The pale morning light filtered through the narrow arched windows of Kat’s chambers, catching the dust motes dancing over the rich fabrics spread across the daybed.

“Your Highness, this deep crimson velvet and the sea-green silk contend for your favor today,” Celia said, her voice carrying her usual bright enthusiasm as she lifted the heavy garments. “Should you choose the crimson, we must pair it with the emerald and ruby collar, and I shall pin your hair into a high court updo. It will be magnificent, truly.”

Kat turned from her reflection to look at her gowns. “You have the right of it, Celia. One can be weary of too much green, and this dark crimson—rich as old wine—will strike a bolder note when paired with the stones.” She paused, studying her maid’s face in the looking glass. “But what casts a shadow over your countenance today? Are you unwell?”

“It is nothing to trouble Your Highness,” Celia said quickly, her fingers fumbling slightly as she gathered the silver hairpins. She forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. “I shall make haste to get you ready.”

“Celia, there is no need for such frantic haste. The court does not depend on my presence to begin its session.”

“But, my princess, it looks bad if you are—”

“Then help me look good. Hurry up and tell me.” Kat raised her eyebrows and waited.

Celia let out a long, defeated sigh, lowering the brush to her lap. “Heavy word has reached me from our fostery, my princess. It was raided by a band of mercenaries. Our Hearth-master has sent out urgent missives to those of us who found service elsewhere, begging for whatever aid we can give to restore what was plundered. But… it is not the loss of coin or winter blankets that keeps my heart in a vice. It is the babes. They stole several of the children.”

Kat turned fully in her carved chair, her brow furrowing in deep distaste. “They took children? What manner of mercenaries would descend upon a fostery? They house naught but penniless orphans.”

“I have been asking myself the same, my princess,” Celia murmured, her gaze dropping to the floorboards. “We possessed nothing of true value—only the rough clothes on our backs, a roof against the rain, and the basic lessons that might grant us an honest trade in the world.”

According to Lady Valiya, Celia had excelled so well in her letters and sums under the Hearth-master’s care that she had instantly chosen the girl to come to the capital and serve the young princess—a rare and coveted honor that had lifted her far above her origins.

“Then it was not wealth they sought,” Kat said, her expression hardening as she pieced the cruel logic together. “Unless they meant to steal the children from the very start—the one commodity a fostery holds in abundance—and the rest of the plunder was merely a mask.” Kat grimaced. “How can we aid them, Celia? What measures are being taken to recover those younglings?”

“Our Hearth-master has already petitioned the Guild and the local lords of Friartown, and he has sent an express rider to Warden Lord Sauvage,” Celia replied. “For now, he begs for whatever gold we can spare to rebuild the broken gates.”

“I shall send a purse of royal gold from my own allowance,” Kat said, giving her maid’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Keep your ears sharp for any further tidings from the border. I have never heard of mercenaries operating so freely in the East.”

“Nor I, my princess,” Celia whispered. She picked up the silver brush once more, her fingers moving with practiced care as she began weaving the dark ribbons into Kat’s hair, preparing her princess to face the high court.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Kat made it to court just in time. Her seat was a step below her father’s, on his left side—and had she been a heartbeat too late, it would have looked like a spectacle when she ascended. Luckily, Sir Rodolfo was around to descend quickly and give the princess a hand up the steps, and she was grateful to have someone by her side.

“The King hasn’t called the court to order yet, Princess, so you are safe,” the avuncular knight said with a quiet, reassuring wink.

“Thanks for coming down, Sir,” Kat whispered back gratefully.

“It is nothing.” He patted her hand as they reached her seat. She sat down, her posture perfect.

The air in the Great Hall was heavy with the scent of damp wool and melting wax. It was Public Petition Day, a grueling exercise in royal patience where the grand tapestry of the kingdom’s grievances was unrolled before the throne.

The first case was presented by an ox-driver from the Westlands named Corin.

“The local magistrate at Glass-Blower’s Haven ruled justly, Your Majesty,” Corin argued, his voice booming. “The girl’s honor was compromised under my roof. To mend the tear in her reputation and ensure she is not cast out by the parish, the court ordered that we wed. I am a righteous man; I accepted the burden of taking a ruined maid to be my wife. But her father refuses to pay the dowry required by the Guild laws to seal the contract.”

The maid’s father, a sheep farmer named Ansel, stepped forward, his voice cracking with a desperate, ragged edge.

