“Asher.”

“What?” She tears her eyes away from the window to blink confusedly at her traveling companion.

“My name is Asher of the Wulf dukedom.” The duke gestures with his arm as if trying to bow. “At your service.”

It takes a moment for it to click. When it does, she can’t help laughing. “Your name is,” she pauses to take a breath, “Asher Wulf?”

“What of it?” The duke scowls at her.

The Ashen Wolf’s real name being Asher Wulf is comedy gold. She wonders if his feared title came about because someone spoke his name with an accent. Maybe a voice trembling in fear couldn’t stick the landing.

Duke Wulf takes offense to her continued laughter. “I suppose you think Constance the Saintess is the epitome of names?”

“My name,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye, “is Aira. Constance is the name of the saintess before me.”

Duke Wulf gives her an odd look and says, “I thought the one before you was Saint Ulrik.”

“Constance was my twin,” she shrugs her shoulders, deciding a truthful lie is better than telling him she’s possessing a dead woman’s body. “After her death, the archbishop decided I was to take her name.”

“Ah,” Duke Wulf says after a moment, “that explains your lack of elegance.”

“Your face is a lack of elegance.”

“I have it on printed record that my face is considered quite elegant.” He smirks while rubbing his chin.

“Beauty is only skin deep for some people,” she says knowledgeably.

“Are you one of them?”

“Unfortunately, it appears so.” She stares down at her thin, pale hands. Even now, she feels like a parasite operating someone else’s body.

It takes a moment for the duke to come up with a response to her sullen words.

“Well, even if the sun burns away that corpse-like pallor of yours,” Duke Wulf pauses as if debating on whether to say the next words or not, “I think you have your charms.” He admits gruffly.

Despite the lack of blush, the way he turns his head to the curtain-covered window as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world speaks of his embarrassment. It is, unfortunately, quite charming.

“I, too, think you have more than your face going for you,” she says, face hot from the stuffiness of the carriage and nothing else.

The comfortable silence turns awkward once more, and she keeps her attention to the outside the carriage. The charming little white houses with wooden beams have turned into sprawling mansions which soon become fields of flowers.

A loud clicking sound interrupts her sight-seeing, and she sputters; the feeling of spiderwebs draping over her body has her instinctively trying to tear it off, but there’s nothing there.

“It is the seals activating,” Duke Wulf assures her. “Now that we are on palace grounds, there is nowhere we can go without the royal crown knowing.”

The duke’s expression, which has been so lively on the trip, turns ice cold.

Before she can ask more about the seals, the driver announces, “Duke Wulf escorting Saintess Constance! Here on Imperial Orders!” and pulls the carriage to a complete stop.

As she fiddles with her parasol, it suddenly hits her that she’s about to come face-to-face with a king. She tries to fight down her nervousness. The door opens, and Duke Wulf gets out before offering a hand to her, but his cold eyes do little to comfort her.

If the cathedral was magnificent, the palace has no comparison. Alternating black and white roofs, round and angular, dance around each other like chess pieces. Gold lines sharply divide the colors from each other.

She’s never seen anything quite like it.

Waiting patiently on the marble path leading to the palace is a young boy. His blond curly hair is a stark contrast to the all-black outfit he wears. Even the cape wrapped around his shoulder is completely black. It takes her a moment to see the gold circlet amongst the blond curls.

“Elliot, Prince of Lepeston, greets you,” the boy says.

“Asher, Duke of Wulf, greets his highness.” Duke Wulf doesn’t bow, and she tries not to notice.

“Constance, Saintess of Duhella, greets his highness,” she curtseys. She doesn’t lower her head even though the child definitely has a higher status than her. The beatings from the nuns were quite keen on leaving an impression that she only bows for the king.

“Father will see you in the throne room. I will escort you there directly,” Prince Elliot tells them after waving the carriage away. The disappearance of their ride is a pointed reminder that there is no escape.

“No waiting for half a day this time?” Duke Wulf asks.

“I am afraid there is no time for tea and biscuits,” Prince Elliot’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, “this is a time sensitive matter after all.”

She grips the shaft of her parasol tightly. She sees nothing, she tells herself. If there are any issues between her companion and the crown, then that’s their problem. She aims to keep her head right where it is.

In the world of fairytales, only the hero blessed by luck and goodwill escapes the wrath of the king, who can be angered by even the smallest of things.

Her luck has always been terrible.

“Follow me, Saintess,” Prince Elliot looks at her far more warmly than the duke. “Apologies for the long walk to the palace. There is a rolling chair available if it is too burdensome.”

“Thank you for the kind offer, but I will enjoy walking with you. And there is no need to apologize,” she says with all the fake serenity she’s learned from working with her dinner guests, “it will simply give me more time to enjoy your company.”

Duke Wulf gags beside her, and while she pretends not to notice, she does resolve to hit him for it later.

“The pleasure is mine,” the prince says, tone at odds with the death glare he aims at the duke, who bares his teeth in a parody of a grin back.

She moves the white lace of her parasol closer to her head until she truly can’t see anything.