The Royals: Part 2 | A Romantic Short Story

Dragons arrive in the north for the first time in sixty years, and in their wake comes a displaced princess with a secret she needs a disgraced knight to keep. A LVNDR Romantic Short Story.

The King had asked the Knight to stay in the castle while they hosted their neighbors. Edwin declined. He hadn’t called the castle home in years, and he appreciated the distance. He needed distance. Besides, with every leader in the realm under the same roof, Silas would have his best team on the job.

Edwin’s mind wandered as he tossed a blanket over Lady for the evening, made a quick stew, and cracked open the book he’d started by his bedroom fireplace. While his body was busy shifting from task to task, his thoughts were haunted by the Princess. Not just their secret, but her.

How her eyes sparked when she stood up to his brother. How the tiny tilt of a smirk etched her otherwise tense face when she teased. How the goosebumps ran across her skin when Edwin had his hand on her back. His mind only slowed once exhaustion had overtaken every other sense.

He was placing his mother’s ribbon in the book to mark his spot when a shout rang from outside. He reached the front door in seconds, surprised to find the same woman he had been trying to forget about just on the other side of it.

Rosalie spared him only a quick glance from within the hole he’d dug and hidden under a pile of leaves, too busy scanning for footholds along the roots and soil to bother with embarrassment. Edwin watched as she assessed, feeling as if he’d concocted her from longing alone. After a few seconds of weighing her options, she finally raised her chin to fix the Knight with a pointed stare before throwing her arm up in a silent demand.

Without a word, Edwin reached down, took Rosalie’s hand, and pulled her onto solid ground. Their hands stayed clasped as she regained her footing and shook the dirt from her cloak.

“Is that some kind of joke?” Rosalie chastised, pointing toward the trap as she caught her breath.

“It’s a moat,” Edwin couldn’t help but laugh at her, somehow making this his fault, “it’s to keep insane people from entering my home in the middle of the night.

“I was going to knock.” Rosalie unclasped her hands from Edwin’s; a streak of pink ran underneath her already flushed face. She raised her palms in a show of surrender before pulling a dagger — his dagger — from the satchel across her tunic

“You stole this.” The hint of a smirk played at the corner of his mouth. He’d noticed the weapon missing almost immediately but hadn’t been concerned, having assumed he’d left it in the library.

“I did.” Rosalie didn’t double down on the lie as she swept her hands across her cloak, grimacing as they passed over her right thigh. Blood was seeping through a small slice in the fabric. She covered it quickly and looked back up at him as though nothing had happened. “I needed a reason for the guards to give me your location.”

“You could have just asked.” Edwin opened the door wider. “Come inside. Let me clean that up.”

Rosalie offered a slight shake of her head. “It’s just a scratch.”

“Would you prefer to walk, or would you like me to carry you?”

Rosalie looked into the trees as if they might offer a third option. Edwin took a single, slow step forward. Rosalie shot him a withering look as she grazed past him.

After scanning the woods to ensure no one had followed her, Edwin closed the door and turned back to Rosalie. She had changed out of the velvet gown she’d been wearing at the castle and into a tunic and trousers. Stolen from one of her guards, most likely. The linen was pleated in a way that the fabric skimmed every curve, falling across it like a waterfall.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Edwin insisted, his voice coming out steadier than he felt. He pointed toward the living room. “I’ll make us tea.”

Rosalie hesitated before deciding it wasn’t a worthwhile use of debate and settled into the leather chair by the fire while Edwin retreated to the kitchen. When he returned with two mugs, Rosalie had already used the hem of her tunic to blot the still-bleeding wound.

“Thank you,” the Princess whispered, in the reluctant tone of someone who’d prefer not to need to. Her breath caught as Edwin kneeled on the ground beside where she sat, keeping his eyes carefully on the injury. “It’s looking much bett—“

The sentence died entirely as, unthinking, Edwin placed his hand onto Rosalie’s thigh. “I know how to clean wounds.”

