He groaned and bumped into the wall, pausing to lean against the dark wood paneling for a moment, trying to catch his breath before running a hand through his dark brown hair and continuing to stumble slowly down the hallway. The heat pumping through his body and the feel of his clothing rubbing against his painfully sensitive skin were starting to make his mind hazy. His vision probably wasn't far behind. Things were already beginning to look out of focus. He had to get to his room as quickly as possible. Now, if he could just navigate this mouldering pile of stones that he was dragged to and get safely tucked away before he found himself bedded and wedded to one of the most irritating women he had ever had the misfortune of meeting, it would be great. 
   The third door on the left down this corridor, if he remembered correctly. He sure hoped he remembered. He never should have had the wine. The grin on the Marquis' face as he'd gulped it down to get through all the toasts at that interminable dinner should have told him not to drink it. Well, no use crying over spilled wine. He just needed to get himself into his room, where his aide would barricade the door and shove him into a bath full of ice. 
  "This should be it." He turned the handle and stumbled into the room. Or at least he would have. If the damn thing weren't locked. Why did Arthur lock the stupid thing? His golden eyes narrowed at the offending door before he pounded on the heavy oak panels. "Arthur, open this door right this minute!"
   After what felt like forever, he vaguely heard the light scraping of a key in the lock as he was leaning forward to pound on it again. Which, unfortunately for the person on the other side of the door, meant that he was already moving forward as the door opened a sliver to show a pale face. His forward momentum and body weight pushed the door open the rest of the way, and he stumbled fully into the room. 
   "Arthur! Why did you lock the door? Never mind, I'm going to need an ice bath as soon as possible. They drugged me! Can you believe it? What is wrong with these people? " He hoped he wasn't being too loud as he tried to make his way towards the large bed he saw on one side of the chamber, not bothering to glance back at his aide as he shrugged off the formal jacket he'd been wearing at dinner and dropped it on the floor. He tugged his shirt out of his waistband and started to unbutton it, attempting to relieve the discomfort while he glanced around the room, his vision now officially blurry. Was that the side he remembered it being on? 
  "I've asked that my whole life." A voice that didn't sound remotely like Arthur's snorted from slightly behind him.
  He stumbled on the edge of the rug and almost fell face-first onto the floor, but a hand slid under his elbow and helped steady him. Something felt a little off with that hand. Heat seemed to be rushing through him as if he were a furnace, but where that hand touched seemed to cool a bit, giving a little relief. Something was going off in the back of his head, trying to warn him. A lone voice called out through the fog of the drugs smothering his mind. It seemed to be frantically trying to point out the hand now firmly gripping his arm and guiding him to the bed was too small to be Arthur's. 
   "Arthur? Something is strange." He muttered to himself as he turned his head to look at his aide and had to look down further than the usual couple of inches in height that he had on his friend. Considerably further down. The confusion he felt left him stunned enough for the small figure, which registered as a pale white clad blur to him,  to push him down to lie in the bed, a little less than gently. The thought that the bed was already rumpled like someone had already been lying in it swam to the surface of his addled brain, and he struggled to sit up. "Who the devil had been in my bed?"
   "Shhh. Now just settle down and go to sleep, Your Grace." The voice was crisp, authoritative, and light with a slightly husky edge as if it had been awakened from sleep. It was, however, definitely too sweetly pitched to be his aide or even one of his guards. Though something about it did begin to soothe the edges of his nerves that the drug had frayed. Suspicion was blooming as the hands came back to push him, again a little less than gently, back onto the pillows, leaving behind that subtle cooling. His focus seemed to narrow down to those pale appendages. They were the only thing he could see clearly. Elegantly slender, with long, slim fingers and neatly trimmed nails, they were strangely fascinating to him. The white lines of scars crisscrossed the back, making his brow furrow at the incongruity with their otherwise perfect appearance. They reached up to briefly smooth his forehead, and he nearly groaned with relief at the cool contact. Perhaps if he could get them to touch him all over, that horrible heat could be dispelled. 
