to the fixed point of Matilda’s snarling face. All else evaporated.

She was aware of moving.

Her hand curled into a fist, lifted, winding—

Ben’s body in front of her, holding her back.

“Calm down, Briar,” he said. “Hey, look at me. Look at me. Calm down.”

“I will not,” she heard herself growl. “Let me go, let me go.”

“Briar.” Ben shook her. “That will not fix anything. Breathe. All right? Breathe.”

She tried, but Phillip was paces from her, hands over his face, elbows planted on the fence.

Briar pushed Ben aside and slowly walked toward Phillip. Jousting attendants were trying to shuffle everyone off the list now, at Frieda’s command.

“Phillip,” Briar said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, just his name, a brittle plea.

He lowered his hands. He was breathing normally now. But he did not look at her.

“I’m all right,” he said to the fence.

“No. You’re not.”

His tense shoulders went even more rigid. “Briar. Please. Not now.”

Not now had turned into him getting thrown from a horse. Because she hadn’t tried harder to get him to talk to her. Because she had let his problems sink into the background, and now her heart was breaking and she could only agree, again, because they were in the middle of a jousting arena.

She pressed a hand to her mouth, pushing away the tears while she was in public.

Merryweather floated over. “Will you stay? The candidates are expected to crown the champions.”

Briar’s body jolted. “That hardly matters!” she hissed.

“What do you wish to do?”

Go with Phillip, of course, but he still wasn’t looking at her. Everything about his posture was a silent entreaty not to press, not to make it more of a scene than it was.

And, though it nauseated her, she wondered what the Prince Electors thought of Austria now. Did she need to stay to improve whatever opinion they had? In that moment, did she care?

She knew what Briar would do.

What would Queen Aurora do?

What path should she take when those two actions diverged so wildly?

“I—” She couldn’t think. She wanted too many things, and she stood there, hating it all.

“Go back to the balcony, Bri.” Ben put a hand on her arm. His face was calm, when every part of Briar was shredded. “I’ve got him. I promise. Finish the joust, and I’ll get him settled by then.”

“But—” Briar started.

“Not now,” Phillip said again, but it wasn’t angry; it was desperate, tear-pinched. He twisted toward them, but still didn’t make eye contact with anyone. “Ben. Please.”

Ben swept in. He hooked one of Phillip’s arms around his neck and helped him limp away from the fence. He was injured, but not badly enough that he couldn’t walk without help, and the two began to make their way out of the arena.

The crowd erupted in cheers for him. Phillip stumbled; Ben kept him upright.

Briar stood in their wake, feeling lightheaded, feeling numb.