Prince Mikhail knew the way to Grieta's office well, and so he gave her enough time to reach it and greet her visitor before he made his way there.
She was usually an amiable sort of woman, always flattering and teasing, seldom disagreeing with him. He was aware that such an attitude was a tool she used in her trade, but her earlier contrariness bordered on insolence, and she was not one to cross that line. Not with him.
She was stalling-- keeping him busy while giving her people as much time as possible to search for the princess on the road to the capitol. She could not lie to him, not outright, a consequence of his royal blood and her malformed krovbond, but she could keep things from him. She could also give him only partial truths. He had learned to read her well over the years. The two were sometimes allies and sometimes rivals.
Today, they were rivals.
Prince Mikhail stopped before the closed door of her office and listened. Of course, he heard nothing.
With one swift kick, he forced the door open and strode through, unsheathing his sword.
A young, ragged, and travel-weary man yelped in shock and stumbled backward, cowering against the far wall. By his hands, Mikhail would guess his trade to be farming.
"Where is she?" he demanded calmly, pointing his massive sword at the shaking man's chest.
Grieta gave an agitated sigh from behind him.
"The door wasn't locked. You could have simply opened it and walked in," she informed him coldly.
Mikhail did not deign to answer her. He kept his attention focused solely on the frightened man.
"Where... is she?" he repeated, resting the tip of his blade directly over the man's heart.
The man was visibly shaking. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a high-pitched whine. His wide, frightened eyes flew to Grieta.
"Look at me!" Mikhail growled. "You look at her again, and she will be the last thing you ever see. Where is the Princess?"
"You might as well tell him what you just told me," Grieta said and sighed. "He really will kill you if you don't."
"W-w-wulhum High S-street," the farmer stuttered. "S-s-she was looking for the... East River District. I-I sent her the l-l-long way."
"What is she looking for in the East River District?" Prince Mikhail demanded.
"I-I-I don't... I don't know. S-she didn't say. I swear it!" the man insisted.
Mikhail lowered his sword, and the man almost collapsed with relief.
That the Princess had gone to the East River District, and not directly to the palace, suggested that she had contacts from Vezda within the Empire. The district was, after all, known for having the largest population of Vezdan people within the capitol.
"Is she coming here?" Mikhail demanded, turning to face Grieta.
"I don't know. I've never had any sort of contact with the Princess, but I am well known among Vezdans in the Empire. Perhaps someone has given her my-"
Grieta froze mid-sentence and Mikhail saw her eyes move to the broken doorway.
A young woman, an employee of the house no doubt, stood just beyond it, taking in the scene with a worried expression.
"You might as well come in, Ursala," Grieta ordered. "It appears you have a message for me."
The girl glanced quickly toward Prince Mikhail and flushed as she bobbed a quick bow.
"My lady Grieta... I've just heard from the errand boy that Prelsi and her girls are gathering out in the street. They're all dressed up and following after the coach from the Inn. The rumor is that they're going to the palace."
"Who hired them?" Grieta asked quickly.
"They didn't say, but there's an awful lot of commotion outside. It must be someone important," the girl said.
"Where are they now?" Grieta asked.
"Outside Judice's shop on the main road."
"Right. Well... I suppose we know where she is," Grieta said and sighed again.
Prince Mikhail sheathed his sword.
"Lead the way," he ordered Grieta.
Outside, the East River District was beginning to wake up. Doors and shutters were opening everywhere. Dozens of merchants pulling their carts had taken over the main road. Grocers delivered fresh food to nighttime restaurants. Laundresses brought clean bedding and clothes to the brothels. Bakers left loaves of fresh bread wrapped in paper on doorsteps, and the brewers rolled barrels off their carts and to the back doors of bars and taverns.
It would be evening soon, and the streets would become even busier. Grieta walked quickly, acknowledging those who greeted her with a nod of the head or a prefunctionary wave. Mikhail trailed well behind her, preferring to keep his hood down and draw as few eyes as possible.
They reached Judice's in only a few minutes. It was as a small and tidy one-story brick building with the woman's name painted in large red letters across a sign out front.
It was indeed where the girls had congregated, as there was a freshly polished carriage waiting outside, and more than a dozen girls in Vezdan white lined up behind it.
Mikhail scanned the entrance and the faces of those who waited in the street. The Princess was not among them.
The door of the shop opened, and the Princess stepped out to murmurs and gasps of admiration from those assembled.
She wore a thin white gown embroidered so that it seemed to sparkle when she walked. The white gown was so thin that he could see the layers of silver underskirts beneath it. Someone had braided her long hair in Vezdan style and wrapped it crown-like upon her head.
She was beautiful... breath-takingly beautiful.
The Princess raised her chin and stepped down. The girls in their white dresses all bowed as one.
"How... is this possible?" Mikhail muttered more to himself than Grieta. He could not take his eyes from the Princess, but he could almost feel the heat of Grieta's burning pride beside him.
"Magnificent!" Grieta chuckled. "She's absolutely magnificent. Look at her!"
"Yes, I can see as well as you!" Mikhail snapped, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword as the Princess stepped into the carriage.
There was nothing he could do. More and more people were coming out, spilling into the streets, lining the alleys and the shop fronts, craning their necks, standing on toes... all trying to see the Princess of Vezda.
Now, he understood the polished and open carriage. He understood the full Vezdan escort. She meant to be seen. She meant to be a spectacle. He was too late. Even if he cut through the crowd, snatched her, and killed as many witnesses as he could, it would not be enough to prevent word from reaching the palace.
"I had hoped for a second-rate Queen Ora at best, but this... this girl's a firebrand, isn't she?! Look at those eyes, the tilt of that chin! She has all the confidence of Queen Tasha come again! They can't even look away!" she pounded on Mikhail's shoulder as she spoke, and he could hear the excitement in her voice.
When the carriage began to move- at a snail's pace, the crowd let out a cheer and surged into the streets to follow behind her girls.
"I understand the appeal now, my prince!" Grieta laughed.
"How did she manage such a thing... and so quickly?" he muttered.
His brain, always calculating, always thinking of the next step, was working even now, trying to devise a plan. Somehow, she always managed to blow up every one of his carefully constructed strategies... even when she was a child.
"I have to go to the palace," he grumbled.
"Yes. Lucky for you, I'd be willing to bet she'll take the longest route possible. Go now, and you might have time to make your excuses to the Emperor and give him a good story about how he got the wrong girl," Grieta smirked.
"I'll need you to get me that herb," he ordered.
"Yes, my prince!" Grieta agreed at once, her smile growing even wider.
"Stars of Torobirk... that damned girl," he whispered to himself.
As the carriage and the procession moved away, he stood and watched. That the Emperor should see her not as a filthy and stinking prisoner, but as she truly was-- just as magnificent as Grieta had claimed- chilled him to his very core. His brother would be even more desperate to get his hands on the last daughter of Eosin... and yet...
And yet that part of him... that part he fought and tried over and over to stuff down where its voice couldn't tempt him... that greedy and desirous part of him... that part of him celebrated. That part of him celebrated in delirious triumph.
He could not let the Emperor put hands on the Princess of Vezda... not as a strategist... and not as a man. He could not let her go to the same fate as Queen Ora.
She would have to be his.