The Royal Trials: Imposter Read online

  My eyes bugged out. “We can't go back looking like that! Even if I don't care about my own life, I can't let you get in trouble with me.”

  Lee's lips pursed for a moment, and he frowned. “Okay, I'll grab some of these supplies and head back first. There's a powder room another four doors down, if you want to fix this gorgeous mess and then come back to class?” He snagged one of my white-blond curls that had escaped Jules' fancy, braided crown.

  “Shit,” I cursed again, imagining what the rest of it looked like after our make-out session against the door. “Okay, good plan.”

  Lee quickly gathered an armful of clay jars, then paused before exiting the room. His eyes closed, and he took a few long breaths through his nose.

  “You okay?” I asked, frowning.

  His left eye cracked open, and he gave me a playful scowl. “Shh, give me a sec.” His eyes shut tight again, and he took a few more breaths while muttering under his breath, “Grandmama's underwear, moldy fruit, weeds in the gardens, Zan's dirty socks...”

  “You good?” I checked when his eyes reopened, and he sighed.

  “As good as possible. Don't take too long, okay? I'll worry.” He smacked a quick kiss on my swollen lips, then slipped out of the supply room quickly before I could grab him to engage further.

  A quick glance in the powder room mirror told me everything I needed to know. There was no fixing this. My cheeks were flushed and my lips red and puffy. The best I could do was to tuck away all the wild curls that had escaped my braided crown and pray that everyone assumed I had just gone a bit heavy on the makeup this morning.

  Returning to the alchemy lab, I tried to slip in unnoticed. Of course, luck was not on my side, and I tripped over something, which sent me sprawling face first onto the floor. When I turned to see what had sent me flying, though, there was nothing there… Except Gracelin sitting at the nearest table and smirking at me like a demon.

  A loud throat-clearing from the front of the room halted what could have turned into a nasty bitch fight, and I dusted myself off as I stood once more. Lee met my embarrassed gaze with an unreadable look, and I cringed.

  “Apologies, Tutor Lee. I must still be half asleep.” The lie felt like acid on my tongue, but the guests standing beside him made me rein my anger in.

  He gave me a tight smile and nodded to my vacant seat. “That's totally fine, Lady Callaluna. Lady Savannah was just introducing the newest participant in the Royal Trials. Her Highness, Princess Sagen of Asintisch will be filling the space that was vacated early by Lady Hyacinth.”

  My brows shot up, but I refrained from commenting as I slid back into my seat. Asintisch was one of the seven minor kingdoms that Teich had once ruled over, and if my memory served me correctly, Sagen was the youngest of seven princesses. Was that even allowed? Not that my knowledge of the Royal Trials was all that sound, but I was pretty sure all participants needed to be from Teich. Then again, the royals themselves weren't native to Teich, so maybe allowances had been made.

  “Your Highness, please take a seat,” Lee offered her with impeccable, courtly manners. “We have a lot to cover in this morning’s class, so we really should get started.” He turned back to Lady Savannah and the several guards dressed in Asintisch colors in a clear invitation for them to leave.

  Savannah gave a sharp nod, her hawklike gaze sweeping over the rest of us in the room. “Your Highness, Ladies, it was lovely to see you all.”

  It could have been my liquor-damaged imagination, but I could have easily finished the remainder of her sentence, the part she hadn't said aloud. It was lovely to see us all... alive.

  Sighing heavily, I rubbed my forehead and tried to get my head back into focus. I needed to be learning alchemy, not fantasizing about Lee's touch on my skin or speculating on why Asintisch had sent one of their princesses to compete and possibly die in these barbaric trials.

  A rustling of fabric beside me alerted me to the fact that the seat Sagen had chosen was the vacant one beside me. Mustering up a friendly smile, I held out my hand to her.

  “Hi, I'm Callaluna,” I said quietly as Lee started the class. I had intended it as a nice gesture, but Sagen wrinkled her nose and peered at my hand like it was covered in shit. Her almond-shaped eyes flashed with disgust, and she flipped her glossy black locks over her shoulder.