“Of course,” Rosalie permitted, her breathing gone shallow. “I’ve already cleaned it.”

Edwin picked a cloth and a bottle from the tray he’d brought. “I can’t risk you developing an infection and having to explain this at the infirmary.”

“I’ve managed it,” Rosalie insisted, making a halfhearted attempt to pull her leg back as he uncorked the bottle, but his forearm kept it steady. “Are you even listening?”

Edwin offered an absent nod as he tilted the bottle so that the clear liquid dripped out. He held her leg still as it raced through the wound. She seized his shoulder in a tight grip. Whether it was to manage her own pain or distribute some of it onto him, he wasn’t entirely sure.

“You could have warned me.”

“You were already complaining.”

“That’s not very chivalrous.” The Princess shoved him, just a little. The Knight pretended to be hurt from where he was recorking the glass container.

“Running through a forest in the middle of the night isn’t very regal.” He stood up from where he’d been kneeling. From this angle, she looked so relaxed. “Besides, I’d prefer you have both legs if we’re going to battle.”

The mood seemed to shift. Mention of war tended to do that. “You know your brother is lying.”

The silence stretched a beat too long.

“I’ll get your room ready,” Edwin’s voice was careful and even. He retreated toward the bedroom before she could respond.

She followed him. “I’m going back to the castle tonight.”

Edwin pulled fresh linens from the closet without looking at her. “You’re not going back in this state.”

“I’m not in a state.”

“You’re exhausted, and it’s affecting your judgment.” He measured each word. “It would be irresponsible to let you leave here making accusations about the King to anyone who’ll listen.”

“I’m not making accusations.” Her voice went dangerously quiet. “I am telling you the truth.”

“It’s also past curfew.” Edwin yawned, smoothly changing course. “You’ll stay here tonight.”

A startled laugh escaped her, genuine and unguarded. “And now who’s delusional?”

“I’m as annoyed about it as you are,” the Knight lied. “But you leaving my home in the dead of night would be scandalous at best and treasonous at worst.”

“I’ll take the backroads.”

“I’ll call the guards myself.”

For the first time that night, she had nothing to say.

Just past midnight, Edwin woke to a scream.

He was on his feet before he was fully conscious, grabbing his dagger from the side table and moving through the cottage with practiced silence, avoiding every creaking board by memory. The bedroom door opened slowly. The assumed intruder was, for the second time that night, just Rosalie.

Whatever relief he felt evaporated quickly. She was tangled in the sheets, breathing like she’d been running, eyes unfocused with the glassy look of sleep that hasn’t quite released its grip. He rested a knee on the duvet and pressed his palm to her forehead. No fever. The wound wasn’t the cause, but that offered little comfort. Whatever Rosalie was fighting was entirely in her own mind.

Edwin knew what nightmares felt like. He was seeing, for the first time, what they looked like on someone else. He moved his hand from her forehead to the side of her face, fingertips pressing lightly into her hair — the same thing his mother used to do when he’d wake in a cold sweat as a boy.

Rosalie exhaled and leaned into it. The tension left her shoulders in a slow, full-body breath as her eyes fluttered open. When she finally surfaced, she pulled back and began a stumbling stream of apologies before she’d even fully taken in where she was.

“No need,” Edwin insisted, hating to see her flustered. He didn’t want to explain how well he understood the feeling. That there was no reason to be embarassed. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Rosalie drew her knees to her chest, as if to contain the rush of emotions.

Edwin read the room, nodding as he stood up to leave.

“Wait.” Her hand caught his wrist before she seemed to know she’d reached for him. She pulled back, startled by herself. “Would you stay? Just for a moment.”

Edwin sat back down on top of the covers as if that were the plan all along, leaning back against the headboard. Rosalie settled beside him, close enough that her shoulder pressed against his arm. They both stared up at the carved animals in the crown molding.

“What were you dreaming about?” Edwin asked carefully.

