The Hostage Prince Read Online Free

recently, been a beautiful shade of periwinkle. She looked up past the spreading stain on the left leg, past a green tunic to a white silken shirt with periwinkle threading and a slight spattering of purplish tea, to a clenched jaw and a pale face with high cheekbones that was framed by long, pointed ears.
    Oh, Puck,
Snail thought, horrified. This was almost as bad as making a mistake in the birth chamber.
I’ve spattered a noble.
    She reached her hands toward the toff, then stopped, holding them stupidly midway between rubbing at the stains and dropping them back in her lap.
    I’m no laundress. What if rubbing the stains makes them worse?
Then she thought,
What does it matter. I’m dead either way.
    She should have been terrified. But instead she was angry.
    That stupid girl has killed me.
I’ll never get to hold a royal babe.
    She suddenly realized that she’d actually been looking forward to holding the new prince. Or princess. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked forward to something, and that thought made her even angrier.
    She turned her anger on the nearest thing to her, glaring at the noble she’d spilled the tea on. If she’d given it a moment’s thought, she would never have dared to do any such thing.

PRINCE ASPEN REGRETS
    P rince Aspen watched the girls tumble and heard the teapot and cups shatter on the stone floor, only slightly softened by the rushes, but he didn’t feel the spatters of tea on his well-lined silken breeches or his shirt. Only when some of it soaked through his sleeve was he aware of the heat.
    Glancing down at the two girls sprawled at his feet, he saw that one was a midwife’s apprentice. He knew her by her starched white apron and striped dress and the ghastly striped hose. He remembered that once the twin princesses Sun and Moon had remarked about a passing midwife that if a baby wasn’t ready to come out on its own, all the midwife had to do was a shake a leg at it and the “horrible hose,” as they called them, would frighten the baby into dropping down.
    Unaccountably, the midwife’s apprentice was glaring up at him.
Glaring,
though he was the injured party here, and she being a servant, of no importance at all.
    He drew his hand back to strike her because that was what was expected of him, and then he looked into her eyes. Truly looked. Astonishingly, one eye was green and one blue. He’d never seen anything like it. Fey eyes were always blue—not the blue of robin’s eggs or the blue of running water, but the blue of a spring sky after a good soaking rain.
    His hand was still uplifted and the other members of the High Court had gone silent, waiting to hear the sound of the slap on the girl’s face and to drink in the sound she made in response, probably a whimper, possibly a cry. They would feast on the coloration of her cheek and the bruise after.
    But his hand didn’t move. He was mesmerized by her two-color eyes, and her cockscomb hair, an odd shade of red. They made him smile. And then laugh. His laughter was high-pitched still, his voice unbroken, although he was already fourteen and well past the time when it should have changed. He hadn’t meant to laugh. He knew he’d regret it. Probably get nicknamed Prince Hee-Haw or something.
    He had a collection of such names already. But he couldn’t help himself. The girl’s eyes were funny.
She
was funny. Should be helpless and frightened, head-bowed and shaking, and yet here she was, glaring up at him. He shrugged slightly at her to let her know he meant no harm, but no one else could tell, of that he was sure.
    Aspen whispered, “Get up. Get up and get out of here. Do not stop to ask why. Now!”
    She got up, bowed, moved swiftly, never turning her back on any of them, which would be inviting death. And then she was gone. The other girl must have left almost immediately after dropping the tray.
    Aspen knew it was a