  “Don't speak with me,” she hissed back. “I am royalty. Treat me as such.”

  Stunned at her frostiness, I let my hand drop back to the table and returned my focus to Lee. The last thing I needed was to make another enemy; Gracelin was annoying enough as it was.

  I shifted on my seat slightly, trying to block the new addition out and listen to what Lee was saying. The rough idea, as I understood it, was that we were making potions. This morning we would practice the alchemical fundamentals by creating some harmless potions, then for our test we would be required to step it up a notch by creating a potion that would ignite any surface when thrown. Including stone and glass.

  “Try not to mess this up,” Sagen sneered at me as we began measuring out the required ingredients for the first potion. “I don't want your failures to influence my own class scores.”

  Despite the fact that her statement made little to no sense whatsoever, I let it slide. I was too damn tired to be arguing with a stuck-up princess over things that really didn't matter.

  Biting my lip, I concentrated on learning. For once I wasn't even doing it because of the binding oath, I just genuinely wanted to learn what Lee was teaching. These subjects, alchemy and botany, they were clearly where his passions lay. When he was instructing, his eyes lit up with a fire that I'd only seen twice before—once on the couch in my room and once just now in the supply closet.

  I blocked out all other distractions and followed his instructions, delivered in that smooth voice that sent tingles running down my spine and my belly fluttering every time he spoke my name.

  “Now, if you're confident that you have completed all the steps correctly, please drink your created potions,” Lee invited us. “If it you did it correctly, your fingernails will change to the colors you chose with your crystal powder.”

  “What if we got it wrong?” a girl at the back of the room asked, sounding nervous. “Will it hurt us?”

  Lee gave a half smile and shook his head. “No, these are starter potions. It might give you a different outcome, but nothing that will harm you. The effects will only last for a day or so, as well.”

  Mentally I ran through the whole process again, checking that I'd remembered everything. My instincts were tingling, which suggested I'd forgotten a step, so I scooted off my stool to doublecheck the supply counter on the side of the classroom in the hopes something might jog my memory.

  Seeing nothing unusual, a step I might have missed, I shrugged and returned to my table, where Sagen was admiring her new scarlet fingernails.

  Of course she'd gone bloodred. It suited her.

  I inspected my own vial of clear liquid, then shrugged and swallowed it back in one gulp.

  There was no magical poof or sparkles or anything. I could have just drunk water for all the difference it made. Worse yet, my fingernails stayed the same naked natural they'd been all along, rather than the pretty lavender color I'd been aiming for with the purple crystal dust I'd chosen.

  “Ah,” Lee cringed, coming over to my table. “Looks like you mixed up the keratocila root with kerastansa weed.”

  “Huh?” I frowned at him. “How do you mean?”

  He looked apologetic, but when he reached out to snag one of the curls that had escaped my braid again, I clearly saw what he meant.

  My nails hadn't turned purple. My hair had.

  Snickers and giggles from the other girls in the class had me blushing furiously, and I ground my teeth together hard. There was no way I had mixed those herbs up; I had been meticulous in checking every ingredient.

  Unless I hadn't been as careful as I’d thought? I was crazy tired, after all.

  “Don't worr
y, Lady Callaluna,” Lee reassured me, dropping his voice a little quieter. “I think it suits you.”

  I sighed heavily at my own failure and cleaned up my equipment. “A day, you said?”

  “Or two,” he admitted. “But it's temporary, I promise.” Returning to the front of the class, he wiped all of the notes from the blackboard to start again. “Okay, moving on to the next lesson in alchemy, which involves metals.”

  The rest of the class went smoothly, which only made me doubt myself further on the hair-nail mix up. I was a hundred times more cautious on the next potions, though, and on more than one occasion I found the wrong ingredient on my table. Had I been grabbing the wrong things? Or was someone messing with me?

  My hangover was making me slower than usual. Of course someone was messing with me! The question was: who?

  Either way, I managed to pull off the rest of the practice potions without another hitch, so I went into the afternoon test feeling confident in myself.

