I never thought I'd miss the smell of horse manure and stale ale but standing in the marble halls of Astoria's Royal Palace, I found myself longing for the simple stench of my father's tavern. The air here reeked of perfume, ambition, and barely concealed malice—a combination far more dangerous than anything I'd encountered in the slums.
My name is Alex Winters, and three days ago, I was nobody. The bastard child of a minor lord who spent more time drinking than governing. Today, I stood in clothes that cost more than most people earned in a year, clutching a letter that had changed everything.
"Lord Marcus Winters is dead," the royal messenger had announced, his voice echoing through our cramped quarters above the tavern. "His legitimate heir, Alex Winters, is summoned to court to claim their inheritance."
Legitimate heir. The words still felt foreign on my tongue. My father had finally acknowledged me in his will, though I suspected it was more about spite than love. Marcus Winters had hated his brother's children—my half-siblings who'd gotten the fancy education and comfortable lives while I served ale to drunken merchants.
Now I walked through corridors lined with portraits of kings and queens, their painted eyes seeming to judge my every step. Servants in elaborate livery whispered as I passed, and I didn't need to strain my ears to catch words like "bastard," "upstart," and "won't last a week."
They weren't wrong to be skeptical. I had no training in court etiquette, no understanding of the complex web of alliances and enemies that defined life here. What I did have was sixteen years of surviving in the city's worst neighborhoods, where a wrong word or weak moment could get you killed just as surely as any noble's poison.
"You must be Alex Winters." The voice belonged to a young woman about my age, with auburn hair that missed nothing. She wore a dress of deep blue silk. "I'm Lady Sarah Blake."
I recognized the name. The Blake family controlled the kingdom's grain imports, making them wealthy enough to marry into royalty if they played their cards right. Sarah's smile was perfectly practiced, the kind that revealed nothing while promising everything.
"Lady Blake," I replied, attempting what I hoped was an appropriate bow. "A pleasure."
"Please, call me Sarah. We're practically neighbors now." She gestured toward the wing of the palace where the minor nobles had their quarters. "Your father's rooms are next to mine. I do hope you'll find court life agreeable."
Before I could respond, a commotion erupted near the throne room doors. A group of young nobles in expensive clothes surrounded someone I couldn't see, their laughter carrying a cruel edge that made my skin crawl.
"Shouldn't peasants use the servants' entrance?" The voice was rich, cultured, and dripping with disdain. "Oh wait, I forgot—bastards aren't quite peasants, are they? They're something worse."
The crowd parted slightly, revealing a young man with golden hair and blue eyes that sparkled with malicious amusement. Even without the royal crest on his doublet, I would have recognized Prince Ryan Sterling. He had his father's strong jaw and his mother's calculating gaze.
Their victim was a girl around my age, wearing the simple brown dress of a servant. She stood perfectly still, eyes downcast, as the prince and his friends continued their verbal assault.
"Your Highness," Sarah said smoothly, stepping forward with a curtsy that managed to be respectful and dismissive at the same time. "Surely you have better things to do than torment the help?"
Prince Ryan's gaze shifted to Sarah, then to me. His eyes narrowed as he took in my new clothes and nervous posture. "Lady Blake, how kind of you to champion the downtrodden. Is this your new project?" He gestured toward me with a jeweled hand.
"This is Lord Alex Winters," Sarah replied. "They've come to claim their father's estate."
"Ah yes, Marcus Winters." The prince's smile turned predatory. "I heard he drank himself to death. Such a waste, really. Though I suppose it runs in the family."
The insult hit its mark, but I forced myself to remain calm. Getting into a fight with the crown prince on my first day would be spectacularly stupid, even by my standards.
"Your Highness," I said, managing to keep my voice steady. "My father may have had his flaws, but he served the crown faithfully for twenty years."
"Did he now?" Prince Ryan stepped closer, his friends forming a semicircle behind him. "And what service do you plan to offer, bastard? Can you even read?"
Heat rose in my cheeks, but before I could respond, something strange happened. The world seemed to slow down, and suddenly I could see everything with crystal clarity—the prince's smirk, the eager anticipation of his followers, Sarah's calculating expression as she watched the confrontation unfold.
More than that, I could sense something else. Fear. Despite his bravado, Prince Ryan was afraid. Not of me, specifically, but of what I represented. Competition. A threat to the comfortable order he'd known all his life.
The knowledge came from nowhere and everywhere at once, like remembering a dream that had felt real upon waking. For just a moment, I felt like someone else entirely—someone older, wiser, more dangerous.
"I can read, Your Highness," I said quietly. "I can write. I can calculate compound interest and navigate by the stars. I can identify seventeen different poisons by smell alone and kill a man with nothing but a dinner fork." The last part wasn't true, but my voice carried such quiet certainty that nobody questioned it.
The prince's smile faltered slightly. His friends exchanged uncertain glances.
"How... colorful," he said finally. "Well, Lord Winters, I do hope you'll find court life entertaining. It can be quite dangerous for those who don't understand the rules."
"I'm a quick learner, Your Highness."
Prince Ryan studied me for a long moment, as if trying to solve a puzzle. Then he laughed, a sound devoid of humor. "We shall see. Come along," he told his friends. "The stable boy has learned some new tricks, but he's still just a stable boy."
They departed in a rustle of silk and barely contained malice, leaving Sarah and me alone with the serving girl, who still hadn't moved.
"You can go," I told her gently. She looked up at me with startled brown eyes, bobbed a quick curtsy, and hurried away.
"That was either very brave or very stupid," Sarah observed.
"Probably both." I watched the prince's group disappear around a corner. "Does he make a habit of tormenting servants?"
"Prince Ryan makes a habit of establishing dominance over anyone he perceives as weak." Sarah's green eyes were thoughtful. "He won't forget what just happened."
"Good." The word surprised me as much as it did her. "I don't want to be forgotten."
Sarah laughed, a genuine sound this time. "Alex Winters, I think you're going to be far more interesting than anyone expects."
As we walked toward the noble quarters, I couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed in those few moments of confrontation. Not just in how others saw me, but in how I saw myself.
The memories that weren't quite memories continued to whisper at the edges of my consciousness—fragments of knowledge about strategy, politics, and the deadly game of survival that was court life. I didn't understand where they came from, but I was beginning to suspect that my father's death had awakened something in me that had been sleeping for a very long time.
One thing was certain: I was no longer just Alex Winters, the bastard from the slums. I was someone else entirely, and Prince Ryan Sterling had just made his first mistake in underestimating me.