Never After

1 The Beautiful Princess

This was the proclamation sent out to all corners of the land: I, King Reginald, have decreed that I will wed my daughter, Olivia, to the man who passes three tests that prove he is brave, strong, and clever. All men are invited to Kallenore Castle to compete for the very fairest prize.

Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? I thought so at first, until I started appraising some of my suitors. They didn’t arrive armed only with weapons, courage, and intelligence. A good number of them also brought lust, greed, ambition, and a few other unsavory traits. For Kallenore was a lush and prosperous land, and I was my father’s only child—and people have been telling me since the day I was born that I’m beautiful. I have to admit I secretly believe it’s true. My hair is black, my eyes are blue, and my skin has been free of those appalling blemishes for four years.

After the first round of competition—a standard if very energetic joust—eliminated more than half of the contestants, I began to think seriously about what it would mean to be married off to someone I didn’t know and might not like. I was particularly worried about two of the combatants who had survived the rounds of fighting. One was a large, brutish man who looked like he could tear apart the palace’s foundation stones with his thumb and forefinger. He had bulging eyes, greasy hair, and a beard that might not have been trimmed since the day it first started to show. I comforted myself with the thought that he didn’t look bright enough to pass the test that relied on brains.

But the second contestant who caught my eye most assuredly was that intelligent, and I didn’t want to marry him, either. In fact, my refusal to be betrothed to Sir Harwin Brenley of Brenley Estates was what had precipitated this whole not so-romantic-after-all competition in the first place.

I had known Harwin my whole life. His father, Sir Milton, was the most significant property owner in the kingdom, a lord who by turns was my father’s greatest ally and chief adversary. The day I was born, our parents decided that Harwin and I should marry. Harwin had never seemed as horrified at the idea as I had.

Well, he wouldn’t. He was too dull to whip up an emotion like horror. He was placid and stolid and measured and practically bovine in his level of insensate calm. He could be quite stubborn in failing to yield a point or change his mind, but he never argued; he never shouted or threw things or stalked from the room spitting curses. He wasn’t, I suppose, hideously unattractive, for he was tall, and athletic enough to acquit himself on a jousting field, and his face didn’t have any scars or squints or disproportionate features. He just was—this big, solid, boring clump of a human being.

I mean, I couldn’t possibly marry him.

What if he passed all three of my father’s tests?>

I would run away. I would. My father couldn’t make me marry someone against my will.

My father had never been able to make me do anything I didn’t want to do. Which was probably the reason he detested me as much as I detested him.

There was a knock on the door, which I ignored, but the person in the hallway came inside anyway. I glared at her. I usually went to some trouble to avoid spending any time with my stepmother, Gisele, more out of principle than because of any active dislike. Well, she was only five years older than I was, small and dainty and well behaved. Her dark brown hair always lay sleek against her cheeks; her black eyes were always watchful. She made me look like a big galumphy girl when I stood beside her, and even when she wasn’t criticizing me out loud, her expression was generally reproving. And she had married my father, which I couldn’t imagine any woman of sense wanting to do. Ever since she had moved into the palace three years ago, I had refused to respond to any of her attempts to win me over. She had mostly given up trying.

Today it seemed like she might be trying one more time. Her face wore a more urgent expression than usual. “Olivia,” she said. “It’s not too late.”

I had been standing at the window, watching the bustle in the palace courtyard, where most of the contestants had set up tents and pavilions. There were still probably two dozen remaining, and at least half of them were milling around in the warm golden light of an autumn afternoon. The whole scene of color and endless motion was amazingly inviting, and I longed to be down there with my suitors instead of up here with my stepmother.

I turned my back to the pageantry outside and said in the surly voice I usually employed while speaking to Gisele, “It’s not too late for what?”

“To accept Harwin,” she said.

I let out a gusty breath of surprise. “I am not going to marry Harwin!”

She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Have you taken a good look at some of the individuals who have come to the palace with the intention of winning your hand? Even if you ignore the obvious fact that they would be unqualified to rule at your side once you inherit your father’s throne, they would be nightmares to share your bed with for the next fifty years. I know you think Harwin is a charmless bore, but he is not cruel, he is not stupid, and he is nowhere near as oafish as you believe. Whereas some of these men—”

I stiffened my back. I would not let her see that her alarm was echoing my own uneasiness. “The competition has already started,” I said. “It would not be hon orable to cancel it now.”

“You’ll be thinking a lot less about honor once you find yourself married to a man you cannot tolerate,” Gisele said grimly. “You’ll be wishing yourself safely wed to Harwin Brenley, for all his bland conversation.”

I actually stamped my foot. “I do not choose to marry Harwin,” I said. “A woman should have some choice in the matter of her marriage!”

“She should, which is why she should say yes when the choice she is offered is a tolerable one,” Gisele replied.

“Is that how you ended up married to a king?” I said in a rude voice. “Because you turned down the other matches your father would have made for you?”

She watched me steadily with those dark, unreadable eyes. “Do you think your father is the person I would have married had I been given the choice?”

I hunched a shoulder. “You married him fast enough. My mother had only been dead six months.”

“My father and your father strode from the crypt to the chapel, already making plans,” she shot back. “I would have been here six days after her death if they had had their way.”

I shrugged again. What did it matter? She had been eager enough to jump into the marriage bed with a man old enough to be her father. “At any rate, you can see why I am not so interested in your advice on how to make a happy marriage.”

She continued to keep her gaze on me. “Your father wants a son,” she said. “The minute he has one, you will be shoved aside—forgotten. I recommend that you make sure you are safely married off to a man you like and admire before your father gets his son, or your life will become wretched in the extreme. There. I have just given you another piece of good advice that you will no doubt ignore.”

“I suppose it’s very lucky for me that you have so far failed to provide him that son,” I said.

“I suppose it is.”

I spread my hands in an impatient gesture. “Why do I find it so hard to believe that you have my best interests at heart?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Why do you?”

Shrugging again, I turned my back on her and once more gave all my attention to the tumble and gaiety in the courtyard. “Thank you for your concern,” I said, my polite voice obviously insincere. “But I think I can manage my life without your interference.”

I waited till after dark. And then I put on a plain, brown cloak, pulled the hood over my head, and stole down the servants’ stairways, out the kitchen exit, and into the vast courtyard. Soon I was winding my way through the variegated tents, jostling bodies, and loud merriment that had taken over what was normally a very formal space.

It was hard to take it all in. Servants and pages were racing past the irregular campfires, carrying messages and fetching food. Some of the men were outside their tents, arguing and practicing swordplay. Some were inside; I could see their shadows leap and gesture on the cloth walls, lit from within. The smells were diverse and suffocating—smoke, meat, ale, mud, horse, leather, and excrement, from man or beast or both. Now and then I heard a woman’s laugh or high-pitched squeal over the lower rumble of men’s voices.

The sounds surprised me and I found myself frowning. I had a low opinion of any man who brought a doxy to a competition to win the hand of a princess. Shouldn’t all my suitors be pure of heart as well as strong and brave and brilliant? I would have any man disqualified if he consorted with low women while he was wooing me. If, of course, I could figure out which ones they were.

I had wound my way halfway through the courtyard when I spotted the big bruiser who had caught my eye during the joust. He was sitting on an overturned barrel, but he was so heavy it looked as though his body weight was slowly forcing it into the ground. In one hand he held a hunk of charred meat hacked off the bone; in the other, he held a slovenly woman whose breasts were so big her dirty white camisole could hardly contain them. Three comrades lounged nearby, calling out advice. I hurried on before I could quite decipher what that advice pertained to.

No. He would not be an acceptable bridegroom by any measure.

He could not win my father’s competition, could he?>

I wandered on, drawing my cloak more tightly around my body to fend off the chill of the autumn evening. I was a little reassured to come upon a corner of the camp where no one was wolfing down overcooked meals or enjoying the attention of questionable women. There were plenty of sober-looking young men sitting contemplatively before their fires, or oiling their blades or mending their tack. I even saw one reading a book. He was a tall, lean fellow who looked to be mostly ribs and elbows. I couldn’t imagine how he’d made it through the joust without being unhorsed, but I guessed he would fare well during the test of intelligence. Standing in the darkness, I studied his face by flickering firelight. He looked humorless, severe, fanatical. I would not want to be married to him, either.

Though I would choose him over the big brute with the greasy skin.

If I was allowed to choose.

I pushed away my anxiety and moved on.

At the very last tent pitched just inside the palace gate, I saw a man practicing magic.

It was difficult at first to get a glimpse of him, because he had drawn a small crowd of onlookers who ringed him about, murmuring astonishment. I found a discarded trunk with a broken lock and stood on it to get a better view. And then I, too, was gasping with delight at the show unfolding before me.

