The sleepy village of Gardenia had three dubious claims to fame:
- Goats with the temperament of drunken pirates...
- Apple pie so good it likely violated natural law,
- And a blissful, uninterrupted ignorance of the rest of the world.
Which made it an ideal sanctuary for Prince Nathaniel of Ashford—currently posing as "Nathan, itinerant botanist"—on what was supposed to be a three-month soul-searching journey that had, somehow, turned into a thirteen-month—now almost fourteen—"world tour" of questionable decisions.
Today's decision involved helping Vivica with her potion-making. A noble goal. In theory.
"I come bearing assistance!" Nathaniel announced, booting the door open like an overly dramatic stage actor. He was caked in mud to the knees, carrying an armful of mangled flora, mystery weeds, and what appeared to be a suspiciously smug-looking turnip. His cloak was askew, and one of his eyebrows was singed.
Vivica Devonshire, tall, unflinching, and ironed by nature into perfect composure, didn't so much as flinch. She stood at her workstation, the soft glow of her bubbling cauldron casting light on her ever-serene face.
"I did not request assistance," she stated calmly, without turning.
"You never do," Nathaniel replied cheerfully, stomping mud onto her perfectly clean floor as he deposited his 'harvest' onto her table with the pride of a toddler showing off fingerpaint art. "But destiny intervenes. And so do I."
She finally glanced sideways, the barest tilt of her head, like a judgmental painting come to life.
"…That's a turnip."
"I thought it was enchanted," he said, with the absolute confidence of a man who absolutely did not think that.
"It has a face drawn on it." Vivica noted flatly.
Nathaniel cradled it in both hands like a precious gem. "This is Sir Rootsworth. We've shared an emotional journey."
Vivica said nothing. She merely blinked once, slowly. It was somehow worse than an eyeroll.
Then—as if summoned by chaos itself—the back door exploded open with the force of a divine reckoning.
Three goats thundered in, hooves clacking on the wood, eyes alight with chaotic vengeance. The largest, a one-horned beast with a scar across its snout and a vendetta against nobility, led the charge.
"They followed me again!" Nathaniel yelped, scrambling backward and hurling Sir Rootsworth like a sacrificial offering.
The goats paid him no mind. One immediately began chewing on a table leg. Another leapt onto a shelf. The third—naturally—went for Nathan's cloak.
"I might've… slightly… spilled molasses on my boots while walking past the goat pen," Nathaniel admitted, hopping onto a stool like a particularly stylish goblin.
Vivica, unfazed, moved like a shadow—graceful, swift, terrifying. She swept the cauldron off the flame and onto a top shelf, sealed it with a flick of her wrist, and glared at the goats like they had insulted her ancestors.
"Nathan," she spoken. Her tone was calm. Too calm.
"Yes?" he replied from his perch, a goat tugging at his sash.
She stared at him. Her eye twitched.
Then she sighed.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't even dramatic. But it was there. A long, weary exhalation that said, I have lived through wars, and yet this man tests me more than the sword…
Nathaniel placed a hand on his heart. "Was that… disappointment I heard?"
"It was restraint."
"I'm strangely proud," he said brightly.
A goat sneezed molasses onto his boots.
Vivica, for the first time since he'd met her, turned away without a word. Which, frankly, was more terrifying than a thousand curses.
And Nathaniel Ashford, second prince of the great empire, grinned as a goat tried to climb his leg.
Because, somehow, this village, this potion-mage, and this chaos felt more like home than any golden palace ever had.
MIDNIGHT
The barn Nathaniel was staying in had all the rustic charm of a place that once housed large animals with digestive issues.
It was drafty, the floor creaked like a haunted ship, and there was a suspicious stain on the hay he'd chosen for a bed. Still, the elderly couple who owned the property—Delma and Huxley—had taken a shine to him. Possibly because he'd built them a wine rack from an abandoned fence post and seven bent spoons. Possibly because he kept pretending to be a traveling botanist with a tragic backstory.
Well past midnight, Nathaniel was deep in a dream where he was being knighted by a talking duck in full plate armor when a faint sound tugged him awake.
He froze.
There it was again—a soft crunching noise, boots on frost-hardened grass, too deliberate to be an animal. Then, a low voice. Another. A rustle of cloaks.
Nathaniel sat up slowly, the hay whispering against his sleeves. The moonlight spilled in pale lines through the cracks in the barn wall, cold and silver like knives.
He crept from his bed, careful not to shift the wood planks beneath him, and eased toward the warped barn door. Through the narrow gap, he glimpsed movement in the field beyond.
Figures.
Three of them.
One, unmistakably—impossibly—Vivica.
She stood bathed in moonlight, tall and straight as a blade, her long cloak fluttering like dark smoke around her boots. Her hair, always half-loose in the village, was tightly braided down her back now, a style that whispered discipline. Her posture was still, not tense, but alert—an apex predator waiting for the wind to shift.
Gone was the quiet herbalist who corrected his plant pronunciations with a raised brow.
This was someone else entirely.
Vivica of the North, he realized, a chill snaking down his spine. The Phantom Scholar. The Ice Princess. The woman whispered about in the courts by generals and spies. And some other exaggerating remarks from the high society back in Ashford Empire.
And she wasn't alone.
Two men flanked her. Towering. Heavily cloaked. Their faces shrouded by their hoods, their boots planted like stone pillars. They didn't move like civilians. They moved like trained steel—disciplined and dangerous.
One stepped forward and handed Vivica a scroll, sealed in dark wax. The other nodded—barely a motion, but precise, like a soldier receiving orders from a superior.
Nathaniel strained to hear, but her voice was a mere blade of air in the night. Not loud. Not cold. But precise. Final.
She gave no orders.
She gave instructions.
She was in charge.
Nathaniel felt it like a pulse in the earth beneath him… this woman commands men who could break bone with a glance.
She read the scroll under the moonlight, her eyes scanning it quickly before she tucked it into her cloak. The exchange lasted no more than a minute.
And then, without fanfare, the two figures vanished into the treeline—silent, swift, and untraceable, like ghosts returning to the woods that bore them.
Vivica remained still for a moment longer, facing the forest, her cloak unmoving despite the breeze—as if she were carved from the very night itself.
Then, just as quietly, she turned toward the barn.
Nathaniel ducked behind the door, heart thudding in his ribs like it was trying to escape. He didn't breathe. Didn't blink.
He wasn't sure what he'd just witnessed.
But he knew one thing:
Vivica wasn't just hiding in Gardenia.
She was operating from it.
And that changed everything.
He pressed a hand to his chest, exhaling slowly.
This wasn't fear—not exactly.
It was intrigue.
Awe.
And the distinct, sinking feeling that he had just stumbled into something enormous. Something secret. Something wrapped in velvet and thorns.
Prince Nathaniel of Ashford had a talent for trouble.
And now he was neck-deep in the most dangerous thing he'd ever encountered.
A northern successor with secrets, a scroll he wasn't meant to see—
—and eyes like emerald ice.
And damn it all, he was already too far gone to walk away.