Sand. My tongue tasted like sand. Dry. Foul. As if something had crawled into my mouth and died. Blinking my eyes open, I squeezed them shut again against the blinding sunlight, beams boring like daggers into my head.

"...don't appear to be any symptoms of poisoning. Only a hangover..."

I didn't recognize that Ardal voice.

"What did he say?"

That one I did. Giles was not happy.

"He said that he does not believe the prince to have been poisoned. Only, well, a tad hungover."

Ambassador Wells.

"By your leave, ambassador. I believe my work is done here," the voice in Ardal said.

"Thank you, doctor." Coins clinked. "For your discretion."

"What in the bloody hell is going on?" I rasped. Only, it came out as more of a cough than actual words.

A cup was pressed to my mouth, a shadow blotting out the sun. Giles' lips were pursed when I risked a glance up at him, hovering beside me.

"Good morning, your Highness," he said. When he tried to take the cup of water away, I seized it from him, tilting it back to wash away the foul, metallic taste still clinging to my tongue. My fingers tingled, numb at the tips as if I'd cut off their circulation in my sleep. Collapsing back against my pillows, I massaged the bridge of my nose, a pounding headache blooming behind my eyes as they acclimatized to the sunlight.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice still raspy.

"It seems you had quite the Ardalonian adventure," Ambassador Wells said, flitting up beside Giles and bouncing on his toes. "I'd caution against doing it again, however. You really ought to listen to me, your Highness, for I had warned you that Lower-"

"Go away, Wells," I said, pressing my eyes closed, completely devoid of the patience required to deal with the ambassador.

He cut himself off, sputtering some sort of farewell, clearly somewhat insulted. I didn't care. I waited, my eyes still shut, until the door snicked closed behind him.

"I drank two whiskeys last night. This isn't just a hangover, no matter what that idiot of a doctor says," I said, finally opening my eyes to survey my valet. Giles glanced back towards the door to be sure we were alone.

"I know," he muttered, producing a glass vial the size of my finger from his pocket. The remnants of a pale pink liquid clung to the sides. I squinted at it as Giles handed it to me.

The sight of it tugged at a memory.

Pale pink. Tinkling vials. Walls covered in glass, shimmering in different colours. The more I chased it, however, the murkier the memory became, like attempting to recall a dream.

"Where did you find this?" I asked, wincing against the dart of pain in my throbbing head as I pushed myself upright.

"Near the spectacular amount of vomit you left on the floor," Giles replied. When I glanced down to where he'd gestured, he harrumphed.

"Did you think I wouldn't already have cleaned it up?" he huffed.

But again, the sight of the freshly cleaned marble floor summoned yet another fuzzy, half-remembered memory. This one of fingers down my throat, accompanied by a spectacular amount of Ardal cursing. Someone telling me they'd had just about enough of princes as I heaved my innards onto the floor.

When I noticed Giles still watching me as I spun the vial between my fingers, I made an attempt to swing my legs out of bed. The room still tilted and swirled, but far less than it had last night.

"Don't tell me, you're probably already written to mummy, too, haven't you?" I asked. When he pursed his lips again, I blew out a sigh, scrubbing my face with my free hand.

"Now that you've arisen alive and well, I'll be writing to her again to allay her fears," Giles replied. "I don't think you quite understand the scare you gave me when I came to wake you this morning. Sprawled out on your bed, barely breathing, with your body weight's worth of vomit on the floor and a glass vial of panacea on the ground."

"Panacea?" I repeated, inspecting it once again.

"I'd recognize a vial like that anywhere. Lord Amberly brought a supply of it with him whenever he left Pretania. The cure for all poisons, apparently. More valuable than gold," Giles said, starting to make the bed now that I'd made some efforts to rise. "And only the Ardalonian royal family knows how to craft it."

As I lifted the vial to my nose, the rosewater-sweet smell of it ignited another memory, this one far less fuzzy than the others...

The marble was cold against my face. Something smelled foul. My mouth tasted foul. My throat burned.

Vomit.

An entire puddle of it, shining in the moonlight.

I was being lifted again, my arm thrown over someone's shoulders.

She was muttering to herself in Ardal, curses mostly, before she spoke to me.

"Sit down."

I was on the edge of the bed. The floor seemed to be where the ceiling should have been, or maybe that was just the room spinning again. Then everything went dark, darker than it should have been in the middle of the night. Maybe my eyes were closed. But if they were, they wouldn't open.

