Huddled in her reading nook, leaning against the cool glass of her oriel window, Julia read by dim, flickering lamplight, eyes darting excitedly over the pages of her favorite ring novel.

  Kyla ran through the wide, empty streets of the city, her breath coming hard and fast in her lungs, her chest heaving with exertion...

  “There she is!” a gruff voice shouted, heavy footsteps rapidly approaching her. “The pretty one!”

  Kyla tried to run faster, to get away from the men–but then her ankle twisted on a broken cobblestone and she fell, dirt staining the perfect white silk of her dress.

  Desperate, she looked up, fear making her beautiful face even more stunning in its perfection, such that the pursuing men stopped for a moment, frozen by their first sight of Kyla’s features.

  Then there was a soft rustle of cloth, and a black-cloaked figure fell to the ground behind the men. Within moments, they were all on the ground, their weapons taken easily from their hand, the thugs effortlessly disarmed and soundly beaten by Kyla’s unexpected savior.

  Only once the men fled, trailing curses behind them, did the cloaked form approach Kyla, dropping to one knee before her...

  “Apologies for my tardiness, milady.” Her voice was husky, breathless and deep yet still musical.

  “You need never apologize to me,” Kyla said, her own voice high with excitement. She offered her hand to her savior, and the cloaked woman took it, pressing her ruby red lips to Kyla’s hand-

  “Julianna! Why do you still have a crossed lamp lit?”

  Julia squeaked in surprise, her father’s angry bellows followed immediately by the crash of the door to her sitting room slamming open. Quickly, she stuffed Stolen Hearts under her pillow, trying desperately to simultaneously straighten her nightgown, lift her blanket further over her body, and drain the flush from her cheeks before–

  Inevitably, her bedroom door slammed open and her father, Jonslin Brooker, stormed in.

  Admittedly, Julia had little idea of what anyone would consider attractive in a man as lunar and masculine as her father, but she couldn’t conceive of a world in which Lord Brooker met any of those hypothetical conditions. Bandy-legged, narrow-shouldered, and heavy-gutted, the man somehow managed to avoid looking both muscular and fat, neither skinny nor stout. She had no idea how he pulled that off, though she suspected the rich clothing he wore–a collection of velvety maroons covered by bright-dyed greens–had something to do with it.

  His face was little better, in her eyes. Engorged veins turned his cheeks and nose a bruised shade of red. His chin was weak, and he perpetually alternated between growing in a scaggly, patchy beard to cover it and trying to remain clean shaven. Currently, he was in the former phase, a light salt-and-pepper fuzz clinging to his face, the coarse beard a couple shades darker than the dwindling ring of hair he always tried to keep covered.

  Father and daughter shared only a single trait, as best as Julia could tell–their eyes were an identical shade of amber-gold, a captivating color Jonslin often called bronze-eyed, in reference to the aristocratic goldbloods he was eternally striving to emulate.

  Julia had never met her mother, but when she was younger, she had liked to imagine that those eyes were beautiful enough to excuse her father’s innumerable flaws.

  At some point in her teenaged years, Julia had learned the truth, of course. Now a woman of nearly twenty years, she knew better than to think love had anything to do with her parents’ marriage.

  “Damn it girl!” Jonslin roared as he stormed in, trailing Lora, Julia’s blushing chambermaid. “What are you doing awake this late? Did you forget how important tomorrow is?”

  Julia sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. He was drunk. Fantastic.

  She allowed herself only a moment to wish that her father had never discovered dreck, the foul, potent alcohol brewed by sailors downhill, before she opened her eyes and turned the sharpest gaze she could manage on the man.

  “Yes father,” Julia said tartly, “I forgot that I’m to be sold off like a cow at auction tomorrow. It is, after all, such an easy thing to have slip one’s mind.”

  Jonslin’s face darkened. “There’s that damned tongue again. Just like your mother.”

  The man advanced a step towards her, and Julia hated the way her heart suddenly raced, leaving her feeling more like a rabbit than the heiress of one of Emeston’s most powerful men.

  “Father,” she said, wincing as her voice cracked, “I doubt Kolaven will want me to arrive bruised tomorrow.”

  The man paused, glaring at her with the same eyes Julia saw every time she looked in the mirror. Her heart raced ever faster, and she abruptly felt like she was going to vomit.

  Finally, her boorish excuse for a father blew out a long breath and seemed to relax a little. “Fine, fine.” He waved an irritated hand at her. “You’re right. At least those tutors taught you something.”

  “Everything except why I should care,” Julia muttered to herself.

  The words weren’t quiet enough to escape her father’s notice, and something ugly shifted behind his eyes, his drunken anger flaring back up in an instant.

  “I’ve had enough of your stubbornness, of your attitude, of that Trades-damned tongue of yours!” he roared. “So let me be clear with you, Julianna. Tomorrow, you’re going to go to lunch with Kolaven. You’re going to play the part of the perfect young woman I spent most of twenty years and a small fortune trying to turn you into. You’re going to do nothing to make her second guess our arrangement. And when she proposes, you’re going to say yes. Do I make myself clear?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Julia winced, her brain dancing through a hundred responses, varying from mocking to cold to simply stubborn. She thought about what Kyla, or the other protagonists of her romantic adventure books, would say, faced with a bully like Jonslin Brooker.

  But when she tried to open her mouth, she found herself unable to spit any of those clever, indignant, sharp words at her father.

  Instead, after a moment, Julia just gave the big man a jerky nod, barely stifling a small whimper of fear.

  Her father eyed her for a moment before his gaze suddenly softened, his anger vanishing as abruptly as morning dew. He approached her, his face soft, his bright eyes gentle and moist with the kind of tears that had once swayed his daughter.