A slim, handsome young man stood in a circle of spectators, his face and body lit by the curiously brilliant flames of a low fire. But no—it was not an ordinary fire; it was a blaze made of jagged blocks of golden quartz, each tendril of flame tapered to a point, the whole thing glowing like a harvest moon. While we watched, he twisted his outstretched hands, and the colors within surged to red and hunkered down to purple. He snapped his fingers and the light disappeared completely—and then suddenly sprang back to life, crackling and leaping like an ordinary little fire.

“How’d you do that?” someone asked in a stupefied voice, speaking for all of us.

“Magic,” said the young man, and then he laughed.

He was plainly visible in the light from the natural fire, and he was adorable. His shoulder-length blond hair had a rogue curl; his face wore a rascal’s smile. The mischievous look was counteracted somewhat by deep-set eyes, a generous mouth, and a patrician nose. His hands were elegant and expressive; he reached for the sky and I swear every person in the audience looked up to see what he might pluck from the air. A bird, as it happened, squawking and indignant, who shook itself and leapt from his palm to wing back into the night. He laughed to see it go, his expression purely joyous.

“Are your tricks real or just illusions?” someone demanded.

“What makes you think illusions are not real?” he replied. He picked up a block of rough firewood and squeezed it in his hands; it lengthened and changed colors and leafed out between his fingers, becoming a switch of live greenery covered with white flowers. Just as I had convinced myself that this was a mere visual trick, he snapped off one of the blossoms and presented it to a woman in the audience, a little older and a little less debased than the one I had seen on the big fellow’s lap. She cooed and tucked the bloom into the front of her bodice, then shared a kiss with a man who had his arm around her waist.

“What else can you do?” someone called out.

“What would you like to see me do?”

“Can you change coppers to gold coins?” another man spoke up.

The blond man laughed. “I’ve found that it never pays to tinker with the king’s coin,” he said. “So the answer is no.”

“Can you turn water into ale?”

“Make a woman love you?”

“Heal a broken limb?”

“Change a person’s face?”

It was this last request that interested him. “Whose face? Your own? Come closer and let me look at you.”

A young man broke free of the shadows and stepped into the circle of firelight. He was of medium height, a little heavyset, with an unfortunate collection of features. Droopy eyes under thick brows, a nose both large and broad, huge ears, bad teeth, the whole covered with a pocked and scarred layer of skin. “I wouldn’t ask to be made a handsome man,” the youth said in a quiet voice, “just better-looking.”

The magician studied him. “I believe I can improve you without making you unrecognizable to your friends.”

Again the crowd murmured, a little bit awed, a little bit unnerved. I had to admit my own emotions were much the same. “How long would such a magic last?” the boy asked.

The blond man shrugged. “Forever. It will be as if your face was resculpted, down to the blood and bone.”

The homely boy took a deep breath. “Then change me, if you will.”

Someone behind him called out, “Calroy, you fool, you didn’t ask him for his fee first!”

The magician laughed again. “There’s no fee. I’ll do it for the challenge alone. Hold still now.” And Calroy closed his eyes and turned motionless as a tree stump. The blond man frowned in concentration and laid his hands over Calroy’s jaws, his eyes, his unruly hair. Everyone in the audience, myself included, was leaning forward to watch, but Calroy’s back was to most of us and there was very little to see. Another flutter of his fingers and then the magician stepped back.

“Don’t turn around yet,” he ordered. “My sister will hand you a mirror. If you don’t like what you see, I’ll change you back.”

Calroy stood obediently passive, while a woman sitting at the back edge of the circle came to her feet. Sister? I thought with some derision, remembering my walk through camp. But this one looked enough like the magician to make the blood tie plausible. By firelight, her hair was redder, thicker, and without that springy curl. But the curve of her mouth and the line of her profile matched his own, and her smile looked just as playful. In her hand was a small mirror, which she angled for Calroy’s view.

He bent forward, and then he gasped, his hands flying up to touch his face. “Show us!” someone from the audience demanded, and Calroy pivoted on one foot.

There was first silence and then a murmur that was half admiration and half fear. For Calroy stood before us definitely altered and yet still clearly himself. The heavy brow had been shoved back, the outsize eyes reshaped. The nose was much refined, and the mouth—stretched wide in a smile—showed even teeth without a hint of decay. He certainly wasn’t a man who would turn the girls’ heads, but neither would he draw the mockery of young boys. He was a little better than ordinary, with a look of happiness that gave him extra appeal.

“Well?” asked the magician. “Are you satisfied?”

“More than satisfied. Thank you—thank you—I do have a few coins with me, not nearly enough to pay for something like this—”

The magician waved a dismissive hand. “The work of a few moments. I was glad to do it. All I would ask is that if you have the chance to do an easy kindness for someone else, you take that chance.”

“And this will be my face from now on? For the rest of my life?”

“Forever,” the magician confirmed.

“I must go show my brother,” Calroy exclaimed, and dove through the crowd and disappeared.

The others drew back to let him pass, and then turned to one another to express their amazement at what they had just witnessed. I had jumped off my trunk, ready to sneak away, but I got caught in the general disorganized movement of the crowd. A few murmured apologies, a few bodies gently pushed aside, and I suddenly found myself a few feet from the magician and his sister. I could not see them through the press of bodies, but I recognized his voice and guessed at hers.

“That was the most fun magic has brought me for a while,” he said in a jaunty tone.

Her voice was a lilting alto. “I suppose you’re hoping Princess Olivia will hear of your kind deed and favor your suit?”

He laughed. “Yes, or her father. Why should they not learn that I am gifted and generous? Who would not want such a man for a husband?”

“I love you, Darius, but you would make a very bad husband. And an even worse king. I don’t know why you’re even in this competition.”

“Have you seen her, Dannette? She’s beautiful. That hair! That skin!”

“They say she has a temper. And a strong will and a stubborn heart.”

Eavesdropping in the dark, I couldn’t help but nod. All true. I wondered which servants or local lords had provided Dannette’s information.

He laughed at her. “She sounds delightful.”

“So you’re really going to try to win her hand?”

“I really am.”

I managed to choke back my squeal of excitement. At last! A man I could love, and a man who was already halfway enamored of me! A handsome, charming, talented man, blessed with a kind heart and a cheerful manner! How could he have been better? I was tempted to step forward and introduce myself, but the group of spectators that had absorbed me in the dark now began to shred apart, and I decided it was wiser to move on. My head was humming with elation; my heart was pattering with glee. After all, my father’s competition to find my husband was turning out very well indeed.

I was thinking so blissfully about Darius that I was careless when I returned to the palace, with the result that I ran into Harwin within a minute of slipping in through a side door.

“There you are,” he said in his measured voice, the syllables heavy with disapproval. “I should have guessed. Wandering through the contestants’ camp, I suppose, picking out your favorites.”

I gave a guilty start upon first hearing his voice, and for a moment I looked up at him like a small child waiting for a scold she knows she deserves. Unlike me, Harwin was properly dressed in formal evening clothes. The dull brown color of his jacket did not do much to lighten either his expression or his olive skin tones, though the garment was finely made and nicely showed off the width of his shoulders. I remembered that he had handily won his events in the joust. I was not used to thinking of him as being any kind of athlete, but he was big enough, and apparently dexterous enough, to handle himself with competence on the battlefield.

Then my natural insouciance reasserted itself. I tossed back my hair and dropped my hands instead of tightly clutching the cloak as if I wanted to hide inside it. “And what if I was?” I said breezily. “If I’m going to marry the man who wins my father’s competition, shouldn’t I learn about all of the contestants?”

“If that is really how you plan to choose a bridegroom, I will win the three competitions,” he said.

His cool, blockish, unimaginative certainty inspired me with sudden rage, though I tried to tamp it down. “I have already said I will not marry you,” I replied. “You have already been eliminated from the lists.”

“Do you reserve the right to refuse any other contestant who might be successful?” he said with a little heat. “That clause was not in the proclamation that I heard.”

I leaned forward, still angry. “I will never marry a man that I cannot stand,” I said. “No matter how he is presented to me or what obstacles he has overcome.”

Harwin’s face smoothed out; almost, I would have said, he was relieved. “I told your father this competition was ill-advised,” he said. “I told him he could not possibly predict what kinds of rogues and ruffians might show up on his doorstep, prepared to go to any length to win a spectacular prize. There are plenty of villains who can wield a sword and solve a puzzle. Those are no criteria for deciding who will wed your daughter—and who will rule the kingdom after you.” He gave me one long, sober inspection. “I do believe you have the courage to refuse any man who is not worthy of you.”

I supposed that was a compliment in its heavy-handed way. “I wouldn’t think my father plans to hold the wedding ceremony the very day the competition ends,” I said. “No doubt I will get to know my prospective bridegroom during our engagement period. I’m not afraid of scandal—I’ll break off the betrothal if I find he’s not the man he seemed.”

