Nemeth finishes tying my sleeves and studies his handwork. “I’m terrible at being your maid.”

I glance down and the bows he’s made are clumsy and not decorative in the slightest, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got my mental armor on once more. I give him a coy look. “I suspect you’d be better at undressing me rather than the reverse.”

His wings flutter again. “Let us go see what they want.”

“Just a moment.” I put my hands to my braid and smooth it, working strands back into place before looping my braid into a knot atop my head and securing it with a pin. “Ready now.”

I throw my shoulders back, pick up a lamp, and carry my skirts, my head held high. Whoever is at that door is getting Princess Candromeda Vestalin, not Candra the flirt.

We head downstairs, with Nemeth a step behind me and his large hand on my back in silent support. I move through the empty lower chamber, and wonder again if we should make this place more cozy. Bring in a few chairs from downstairs, use the hearth, maybe a rug…but something inside me rebels. I don’t want this to be a home. It never will be anything but a prison, no matter how comfortable a prison.

I bring the light closer to the door, walking forward. Nemeth remains behind. As I head for the heavy wooden double doors, I hear voices leaking through, along with a crack of sunlight leaking in from the door’s seams. They’re muffled, but the closer I get, the more distinct they become. “Not much more,” a man calls. “We’re almost through. Rally your strength, boys!”

Turning to Nemeth, I flick my fingers, indicating he should back away. “They’re definitely human. You’ll have to hide in the shadows again. They can’t see us together.”

“Have they said what they are doing here?” When I shake my head, his nostrils flare and he looks…angry. “Send them away.”

Then he steps backward and melts into the shadows in that unnerving way he does. His eyes glimmer in the darkness at the edge of the circle of light provided by the lamp. I fight back a flicker of annoyance. “Don’t get mad at me. It’s not as if I invited them.”

“Just send them away,” he says again. “You know the rules.”

I do. I’m a little irked that he’s acting like this is somehow my fault because they’re human. It should be obvious that I’m just as in the dark—no pun intended—as he is to their motivations.

Holding the lamp, I move closer to the door. I hear nothing but the sound of loose rocks. “Clear the last of it away,” a man says. “Dolf, come help me with this bar.”

The bar across the door? So they mean to open it, then. “Who’s there?” I call out. “Who has sent you?”

There’s no answer. I can make out a faint murmur of voices outside, as if they’re deliberately speaking too low for me to hear.

“Did the king send you?” I call again. “This tower is sacred to the Golden Moon Goddess. We cannot have visitors.”

I mean, we can, but we’re supposed to be living apart from the world. Visitors just remind us to abandon our duties, like they did with some of the ancestors who dwelt in the tower before us. That’s why it’s bricked up now. That’s why we’re isolated. Two hundred years ago, the Vestalin woman was pulled from the tower by her lover, who couldn’t bear to be apart from her. The goddess’s wrath was immediate—raging storms covered the land followed by intense droughts. The famine was so great that half the kingdom died of starvation, and the man’s family was hanged—down to even the tiniest of children—as an example to others. The doors to the tower have been bricked up ever since.

I shoot an anxious look at Nemeth when my calls receive no response.

“I’m here,” he says quietly, eyes gleaming eerily in the darkness. “All is well. They will not take you.”

It’s like we’re sharing a mind. I nod and turn to face the door, inwardly wincing as the heavy metal bar on the other side scrapes against the wood as it’s removed. Keeping my head held high, I remain where I am, figure proud, as the doors scrape open and harsh, bright afternoon sunlight pours in.

I squint at the light that pours in from the open door, shielding my eyes with my free hand. “Who’s there?”

A man steps forward, a pickaxe in his hand. He’s framed by the blistering sunshine, and I can’t make out his face. “Well, well,” calls out a crude voice. “You must be the princess.”

I don’t like his tone. It sets my shoulders on edge. “How very astute of you,” I say in my bitchiest princess voice. “Were you expecting someone else to be locked in the tower as the Royal Offering?”

He steps across the threshold and into the light of my magical lamp, and grins at me. The first thing I notice—after I get over my initial shock—is the absolute stench of him. He’s filthy and it’s clear from his reek that he hasn’t bathed in ages, if ever. The smile he sends in my direction is full of blackened, yellow teeth surrounded by a bushy, untamed beard. His clothes are crude, too, and he eyes me up and down. “You look well fed, princess.”

“Piss on you,” I snap. “Get out of this tower. You’re not supposed to be here.” Even now, just seeing him step across the threshold makes me anxious. There’s something about his manner that tells me he’s up to no good. He’s clearly not been sent by the king. He’s not wearing livery and I’ve never seen such a grimy individual in my life.

The man turns his pickaxe menacingly in his hand, as if to remind me that he holds it. He lifts his chin at me. “Where’s your food?”

I frown. “Get out.”

“I will just as soon as you give me all your food.” He grins again. “We need it more than you do.” The filthy man eyes me again, his gaze on my prominent breasts. “You’ve got a bit of padding to last you, after all.”

“Quit flirting and just get the food,” another man calls from the doorway. He peers in but makes no move to cross the threshold, as if he’s worried about the goddess’s wrath.

“She’s going to show me, aren’t you, princess,” says the man with the pickaxe. He takes another menacing step towards me. “Maybe if she’s real nice, I’ll leave her a few bites. She’s a pretty piece.”

A larger man steps inside, this one almost as tall as Nemeth, but thin. He looks just as grimy as the first man and just as poor, and he leers at me as well. “I’ll give her something to eat.”

And he grabs his crotch.

“Get your revolting selves out of this tower,” I demand. “I’m not giving you anything. Those supplies are mine and are meant to last me because I must stay as part of my goddess-sworn duty.”

“Piss on the goddess,” the bigger one says, marching forward. “We need food.”

Starving peasants? I’ll treat them like they are inferiors, just to cow them a bit. I flick my fingers at them dismissively, not showing the fear that’s skittering up my spine. “You can’t have my supplies. Get out of my tower. Go to the capital. Go to the king. He will feed you.”

The bearded one moves closer to me, grinning. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, princess.”

And before I can react, he reaches out and backhands me, knocking me to the floor. The luminescent globe lamp in my hand crashes to the stones a moment before I do, shattering into a thousand pieces as pain blooms through my face.

I cry out as my head hits the stone. A split-second later, my cry is drowned out by an angry roar.

Nemeth.

“Now you will die.” He stalks out of the shadows like a menacing demon, his wings flaring outward and making him appear enormous.

The men take a momentary step back, and then the bearded one steps over me while the tall one moves forward, holding his pickaxe. “Stand down, Fellian. We just want food.”

“You will get nothing from us.” I’ve never heard him sound so lethal. He stalks forward, toward the man with the pickaxe.

“Then we’ll fight you for it,” the man says, and surges towards Nemeth.

I bite back a scream as the two males clash. Staggering to my feet, I try to make out what’s happening in the darkness. Light pours in from the doorway, and there are more men waiting there, staring into the shadows as Nemeth scuffles with the peasant. The other, taller man jumps into the fray, and there is nothing but the snarls and thuds of fists hitting muscle. A wet, tearing sound pierces the air, overly loud, and I suck in a breath, watching in horror to see who is going to emerge from the struggling cluster of limbs.