  “Oh, Julianna,” he said softly, “why must you argue with everything I ask of you? Have I not given you a good life?”

  Sure, Julia thought, the comfortable, spoiled life of a cage bird. The life of the jewels in your vault.

  “You have,” she said, her voice little more than a squeak. Internally, she cursed her own cowardice with a litany of insults and curses worthy of any sailor. “I’m sorry.”

  Jonslin took a small step towards her, lifting his hands, as if intending to embrace her.

  Julia flinched, and sank a little farther into her blankets.

  The gentle moment fled, and the ugly, threatening glimmer returned to Jonslin’s eyes, her minute gesture of defiance enough of a spark to catch the liquor that soaked his soul.

  “Lights out,” he told her curtly, turning for the door. “You have an early morning appointment with the stylist.”

  And then he left, grumbling to himself, likely about the cost of making Julia presentable for an event as significant as her proposal. For a man with more money than most goldbloods, Jonslin was miserly at the best of times.

  And so Julia was left in her chambers, bundled in the soft down of her blanket, sweating and near panic from even the brief confrontation with her father. As she so often did when she was scared, or angry, or upset, she stared out her window, down at the million glittering lights of Emeston. The gates, the harbor, Lowrun itself, all bustling with activity despite the lateness of the hour. The sight helped to distance Julia from the hurt inside of her, and not for the first time, she wished she had the skill to capture that gleaming sprawl on parchment or canvas.

  It was as beautiful as ever, a twinkling symbol of the one thing Julia was never allowed: freedom.

  Lora approached in silence, the chambermaid turning off Julia’s lamp with a short motion. Her bedroom fell into dim shadows, lit only by the diffuse light that made its way through her window from the stars both above and below.

  “Is there anything I can get you, miss?”

  “No, Lora. Thank you.” Julia did her best to muster a wan smile for the girl–the latest in a long line of maidservants Jonslin had bought for her.

  As ever, Lora kept her composure, her face revealing nothing of her thoughts on what had just transpired in front of her. She simply dipped in a brief curtsy, lifting the side of her simple cotton dress. “Then good evening, miss.”

  “Good evening, Lora.”

  The girl backed through the door of Julia’s bedchamber, closing it behind her. A moment later, Julia heard the door of her sitting room close as well, leaving her well and truly alone.

  Only then did she allow herself to break down into tears.

  Emeston was a city of trade, of enterprise, of gold–even its government consisted of those with gold enough to buy a seat on its ruling council. Everything was business to the merchants of Highwalk, the sprawling neighborhoods that spanned the three high hills of Emeston’s north-eastern border, and romance was no exception.

  Despite Jonslin’s best attempts, Julia had never had much of a mind for numbers. She was, in his words, empty-headed, her thoughts in the sky and her nose too often pressed between the pages of a book. Once her younger brother had proven himself possessed of the very acumen Julia lacked, her fate had been sealed–her only value to Brooker family business was as goods, to be bartered and sold to the benefit of the family.

  And so, once she had turned sixteen and received her first gift from the archetype of the Professional, Jonslin had begun the long, drawn-out process of courting a suitable match for her.

  Julia thought she could understand how the ritualistic practice of courting had started–the luncheons, the dinners, the garden walks, the carriage rides. Perhaps, at some point, they had actually served to allow the participants in the courting the chance to get to know each other, to test their compatibility. Certainly, such prolonged, romantic courting periods were the subject of no small number of Julia’s ring novels.

  But if that had ever been the case, it had been long before Julia’s time. Now, the process of courting was much more of a business transaction than anything else, a discussion of contracts and finances and benefits. Even once Jonslin had settled on a young wine merchant as the right match for Julia, the dates had continued for the purpose of social credit, to see and be seen.

  Despite walking about with Kolaven no less than a dozen times, Julia knew next to nothing about the woman. She was a merchant from the heartlands east of Emeston, with interests extending from Wavecrest up and down the Coast Road. Though fairly young, less than a decade older than Julia, and new to the city, she had managed to put together a fairly successful liquor syndicate. She was ambitious, and had her eyes set on the Golden Council, Emeston’s governing body. She was a woman, at least, which was a rarity among the merchant lords of Highwalk, but that was little comfort, even given Julia’s preferences.

  Merely thinking of her betrothed’s cold, empty eyes made Julia shiver.

  And now Julia was going to marry her.

  To call the proposal she was expected to attend tomorrow a formality was too generous. The contracts had been finalized, the forms signed, the parties appeased. Kolaven would wed Julia, marrying into the Brooker business and their wealth. Jonslin would offer the funds for a seat on the Golden Council as a wedding present to his new daughter-in-law, and in the process gain another vote in his faction, further securing his power over the city.

  And Julia would trade one cage for another.

  She looked out over the twinkling city below her, and after over ten years of planning, Julia finally decided that she couldn’t do what her father was asking of her.

  A lifetime trapped in this gilded vault still wasn’t enough to take away her dreams of freedom.

  Before she could think better of her actions, Julia threw the stifling down blanket aside and finally stood up.

  Her bare feet were silent on the cool stone floor, and she needed no light to navigate the bedchambers she had spent months at a time imprisoned in.

  She padded to her dresser, pulled out both the bottom drawer and the false bottom she had cut into it over the course of eight months and six pilfered dinner knives.She took out the bundle of cloth hidden inside–a nightcloak she had bought on a shopping trip years before, wrapped around a bag stuffed with supplies she and a couple of her favorite maids had carefully procured.

  Supplies she had been carefully hoarding in preparation for the night when her fears overwhelmed her anxiety.

  That night had finally come.

  A Jewel and Her Thief, my first standalone novel! (Okay, technically it takes place in the same world as my Wanderborn series, but no knowledge of that series is needed to read and enjoy this book!