They called it a gala; the court called it a "reception for regional dignitaries," and the kitchen staff called it a dinner that would ruin everyone's waistline. Aras called it an opportunity dressed in silk.
Elara's plan was a filigree of small cruelties: a staged argument in the east wing (to draw three caravans of guards), a misplaced jewel box that would make the king mutter about vanished heirlooms, and a lullaby sung off-key by a hired minstrel in the corridors to mask the sound of feet. It was, in short, the sort of messy, theatrical thing Aras adored. The stakes were higher now—the king's private cabinet sat like an insult behind velvet doors—and so were the risks.
"You'll have to wear something less… theatrical," Elara warned when Aras complained about the possibility of appearing too obvious. She handed him a dark doublet that smelled faintly of roses and danger. "And don't flirt with the guards. Promise me."
Aras slipped the doublet on and grinned. "I promise not to get us killed while looking utterly irresistible." He tipped a mock-salute and kissed Lina quick, the touch more oath than romance. Lina rolled her eyes and shoved a small packet of bread into his hand like a benediction.
The palace that night was a river of velvet and candles; courtiers moved like fish swimming in silk. The music was careful, the wine dangerous, and every conversation felt like a dagger wrapped in gossip. Coren shone in a tunic of blue that made his jaw look dangerous in its prettiness; he worked his charm like a man who'd been practicing revolution in lessons. Miren blended into servant-clusters with an ease that made Aras suspicious of her humility. The twins had been promoted to "minor nuisances" and wore masks that made them look like a pair of theatrical banshees.
The trick worked at first. Guards flowed east to investigate the missing jewel box (which Lira had carefully misplaced), and two courtiers staged a scandal about a suspected love note (which the twins had planted and then eagerly misread). The king, distracted by his own wounded pride, rose to find his dignity rehearsed in front of nobles. Aras saw the cabinet door across the hall—the small lacquered thing with a brass key—and felt a thrill like a blade being honed.
Elara—no longer merely the princess but the queen of small rebellions—led him to the servants' corridor with the kind of calm that comes from having practiced treason in the margins.
"Stay close," she whispered. "If we're seen together in the wrong place, it becomes a story and not a theft."
He leaned close. Her hair smelled like late wheat and jasmine and danger. He felt his grin wobble into something softer. "If we're caught," he said, "blame the floral arrangements."
She smacked his shoulder lightly and led him to a linen cupboard. The plan required disguises: laundresses in flour-dusted aprons who would wheel linen carts near the cabinet and, when the chosen moment came, open the cart and pretend to find a moth-eaten hem. Miren and the twins had practiced the timing down to heartbeats; tonight the heartbeats were synchronized.
Aras squeezed into the linen cart with the kind of careless bravado that makes men later regret their choices. Elara shoved a spare apron into his hands and fluffed his hair in a way that made his knees wobble like a nervous child. "You look like a very handsome laundry boy," she whispered, and the whisper landed like a promise.
Inside the cart it was dark and smelled of starch and other people's secrets. Aras could have sworn the cart was smaller than his ego demanded. He heard Elara's breath, a soft rhythm that matched his own. The plan's heartbeat slowed as the cart rolled forward. The twins gave the signal: a cough, three measured notes, and then a burst of off-key singing in the corridor that made even the statues look embarrassed.
The linen cart stopped exactly where it needed to. Aras took the apron off, fingers clumsy with adrenaline, and slid out with the absurd stealth of someone who'd been practicing mischief for years. He darted for the cabinet—close, closer—and felt the hairs on his neck prickle.
Then, the world offered its favorite little curse: bad timing and a slippered foot.
A servant girl, late and very real, barreled around the corner with a tray of used goblets. Her elbow caught the cart, which shifted, which shifted Aras—and the laundry-boy doublet caught on a protruding nail. The fabric tore with a theatrical rip that sounded like a bell. The tray clattered. Goblets crashed. A guard turned. A chorus of scandalized gasps broke the planned silence.
