Chapter 2: Convoy Ambush

I’m the eldest princess.

When the city sent supplies twice and the food at the border was still running low, I volunteered to serve as logistics officer and personally escorted the rations to the front lines. Chicago politics being what they were, nobody trusted anyone further than they could throw them—so I figured if I put my own neck on the line, at least the soldiers would eat.

For convenience, I packed only men’s clothes—old jeans, a couple of flannel shirts, boots that’d seen better days. No one at the border cared what I wore, so long as the job got done. The air tasted different that far out, full of dust and diesel, and sometimes the silence made me homesick for city noise.

But a hundred miles from the checkpoint, the weather turned. A thick Midwestern fog rolled over the cornfields, so heavy it pressed in on the windows. Outside, the fog swallowed up the road signs, the endless fields of corn vanishing into white. One by one, the men slumped over in the convoy. The world swam, my head spun, and it hit me—something was wrong.

Somebody had drugged us.

I jerked awake to a stabbing pain in my palm, the jolting rattle of a battered Ford pickup under me. My hand was sticky—I'd cut myself, desperate to stay conscious, but the drugs had been too much. For a moment, the world was nothing but the smell of gasoline and blood, and then, voices.

"Didn’t expect the city’s people to be so useless, all knocked out by a little knockout powder."

The sarcasm was so thick you could spread it on toast. I tried to focus, blinking at the muddy floor mats and the battered combat boots planted beside me. The man in the truck with me was big, his voice rough, like gravel after a rain.

Another voice piped up, cautious: "Captain Mason, I still feel uneasy about this. This time it’s a member of the royal family—if City Hall blames us…"

Captain Mason. Mason Carter. The name fit him—hard, square-shouldered, the kind of guy who wore his old army jacket like a badge of honor. At the border, there was only one Mason, and he made sure nobody forgot it.

The supplies were supposed to arrive in a few days, but Mason had gone rogue—knocked us out, loaded up the rations himself. He was scared someone would skim the supplies again, like they had last time. Out here, trust was a luxury.

But I was the one escorting the convoy this time. Did he really think a princess like me would dip into the rations?

A mocking laugh echoed above me, cold and sharp.

Mason's voice followed, full of contempt: "That bunch of freeloaders back at City Hall aren’t worth worrying about."

You’ve got a lot of nerve, I thought, my blood simmering. He was openly trash-talking the mayor and the whole city council, like he didn’t give a damn about their titles or their threats.

I pushed myself upright, hands braced on the sun-baked vinyl seat, and glared up at him.

He didn’t miss a beat. "Oh, you’re awake now."