  “Okay, your highness, ladies. We will be doing this test one by one,” Lee announced as we returned from an awkward lunch with the queen and some of her friends. On the plus side, the mask I'd been given on entering the dining room had had enough feather embellishments that no one had noticed my hair.

  “Each of you will mix the potion while Master Chemy and I observe.” Lee indicated to an older man in servant’s garb beside him. “Then you'll throw the vial at this board.” He tapped a large square of what seemed to be obsidian. It was black stone and so highly polished it had almost a mirror finish.

  “This will take a while to get through all eighteen of you, so please be patient until your turn comes,” the older man—Master Chemy—told us with a small smile.

  He and Lee began moving from table to table, watching each girl as she mixed the highly explosive potion, then threw the vial at the stone board. If it ignited the stone, it was a success. If nothing happened, it was a fail. How they would then score it in a way to provide a clear “loser” was beyond me. Honestly, I didn't envy them the task, either.

  My turn came, and I took my sweet time ensuring I had everything exact as per the instructions we'd been provided. When the stone went up in blue flame, I couldn't help letting out a little squeal of delight, and Lee gave me a small, private smile.

  “Very nicely done, Lady Callaluna,” he murmured, but his eyes were promising all kinds of dirty things that made my stomach flip with excitement.

  “She didn't do anything better than anyone else,” Princess Sagen muttered in a sour voice, “except make sex-eyes at the teacher all day long.” She turned toward me now with a sneer on her beautiful face. “You are aware we're here to marry a prince, not a servant, right?”

  It took all of my willpower not to explain to her that if she wanted those murdering pieces of shit, she was damn well welcome to them and I wouldn't stand in her way. Instead, I smiled sweetly and batted my lashes at her.

  “Jealous, Your Highness?” I purred. “Would you rather I turn these sex-eyes on you?”

  Her own eyes widened in shock, and her mouth moved with silent words. Clearly she hadn't expected that response, and I snickered under my breath.

  Lee and Master Chemy had already moved on to the next table, and now that I'd passed, I could relax. Shoving the lovely Princess Sagen from my mind, I laid my head on my arms and closed my eyes. There were still ten more girls to go, so I may as well have a little nap while I waited.

  It couldn't have been that long since I’d closed my eyes when I was jolted back awake by the sound of breaking glass. The sound came just a split second before I was shoved out of my seat and onto the floor with Lee halfway on top of me.

  For a stunned moment, I could do nothing but stare wide-eyed at the place where I'd been resting my head just seconds before. The place that was now engulfed in fire.

  What the actual fuck...?

  “Oh gods, I am so sorry,” Lady Carissa—one of Gracelin's crew—simpered like an idiot. “I don't even know how that happened! I'm just so very clumsy sometimes.”

  Master Chemy blasted the desktop with his little handheld extinguisher, which he'd been using on the stone slate between each test, then scowled at the lady who'd thrown the vial. “I think we can call this one a fail, don't you agree Tutor Lee?”

  “What?” Carissa squealed in protest. “But I didn't fail; I made the potion right! Look!” She pointed a colored fingernail at the charred evidence that used to be my work station.

  “You also almost killed another lady,” Lee snapped at her, offering me a hand up from the ground before turning his stormy glare on Carissa. “That will always be a fail. Is that perfectly clear for everyone in the room? I won't accept this sort of behavior, accident or not.”

  Carissa's mouth flapped a few times in disbelief before she burst out crying and ran from the room. I frowned after her, a bit shaken at what the hell had just happened. Was she really that clumsy? Or had it been deliberate?

  I got my answer as we were being dismissed for the day and Gracelin found an opportunity to brush past me.

  “You won't always be so lucky, imposter,” she hissed in my ear as she passed, then tossed her hair and linked arms with Princess Sagen to strut out of the room.

  Of course those two would become fast friends. Each was as poisonous as the other.

  As if she could hear my thoughts, Sagen cast a venomous glare at me over her shoulder before they disappeared from sight, and I groaned.