“Sire, I beg your mercy! I have lost two sons in their infancy; I have two more, and Mili is my only girl. My girl was assaulted. This brute dragged my Mili into his barn while she was delivering the midsummer wool. Had I known this would befall her, I never would have sent her out to deliver. It was my own hand that sent my girl to her ruin. We are poor people and need every bit of help, and every day the thought destroys me. Now the local court says she must sleep under the roof of the man who broke her? My daughter came back home bleeding and weeping, ruined. And now I must pay him a handsome sum of silver—silver I do not have—to reward his crime? We were not prepared for a marriage feast, Your Majesty. If she must be bound to him, I beg the Crown to waive the dowry. Let him take her without stripping my remaining children of their bread!”

Kat’s gaze flicked to the trembling slip of a girl standing behind the father. She was a pretty little girl, no more than thirteen winters. This child was assaulted by this giant brute?

It was the Scriptor’s decree that if a man ruined a woman’s honor, he should compensate her for it; one of the laws derived from this broad decree was that the man could marry her and take responsibility for her, so she might be restored to her proper place in society. But what perverse logic was this? This girl was but a child, while Corin had seen at least forty winters—a despoiler of women, and her own tormentor. What sort of law was this, that not only must she dwell beneath his roof, but her family must pay him a dowry to boot? How had the scholars arrived at such a conclusion?

The King leaned forward, his voice heavy, measured, and entirely devoid of malice—which only made his words colder.

“The law of the realm is clear, goodman,” the King decreed. “A marriage without a dowry is no valid union under the eyes of the Guild or the Crown; it would leave your daughter a concubine, stripping her of legal rights and her children of inheritance. The magistrate’s ruling stands. The honor of the maid must be restored through holy matrimony, and the standard dowry must be paid to the groom within three moons. As a show of mercy, the Crown will bear the weight of the dowry—fifteen silver pieces, granted after the wedding takes place. May the union bring peace to your houses. Next petitioner.”

Kat kept her hands folded tightly in her lap, her fingernails biting deep into her palms. She could see Celesta in the periphery of the court, grimacing in disgust. Kat thought that if she were queen, she would have this Corin whipped and locked away in the dungeons.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

It was not until the torches were being lit in the King’s private solar that Kat spoke her mind. She waited until the cupbearer had poured her father’s spiced wine and departed.

“You need to stop biting the end of your quill, Kat. Your mother had the same odd habit—there were always ink marks on her lips when we were done sorting the ledgers at harvest season,” the King gently chided her.

Kat stopped chewing her quill and looked at her father for a moment.

“What I saw in court today does not sit well with me, Father,” Kat said quietly, her voice steady but laced with a rare, biting friction.

The King sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose where the heavy iron crown usually pressed. “You speak of the farmer from Glass-Blower’s Haven.”

“I do,” Kat said, stepping closer to the hearth. “A rapist is given a wife, and then handed a purse of silver to reward the deed. The poor girl looked as though she were walking to the gallows, not an altar. How is that a restoration of honor?”

The King looked up, his eyes weary but unyielding. “You look at the world through the lens of a princess who lives behind high stone walls, Katarina. You see an isolated crime. I must see the community that surrounds it. Not even the King is above the law, and if I went against the Scriptor’s laws, we would have an uprising on our hands.”

He took a slow draught of his wine before continuing.

“If that girl does not marry the man who took her, she is a pariah. No other man in Glass-Blower’s Haven will ever offer for her. Her neighbors will look at her with pity at best, and scorn at worst. This incident in her life will define her very person to them. If her father dies tomorrow, who will tend to her? Who will feed her? She will be driven to the gutters within a winter. The marriage forces the man to provide for her, to shelter her, and it forces the village to treat her as a lawful wife. It is the only shield the law can provide to ensure she survives in the world she must inhabit.”

“Then the shield is made of rusted iron, and it cuts the person it is meant to protect,” Kat countered, her jaw tightening. “We force her to rely on the mercy of a beast. This man could hurt her every day, and very likely would.”

“A king does not uproot the foundations of the floor he stands on,” he sighed. “Sometimes I fear I have allowed you and your sisters too much independence. You are a living, breathing image of your mother. I was always so struck by her nature that I never dared to restrain her in any manner. But perhaps the liberties I have allowed you have failed to make you understand the world we live in, and that even a King’s power has its limits.”

Kat looked at her father, touched by the realization that even kings were not the Scriptor. She did not want to trouble him any further tonight. “Goodnight, Father. You should rest.”

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

She left for her chambers with Celia. On the way back to the South Wing, her mind raced with thoughts of how she might deal with such transgressions, until she suddenly came across Sir Daniel Norwood in the corridor. She was startled out of her reverie by the sight of him.