As Sabre left the dining hall, the echoes of that awful nickname reverberating in my ears as she did so, I couldn't get out of my mind the memory of her touching my knee to stop it from shaking. Her touch had been so warm, firm yet gentle. It had dragged me out of the thoughts of this plan failing and Racaea's potential destruction. If I somehow did manage to remove that image from playing over and over again in my head, it would only be replaced by the fact that she had grabbed my hand. The way her skin tasted when I kissed it. What was she doing to me?

My mother turned to me with an expression I loathed. She knew I was up to something, hiding something from her, the unnerving glare sending adrenaline through me.

"Does she know about what the prisoner said? That she's the reason why he's here, of Icrodeia's potential attack? Making her your fiancé might endanger Racaea even more." She spoke when enough time had passed for Sabre to be well out of earshot.

"No, I haven't." We didn't know if the prisoner was telling the truth or not. It was already breaking her heart to see Icrodeia and Racaea on the verge of war. To know that she was the reason for it, it would tear her apart.

If I could prove that she really wasn't the reason for Icrodeia's plans, I would let her know what he said. She'd be angry at me for a little while, I was sure of it, but hopefully she would understand why I had kept it a secret from her. If I couldn't prove that she wasn't the reason for Icrodeia's potential hostility, then I didn't know what I would do.

"The spy might have been lying. There could easily be another motive for their actions," I explained. She had just agreed to the engagement between Sabre and I, she couldn't just change her mind now.

The queen hummed in consideration. "It's a possibility, I suppose, but I want us to be prepared. If there are even subtle signs of Icrodeia still wanting to attack after the ball where your engagement has been announced, you'll have to consider marrying Lady Lorella instead."

"What about trying an arranged marriage between us and another kingdom? Surely that would reap better benefits." I had nothing against Lady Lorella — aside from the fact that we didn't know if she could be trusted — it was just that perhaps something different would be better for our kingdom.

My mother shook her head. "The majority of the neighbouring kingdoms have closer ties to Icrodeia than they do to us. It might be a futile attempt for an alliance." When she finished the food on her plate, she waved some servants over to clear the table. "I've sent orders to have every piece of information we have on Icrodeia gathered. Every past interaction between us, every person passing through the borders, everything. I'm hoping that will give us more insight as to what's going on."

Every piece of information? The castle's archives held a lot of transaction records and such, but could they really find every single one? Then also put them in one place?

The queen stood from her chair, preparing to leave. "I'm having some specialists look over the information, but if you would like to analyse it yourself, you are more than welcome to join them." She made her way to the door and before she left, she turned back to me. "Think over the engagement some more and how it will help Racaea. I know you may love Sabre, but this kingdom needs to come first."

I was putting the kingdom first, Sabre was just helping me do so. Sighing deeply, I also left the dining hall in search of something to do. There would be no point in heading over to the archives now as these specialists would still be retrieving the information and looking over it themselves. So, instead, I wandered around the walls of the castle, hoping something interesting would catch my eye.

In moments like these when I had nothing to do, I would usually make my way over to the blacksmiths to ask Auron and Sabre if they wanted to head to The Lost and Found. However, seeing as Trik was back from his long trip and Sabre was currently busy with the seamstress, that wasn't possible.

My feet led me through the halls and rooms that I had been familiar with my whole life, not even changing decor throughout those eighteen years, to the outside of the seamstress' workroom. Miss Brynn had been a personal favourite of my mother for years, so much so that she had paid for her services to be exclusive to the Racaea royal family, giving her a room in the castle to live in as well.

Through the door and walls that separated me and the people who were inside, I could hear faint laughter, an almost childlike giggle. Sabre. I could recognise that voice from anywhere. I had expected to hear complaints and groans of annoyance coming from someone who had never worn a dress before with no intention to ever do so, but she appeared to be enjoying herself. Her happiness sent shivers of joy through me too.

I leant against the wall for no doubt a couple of hours, but it was worth it. If I got to listen to her the whole time, they were hours spent well. Suddenly, a pang of panic twisted my heart. This was supposed to be fake, a facade of love to make Icrodeia believe we didn't want war with them. So, why was I acting this way? As if I really loved her? We were just close friends.