   He shook his head at the strange thoughts as the hands came back again, pulling the covers over him and a new sensation came to distract him as the scent of roses filled his senses and a curtain of tendrils, colored a deep crimson, sliding across the skin of his partially bared chest making him gasp at the little electric shocks it seemed to leave behind. It wasn't unpleasant. In fact, his body seemed to like it as he felt a slight shudder spread from where the tips brushed against his overly sensitive skin. His mind pulled away from that distraction as he felt the covers tightening around his midsection, as it seemed the owner of the intoxicating scent and cooling hands was trying to confine him with the covers. But the covers were only making him hotter, and he started to struggle to get free from their weight and suffocating warmth.  
   When the hands returned to try to push him back, and the voice began to issue orders for him to settle down and lay back, what little patience he'd been able to hold on to during this whole ordeal snapped suddenly and he grabbed the shoulders of whoever it was and dragged them forward, rolling over. "Who are you? Why are you tormenting me?" He growled and pinned them down with his weight. The soft body beneath him exuded that subtle cooling that the hands had, while the jerking movements as they attempted to free themselves had those sparks shooting through him and another shudder shooting down his spine. The scent of roses filled his nose again and clouded his mind further, causing him to cling to a shred of control. 
   "Tormenting you, Your Grace? Who came into whose room in the middle of the night?" The voice turned sharp and rose a little in volume while the hands pushed at his shoulders, attempting to push him aside. The comments were pricking into his mind, making him growl again at the defiance in the tone. 
   "Waking me up and generally being a massive inconvenience. Why a grown man couldn't just take the antidote I left for them is far beyond me. If you wanted to fall for their- mmhhff!" The voice cut off abruptly as Edmund's control ran out. 

Two days earlier:

   "Should we take the coriander too?" the girl sat back from the pot she had filled with soil. "It grows so fast, and we have so much of it. I don't know if we need to take any seedlings or replant when we get there." As she spoke, she turned to the herb bed nearby, using a small trowel to remove a leafy plant, placing it in the pot, and covering its roots with more soil. A small voice, whistling like a breeze through tree branches, answered her.
   "No need to take everything, mo bhean. The forest will provide, and if we can't find it, then we can just grow it ourselves." She frowned down at the owner of the voice. The small creature was sitting on the edge of the pot, swinging its legs crossed at the ankle. The frock coat he wore over the matching waistcoat and pantaloons fluttered in a breeze only he felt. He gave the appearance of a tiny dandy. The light green cast to his skin complemented the deep sea green of his hair, well styled with his slightly pointed ears peaking through, despite the ends waving in the unseen wind that seemed to surround the small being. 
  "Pan, I know that the forest has many gifts to give. However, I won't squander the goodwill that the spirits feel for my family on trivial matters that we can handle ourselves. We can plant and grow our own herbs if they don't already grow in the area. The respect due to the Spirits of the forest shouldn't be neglected." She sighed wistfully.
   The Thorne family had been Spirit Masters for generations. Ever since the first Spirit Master had wandered through the forest as a child, freeing a trapped lizard and sharing the last crust of bread they had. That lizard had transformed into a beautiful woman and pledged unending loyalty and friendship to the small child who had faced starvation to feed it. That first Spirit Master had used the gifts of the spirit they had bound to rise in fame and wealth. The succeeding generations had followed in the child's footsteps and bonded with Spirits, solidifying their power and becoming one of the four Cardinal Protectors of the Kingdom.
   The Beastkin of the Starling family in the East, the Sages of the Rothchildes in the West, the Spellblades of the Drakes in the North, and the Spirit Masters of the Thornes in the South. Each family held special powers and guarded the compass points of the Rivenscar Kingdom, with the royal Blackstone family ruling over all at the heart. For centuries, they had kept the kingdom prosperous and secure, but recent generations had seen the Thorne family decline, each generation shrinking until only Rosaline was left.