Harwin’s eyes took on a sudden keenness. “Yes, that is a most excellent idea,” he said. “Tell your father there must be an engagement long enough to enable you to assess the worth of your victorious suitor.”

“Even if the victorious suitor is you?” I asked in a dulcet voice.

He just looked at me for a moment. “Yes,” he said, at last. “I would hope you would use that time to get to know me. To learn things about me that perhaps you have not understood before.”

“I cannot imagine what those things might be,” I said. “I have known you my whole life.”

“You have been acquainted with me your whole life,” he corrected. “It is not the same thing.”

I shrugged. I was tired of talking to Sir Harwin. “I will tell my father I want a betrothal period.” Suddenly, for no good reason, I remembered Gisele’s earlier advice to marry quickly before my father sired a son. I wondered if that had been her subtle hint that she was pregnant, though she could hardly know if she was carrying a boy. “Though I’m not sure I like the idea of a long engagement,” I added.

“It is a splendid idea,” Harwin said. “I will make the recommendation myself.”

Now I scowled. “I don’t know why you think you have anything to say about my engagement or my wedding or my life.”

“I have everything to say,” he responded, his voice cool again. “I’m the man who’s going to marry you.”

I made a strangled sound deep in my throat and spun on my heel, not even answering him. Within a few steps, I had turned the corner and slipped up the servants’ stairwell, on my way back to my own room. If Harwin had any more ridiculously grave pronouncements to make, I didn’t hear them.

I was not going to marry Harwin. I was going to marry Darius the magician, if he turned out to be as delightful as he seemed—and if he didn’t, I wouldn’t marry him or any other man who had flocked to my father’s house with the hope of winning my hand. I was not a prize to be bestowed, won, or bartered.

I was a princess, and a rather difficult young woman. I knew how to get my own way.

2 The Dashing Suitor

I had not attended the joust that whittled my suitors from more than fifty to about two dozen, because I had never enjoyed the sight of violence. But my father insisted I be on hand for the competition that would judge the contestants’ courage, whatever this test entailed. So the following morning I joined all the other spectators gathering before a makeshift ring that had been set up just outside the walls that surrounded the palace. A dais had been erected in the most favorable spot to overlook the grounds; this was where the royal party would sit. More rudimentary stands had been built to accommodate everyone else and to enclose a space that resembled a small arena. Overnight, this arena had acquired chest-high walls and an overarching lattice canopy—it had, in effect, been turned into a very large cage.

I sat on the dais, awaiting my father and the rest of his guests, and surveyed the arena with misgiving. Would such a cage be used for keeping dangerous creatures in or not allowing terrified contestants out?

It was not long before the stands filled up with several hundred people of all ranks—servants, tradesmen, merchants, and nobles—including a few of my unsuccessful suitors from the previous round. The day was sunny and warm, except for a persistent chilly breeze, and the mood of the crowd was mostly cheerful. I was half excited and half fearful, since my father was an unpredictable and not very nice man, and what he dreamed up to test someone’s bravery might be highly unpleasant to watch.

At last my father arrived on the scene, trailed by Gisele, a handful of guests, and five or six servants bearing food, drink, cushions, and other comforts. The audience cheered and applauded when he made his appearance—less because they were happy to see their king, I thought, and more because his arrival indicated that the entertainment would soon be under way.

There was a little fuss and confusion as he and his companions mounted the dais and disposed themselves in the waiting chairs. Like me, my father had dark hair and blue eyes, but I had a larger and more solid frame than he did; he often wore bright colors and a lot of jewelry to make up for the fact that he was not particularly tall. Today he was dressed in dark green with gold trim, and he wore a gold circlet on his head. I noted without any enthusiasm that his guests were Sir Neville and his daughter Mellicia, a pretty but rather silly blond girl close to my own age. Like Harwin’s father, Sir Neville was a longtime ally of the crown and often at the palace. More than once it had occurred to me that Mellicia would make a perfect bride for Harwin. Perhaps, once I was betrothed to Darius, I would suggest her to Harwin as a substitute wife.

I had taken the seat at the very end of the row of chairs, knowing that my father would sit in the middle. I was not surprised to see Neville and Mellicia given the seats of honor on either side of him, and I was not surprised—but not particularly happy about it—when Gisele strolled down to take the chair next to mine.

“Your father asked me to look after you while he entertains his company,” she said by way of greeting.

“I don’t need looking after,” I said.

“Good,” she said, settling in. “Then I should have an easy day of it.”

I glanced into the arena, where several of my father’s grooms and trainers had slipped inside the cage and stationed themselves along the perimeter. Their hands were full of staffs and chains and other simple weapons, and my uneasiness increased. “Do you have any idea what he’s planning for this competition?” I asked.

“Only a rather dreadful suspicion,” she said. “I’m hoping I’m wrong.”

Which was not reassuring in the least.

Almost on the words, a stream of men entered the arena from the left side and milled around inside the cage, waiting. I was surprised to find them all barefoot and stripped to the waist, except for a loosely knotted collar each wore around his neck. None of them bore weapons. Whatever they were to face, it seemed, they would have to fend off armed with very little except their personal courage.

I searched the crowd, looking for Darius. There. He stood perfectly still to one side of the cage, gazing around with curiosity. He had pulled his fair curls back from his face with a leather cord, which gave him the brisk air of someone prepared to do business. He did not appear particularly nervous.

Most of the other men, I thought, had started to show some apprehension. They glanced up at the latticework ceiling of their prison; they casually leaned against the half walls as if testing how easily they could be breached. One or two paused to confer with each other, casting quick glances over their shoulders in case a monster had been released while they were engaged in conversation.

I was not looking for him, but I spotted Harwin anyway. Like Darius, he was standing almost motionless, but his eyes moved as he studied his competitors, his jailors, and his terrain. I saw his features set as he came to some kind of conclusion. I guessed that he had a pretty strong inkling of what trial lay in store, and he did not like it. While I watched him, he turned his eyes toward the dais and gave my father one long, narrow-eyed appraisal.

Then, before I could look away, he turned his attention to me. For a moment we stared at each other through the wide bars of the makeshift cage. Then he dropped his eyes and offered me a deep bow, ridiculously inappropriate considering his attire and his situation. I turned my face aside before he could straighten up and try to meet my eyes again.

I was just in time to see my father rise to his feet, his arms outstretched. Despite his lack of height, he had a certain forceful charisma; all eyes invariably turned his way when he moved or spoke. “Let the second phase of the competition begin!” he called and dropped his arms.

Over the renewed cheering of the crowd, I heard a chilling sound.

“Oh, no,” I said and looked at Gisele with horror in my eyes.

Her own eyes were fixed on the field. “Oh, yes,” she said.

A large enclosed cart had been maneuvered toward the entrance to the grand cage, and now its rear door was opened. From the wagon into the arena streamed about fifty of my father’s fighting dogs, barking and baying and baring their teeth.

It was suddenly clear why all the contestants had scarves knotted around their necks. Each scarf had been drenched with some kind of bait-scent; each pair of dogs had been primed to hunt for one of those scents.

Within seconds, each of my luckless suitors was under attack by two of the fiercest fighting dogs in the kingdom.

The action was so sudden, so brutal, and so uncho reographed that it was almost impossible to tell what was going on. At first, I was not even able to find Harwin or Darius among the whirling, slashing, howling maelstrom of bodies, both canine and human. Almost instantly, there was blood. Almost instantly, shrieks of real terror and pain. A flurry of motion on the far edge of the circle brought my attention to one desperate battle, where a man had slipped to the ground, his arms flailing. One dog had his calf in a death grip and shook his head so hard the man was scrubbed back and forth along the grass. The second dog leapt in, closing its jaws over the man’s throat.

“No!” I shrieked, leaping to my feet as if I would jump from the stage and fling myself into the arena to offer aid. Gisele shot up beside me, clasping my arm to hold me in place. I shook her off, but stayed where I was, my eyes riveted to the action.

Two of the handlers had waded into the fray, using their sticks and choke collars and practiced commands to call off the attack. One of them tossed the dogs reward meat and shepherded them out of the arena; they frisked at his heels, pleased that they had pleased him. The other knelt on the bloodied ground by the fallen contestant, putting his hands up to the fighter’s throat.

Another man stumbled into my line of vision, blocking my view. He had one dog fastened to his left wrist, another gnawing at his right ankle, but he was still on his feet. His face was contorted into what looked like a hysterical scream. He tripped over something on the ground and almost came to his knees—a fatal mistake—but righted himself just in time. The dog worrying his wrist opened its jaws, crouched, and sprang for the man’s throat.

I turned away.