Elara's hand slammed into Aras's shoulder and he felt the contact as both reproof and prayer. When he twisted to salvage dignity the torn sleeve revealed, for a heartbeat too long, a flash of the thigh of his linen breeches—breeches that weren't quite tailored for clandestine heroics. Across the corridor a marquess pretended not to stare; a duchess did not pretend and covered her mouth with a fan so vigorously that the porcelain rattled.
Aras felt his face combust into a color previously reserved for cabbages. He made a joke—because jokes are armor even when you're mortified—"Faulty stitching," he lied, ribald and rapid. The guard looked scandalized then tickled and laughed at Aras's attempt to own the moment. The laugh mattered; it broke the tension like a blade finding a seam.
Elara, in the meantime, had moved with the efficiency of someone who could turn a scandal into a shadow. She swept between the guard and the cart, speaking in the precise tones of a princess mildly affronted at bad domestic service. "Our laundry boy has had a fright," she said, voice low but wonderfully public. "Send the steward. There might be theft among the linens."
The guard, flustered and loyal to ceremony, barked and called for help—calling exactly what Elara wanted: attention away from the cabinet and toward the laundry-boy debacle. While the corridor filled with perfumed curiosity, Aras slid—careful, fingers like small thieves—toward the cabinet, found the brass key still warm in the lock (someone had fumbled it earlier in the king's distracted pride), and turned it with a reverence reserved for comedians opening punchlines.
Inside the cabinet, among letters wrapped in ribbons and sealed with wax, Aras found a thin folio: petitions and notes, but also a sealed envelope marked with the king's hand. He slid it free, felt the paper's weight like a pulse. Then—a laughable, dangerous sound: a footstep too close. Someone had returned early.
He ducked into the cart again, heart a drum, the sealed paper crumpled like a confession in his fist. Elara's hand slid over his and squeezed—brief, grateful, urgent. The cart moved. The guard's interest fizzled like a poor candle; the palace had reclaimed its appetite for scandal and found gossip more satisfying than inquiry.
They made it back to the barn the way conspirators do: with sticky palms and perfume in their teeth. In the dim, Elara opened the king's sealed letter. It contained a list—names of petitions the king had set aside, reasons polished and then hidden. Among them, Aras found a familiar style: an order, covert and thinly argued, that explained why certain lives were deemed "accountable" and therefore reassignable.
Aras looked up. The barn smelled of starch and triumph. "We have what we need," he breathed.
Elara's cheeks were flushed from the night and from something deeper. Her fingers brushed his when she handed the paper back, a contact that lingered, electric and mildly scandalous. Their faces drew close. The barn hummed with people sleeping and breathing and, improbably, hope.
"And now?" she whispered, voice so soft it could have been the first line of a prayer.
Aras smiled, still riding the ridiculous high of near-disaster turned victory. "Now," he said, "we decide whether to read it aloud to the court or set it aflame in front of their noses."
She tipped her head, a smirk growing like a dawning weapon. "Or," she said, "we use it to make the king uncomfortable enough to change his lists."
He leaned in. The space between them contracted; the world narrowed to breath and the faint rustle of paper. His grin went serious for the first time in a long while.
Before either of them could decide whether to kiss with politics or policy in mind, the barn door popped open.
Miren stood there, cloak pulled tight, eyes bright and awful with urgency. "We have company," she said. "The black-sun riders are at the south gate—and they brought something that's not on the ledger."
The word "not" hung like a thrown gauntlet. Elara's hand tightened in Aras's. The moment snapped shut.
They rose, breathless, the night's heat cooling into a new, sharper threat. Persia lace and paper crowns could wait. The cabinet had been plundered, the letter in their hands, and a kiss remained unfinished.
Outside, beyond the barn's rough wood, someone was counting horses. Inside, conspirators were glancing at each other with the knowledge that the next move hinged on whether they could keep stealing chances and make love—if only briefly—between revolutions.
Aras tucked the sealed letter into his coat, caught Elara's eye once, and mouthed, with all the bravado he could muster, "Later."
She mouthed back, softer: "Later. If we live."
They stepped into the night together—sword, silk, and a scandalous, half-promised kiss waiting on another, hopefully less inconvenient, dawn.