   She sighed again, deeper this time, as she thought about how far the Thornes had fallen. Her mother, Rosamund Thorne, had been the only child born to her generation and thus the only Spirit Master. She had married Sebastian, Rosaline's father, and they only had her between them. When Rosamund had died young, Rosaline was only five years old. Sebastian had wasted no time in claiming the title for himself, claiming that Rosaline was too young. Within the year, he had brought in a new Marchioness with a daughter in tow, barely a year younger than Rosaline. Her teeth still clenched in anger as she remembered watching her mother waste away in that final year. 
   Some of her earliest memories were of sitting by her mother's sickbed, her small hand clasped in the chilled larger one, listening to the soft voice that whispered out to her. All the while her 'father' had been busy currying favor with the vassals so that when her mother finally could no longer hold onto life, he could step into her rightful place unopposed. While her mother had been a Spirit Master, her body had been weak, and memories of her at her most powerful had faded after years of illness. 
   Like all four of the Cardinal houses, the Thorne family had been secretive. No one outside of the immediate family knew how they bonded to the Spirits, or how they manifested the gifts the Spirits gave them. After the first Spirit Master, all the following generations hadn't bonded until they were fifteen, after going into an extended seclusion and guided by an experienced Spirit Master. So all that the greedy vassals of the South had seen was a small child with no power, who may never manifest any, as there was no longer anyone to guide her when the time came. 
   Who would stand up for a little girl who was so obviously vulnerable? Especially when there was power and influence to be gained. They had descended like vultures, lining up behind her father to pick the carcass of her family clean. It had been a major scandal a the time. The Thorne family Marquisate being taken over by a husband who had married in when there was still a lawful heir. But memories were short, and within a few years, it had been all but forgotten. Buried under the pretense of a happy family of three that the 'new' Thorne family had presented. Rosaline had been hidden away, all but declared dead, as suddenly this new 'sister' that had appeared became the only daughter of the Marquess of Thorne. 
   With Rosaline so young and Rosamund sick, she had never had any real exposure to society or other noble families. All that had circulated was that the Marchioness had only given birth to one child, a daughter. All they had to do was attend events as a family of three, presenting Blanche as their daughter, for society to assume that the girl so close in age to Rosaline was the true heir of the Thorne family. The way that Selena, now her stepmother rather than her father's mistress and Blanche's real mother, doted on the girl was held up as a model for how motherly virtue. Caring so much for a child that wasn't even hers.
    Rosaline snorted at the thought. She stretched and stood up, smoothing down the rough-spun fabric of the maid's uniform she was wearing. If only they all knew that the real heir of the Thorne family was nothing more than a servant in the castle. Tormented by her so-called family, who used her as unpaid labor. After all, she should be grateful that she hadn't been thrown onto the streets as her virtuous stepmother reminded her whenever she was unable to avoid the woman. Any servants that had been loyal to the real Thorne family had been dismissed years ago, replaced by those loyal only to the marquess and his wife. 
   She had grown up surrounded by a family that wanted her forgotten, powerless, and servants who took their cues from their masters. Within a week of Serena and Blanche arriving, she had been relegated to a room in the servants' hall, her large suite given to Blanche. A maid's uniform had replaced her silk gowns, and all of her toys and possessions had been given to Blanche or thrown out. Soon her small, soft hands became scarred from work, and the black and blue bruises from frequent beatings would cover her body. She would have followed her mother into death out of despair if she had not remembered the teachings that her mother had whispered to her all those hours she had sat by her side. 
   Those whispered words had given her Pan, and he had saved her. She had become the youngest Spirit Master since the very first. She had truly become the heir to the Thorne legacy, her mother ensuring that she would be able to access the knowledge she would need to embrace and wield it.
   "Two days is plenty of time for us to gather everything we need. I think we should just gather as many seeds as we can and plan to start fresh when we get there. With your excellent help, how could any seeds we plant not grow as tall as the trees themselves?" She smiled down at the small figure as he puffed out his small chest. "You always make sure that I succeed. In two days we'll be free of this place, and I like the idea of a fresh start." 
   In two days, the Duke they were all worked up about would arrive. And when he left, she would finally escape.