Gisele stood beside me, her dark eyes fixed unwaveringly on the scene before us. There was no expression at all on her face, unless stony stillness could be interpreted as an expression. My eyes went past her to where my father sat. He and Neville had their heads together as they watched the fighting and tracked individual contests. Mellicia had slumped back in her ornate chair and lifted a fan to shield her eyes from the gruesome scene, but I noticed that she had lowered the pretty confection of paper and lace just enough to see the action.

“What a despicable man my father is,” I breathed.

Gisele nodded without glancing at me. “Yes,” was all she said. We both sank into our chairs again.

I forced my attention back to the arena. I was sickened at the thought that these men were being gravely injured—some could even die—all because they wanted the chance to marry me. This whole violent nightmare was in some sense my fault, and I owed them the courtesy of watching them display their courage.

I had looked away for only a few moments, but even in that short time, the field had thinned out considerably. Some of the contestants had fled, dogs harrying their retreat, for maybe a dozen scratched, shocked, bloodied men stood shivering outside the arena. Some had fallen and been hauled outside to be tended by palace servants. Maybe ten remained in the arena, still engaged in combat. Still proving their valor.

One was Darius. With the arena now more than half empty, he was easy to pick out and, amazingly, he appeared to be completely unharmed. The bare skin of his chest was untouched, and his trousers were not even muddied. He stood calmly, his hands before him, palms out as if pressing against an invisible wall. Before him, the two dogs assigned to him crouched and snarled. One was a mottled brown, the other a matted gold, and both of them looked ferocious enough to kill a man. But they were having no luck with Darius. They growled and leapt and snapped at his feet, but they were unable to close their teeth over any part of his flesh.

Magic, I thought, with a great uprush of relief. He’s protecting himself with magic. I was impressed by his fearlessness, his ability to keep his wits about him in such mayhem. He must have called up a wall of protection the instant the animals were loosed. One of the dogs leapt again, aiming for Darius’s throat, and then fell back to the ground, whimpering, after encountering some hidden obstacle.

“That’s magnificent,” I murmured. “That’s bravery.”

I felt Gisele glance at me, determine what I was watching, and then shake her head. “No,” she said, and pointed. “That is.”

I followed the direction of her hand and I gasped.

Harwin was still standing, but it was clear he’d been involved in a vicious fight. His left arm was dripping with blood, and his bare chest was marked with dirt, blood, and one long, ugly scratch from shoulder to waist. His pants were filthy and his feet so muddy that at first I thought he was wearing shoes. I supposed he must have vanquished his own attackers, because no creatures snarled at his heels or circled his body, looking for an opening. I thought I saw, in the frenetic shadows of the arena, a few lifeless animal forms—stunned, I hoped, not dead, for I hated the idea that my father’s dogs might be killed simply for obeying their training.

But even victorious in his own contest, Harwin wasn’t heading for an exit. Some scream or cry had caused him to whirl around in time to see an exhausted young man being dragged to the ground by a pair of sleek attackers, one black, one brown. Harwin didn’t hesitate. He charged over and fell on the brown dog from behind, forcing its lower jaw open and down toward its chest. I couldn’t tell if he was using his bare hands or some weapon he had appropriated from a watching guard. The young man scrambled to his feet, the black dog still clinging grimly to his thigh. With a tremendous effort, Harwin flung the brown dog against one of the half walls, where it landed with a pained yelp, scrabbled, and lay still. Harwin snatched up something that had fallen to the ground—yes, one of the heavy wooden rods that the guards had carried—and began beating the black dog on its nose and eyes. It loosed its hold and charged at Harwin, but he fended it off while the younger man stumbled toward the exit, coughing and sobbing. Backing away, but never lifting his eyes from the dog’s face, Harwin moved slowly toward the arena wall, then felt his way to the nearest door.

I thought he would turn and dash out, but he didn’t. He merely kept his back to the wall and his weapon upraised until one of the handlers slipped a collar over the dog’s head. Then I figured out what Harwin had obviously realized—no one who left the arena could be considered a winner in this round. He had to stay until every other contestant defeated his dogs or fled in humiliation.

I took a long, long breath and assessed the situation again. Darius was still unharmed and unmarked, standing in the center of the arena. Three other contestants appeared to have survived their encounters. One was the big, stupid man who looked so likely to win any event that required force. I didn’t even want to think what might have happened to the poor animals assigned to attack him. Two others were strangers, both so covered in blood and grime that I couldn’t tell much about their physical appearance.

Five. Five men still left to vie for my hand. I surveyed the carnage and thought bleakly that I was not worth this kind of effort.

Gisele spoke up, her voice low and controlled but full of rage. “I hate your father’s dogs,” she said.

I shook my head. “I’m afraid of them, but they break my heart,” I said. “They’re only doing what they’ve been taught to do.”

Now she looked at me. Her eyes matched her voice. “Then maybe I just hate your father.”

I was too weary to be shocked. “Half the lords in the kingdom keep fighting dogs, and those who don’t own such animals come to watch the fights.”

“Then maybe I just hate all men,” she said.

Remembering that I didn’t like Gisele, I gave a mocking laugh. “And yet you’re the one who’s been insisting I get married as quick as can be.”

“I encouraged you to choose a groom carefully,” she said. She swept a hand toward the arena, which was emptying out as the dog groomers took away the last of the animals and other servants escorted the five final contestants back to the palace. “Surely you could see that there was one among those suitors who was worthy of you.”

“Yes!” I said. “I was amazed by Darius!”

“Who’s Darius?” she asked sharply.

“The blond man. The one who kept the dogs at bay through magic. He was not harmed, but neither were they.”

“Magic,” she repeated. “That’s a dangerous sort of toy.”

I tossed my head. People still talked about the wizard my grandfather had kept as part of his household, a powerful and unscrupulous man who had sometimes used sorcery to enforce the king’s less popular decrees. There had been some suspicion that my grandmother’s first husband had not died a natural death, freeing the lovely young widow to accept the king’s offer of marriage. But most of the magicians in Kallenore had relatively limited and benign power, and they were generally welcomed wherever they traveled. The ones I had encountered had been rare, itinerant, and cheerful. Well, wouldn’t you be cheerful if you possessed the power to heal people or change objects or create illusions? I think I would be.

I think I would be happy if I had any kind of power at all, whether or not it was magical.

“Maybe magic is just the toy I need,” I said.

“Listen, Olivia,” she said. “I know you dislike me.

But you should believe what I say. Your father plans to marry you off with all speed, and he won’t be overnice in his requirements. Please make it possible for him to choose a generous man, a thoughtful man, a man who will care for you.”

I sneered. “And were those the qualities you were looking for when you chose to marry the king?”

“I didn’t choose,” she said evenly.

I turned away with a flounce. The others were already climbing from the dais, my father solicitously holding Mellicia’s hand to guide her down the temporary steps. “I hardly think, no matter who I marry, I shall fare worse than you,” I said. Just to be contrary, I didn’t bother with the stairs at all. Instead I dropped to the floor, flattened my hand against the wood, and vaulted down to land lightly in the grass. I was sure any spectators got a nice flash of my ankles and underskirts, but I didn’t care.

I barely heard Gisele’s reply. “But don’t you wish you could do better?”

After the intensity of the middle round, the third trial my would be suitors faced couldn’t help but be anti-climactic. It was not even interesting to watch. My father had hired three of the most famous scholars of the kingdom to create a long list of questions about mathematics, history, and the natural sciences, and a series of these tests were administered the next day. Whoever had the lowest score on the first exam was eliminated first. Whoever scored most poorly on the second test was eliminated next. And so on. Each suitor was quizzed separately in a sequestered room, attended by a scholar and two witnesses. Those of us who cared about the outcome hovered anxiously in the hallways, watching as the scholars emerged to compare scores.

I was relieved, but not surprised, when the large brutish man was the first to fail. He burst out of the room where he had been questioned, slammed the door behind him, shoved aside the folks who clustered in the corridor, and stomped on down the hall. I was glad to see him go, but still nervous. Who would be the next contestant eliminated? Surely Darius was clever enough to pass this final test—if not honestly, then artfully, by bedazzling his judges into believing his answers were correct. I sighed in monstrous relief when the next two fallen contestants proved to be strangers. Only belatedly did it occur to me that Harwin was not among the losers, either.

The crowd in the hall had grown to sizable proportions by the time we were down to the last two suitors. By late afternoon, even my father had stopped by to see how the competition was progressing. Neville and Mellicia trailed after him.

“How many are left?” he asked Gisele. The queen had waited with me all day, not that I had wanted her company.

“Two,” she replied. “I believe we will have results soon.”

My father looked intrigued. “Well, then, perhaps I shall linger a few minutes,” he said. His eyes sought me out and he gave me his wolf’s grin. “So that I can learn who shall have the honor of wedding my beloved daughter.”

Coming close enough to put his arm around my shoulders, he whispered in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “So you’ll be married soon, won’t you? My little girl! A wife before the end of the day. Maybe a mother before the year is out.”