"Open your damned eyes."

"You could ask nicely, darling," I slurred.

That earned a slap to both my cheeks. The world appeared again, flickering with candlelight. A pair of brown eyes inches from my own, inspecting my face. The world went dark again.

"Open your damned eyes. Please." Punctuated with another slap of my cheeks.

The world stayed dark.

"Damn it all to hell."

There it was, the sweet rosewater smell.

"Open your mouth."

"Say please."

The world spun, flickering in candlelight again. Now I was flat on the bed, a pair of fingers prying open my mouth as a weight sat on my chest.

"You didn't say pl-"

I choked on that rosewater smell. Bitterness coated my tongue. I coughed, but a hand clamped itself over my mouth. The liquid seared down my throat.

The weight vanished.

"You are going to have the worst headache of your life tomorrow, but you'll live."

The voice was behind me now. My shoulders were being dragged across the bed. I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn't move.

I was flipped onto my side, propped up with pillows, my arm beneath my head.

"Sleep it off. The paralysis is only temporary..."

"...even listening to me?" Giles demanded, stooping down to peer worriedly into my eyes. I blinked myself free from the memory, my fingers still toying with the vial.

"I'm going to breakfast," I said, seizing the bedpost to help me stand. Giles straightened, planting his hands on his hips.

"With respect, your Highness, are you even able to walk right now?" he asked. I levelled a look his way, taking an experimental step away from the bed.

The room wobbled as if I was on a storm-tossed ship, but I remained upright.

Giles pressed his lips into a line.

"Somebody tried to poison me last night," I said. "I'll be damned if I don't show my face at breakfast to show them all that they failed."

Giles studied me.

"As you wish," he said finally, giving me a curt bow.

I was done being an idiot prince, I decided, sitting back down on the bed to spare my aching head as Giles readied my clothing for me. There was no more time for ruses and games, not after someone had tried to kill me last night. First, by putting a bounty on my head. My memories of the alley were foggy, but the cloaked strangers discussing the price on my head were not.

Nor was the memory of their knives skittering away into the mist as my rescuer clobbered them.

Whoever wanted me dead had truly meant it, too, poisoning my drinks to make it easier to kill me. Two whiskeys, even Kentshire's best, were insufficient to render me as helpless and drugged as I had been last night. The vial between my fingers was proof enough that whoever had rescued me had deemed it necessary to administer a remedy that cost more than most Lower Relizians earned in a year, proof that they witnessed - or at the very least suspected - that I'd been poisoned.

Proof that my rescuer had well and truly saved my life, if a palace doctor couldn't detect any further traces of poison in my system.

I had someone to thank and someone to destroy. Thankfully, I had my suspicions about the identities of both parties, something I intended to explore over breakfast.

Giles helped me hobble to the royal tower, rapping on the dining room door once I'd tested out my sure-footedness. I wanted to saunter into that room with all the arrogance I could muster, so it would't do for me to stumble. Thankfully, the feeling had slowly returned to my extremities as we'd walked, my mind clearing in the morning sunshine despite the throbbing ache taking up residence behind my eyes.

But to witness Dulciana spitting out her porridge and nearly choking upon seeing me was worth the pain.

"Good morning," I said, sliding on my most jovial of grins, ice in my eyes as I bowed to the king. "I hope you'll forgive my tardiness, Armando took me on quite the adventure last night."

Dulciana stiffened in her chair as she mopped her face with her napkin, her eyes wide as she looked me over. I sauntered to the table, taking the seat beside Ana-Cristina, who was watching her older sister's reaction with concern. Inés' sole focus was the plate of food before her, while the two youngest princesses stifled their giggles at Dulciana having spit out her food, oblivious to the tension I'd ignited.

Across the table, Prince Frederico was also inspecting me, the chair beside him decidedly vacant.

"What did he say about Armando?" the king demanded, his glare sliding from me to his two eldest children.

Dulciana's wide-eyes jumped to her father, my sudden appearance enough to delay her lies so I could continue speaking.

"Sí, your Majesty. Armando the guard? I'm sure you know him. You'd assigned him to watch over me," I continued innocently, not caring whether I let my idiot prince ruse slip.

I wasn't playing nice anymore.

"It's as I'd warned you, father. This simply confirms my suspicions that Armando has been sneaking the duques' sons to Lower Relizia for some time now," Frederico said. When he glanced at me, I was under the impression he was urging me to play along.