  “You okay?” Lee murmured, walking slightly behind me as I left the room.

  “Other than the purple hair and near-death experience?” I asked in a dry voice. “Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking how it feels like I've been here a year already and we're not even past the first week.”

  Lee grunted a noise of agreement. “Pressure-filled environments will have that affect. On the upside, it feels like I've known you for a whole year already too...”

  I glanced over my shoulder to catch his flirtatious grin. “Will I see you guys later tonight?” I whispered the words, so no one would accidentally overhear us.

  “I'll make sure of it,” he whispered back, then leaned past me to hold a door open. “Come to the sanctuary after dinner. No drinking games tonight, though, okay?”

  I chuckled, then nodded. “Agreed. I don't think my headache can handle any more liquor just yet, anyway.”

  “See you later then, Calla,” he whispered before we parted ways to our own rooms.

  16

  “I need you to come back here right after dinner,” Jules informed me as she helped me dress that evening. “So don't get any smart ideas about running off to fuck those teachers of yours, all right?”

  My jaw dropped open. “What? Excuse me?”

  “What?” she repeated. “I'm not judging. I'm just saying I need you back here, so give your greedy cunt a break just for tonight, okay? Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that crap.”

  “Jules!” I screeched. “I'm not fucking them!” Not yet, anyway. And not for lack of trying...

  She frowned at me in confusion. “Why not? The gods gave you perfect tits and a tight vagina for a reason, babe. Use them.” I opened my mouth to protest, and she cut me off. “But not tonight. I'm serious, Ry. Straight after dinner.”

  Something about the urgency in her voice had me frowning. “Why? What's going on that is so important?”

  Pursing her lips, she took her time on the buttons of my bodice before replying. “Bloodeye wants to meet with you.”

  That information dropped into the air like some sort of explosion, and my jaw almost hit the floor. “What?” I screamed at her. “Here? He's coming here?”

  Juliana shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “I don't know, Ry. He just said to make sure we were both here after dinner because he needed to discuss your progress.”

  “My progress?” I frowned, confused and angry all at the same time. “What progress? What the hell does he think I'm doing here other than staying alive?”

 
“I don't know!” Jules snapped back at me, losing her temper. “Do you honestly think he tells me anything? I'm nothing more than a common whore to him, remember?”

  I took a long inhale, then released it while swallowing all the ranting and raging I wanted to do. “You're a shitload more than a common whore, babe, and you know it.”

  Jules gave a bitter laugh and tossed my mask to me. “Not to him, I'm not.”

  “He's an idiot.” I wasn't just placating her; I really meant it. Master Bloodeye was an idiot for not seeing the value in his “common whores.” Jules would be the perfect spy if he used her to her full capabilities.

  Of course, it didn't help that Juliana had been harboring a not-so-secret crush on the crime lord since she had hit puberty.

  “Okay, so come straight back after dinner.” I nodded, thinking about how I'd get word to Lee and the guys that I wasn't coming. “Got it. How do I look?” I tied the black lace mask over my face and turned to show her. My dress was a shorter one tonight, barely skimming the tops of my knees, but with cute little lace sweetheart sleeves to cover my wounded shoulder. Not that I'd need to cover it for much longer—whatever cream the medic had given me to keep applying daily was working wonders, and it had almost healed already.

  “Like a damn princess, you bitch,” Jules joked, pouring herself a glass of wine from the carafe on the table. “I'll try not to get too drunk while you're gone.”

  “And I'll try not to die. Fun times all around.” I gave her a tight, humorless smile and made for the door.

  “Oh!” she called after me, “Hold up, I have something for you.” She disappeared into the enormous wardrobe and dug around for a bit before reappearing with a folded note in her hand. “Almost forgot to give this to you.”

  Curious, I took it from her and flipped it open. “Flick?” I asked her with a frown. “You got a note from Flick? How?”

  Jules shrugged, dodging my eye contact. “Told you I would sort it out. See, he's doing okay and knows you're going to get him out.” She tapped the page in my hand, and I nodded.