He squeezed me so tightly that words I hadn’t planned to say came tumbling out of my mouth. “But, Father, I do not want to rush so hastily into marriage with any man,” I said breathlessly. “Especially if he’s a stranger. May I have an engagement period to get to know my groom?”

His face grew stormy. “What’s this? An engagement period?”

“Marry her off right away, that’s my advice,” Sir Neville boomed out.

My father uncoiled his arm and practically shoved me aside. “What a troublesome girl you are!” he exclaimed. “First you won’t marry the man of my choosing, and now you turn all nervous and shy. There’s no dealing with you at all!”

I had stumbled a little when he pushed me, but now I straightened myself and smoothed down my skirts. I had not forgotten, if he had, that a couple dozen people were crowded into the hallway, avidly watching this entire scene. After spending a lifetime balking at my father’s orders, I was very good at outmaneuvering him, especially if I had an audience.

“I do not think I have been so unreasonable, Father,” I said, my voice low and hurt. I half turned to make sure old Sir Norbert could catch every word. Norbert was a fat, choleric, irascible old bore, but he was powerful, and he had always been my father’s most outspoken critic. “All I’m asking for is time to accustom myself to my new life.”

“An excellent notion,” Norbert said in his loud, raspy voice. “My own daughter’s betrothal period was six months, and she needed every day.”

My father’s eyes were icy. “You may have a month, if you require it,” he said through gritted teeth.

I wasn’t sure if that would be enough time, but I had no attention left to spare for quarreling. The doors to the final two exam rooms were opening—in minutes I would know who had won the right to marry me. My heart started pounding so hard it was actually painful to breathe. The two scholars whispered together, both of them growing slightly heated, and then whispered some more.

“Well?” my father demanded. “Who has passed all my tests and proved himself worthy of my daughter’s hand?”

One of the scholars cleared his throat. He looked to be a hundred and eighty years old, all crepy white skin and wispy white hair. I had to think he had forgotten at least half of the facts he had ever managed to learn. “My liege,” he said. “There is no clear winner. Both men have answered all of our questions correctly.”

There was a slight murmur of approval from the onlookers, a few desultory rounds of applause. My father scowled. “Well, she cannot marry two men,” he said. “Ask another question.”

“We have asked them all,” said the second scholar, whom I belatedly realized was a woman. She was as fragile as a creature made out of dried leaves and corn husks, a notion reinforced by her papery skin and overall brownness of coloring.

My father’s expression became even more thunderous. “Then think up another one!” he shouted.

Norbert pushed himself forward. “You say there are only two suitors left?” he said. “Let them stand before the princess so she can choose which one she will wed.”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. The generally approving reaction of the crowd drowned out Gisele’s gasp of, “No! My liege! You can’t!”

My father was nodding vigorously. “Very well,” he said. “Bring them both to the throne room in half an hour. We will see Olivia engaged before the day is out.”

What do you wear to the announcement of your own betrothal? When you have only thirty minutes to prepare, you don the nicest gown you own that matches the accessories you’re already wearing. My maids stuffed me into a dark yellow dress with lace foaming over the décolletage and quickly brushed and repinned my hair. The topaz necklace and eardrops stayed in place, and soon I was hurrying back down the long hallways to the throne room.

As you’d expect, it was a large domed chamber made gloomier than necessary by imposing carved pillars, lugubrious murals, and a complete lack of windows, so all the lighting had to be supplied by candles and oil lamps. When I arrived, my father and Gisele were already seated on the great carved, painted, and bejew eled chairs that were set up on a low stage in the center of the chamber. About two hundred other people were milling about the room, restless and excited. I wove between them on my way to the dais, then climbed up to take my place in the more delicate chair situated at my father’s right hand.

“Let the contestants be brought forward!” my father commanded.

The crowd parted and the two scholars led Darius and Harwin deep into the room. Darius and I stared at each other, each drinking in details. In this much better lighting, he was much better-looking. His blond curls had been freshly washed and combed; he was wearing a silky blue shirt over black trousers and boots, and he looked young and hopeful and sparkly with possibility. I know men aren’t sparkly, but he was, somehow. He seemed to be on the verge of breaking into laughter or bursting into song or flinging up his hands to call forth rainbows.

I hoped that, this close up, I looked as good to him as he did to me.

Harwin, by contrast, was much the worse for yesterday’s escapades and today’s deep cogitation. The first thing I noticed was that he walked awkwardly, employing a cane and favoring his left foot. I had not seen him fend off the first set of attack dogs yesterday; clearly one of them had chewed on his leg or ankle. As he got closer, I saw that his face was almost haggard, perhaps with pain, perhaps with accumulated weariness. His eyes were fixed on my face, and his expression was dismal.

Only three people in the room knew whom I would choose, and two of them weren’t at all happy about it. I saw Gisele lean forward and bend in my direction, but I would not look at her. I kept my gaze on the approaching men and tried to maintain a serious expression.

Harwin and Darius halted in front of the thrones and executed deep bows. “Well done, both of you!” my father declared. “Each of you has demonstrated his strength, his valor, and his wit—each has proved himself worthy of my daughter. Yet only one of you can marry the princess. Now is the time for her to choose which of you she will call husband.”

My father rose to his feet and gestured for me to follow suit. Gisele and I both stood up. “Introduce yourselves,” my father said grandly and pointed at Harwin. “First you.”

Harwin stepped closer to the stage, his gaze still leveled on me. “I am Sir Harwin Brenley, twenty-eight years old, a man of property and my father’s sole heir. If you choose me as your husband, I will treat you gently, love you fondly, share all my material goods with you, and consider myself a fortunate man.”

A soft sigh ran through the room, produced, no doubt, by the women in attendance. I blinked at Harwin, for that was certainly the most romantic string of sentences I had ever heard him put together. But it was still Harwin staring back up at me, tall, brown, steady, dull. I didn’t know how to answer him, so I merely nodded, thanked him, and turned my attention to Darius.

The magician stepped forward and dropped into a bow so low that his curls brushed the floor. When he straightened, he was holding a bouquet of enormous white blossoms that gave off a rich and heady scent.

“I am Darius Kent, son of a landowner and also my father’s heir. I am possessed of a sunny temperament, a wealth of fantastical stories, and the ability to do small magics. If you marry me, your life will be filled with laughter and decorated with enchantments, and both of those serve to lighten even the dourest days.” He flung the flowers into the air and they were transformed into white butterflies that danced and fluttered around my head before winging their way up into the painted dome. I clapped my hands together like a child, and all the women in the audience cooed and applauded along with me.

My father turned toward me. “Daughter, can you choose between them?”

“Darius,” I said with what might have been unbecoming haste. “The magician. I will marry Darius Kent.”

The reaction from the crowd was so loud that I couldn’t hear what my father or Gisele might have said in response. But Darius flung his head back and laughed, then spread his arms wide in invitation. “Come to me, then!” he called, and I didn’t even hesitate before jumping off the stage into his arms. He caught me deftly and twirled me around until I was as dizzy as one of those butterflies.

“We shall plan the wedding immediately!” My father’s declaration rose above the excited chatter of the crowd. “Everyone shall be invited!”

That caused the noise to intensify even more, but somehow Gisele’s cool voice cut across the clamor. “Not for another month,” my stepmother said. “You promised Olivia her period of betrothal.”

Still in Darius’s arms, my feet ten inches off the ground, my eyes locked on the smiling face of my chosen fiancé, I desperately wished I had not negotiated such a concession from my father. But before I could recant, Norbert’s loud voice came from somewhere among the watchers.

“The lad must take the princess to meet his family,” the old lord said. “It would be unseemly for her to marry him without such an introduction.”

“I shall take you to meet my grandmother,” Darius said. Although everyone in the hall could hear him, he seemed to be speaking only to me. “Will you like that?”

“Indeed, I think I will like anything you have to show me,” I replied breathlessly.

“Excellent,” my father said. “You can leave in the morning.”

I was delighted at the notion of wandering off in Darius’s company, so I was greatly displeased when Gisele’s voice once again made itself heard above the din. “She cannot travel alone through the kingdom with a man she has just met,” the queen said coldly. “The possibilities abound for misfortunes and errors in judgment.”

“She is to marry him,” my father said. “There could be no scandal attached to any of their intimacies.”

The very word made me blush and suddenly wish Darius would put me on my feet. As if he could read my mind, he set me down gently, but kept my hand in his, and planted a light kiss on my knuckles.

“I think you are too sanguine,” Gisele said. “There must be a chaperone.”

There was a movement in the crowd behind us, and a young woman stepped up beside me. I remembered her from the firelit circle two nights ago. “I will guarantee the groom’s good behavior,” she said. “I am Dannette Kent, and he is my brother. I will travel with the princess on this journey.”

