Chapter 3 - Maeve

                                        

                                              
The palace gates rose like jaws, waiting to snap shut behind her.
Maeve reined in her horse with practised grace, her cloak billowing like smoke in the wake of dusk. Her loyal guards bowed low, murmuring her name in reverence.
And in fear.
Good, Maeve thought. She had worked hard for that. Fear served where loyalty wavered.
She was not their friend.
 She was their princess.
 A creature of poise and steel, not softness.
The people loved her. But the guards—ah, the guards knew better. They had seen what she did to those who mistook her for a silk-draped doll.
She did not wait for her steward or the simpering cluster of ministers that always hovered too close, too eager.
Let them scurry.
 Let them whisper.
Her boots struck the marbled floors of the grand hall like punctuation marks—sharp, certain, unyielding.
This was her home.
 And she loathed what infested it.
The court reeked of lilac and lies.
Velvet-draped halls. Gilded sconces. The cloying perfume of over-sweetened wine. It was all a beautiful snare. The palace glittered, yes—but so do blades. So do traps.
She ascended the steps to the council chamber two at a time, trailing silence and command behind her like a second cloak. Attendants scrambled, heels clicking. She ignored them.
Inside, a half-moon of greying men rose.
Too late.
 Too rehearsed.
 Too false.
"Your Highness," drawled Minister Kelren, smoothing his sash like he had earned it with anything but deception. "You return sooner than expected. We assumed the forest detour might..."
"Devour me?" Maeve sank into her seat with the elegance of someone who had mastered the art of looking delicate while sharpening knives beneath the table. "Regretfully, I am not so easily consumed. The forest shows me the way now."
A few chuckled. One paled. Kelren simply smiled—a serpent wearing silk.
Still, there was something she loved here. The scent of the room. Rosewood furniture, polished to perfection, fragrant and warm. Her fingers drifted to the carved blossom at her armrest, brushing it with something close to tenderness.
Let the meeting begin.
Grain. War funds. Merchant tariffs. Reports presented in voices trained to sound neutral, clever, and loyal, while spinning nothing but prettified deceit.
Maeve listened.
Like a lion before a pounce.
 Like a queen before a verdict.
She asked no questions.
 She let them lie.
And then she smiled—beautiful and bored.
Let them think her naïve. Let them misjudge her. It made betrayal easier when they believed she didn't see it coming.
When the meeting ended, she dismissed them with a flick of her fingers. All left.
Except Kelren.
He always lingered.
"What is it, Kelren?" she asked sweetly, voice smooth as velvet drawn across a dagger's edge.
"Spies whispered," he said, tone dripping with sugar he hoped would hide the venom.
Maeve hummed. She was used to his theatre. Used to enduring men who thought her silence meant surrender.
"There is a new sighting in the forest," he continued. "A stranger. A man on the hunt."
"For me?"
Kelren hesitated, clearly thrown off by her calm. "Yes, Your Highness. Or so they say."
She smiled without warmth. "Then he'll find himself hunted."
Kelren bowed and withdrew. Finally.
Alone, Maeve turned to the window. Twilight pooled beyond the glass like ink spilt across silk.
"Everything sounds so clean in this place," she murmured.
Not like the forest.
The memory struck like flint against flint.
The stranger.
 Him.
He wasn't after her—not directly. He was after something far more sacred.
The flower.
She didn't even know his name. And yet, his presence lingered like the ghost of a flame. He'd stepped from the trees like the forest itself had shaped him. A myth in flesh. A storm dressed as a man.
And yet—too real. Too aware.
His words haunted her still.
"You're the only real thing I've seen since I stepped into these cursed trees."
It had been a reckless thing to say.
Too honest. Too raw.
Goosebumps prickled her arms. What kind of brute speaks like that to a stranger? Did he think her easy prey? Did he see her?
She stood abruptly, brushing imaginary dust from her skirt. She wasn't used to being remembered that way. Not by someone who looked past the crown.
Her hand drifted to her hip, where instinct remembered a blade once fastened. Now gone. But her fingers curled all the same.
The flower.
No one in court dared speak its name. Not out loud. Not anymore. But rumours moved like vines through stone, and ancient texts still breathed beneath the dust of the royal archives.
She had gone to the forest for a reason.
And he had crossed her path for one.
A legend.
 A lie.
 A promise.
And now, a stranger walked its borders with eyes like obsidian fire—and a gaze that did not flinch.
He looked at her like she was a puzzle. Not a prize. Not a princess.
It unsettled her.
It moved her.
She could still feel his gaze like a hand pressed to the base of her throat. Uninvited. Unwelcome. But not entirely unwelcome.
Maeve moved to the mirror. Not the gilded one her attendants polished. A real one. Old and honest.
She looked like a queen in waiting.
One day, she would rule.
But today... she only felt awake.
And that was dangerous.
Her fingers brushed her collarbone. No wound. No scar. But something had cracked inside her.
Something that might bloom.
"I am not yours to haunt," she whispered.
"I am not yours to hunt," she added, voice steel-wrapped silk.
"He will never get what he seeks," she told herself.
But she wasn't sure she believed it.
Or if she even wanted to.
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