Daniela's momentary pause only lasted a second. Her politeness, a practiced art form, was like a well-worn key turning a lock, unlocking an entry to his world. She glided across the short distance separating them, her modest gown rustling as she gave a polite bow. "Prince Jasper," she greeted.
Jasper's eyes, as dark as cold onyx, seemed to look right through her, then at something only he could perceive. "You recall me?" he asked, a hint of genuine curiosity in his tone.
A mistake. Daniela realized it the moment the words left her mouth. In her previous lives, Jasper had been a constant, a presence she had always been acutely aware of. But in this one, he was more of an abstract concept, a rumor in a world of whispers. She recalled meeting him briefly as a child—she, five; he, ten. A peculiar child with eyes as black as a starless night, a stark contrast to the whites of his eyes. His dark, curly hair fell past his shoulders, framing a face that seemed devoid of youthful exuberance, a boy who had never known what it was like to simply be a child.
Unseen, from a distance, Eric's blood-red eyes followed Daniela, every movement, every subtle shift of her body, a point of fascination. His keen hearing, a sharp instrument, strained to catch every word exchanged between them. He hadn't remembered Daniela being particularly fond of Prince Jasper. He would need to corner her alone, to warn her that he was a terrifying, dangerous creature, and that all the princes were the same.
"Of course, Prince. We have been acquainted once or twice," Daniela said, her eyes veiled by her long lashes. She tried to seem a bit more aloof, a bit less interested. In this marriage market, every woman was overly interested in all the princes. It could only benefit her to present a different face.
"You are much changed, Daniela." Jasper wasn't truly looking at her; his gaze was fixed on her chest, on the peculiar allure of what lay beneath her amble chest. Jasper wasn't one to fixate on matters of the flesh, as intimate contact was a source of energy for demons. Yet, he had never gotten much joy out of merely looking at something pretty. But the jade bead below her heart was a mythic-level beauty he couldn't seem to get enough of.
Daniela was taken aback by his audaciousness, a brazenness mixed with an aloof disinterest in conversation. His eyes never left her breast, and she was pegging him as a possible whoremonger in this life. But anything, she reasoned, was better than a sadistic psychopath like Eric.
"If I asked you for advice, would you give it?" Her question, a sharp turn in the conversation, made Jasper's head snap up. His neutral face softened as his gaze finally met hers. He had been wondering how he could get closer to her, and it seemed he didn't have to put in any work. For whatever reason, she was seeking him out. Perhaps she thought he was a safe bet, assuming no princess would want to be his Queen.
He answered her with a cool, even tone. "Ruthlessness will keep you alive. Cunning will have you chosen. Power and beauty are a bonus." He wanted her to understand that she could be deadly. She did not need to worry about propriety or looking poised. It was far better, in this world, to look deadly than to look pretty.
"I will not forget your wise words, Jasper." Daniela dropped her chin, mimicking his earlier stare, before smirking and turning away, her gown swishing as she moved on. Keeping his words close in her mind.
She truly had ripened, Jasper thought to himself, a hint of approval in his mind. He drew on his power, a dark, living energy that hummed just beneath his skin. He pulled an onyx crystal from his jacket sleeve and infused it with his power, watching it darken. His magic swirled inside the stone, fusing with the mineral, encasing it in his essence. The gem disappeared in a wisp of dark smoke. He directed it towards Daniela.
Daniela froze as a sense of power, a tangible presence, washed over her, making her body hum in response. Right before her eyes, black smoke began to coalesce, opening to expose an obsidian gem with a silver chain, floating just before her face. She glanced over her shoulder, finding Jasper's neutral expression. He nodded, a silent gesture that this was a gift from him.
Deciding there was no harm in accepting a simple piece of jewelry, she lifted the silver chain, examining the onyx jewel. Her maids, who had instinctively given her space while she spoke with Jasper, crowded her, all of them looking at the gem with unrestrained happiness.
"Princess Daniela, I think Prince Jasper favors you." Lola couldn't help but grip Ida's arm in joy, shaking her ever so slightly as their palpable excitement radiated from them.
"Help me with it," Daniela said to Josephine, turning her back to her. Josephine took the chain and skillfully placed it around Daniela's neck. The chain was long enough to be either hidden beneath her dress or exposed.
"Princess, it could be hasty to brazenly wear such an adornment," Josephine warned, her voice a low whisper. She felt a prick of unease; it couldn't make her princess a target to wear something specifically gifted by a single prince. But it wasn't as if her princess had many options. She was a cripple; she couldn't use magic.