My father spread his hands. “There! All problems solved!” he said. “Let us retreat to the dining hall for a grand meal to commemorate this occasion.”

3 The Magical Journey

My betrothed and his sister and I set out the very next morning, waving good-bye to the servants and friends who had gathered in the courtyard to see me off. My father was not among them. I had elected to travel without a maid, since, at dinner the night before, Darius had made some offhand comment about how tiresome it was to always be waiting for women to primp and beautify themselves.

“Especially when they are already beautiful,” he had added, smiling at me.

I had also considerably cut down on the amount of luggage I packed, though even so he had seemed astonished at the number of trunks and boxes I had brought to his campsite. Dannette had merely grinned. “Good thing there’s room in the wagon,” she said.

I had not realized until that very moment that an ordinary farm wagon, and not a luxurious carriage, would be our method of transportation. It was relatively large and well built, with a raised tarp over the bed to shelter all of our possessions, but it was still a wagon. The bench up front was only long enough to hold the driver and one passenger, so someone would have to sit in back among the crates and bundles. When we first started out, Dannette volunteered to take that less desirable spot, and so I sat beside Darius and watched as the countryside unrolled around us.

Which it did very slowly. It turned out that traveling in a heavily loaded wagon behind two horses could not be compared to traveling in a specially built coach pulled by a team. The road seemed rougher than I remembered, and much longer, though the lightly wooded countryside offered a pretty enough colorful autumn landscape. By nightfall we had made it no farther than a crossroads town that I had never bothered to stop at before because it was too close to the palace grounds.

“This looks like as good a place as any to break for the night,” Darius said, and Dannette agreed. I thought glumly if I turned my head and squinted hard enough, I might be able to glimpse the turrets of the palace behind me.

But what did I care how much ground we covered in a day? I had no particular eagerness to make our destination; I just wanted the chance to enjoy the company of my fiancé. In the wagon, it had not been so easy to talk to him as you might suppose, for we spent more of our energy surviving the jouncing than making conversation, and half the time Dannette took the reins while Darius sat in the back. I hesitated to admit it, but our first day of travel had teetered between boring and uncomfortable, and though I was resolved not to complain, I was glad to finally pull off the road.

But I was shocked when we checked into a modest inn and Darius requested only a single chamber. “One room?” I hissed to Dannette while Darius paid the fee. “For all three of us?”

She seemed surprised. “By the time we make it to my grandmother’s and back to the palace, we might be on the road ten days or more. We can hardly afford two or three rooms a night.”

“We cannot?” I said blankly.

I thought she was trying to hide a grin. “Well, Darius and I cannot. If you have brought lavish funds with you, I suppose you could reserve your own accommodations.”

I stared at her. I hadn’t brought any money. I never did. Bills were always paid by footmen and servants. The proprietors this close to the palace would surely recognize my face, but once we made it another fifty miles down the road, would anyone believe me when I claimed to be Princess Olivia? Would they sell me goods on credit and send the bills to my father? Would he pay them?

“No, no,” I said faintly. “I will share the room with you and Darius. We are supposed to be getting acquainted, after all.”

Now her grin was definitely visible. “Nothing like a journey to find out everything you need to know about someone,” she said cheerfully.

After this, I was not as surprised as I might have been to find we were dining in the taproom, and not a private parlor. Still, Darius’s charming smile—and perhaps a little extra magical persuasion—secured us our own table in the corner where we didn’t have to share trenchers with laborers, families, and local shopkeepers.

“To my bride!” Darius toasted me with his beer while we waited for food to arrive.

I’d never had beer before, my father considering it common, and I wrinkled my nose after the first sip. “I don’t like that so much,” I said. “It’s bitter.”

Darius took a few hearty swallows. “Once you accustom yourself to the taste, you find that you like it quite well,” he said. “Plus it gives you a very pleasant”—he swirled his fingers over his blond curls—“feeling in your head.”

Dannette laughed. “It takes a little longer to get drunk on beer than wine,” she interpreted. “But the effects are very similar. I would go slowly, if I were you.”

I tried another sip. Hard to imagine coming to like this. “How many more days to your grandmother’s house?” I asked.

Darius shrugged. “Four? Five? I rarely go straight there—or anywhere—so I’m not sure how long any journey lasts.”

“Where do you live when you’re not traveling?” I said.

Darius laughed. “I’m always traveling.”

My eyes widened. “You don’t have a home? Anywhere? ”

“Well, technically my grandmother’s house is mine, since the estate was my father’s and now belongs to me,” Darius said. “But I consider the wagon my true home. Everything I need I bring with me wherever I go.”

I looked at Dannette. “What about you?” I demanded.

She considered. I had the feeling she was trying to decide exactly how much of a particular story to tell me. “I would just as soon find a place and stay,” she finally said. “But the last place I lived eventually became unbearable. Which is why I have chosen to travel with Darius for a while. I’ll settle down when I find a situation that appeals to me.”

My eyes were big again. “What made your last situation unbearable?”

Darius leaned forward. “Scandals,” he whispered the atrically. “Accusations in the dead of night. Secrets.”

I sat back in my chair, staring at Dannette. Who, after all, was this woman? When it came down to it, who was Darius? What did I know about either of them, really, except that they were attractive and friendly and eager to make the king’s daughter one of their family?

She laughed ruefully and put a comforting hand on my arm. “Don’t let him tease you, Olivia. It is true that there was some turmoil attached to my last situation, but it was all personal and confined to a very few people. We are quite respectable.” She glanced at Darius and back at me, her face amused. This was a woman who found the world around her to be endlessly entertaining, and it was hard not to relax in her smiling presence. “And my brother has developed the most ridiculous infatuation for you. I have never seen him like this with any girl.”

Now he was the one who was blushing and bashful. “It’s true,” he said. “I saw you the day before the joust. You had just come back from a ride, and your hair was all wild and your face was flushed. And when the groom helped you out of the saddle, you kissed your horse on the nose. I was never so charmed!”

I laughed. “Oh, that was Bumblebee, my favorite mount!” I said. I had spent some time during today’s tedious journey wishing I were riding Bumblebee instead of sitting in the wagon. Of course, then I would not have had the opportunity to get to know Darius along the way.

“I got the impression you did not enjoy the second trial that your father set up for your suitors,” Darius went on. “I suppose a girl who kisses horses doesn’t like to see dogs being beaten down by men.”

“I know that these particular dogs are bred to fight, but no, I do not enjoy watching them. I never attend when my father holds matches on the palace grounds.”

He smiled at me. His eyes were a misty gray, full of secrets and promises. “Then I am glad I was able to hold them off with magic instead of brute force,” he said.

I smiled back, a little shy but sincere. “It was one of the things I liked a great deal about you,” I said. “You don’t seem to be a cruel man.”

“Lord, I would hope I was never cruel!” he exclaimed in dismay.

Dannette was laughing. “Darius has many faults, as I’m sure you’ll discover, but he’s simply never unkind,” she said. “He forgets things, sometimes on purpose—”

“Hey!”

“He dawdles, he develops a sudden passionate interest in the most boring topics, which he then expects you to appreciate, he refuses to be cowed by your anger and is always convinced he can wheedle his way back into your good graces—”

“I always can.”

“He is happy to share his time, his campfire, and his food with anyone who stumbles across his path, and he has never been on time for a single appointment he’s ever made. But he’s not unkind.”

None of these traits sounded particularly bad to me, and I beamed at my happy-go-lucky betrothed. “I’m sure we will get along famously,” I said.

I was a tiny bit less certain of that sometime after midnight. We had settled into our rather small room, going to elaborate lengths to make sure we each had a semblance of privacy as we washed up and changed into sleeping clothes. Danette and I shared the only bed, which was narrower and much lumpier than the bed I had all to myself at home, while Darius claimed to be entirely comfortable on the floor. He must have been; he instantly fell asleep.

And began snoring.

It was not a great gusty snoring such as Sir Norbert inflicts on us when he’s fallen asleep during some long dinner or council meeting. The sounds were gentle and muffled, but they did not stop, and I was quite unused to having to listen to anyone even breathe. Meanwhile, Dannette was restless. She tossed and turned and murmured short, agitated phrases before subsiding again. It was a little surprising that someone who seemed so cheerful in her waking hours would betray such distress in her unguarded sleep.

Well, obviously Dannette would not be sharing our room once Darius and I were married, and I supposed I would eventually get used to the snoring.

I finally fell asleep, but morning came too soon, and Darius’s jovial manner was a little grating to me in my groggy state. Nonetheless, I endeavored to be pleasant company as we dressed, packed, and headed downstairs to eat a quick meal before taking off again.

Harwin was awaiting us in the taproom.

