Nikolai

The whispers started three days after the ball.

I heard them first in the dining hall, low and insidious, like the rustle of rats in the walls. Two courtiers huddled near the window, their heads bent together, their voices barely audible. But my ears were sharper than most, and I caught the words—whore, manipulator, bedded her way to the throne.

I stood up. The scraping of my chair against the stone floor silenced the room.

"Repeat that." My voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of ...