“Fire.” No elaboration was needed. Edwin had also been a child when his grandfather’s obsession with conquest had sparked a war. Every kingdom had been shrouded by smoke and ruin. The only reason it had ended was that his father made the honorable, devastating decision to remove his own father from the throne.

It was the second most frightening experience of Edwin’s life. The first was a decade later, when his grandfather’s loyalists returned to finish what they’d started. The only reason he and Rowan hadn’t died with their parents was because Silas had found and hid them first.

“I have them too.” Edwin kept his eyes on the ceiling. The vulnerability made him feel as if he was floating with no way to return to the ground. He barely noticed when Rosalie’s fingers found his in the dark, threading through them as though the gesture had occurred entirely on its own.

“Is that why you were at the Pharmacist’s?”

He nodded.

Rosalie looked down at their joined hands and seemed to arrive at the realization a moment after he did. She offered one deliberate squeeze before releasing him and swinging her legs off the bed. “I shouldn’t have come.”

She was reaching for her boots when a twig snapped outside.

Edwin’s hand covered her mouth, his arm wrapping around her waist to pull her backwards against his chest. He hoped his racing heart told her everything she needed to know without a word as silence fell over the grounds. Not the organic quiet of night, but of held breath. Every living thing gone still, waiting for whatever moved in the dark beyond them.

“Where is she, brother?” The King’s voice rang out from where he’d entered through the front door. Edwin ran out to greet him, but Rosalie did not follow. His brother kicked at the table leg on his way to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water like he’d been invited for supper. Edwin’s jaw tightened, but he knew better than to say anything. The cabin was technically just as much Rowan’s as his.

Before Rowan could ask again, a loud bang rang from the bedroom.

The King’s brows lifted slowly. Checkmate. He glanced back at Edwin with a look caught between suspicion and disappointment, before retreating towards the noise.

To both brothers’ surprise, Rosalie looked relieved. Wide-eyed and wild-haired, flushed like someone who’d spent hours in a very small, dark space. “Thank the gods. Can you help me get back to the castle?”

“You’ll forgive me for not offering you a drink.” The King hid his taunt beneath a facade of chivalry, holding tight to his own glass as he spoke.

The Princess simply smiled in response, though the scowl beneath it was plain enough to see from across the carriage. It would have been difficult for Rosalie to hold a beverage with her hands tied behind her back as they were.

“It’s unbecoming for a woman to visit the village after dusk.” Rowan seemed to be going along with the story Rosalie had told, though a bitter skepticism accompanied each word. “Who were you visiting again?”

“The seamstress.”

The Knight shifted uncomfortably beside her, wanting to expose the lie even if it meant them both being thrown in jail. The silence between Rosalie’s answer and Rowan’s response felt like purgatory.

“That’s interesting.” The King leaned forward, elbows on his knees, shortening the distance between their glares. “The seamstress is down south visiting family.”

Rosalie’s perfectly practiced composure fell away. Edwin shuffled in his seat, realizing he was no longer guarding her for his brother, but from him. Rowan pressed the rim of his glass beneath The Princess’s chin and tilted it upward, his expression darkening with the thrill of a deadly chase. “This will be fun.”

Rowan’s intensity only lightened once The Princess was locked away. He’d toyed with Rosalie like a cat with a mouse for the entire journey. Insisting he had already located the dragons, his men ready to kill if needed to keep them from taking revenge on Connacht. And, he’d insisted, if that had to be done, it’d be her fault for convincing them of her lie.

“Sir.” A guard Edwin didn’t recognize stopped him as he crossed the courtyard. After a full day of distracted work, he was looking forward to being alone to collect his thoughts and plan Rosalie’s escape, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards. “It’s her.”

Edwin’s heart stopped. There had been an odd comfort in knowing Rosalie was in the dungeons — the one place in the castle that the King refused to enter. It gave him time to work out how to get everyone safely beyond Connacht’s reach.

“She says the new moon is fast approaching.”

The Knight stared at the man, who might as well have been speaking in tongues.

“I think it was… a vision.”