I saw him first, and I came to a dead stop. Darius actually stumbled into me; Dannette, who tended to pay more attention to things, managed to halt in plenty of time. From the corner of my eye, I could see her grinning again. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

Harwin rose to his impressive height. His face and voice very grave, he said, “I, too, passed all your father’s tests. I, too, am eligible to be your bridegroom. So I, too, am going to take this opportunity to travel beside you and allow you to get to know me better.”

Darius was nodding and smiling. He stepped forward to shake Harwin’s hand. “That sounds reasonable,” he said. “Have you ordered breakfast yet?”

Harwin looked surprised at the easy welcome, while I was incensed. “Darius!” I hissed. “He is your rival! You should be angry that he would try to usurp your position and steal my affections!”

Now Darius was the one to show surprise. “Well, if your affections can be stolen that easily, we won’t have a happy marriage anyway,” he said. “Besides, he’s right. He did pass the tests. He should have a chance to win your hand.”

“He had a chance and I refused him. You should order him to leave this minute.”

“I won’t,” Harwin said instantly. “If I can’t join your party, I’ll just follow you.”

“See?” Darius said. “We may as well let him travel with us. We can’t stop him from coming along behind.”

“Well, of course we can! You can! Put a spell on him! Make him forget he saw us here—make him believe there’s something urgent awaiting him back home. Do something.”

Darius rubbed the back of his hand against his cheek and looked apologetic. “I don’t really do those kinds of spells,” he said.

Dannette touched me on the arm. Now she was openly smiling. “I forgot to mention one of Darius’s other faults,” she said. “He never does what you tell him to.”

I stared at her helplessly. “But—we can’t have Harwin traveling with us! I mean, how very odd! Not to mention I don’t want him coming along!”

She moved past me to sit down at the table where Harwin had been waiting. “Nonetheless, I think he’s coming with us,” she said. “So let’s all have breakfast and then be on our way.”

I fumed throughout the meal, refusing to speak to any of them, not that any of them seemed to care. Harwin sat very stiffly, eating his meal with his usual formal manners. Dannette made some effort to draw him out, asking him about his estates and his family, to the point where I almost wanted to make a comment about how she should marry him if she found his assets so desirable. Darius chatted amiably, not seeming to notice that Harwin’s replies were as terse as civility would allow.

Once the dreadful meal was over, we were finally on our way through more of the gently rolling countryside, all green melting into gold. I sat beside Darius on the seat of the wagon, while Dannette settled in back. Harwin, who had undertaken the journey on a very fine bay gelding, didn’t seem certain about the best way to proceed. At times he ranged ahead of us, but not too far, and he always came back to make sure we hadn’t tried to elude him by turning off on some minor road. At times he rode beside the wagon and attempted to talk with me, but I gave him only the briefest and most unencouraging replies. I could tell that, like me, he was finding our slow pace to be maddening—but, like me, he was more interested in the actual trip than the destination, so he managed to keep his impatience in check.

I was a having a harder time maintaining a good-natured attitude, though I doggedly pursued my goal of getting to know Darius. Tell me about some of your adventures. When did you realize you had magical ability? What is your favorite kind of spell? He answered readily enough, but he was too preoccupied with the horses to go into great detail, so his stories were sketchy and a little flat. I tried to think of amusing anecdotes about my own life to share with him, but even to myself my tales of hunts and balls and celebrations sounded shallow and vain. Was it possible I was such a useless, uninformed creature that I couldn’t even come up with an hour’s worth of decent conversation?

When we stopped for lunch at a small-town inn, Harwin made a point of sitting next to me and trying to draw me out, but I just sat at the table and brooded. If I was going to be a successful queen, not to mention an interesting wife, I would need to widen my experiences and broaden my mind.

I wasn’t entirely sure how a person went about doing that, but I supposed that traveling around the kingdom was not a bad place to start.

Shortly after we set out again after lunch, it started to rain.

“Shouldn’t we pull over somewhere?” I asked Darius.

He squinted at the sky and shook his head. “Looks like it’ll continue on like this for a few hours, so no point in trying to wait it out.”

“We could stop at an inn somewhere,” I suggested.

“Oh, I think we can make another ten miles or so today,” he said.

“But I’m getting wet!”

“Climb in back with Dannette,” he said. “If there’s room.”

I swallowed a growl of exasperation and, when it was clear Darius was not going to stop the wagon for this maneuver, clambered over the bench with the bar est minimum of grace. The back of the wagon was a welter of boxes and bags and pillows and things—black kettles and dried plants and glass globes and loose shoes and walking sticks and what appeared to be a large collection of desiccated insects. The heavy tarp overhead, loosely stretched over curved wooden ribs, somewhat kept the rain at bay, but even as I pitched to my knees and felt around for an open space to sit, I could feel a few drops of rainwater seep through and fall into my hair.

Dannette was scrunched down toward the back of the wagon, near enough to the half-open back flap to be able to read by weak sunlight. “There’s a little space there between the table and the black trunk,” she said helpfully, pointing. “You have to put your feet up on the bag of goose feathers, though.”

I situated myself with a little difficulty, eventually deciding to sit on the goose feathers to protect myself from the jostling of the ride, even more pronounced back here than up on the bench. “It’s raining,” I said unnecessarily. “Darius doesn’t want to stop.”

“Yes,” she said absently. “That’s fairly typical.”

“I don’t think I like traveling in the rain,” I added.

She laughed. “I find it’s just not worth fussing about.”

I sighed. I usually found everything to be worth fussing about. I squirmed in my spot, found a pillow to wedge behind my head, and finally leaned back against a crate of unidentifiable items that chimed together in time with the jouncing. It wasn’t more than another ten minutes before I fell asleep.

The cessation of motion woke me and I guessed we had stopped for the night. The rain had ended, but the air had that cold, sodden feeling that reminded you how very unpleasant wet weather could be. Climbing out through the back of the wagon, I found myself standing in the cluttered yard of an inn appreciably bigger than the one we’d patronized the night before. I allowed myself to hope it would have more amenities and better food.

Once grooms had come for our horses, our whole group filtered inside. I noticed that Harwin was limping, but I turned my head away without asking him why. Dannette was the first to arrive at the proprietor’s desk, and I heard her ask for two rooms.

Two! I thought with excitement, before realizing that Harwin could easily afford his own and I still would be sharing a space with the others.

The innkeeper, a very tall, very thin man with lank gray hair and overlarge spectacles, looked down at her over the rims and shook his head. “We only have one room left,” he said. “A great number of people were caught in the rain earlier today and checked in instead of traveling on.”

Dannette glanced over her shoulder, her eyebrow raised in a silent question. Darius shrugged. “I don’t mind four to a room,” he said.

Harwin appeared shocked. “Four! You don’t mean that you plan to sleep in the same room as the princess!”

Darius shrugged again. “I did last night.”

Harwin was even more shocked, so much so all he could do was stare at Darius. Dannette touched him lightly on the arm. “I played chaperone and lay beside Olivia in the bed, while my brother curled up on the floor,” she said. “You need not worry. I take my responsibilities seriously.”

Harwin had recovered the power of speech. “Well, you will not share a room with the princess while I travel with you. You and I shall sleep in the stables in your own wagon.”

“There’s not much room in the wagon,” Dannette began, but Darius spoke over her.

“You may sleep there if you like, but I will sleep in the bedchamber. I see no reason to camp in a barn when there’s a room available.”

“I cannot allow you to compromise Olivia’s virtue in such a fashion.”

Darius shrugged, took the key from the hand of the very curious innkeeper, and settled his bag over his shoulder. “Well, you can stand guard over me in the room, or you can bed down in the stables, whatever you choose,” he said. “I’m going to wash my face and then come down for dinner.”

Trying not to smirk, I followed him up the stairs, Dannette at my heels. I was not surprised, upon looking over my shoulder, to see Harwin reluctantly following. He was still favoring his left leg.

The room we had been assigned was more spacious than the one we’d had the night before, and featured a small settee in addition to a fairly sizable bed. Harwin was obviously too tall to fit on the settee, so Darius claimed it, but then Darius went to some trouble to gather blankets and pillows to fashion a bed for Harwin on the floor.

“No doubt you’re tired enough to fall right to sleep,” Darius said.

“No doubt,” was Harwin’s cool reply. “Let us repair to the taproom for dinner.”

He hobbled toward the door and Dannette said, “What’s wrong with your foot?”

Hand on the knob, Harwin gave her a wintry look. “I have a small cut.”

She came closer to him. “Not walking that way, you don’t. You have a deep wound, I’m guessing, and it’s gotten worse during a day of travel.”

I suddenly remembered. “Oh! You were bitten during the dog trial!” I exclaimed. “Harwin, you idiot, did you not have someone take a look at your hurts?”

He looked both embarrassed to have roused our concern and irritated at being called an idiot. “I cleaned all the bites myself before setting out,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Dannette pointed toward a stiff-backed chair that was set before a graceful table, as if inviting travelers to pause and write out correspondence. “Sit down,” she said with such authority that Harwin stopped protesting and dropped into the chair. “Take off both your boots and roll up the ends of your trousers.”

