Prince, Cinderella Forsakes You novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Terms

Clem makes the Beast pay the bride-price to her instead of her stepmother and tells the guard she knows he's the prince, and at the border bridge he halts the carriage to search the thief.

"You heard it," I said. "Then why didn't you say so?"

The Beast glanced past me at the guard.

"Would your guard take a monster's word over a lady's?"

I didn't have to look back. I knew the answer.

"Every lie spoken near me rings," he said. "Only I hear it. It's the curse."

"Every lie?"

"Every one. Your stepmother's rings are paste, by the way. She told the herald they were her mother's rubies. It was very loud."

Behind me, one of the maids snorted.

Maud's face went the color of brick.

"Well," she said. "The girl's yours. The thousand crowns come to this house at the wedding. That's the treaty."

I turned around.

"No," I said.

Everyone looked at me again. I was getting used to it.

"The crowns go to the bride, or there isn't one. I'm not paying her to be rid of me."

Maud laughed. "You don't get to bargain, Cinders."

"Then I'll walk back into that kitchen and he can go home with nobody."

The Beast folded his huge arms.

"The lady's terms are fair," he said. "The crowns go to her. Write it."

The green herald scribbled on his paper with his eyebrows up near his hair.

Maud opened her mouth and shut it.

Ottilie drifted down the path with her hand tucked into the guard's arm. Her limp was so small you'd miss it.

"Enjoy the kennel, Cinders," she said. "Do they feed you from a bowl up there?"

"I'll write and tell you," I said.

I went up to the attic for my things.

There wasn't much.

A spare dress, and stockings with darns on the darns.

And my father's pruning knife, the one with the bone handle worn smooth by his thumb.

I wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it in my pocket.

When I came down, the guard was saddling a gray horse by our gate.

"The prince's orders," he told the green herald. "I'm to escort your party to the border."

"To be sure nothing of this house leaves with her."

He said "nothing of this house" looking right at my bag.

The Beast held the carriage door for me.

Nobody had held a door for me in three years.

The carriage was black outside and green velvet inside, worn bald on the seats.

He sat across from me with his knees folded up nearly to his chin.

"What do I call you?" I asked. "Not Beast, I hope."

"Cassian," he said. "Most people don't ask."

The town went by the window. Then fields.

I watched his hands. Fur on the backs, and short blunt claws, kept clean.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm not."

He winced. "That one was small. Like a spoon on a cup."

"Are they all different?"

"Big lies ring big. Your sister's slipper was a cathedral."

I laughed before I could stop it.

He looked startled.

"Let's test it," I said. "I'll tell you three things. You say which one's the lie."

"I'll know all three."

"Humor me."

"Fine."

"I can graft a pear onto a quince. I've never been kissed. I like your carriage."

"The carriage," he said. "It's a very ugly carriage."

"It's hideous."

"There. That one was true."

I looked out the window so he wouldn't see my face. He'd said nothing about the second one.

He told me the rule while the light went gold.

A bride by the first frost, at the Hunter's Moon. Twenty-two nights from now.

She had to stand at the altar and say she wasn't afraid of him.

If it rang, the curse stayed for good this time.

"Three brides came," he said. "Three rang. I sent them home myself, with their crowns."

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because you can still go home. Any day before the frost. I won't stop you."

I thought of the kitchen. Of kneeling on the flagstones with Ottilie's foot on my knee.

"I'm not going home," I said.

He tilted his head and listened. Then he nodded slowly.

We stopped at an inn for the night.

I couldn't sleep. I went down to the yard for air.

The guard was there in the dark, checking his horse's shoe by lantern light.

He straightened up when he saw me. His hand went to his sword hilt, as if I were a threat.

I walked up to the lantern so he could see my face.

"I saw you at midnight," I said. "On the palace steps. You pulled your mask off and shouted after me."

He went still.

"You're not a guard. You're Prince Florian. And you made me kneel."

For a second, his face looked young and lost.

Then it closed.

"Ottilie told me you knew," he said. "She said you'd use it. That you'd sell it to the broadsheets."

"I've never sold anything in my life."

"Then learn to hold your tongue."

"If anyone hears that name from you, I'll see you in a cell before the Beast gets you to an altar."

He picked up his lantern and left me standing in the dark.

At noon we reached the border river.

The bridge was old gray stone, long and narrow. The Thornwood was on the other side, the color of ash.

Halfway across, the guard rode up beside the carriage and shouted for the driver to stop.

The carriage jerked.

He flung the door open.

"Lady Ottilie's pearls are missing," he said. "Her mother sent a rider. Out of the carriage. I'm searching the thief."

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