As if he suspected that I could understand him.

"What's this?" the king continued, his voice rising. At the other end of the table, Brigida and Sofia had gone quiet.

"With your permission, father, I'll bring the children back to their governess," Ana-Cristina said, her voice unsteady under the heavy tension blanketing the room. The king batted an annoyed hand at her, signalling for her to leave, turning his glare to his son. Inés abandoned her breakfast, trailing Ana-Cristina and the younger princesses from the room.

"The foreigner doesn't know what he's talking about," Dulciana finally snapped, speaking only once her sisters were out of earshot.

"I'm thinking you ought to look into your policing of the lower city, your Majesty," I continued, serving myself an egg and toast as if they hadn't been speaking around me. "Dreadful ruffian problem you have there." I lifted my eyes to Dulciana. "I almost didn't make it out alive."

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, unable to hold my gaze.

"I specifically forbade Armando from allowing him anywhere near Lower Relizia," the king thundered, shoving his chair away from the table as he gestured for one of the advisors lined up against the wall. "Summon him, this instant."

"Father, he-" Dulciana began, but she was silenced as the king's fist connected with the table, cutlery jumping as glasses clinked.

"Get out of my sight," the king snarled at his daughter. Dulciana's chest heaved as she glared at him, then at Frederico. When the crown prince remained silent, his face utterly unreadable, she tossed her napkin onto the table, rising and gathering her skirts with as much dignity as she could muster.

She didn't look at me again as she swept from the room.

"Bring him to my study," the king barked to his advisors, once Dulciana had left the room. He was still on his feet, his face a remarkable shade of puce. "Come, Frederico. It's time we put this matter to rest."

"Of course," Frederico replied. He made a show of patting his mouth with his napkin, the king sweeping from the room in a tempest of fury, his advisors trailing him.

"You and I should take a walk today," Frederico said as he rose.

"Perhaps you could invite your remarkable sister along, too," I replied. "I believe I owe her quite a deal of thanks."

His lip twitched as he fought his grin.

"I'd rather not include Dulciana in our conversation," he replied, his gaze holding mine.

"You know I don't mean her," I replied.

Frederico tilted his head, that ghost of a grin on his face once again.

"Do I?" he asked, not waiting for my answer before leaving in pursuit of the king.

I watched him go, slicing myself some toast and egg, running through all that I'd managed to stir up in a matter of minutes. With the royal family gone, I leaned back in my chair, enjoying the sweeping vista out the windows as I chewed my breakfast in silence.

Armando was about to be punished, of that much I was certain. He deserved it, after what he'd attempted to do to me last night. But it was as clear as day that the order had come from Dulciana, if her reaction upon seeing me alive and breathing had been any indication.

Frederico was also now aware that I suspected Beatriz as my rescuer, which was only logical given the situation I'd found myself in. He and his twin were the only two to have witnessed Armando's invitation. The antidote that had saved my life happened to be a closely guarded secret of the Ardalonian royal family. Of all of his sisters, Beatriz was the one who had reached for a knife, twice, in my presence, the only one I'd imagine capable of doing what the mysterious cloaked woman had done to save me.

Unless, of course, I'd been very wrong about Inés.

But I very much doubted that the younger princess could assail a pair of thugs and haul my semi-conscious body all the way back to the palace. That seemed more the job of a woman who sank into a battle stance when someone threatened her brother.

A woman who had said I'd be gambling with my life if I followed Armando.

A woman who very much needed me alive to marry her sister so her twin could ascend the throne.

I blew out a sigh. If I'd had any inkling, all that time ago, when my mother had barged into my bedchamber in the middle of the night bearing a vaguely worded marriage treaty, that this would be the result, I wasn't sure whether I would've offered myself up for it.

But the plotting part of my mind, the part that revelled in stirring up trouble, was gleefully rubbing his hands together, already anticipating the fallout from breakfast.

**A/N: Whew, this one was a huge one, readers! And so much to discuss, too! Do you think Thomas' suspicions are right about Dulciana and Beatriz? What about Frederico, being all shady like that? Has Thomas finally found an ally?

As always, if you enjoyed it, please take a moment to vote and comment! (And, if you're feeling so inclined and haven't already, click the follow button on my profile! More followers means a higher chance that these stories get published for real, so you can have them on your bookshelves at home!) Thanks a million, readers!!**