Taking in her maid's words, Daniela didn't outright agree with her, but she thought it was smart to show some restraint. She placed the gem in the side of her dress, where it was easily hidden from view.
As Daniela began to peruse the great hall, she noticed a crowd of women surrounding a single man, whom she couldn't make out past the throng of adoring women all clamoring for his attention. On the periphery of the group, she saw a woman with pastel green hair wearing a shimmering gold gown with a skirt so puffed out that no one could stand too close to her.
Guinevere stood at the edge, unable to get any closer to Prince Miguel. Her father had told her he was her top choice among the princes. Prince Miguel was a formidable man; his power was believed to be extremely rare, one of the few fully-formed wendigos.
She didn't worry too much about being the first to speak to him or the first in his line of sight. Reaching forward, she pushed her arm into the crowd, trying to move some of the women out of the way. A few called out in pain, and a hidden smile touched her lips before she pulled her arm back. She quickly handed her thorned bracelet to her awaiting maids. Although her face was set in a hard line as if she was battling to be nearest to Miguel, anyone who looked closely would see the glint of joy in her eyes.
In a separate room, all of the current kings and queens stood around a glowing orb that displayed the ballroom. Their eyes were glued to the scenes before them as they sat in their gilded thrones, one throne obviously larger than the others, a symbol of the king of the realm always needing to assert his dominance.
"It looks like the marriage market has officially started," Griselda, Queen of the Areos Kingdom, said with mirth, thinking back to her own time on the marriage market. Quincy, her husband, smiled at the scene. He wondered how many would last this first day. It was best to indiscriminately take out your competition.
"Princess Jaden, it's good to find a friend amongst the crowd," Daniela said with a smile as she walked toward her friend. In her previous lives, Jaden had been one of her closest friends, always willing to help her.
Princess Jaden was startled. The cripple was trying to align herself as an ally? Her eyes darted around the grand hall to the other women who looked at her as if she was just as lowly as Daniela.
She chuckled lightly, brushing a few curls away from her face. "Princess Daniela, you jest." She laughed again, trying to make it clear that she was not friends with Daniela. She was not as deficient as her. "Acquaintance at best, Daniela. I see you have tried to brighten my spirits. You are too kind." With another laugh, she quickly walked off with a few of the other women she was more inclined to make an alliance with.
Daniela was shocked. Was she not friends with Jaden in this timeline? She tried to search through the previous Daniela's memories. They had spent time together, and at one point they might have been considered friendly, but they were not close. Their fathers were both Lords of their own lands, so they rarely interacted with each other. On those occasions, they had been cordial.
"Only a fool would align themselves with a cripple," a young lady with white-blonde hair and frost accumulating on her skin that shimmered like diamonds spat the words at her.
Before she had an opportunity to bite back, she heard a terrible, wet-sounding hacking. Gas filled the room as hundreds of ladies backed away. Four women clutched their throats, scratching at their skin as the whites of their eyes turned red, and foamy blood dripped from their lips. They looked shocked but utterly furious as they died quickly but loudly.
Some of the women turned away, as if ready to vomit themselves. Others wept, feeling sorry for the dearly departed.
Daniela's face never changed. She took a few steps forward, a calm, deliberate movement, and took a better look at the women. She noticed how each of them had scratches on their forearms. Someone here, she thought, was good with poison.
Only she and a few others had managed to keep their calm aloofness, giving weight to the fact that they were not new to blood and violence.
The maids were quick to usher the princesses away from the scene, allowing them to quickly remove the bodies and clean up the mess. Jasper took the time to walk over to Daniela, noticing how she didn't seem fazed, completely at home amidst the violence. It pleased him to know that she would do well here; you needed an iron will to survive.
Before the maids could even finish taking away the three young ladies' bodies, another seven women dropped. Each of them had a hole in their throat. They probably didn't even see it coming. Unlike the others, this one was far more deliberate. She watched as the blood that came out through the holes was initially watery, as if they had been impaled by water or ice. These women really were not waiting a second before killing each other. It seemed like more than a few participants this year were aware that the marriage market was a deadly affair.
"Do you understand yet?" Jasper's cool tone slipped into her ears, a chilling question that hung in the bloody air.
His earlier piece of advice felt less like words and more like a macabre, living tapestry displayed before her. The ruthlessness to kill was now a brutal reality, a spray of blood on the polished ballroom floor. The cunning not to be caught was evident in the seamless, silent way the other participants had been dispatched, their deaths as swift as they were gruesome. She felt the weight of his words settle over her, a cloak of grim understanding.
Author's note:
I should have said this at the beginning of the book. This book takes place in a world connected to my other book The defective wolf. But it is a stand alone.