The door opened beside me and Sabre stepped out, her dimples visible as she grinned.

"Finally, you've been in there for hours." I stretched and made my way over to her.

She rolled her eyes. "My apologies, your highness. Miss Brynn had me try on quite a few dresses, and I happened to be enjoying myself."

"I know, I could hear you from all the way out here." I sketched a bow as some servants walked past, taking one of her hands in my own. "My lady, would you like to join me in the archives? Information is being collected about Icrodeia that you might like to help me analyse."

Sabre hummed in thought as if she wasn't actually going to come with me, but we both knew she was. "I thought the boring work was for the fae and my job was to sit and look pretty." She was already completing one of those tasks.

I shrugged, standing up straight again and turning to walk away. "Well, if my finacé insists..."

She sighed as my back was turned to her, my feet taking leisurely steps down the hallway. "Fine." I could hear the smile in her voice, the one that had refused to vanish from her lips from trying on the dresses. "I'll join you." Sabre hurried over to my side

It was a long walk to the archives as such a large expanse of space was kept towards the back of the castle, a place where such a big room wouldn't ruin the look of the front exterior and there was actually space to put it.

As we entered, we nearly walked into a group of scholars hurrying past who threw us apologetic looks before continuing onwards. All around us were shelves, rows, and piles of books and papers organised into folders. They lined the walls too, not even allowing an inch of the bricks underneath to be visible. When I was younger, I had thought this was a library full of interesting books to read. My heart had been broken when I found this was no such place.

This hall was twice the length of the dining room and every document in it formed a part of Racaea's history. Whether it was a small trade, someone travelling in or out of our borders, or records of a diplomatic meeting taking place within the council, it was all written and stored within the archives.

When I learned of what the papers contained, my first thought had been that everything looked particularly flammable. All it would take was a few matches to destroy centuries' worth of knowledge.

"Your highness," a servant greeted, bowing deeply. "Are you here for the information the queen had collected?"

"We are." As soon as I confirmed our reason for venturing all the way to this place, the servant motioned his hand for us to follow him. He led us to a long table tucked away between a few bookshelves with mountains of paper stacked on top of it.

This was going to take a lot longer than I had originally thought. To look through every piece of information thoroughly in search of nothing in particular would take weeks.

After thanking the servant, I cracked my knuckles and made myself at ease in a chair. "Make sure you sit comfortably, we're going to be here for a while."

Sabre sat down a few chairs away from me, making sure we looked at different piles of papers to hopefully speed up the process somewhat. "You sure do know a lot about this place. Have you done this before?" She asked, tucking her legs underneath her.

"A few times." I picked up the first sheet to find nothing but imports of native Icrodeian ingredients. "The first was when I wanted to search for information on the fae race to find out why there are only two of us left. Then the second time was to find out more about the suitors I had to pick from. Though, not even both of those combined produced this amount of results."

Just as I finished speaking, a few people arrived and placed three more stacks onto the end of the table. I had to stop this feeling of dread every time I thought about sitting here for hours on end sifting through everything. The more information we had to look through, the more likely we would find something of value.

"What are we even looking for?" Sabre questioned after scanning through a page and setting it on the floor, marking it as read. "Surely it could be a number of things."

"Anything suspicious. The spy mentioned it's a thing they're after, something that would want to make them take out the fae and our kingdom, so we need to find anything that Icrodeia could be after that we have."

"If it was that important, wouldn't it be wiped from any records to keep it safe? This feels like a little bit of a waste of time. We could be doing something more valuable to help Racaea."

"It's likely, but we can't risk the possibility of missing our answer." She had a good point, but if all we had to do was search through papers and then hand this object back over, it would be worth it. Though if we didn't find anything, the fact that Sabre could be their motive was also a possibility.

She rolled her shoulders, determination filling her. "Alright. We've got this."

The last times I had sat at desks in the archives, I had been bored out of my mind. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad now that Sabre was by my side.