The Maid They Called Your Highness

Chapter 3: The Night of the Cliff

The guards drew their swords.

Matteo moved first. He shoved Alina behind a pillar and overturned a table, sending glass and silver across the floor. Guests screamed and scattered.

Adrian grabbed Alina's hand.

"This way."

He led her through a side door into the old servant corridor. Matteo followed close behind, blocking the passage with a chair before the guards could enter.

They ran until the music and shouting faded behind them.

Only then did Alina stop.

She leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

Adrian stared at her. "Tell me the truth."

Alina closed her eyes.

"Severin tried to kill me."

The words were quiet, but they landed like thunder.

"Why?"

"Because my father planned to name me heir before he died. Severin knew the council would not accept him if I lived."

Adrian's jaw tightened. "The carriage accident..."

"Was not an accident."

Matteo crossed his arms. "I found her at the riverbank half-dead. I was a stable boy then. No one important. No one Severin would notice."

Alina looked at him with gratitude. "He hid me."

"For five years?" Adrian asked.

Alina nodded. "I could not return without proof. Severin controlled the army, the court, even the church records. If I came back too soon, he would call me a fraud and kill everyone who helped me."

Adrian looked toward the banquet hall. "So tonight?"

"Tonight Severin is meeting foreign investors and border generals. He plans to sign away the northern mines in exchange for private soldiers."

Adrian went cold.

The northern mines funded the royal treasury. If Severin gave them away, the kingdom would belong to him completely.

Alina pulled a folded paper from inside her sleeve.

"I came for his signed agreement."

Adrian stared. "You already have it?"

"Almost."

A voice echoed from the end of the corridor.

"Princess."

Severin stepped from the shadows, holding the missing agreement in one hand.

"You always were too brave for your own good."

Behind him stood a woman in a silver gown.

Adrian's mother.

And she was holding a pistol.