Chapter 3: The Wounded Duke
The scent hit him first—honeysuckle salve and sharp, clean linen. The palace infirmary was bright, morning sun streaming through high arched windows to dapple the marble floors. It was usually a place of quiet recovery. Today, it hummed with a different, uglier energy.Finn found the scene waiting for him. A young man—Duke Aris, he recognized—was reclining on a cot, a thick white bandage taped across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were already purpling. Two of his friends hovered nearby, shooting venomous looks across the room.
And there, standing like a statue near a shelf of glass tincture bottles, was Willow. Her hands were clasped so tightly in front of her that her knuckles were bloodless. Her face was a mask of cold neutrality, but her gray eyes were alive with a contained, blazing fury.
“Your Highness,” Duke Aris said, his voice nasally and strained from the injury.“Thank you for coming. I didn’t know who else to—”
“What happened?” Finn cut in, his tone flat.He didn’t look at Willow.
“I was taking the air in the south gardens. She was there.” He gestured weakly toward Willow, who didn’t flinch.“I merely offered a polite greeting. I said, ‘The palace suites must be a pleasant change from Vance Manor.’ She… she flew into a rage. Called me a sycophant.Then she struck me.With a closed fist.”
A murmur of agreement from his friends. One added, “Unprovoked, Your Highness. Absolutely vicious.”
Finn finally turned his gaze to Willow.“Lady Vance?”
Her voice was arctic. “He is lying.”
“You dare call a Duke of the realm a liar?” one of the friends spat.
Finn held up a hand, silencing him.His eyes remained locked on Willow. “Explain.”
She drew a slow breath, as if steadying herself for a performance.“He did not offer a polite greeting. He said, and I quote, ‘I see the palace has taken in another stray. Does the kennel master know you’re loose in the flowers?’ I chose to walk away. He stepped in front of me. He grabbed my wrist” —she flexed one hand slightly— “and said my father must be relieved to finally wash his hands of such a disappointing burden.I pulled my arm back. He did not let go. So I encouraged him to.”
“She’s twisting it!” Aris protested, pushing up on his elbows. “A complete fabrication!”
“Show me your wrist,” Finn said quietly.A beat of stunned silence. Willow’s mask faltered, confusion flashing in her eyes.Then, slowly, she extended her left arm. She pushed back the sleeve of her dove-gray gown.
There, on the pale skin of her inner wrist, were four clear, bruising fingerprints.Finn looked at them.He looked at the Duke’s bandaged face. He looked back at the marks, purpling against her skin.His stomach tightened.
“Duke Aris,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “You laid hands on your future Crown Princess?”
The color drained from the parts of Aris’s face not covered by bandages. “I—I only meant to detain her for an apology, Your Highness! Her insult to my house—”
“Your house’s honor seems to have survived your grandfather’s embezzlement scandal well enough,” Finn interrupted, a cold political fact dropped like a stone.“You will return to your estates.Today. You will not return to the capital until the new year. And you will send a formal letter of apology to Lady Vance for your slander and your assault. Do you understand?”
The duke looked as if he’d been struck a second time. He opened his mouth, saw the expression on Finn’s face, and closed it.He gave a stiff, pained nod.
“All of you, out,” Finn said to the room. “Now.”
The duke’s friends scurried to help him up, supporting him as he shuffled from the infirmary, not daring to look back. The head healer, who had been pretending to organize bandages, slipped silently through a side door.
They were alone.The silence was different now—charged, fragile.
Finn ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “You headbutted him.”
“He wouldn’t release me.” Her voice was still tight, but the ice was melting into something shaky. She was staring at the fingerprints on her wrist.“It’s an effective move. Not very courtly.”
“I am not very courtly.” She finally looked at him, the defiance back, but it was thinner now. “You believe me.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I believe the evidence,” he said, gesturing to her arm. “And I’ve known Aris to be a spineless prick since we were twelve.” He took a step closer, lowering his voice.“Is that the kernel of truth, Willow? Someone grabs you, you break their nose? Is that how the story started?”
A bitter, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips.“Sometimes. Sometimes the story starts because you refuse a dance with a man whose hands wander. Or because you correct a poet who misattributes a verse to win a bet. Sometimes it starts because you are silent when they expect gratitude, and they must invent a reason for your contempt.” She pulled her sleeve down, covering the bruises. “A single kernel can grow a whole field of lies. It’s easier to let them.”
“Easier for who?”
“For everyone.” She looked out the window, at the distant spires. “You sent the tea last night.And the cakes.”
He was caught off guard. “I… yes.”
“Thank you.” The words seemed foreign in her mouth.“It was a kind lie. Saying it was from the kitchen.”
“It wasn’t a lie. I just didn’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Obligation is the currency here.” She turned back to him. Her guard was still up, but the gate was slightly ajar. “You have upset your bargain, Your Highness. You were supposed to keep your monster.”
“Maybe I’m starting to prefer the complicated version.” He meant it to sound lighter than it came out. It hung in the sunlit air between them, heavy and real.
For a long moment, she just studied him, as if seeing him for the first time. The clean lines of his jaw, the earnest fatigue in his hazel eyes, the absence of the disgust she’d braced herself for.A sudden, sharp knock fractured the moment. A palace messenger stood at the doorway, bowing deeply. “Your Highness, His Majesty the Emperor requests your presence in the council chambers.Immediately.”
Finn’s shoulders tensed. The outside world rushed back in.He gave Willow a last, lingering look. “We’re not finished.”
He followed the messenger out, the infirmary’s calm shattered by the weight of what came next.As he left, he glanced back once.
Willow was still by the window, one hand cradling her bruised wrist, the other unconsciously tracing the edge of a bottle on the shelf. Her expression was unreadable, but the rigid defiance was gone, replaced by something far more vulnerable: a dawning, terrifying confusion.In the hall, the messenger leaned closer. “The Emperor said to tell you it concerns the… ‘narrative’ regarding your betrothed.”
Finn’s blood went cold. The field of lies, it seemed, was already under someone else’s plough.