To heal a Rogue

JOHANN (This Chapter begins right before the events in the great hall)

My dresser regarded the midnight blue jacket with open unease. The valet had laid everything else out with practiced precision, boots polished until they reflected the morning light, gloves folded into perfect symmetry, the silver clasp resting exactly where it belonged. Only the jacket remained untouched, balanced between his hands as though the fabric itself carried a sentence of death.

When I reached for it, he did not let go immediately.

His fingers lingered.

”Whose side are you on?” I asked.

The question landed harder than I’d intended. His eyes snapped to mine, widening with alarm, and whatever protest had been forming died before it reached his tongue.

”Yours, my prince. Always.”

”Then give it to me.”

His grip loosened.

”But...” His voice dropped to a whisper. ”This is wrong.”

I slipped one arm into the sleeve.

”Wrong?”

”Cultural law demands that only the regent of the next king wears color during the mourning period.” His gaze flickered toward the jacket as though unable to look at me directly. ”Everyone else wears black until the coronation.”

”I wasn’t asking for a history lesson.”

”No, Your Highness.”

He surrendered the jacket.

The heavy fabric settled across my shoulders with reassuring weight, the deep midnight blue swallowing the sunlight instead of reflecting it. It fit as though it had been tailored for this exact moment, sharp enough to command attention, understated enough that no one could accuse me of dressing for celebration.

The valet moved automatically to straighten the cuffs.

His hands betrayed him.

The faint tremor running through his fingers might have escaped anyone else, but I noticed everything. Fear had a way of revealing itself in the smallest betrayals.

”The pin,” I said.

He froze.

”I said the royal pin.”

Another heartbeat passed before he crossed to the dresser. Opening the velvet case, he lifted the silver crest with almost painful care, holding it between thumb and forefinger as though touching it too firmly might burn him. His eyes darted toward the closed door, then the windows, then back to me.

He looked less like a servant dressing his prince and more like a man preparing evidence for his own execution.

He offered it silently.

I took it from him.

”I am still a prince,” I said as I fastened the crest to my collar. The silver wolf caught the light, gleaming against the blue. ”Whatever decision my father reached in his final, fevered hours doesn’t rewrite my blood.”

The pin clicked into place.

”My name hasn’t changed.”

The valet swallowed.

”Neither has yours,” I continued. ”So keep addressing me as you always have, keep bending your knee, and you’ll survive this.”

His shoulders lowered by a fraction. ”Yes, Your Highness.”

A knock interrupted the silence. It was three measured raps.

Neither of us moved at first.

”Open it.” I eventually said to him.

The valet hurried toward the door, relief obvious in the speed of his steps. Escaping the room, even for a moment, was preferable to standing any longer beside a prince determined to invite scandal before the funeral had even begun.

The door swung inward.

He inhaled sharply.

The sound was small, almost swallowed, but unmistakable.

Before I could ask what had startled him, he was already bowing so deeply I wondered whether he intended to kiss the floor.

I looked past him.

It was Amaranthine.

She stood framed by the doorway, the corridor behind her washed in pale overhead light that outlined her silhouette before surrendering her to shadow. Black suited her in a way it suited no one else.

The gown traced clean, elegant lines without excess ornament, the simplicity making it all the more striking. Her dark red hair had been swept away from her face and pinned into an intricate arrangement that exposed the graceful curve of her neck. There was something different about her.

It was not she looked older. I had met up with her a few weeks back. But maybe it was the color she was in and the mood that played across her face.

The story it told was that the carefree girl who had once raced me barefoot through her father’s gardens had been folded away beneath careful posture, measured breathing, and the quiet confidence of someone who had learned exactly how much of herself the world deserved to see.

For a heartbeat, I forgot why she was here.

Then I remembered.

”Come to help me grieve?” I asked, letting amusement soften the edges of my voice.

Her eyes traveled over me without haste.

From my boots, to the midnight blue jacket and then the silver crest resting proudly against my collar.

One perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose before she then spoke.

”You’re not wearing black. That makes me think it is you who needs help in that department.”

”Maybe,” I said as I crossed the room and took her hand before she could pull it back. ”You, on the other hand, look phenomenal in it.”

She smiled, brief and polite, before sliding her hand free of mine with a gentleness that somehow felt worse than if she’d yanked it away.

”I’m actually here to talk,” she said.

”About what?”

”Us.”

”What about us?”

She sighed, and something in the sound of it made my stomach drop before she’d said another word.

”On the way here,” she said, ”my father was talking. About my future.”

I felt exactly where this was headed before she finished the sentence, and something cold settled into my chest.

”You cannot be serious.”

”You haven’t even heard me speak yet.”

”I don’t need to.” I laughed, short and humorless, the sound scraping up out of my throat. ”It’s clear what’s happening here. You want to end things with me now that I’m no longer in line for the seat.”

She didn’t say anything. Her silence was answer enough.

”So I’m right,” I said.

”I’m so sorry, Johann.” Her voice had gone soft, careful, the tone people used when they’d already decided something and were simply managing the fallout. ”The engagement was never to you specifically. I was given to whoever stood next in line to the throne. And that would mean—”

My hand shot out before I’d finished processing the thought, closing around her arm, tighter than I meant to, tighter than I should have.

”You’re hurting me,” she gasped, and I barely registered it.

”You cannot be serious,” I said again, my voice climbing. ”You intend to pursue my cousin now? Just like that? Passed along like some inheritance clause?”

”That isn’t what I’m doing,” she said, wincing but holding her ground. ”I’m merely following the written agreement between the De’Lunes and the Chontos. It was never personal, Johann.”