Not that I wanted to, but I was seeing in my mind the last few moments of Harwin’s competition against the dogs. “He should take off his shirt, too,” I said. “I know he got hurt on his arms and his chest as well.”

“I am not disrobing in front of all of you,” Harwin said shortly.

“Olivia will look the other way,” Dannette said and knelt on the floor in front of Harwin.

I did not, in fact, look the other way, but watched in some fascination as Harwin slowly removed everything except his trousers. I heard a low whistle from Darius as he settled on the floor beside his sister.

“That’s a nasty piece of work,” he observed, touching Harwin’s left foot. I couldn’t see too well past the screen of their bodies, but I thought it looked swollen and red. Perhaps there was a little pus oozing out along the anklebone. “It must feel like your flesh is on fire.”

“It’s a little painful,” Harwin acknowledged.

Dannette sat back on her heels and looked at her brother. “Do what you can, then I’ll put on salve and bandages.”

“No,” Harwin said sharply, jerking his foot away and tucking it under the chair. “I don’t want his magic. I don’t want his help.”

Dannette came to her feet. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said calmly, using my word again and making Harwin glare. “You don’t like my brother, but you have no reason to distrust him. And don’t say you don’t want to be beholden to him,” she added, raising her voice when he tried to interrupt, “because that’s just stupid. Let him heal you. Or let your foot fester, and succumb to gangrene, and require amputation. That will certainly improve your lot and make your next bride easier to woo.”

As if he couldn’t help himself, Harwin looked directly at me. His face was so wretched that I actually felt pity for him. “Don’t be silly,” I said softly. “Accept his help. Maybe you’ll be able to save his life a couple of days from now, and then you can feel better about it.”

That made Dannette laugh, and even Harwin’s face relaxed into what was almost a smile. He offered his foot to Darius again, who took hold of it in a busi nesslike fashion and began pressing his fingers along the toes and heel. Now Harwin’s expression was one of wonderment.

“That already feels much better,” he said. “What did you do?”

Darius laughed and kept manipulating different sections of the foot. “Magic,” he said. “My greatest strengths are in altering the basic structure of things. So I can turn a butterfly into a bird, for instance. Or I can change a broken bone to a whole one and an infected patch of skin to a well one.”

“It is a most useful skill,” Harwin said stiffly. “I thank you for using your talents on me.”

“I always enjoy the chance to put my magic to use,” Darius said. “It’s like swordplay. If you don’t practice your skills, you lose them.”

Dannette had gone to rummage in her bag, and now she returned with a small bottle and a roll of gauze. She bent over Harwin’s naked chest, examining slash and bite marks on his arms and torso. She touched two of them and shook her head. “You should have had these taken care of before you left the palace,” she scolded.

“I was in a hurry,” Harwin said. He was looking at me again.

I sniffed and tossed my hair. “I suppose you told my father you were coming after me,” I said. “Maybe he even suggested it.”

“I had no conversation with him at all,” he replied.

He didn’t say anything more, but I could read his tone. Harwin had never openly criticized my father, but more than once I had been convinced that he had a low opinion of how my father ruled his kingdom. I knew Harwin had hated the idea of the competition, but I figured that was just because he had so little chance of winning, or so I’d thought. Now I wondered if he had just believed it to be a callous and random way to select a husband for a princess.

Considering who might have won, I had to agree.

Darius stood up and ran his hands lightly over the wounds on Harwin’s upper body, while Dannette spread salve on his foot and wrapped it in a winding layer of gauze. Harwin flexed his toes.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling down at Dannette. “You have a most gentle touch.”

She patted his knee and came to her feet. “There. Now we don’t have to worry about you dying before you can challenge my brother for Olivia’s hand.”

He actually laughed. “It is kind of you both to preserve me for such a future.”

“You deserve to have your life saved, since you saved another man’s life two days ago,” Dannette said. At his inquiring expression, she went on. “During the trial against the fighting dogs. A man had gone down and you went to his aid, even though he was a rival.”

“You saw that?” Harwin asked, gazing up at her. “I didn’t realize the actions inside the arena were that plain to spectators outside it.”

She glanced briefly at her brother. “I had reason to be paying close attention. I thought you showed honor—and bravery.”

Harwin shrugged. “Hard to exhibit either quality in a competition that possessed neither.”

“Well, I observed you, and I was impressed,” Dannette said softly.

He bowed his head and made no other answer. I shifted uncomfortably where I sat. I had seen his act of courage as well, but it seemed awkward and insincere to add my own praises. Oh, yes, now that you mention it, that was a very noble thing to do. It was very annoying to have to feel bad about not being nice enough to Harwin.

“Well, that’s as much as I can do for you,” Darius said, stepping back. “How do you feel?”

Harwin rolled his shoulders experimentally, and the muscles on his chest briefly stood out in relief. “Extraordinarily improved,” he said, standing up. I noticed that Darius looked quite short next to him—although Harwin looked even plainer next to Darius. “You must let me buy dinner for your sister and yourself as part of my thanks.” He glanced at me with a touch of humor. “I will still wait eagerly for my chance to save your life in turn, but perhaps the meal will serve as a stopgap measure of gratitude.”

“Excellent,” Darius said. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

4 The Wicked Stepmother

The meal was more convivial than I would have expected, for either the act of kindness itself or the sheer relief at being out of pain had served to make Harwin more outgoing than usual. He asked Darius and Dannette where they had traveled and was particularly interested in their expeditions to cities outside Kallenore’s borders. It turned out—I had not known this—that Harwin and his father had pursued commercial ventures in a few neighboring nations but without receiving as much return as they’d hoped, so he was keen to hear their opinion of other markets. Darius didn’t seem to have paid much attention to the possibilities of trade and profit, but Dannette had formed strong opinions, which she was happy to share. I listened, bemused, as she talked about the diamond mines in Liston, the spice routes through Newmirot, and the drought in lower Amlertay that had left the countrymen eager to trade for seed and other staples.

“I do not think I would have learned half so much if I had passed twice as long in any of those places,” I said in an undervoice to Darius.

He was finishing up his second beer, and I held out my glass to silently ask for a refill. I still didn’t like the taste, but I didn’t find it quite so unpleasant, and I did enjoy the way it softened the harder edges of the day. “No, everything that she says comes as quite a surprise to me,” he said airily. “Now, what I noticed while we were in Newmirot was how the women wore their hair, with ribbons braided into it right around their faces. It was so colorful and lovely.”

I felt a moment’s flash of stupid jealousy. “And I suppose all the women in Newmirot were very pretty?” I said.

He smiled and tipped his glass against mine. “All women are pretty in their way,” he said, “but you are the most beautiful of all.”

I laughed, but even that was not enough to earn me more than a glance from Harwin. He didn’t seem to care that I was getting along so well with my fiancé; he just returned his attention to Dannette to ask a question about coin denominations in Amlertay. I took another few large swallows of my beer.

As I had expected, sharing a bedroom with Harwin was even stranger than sharing one with Darius and Dannette. I was always aware that he was on the other side of the room, even though he did not snore, as Darius did, or thrash about, as Dannette continued to do. Merely, I could sense him lying there, disapproving of us all. Well, I would not let Harwin’s presence oppress my spirits. The beer had made me too sleepy to fret for long, anyway, so I closed my eyes and drifted into dreaming.

I woke up once, abruptly, when Dannette uttered an urgent cry of warning. I jerked upright, unable to see anything in the utter darkness. I heard a stir on the other side of the room—Harwin, surely, since Darius’s gentle snores went on uninterrupted.

“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply. I could see a shadow move through the blackness. “Olivia? Was that you?”

“Not me. Dannette,” I replied softly. I could tell by the way she curled in upon herself that she was still sleeping.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I think she has nightmares. This happened last night, too.”

Now his shadow was beside the bed. I could smell the soap he had used to wash his face and the herbs from Dannette’s salve. “Should we wake her?”

“I think it will just start again when she goes back to sleep.”

I waited for him to say something like, It’s intolerable that you should have your slumbers interrupted in such a way. But, from what I could tell by staring at his silhouette in the darkness, he was merely looking down at Dannette’s restless form. Perhaps his face, if I’d been able to see it, would have been creased with compassion or concern.

“What gives her nightmares?” he asked.

Scandals. Accusations in the dead of night. Secrets. “I don’t know.”

He hesitated a moment. I didn’t need to see his face to be able to imagine his expression: serious, considering, truthful. “I like both of them better than I thought I would,” he said at last. “But they are still strangers about whom you know almost nothing. It was reckless of your father to send you off with them in such a scrambling fashion.”

“Well, you’re here now,” I said flippantly. “You can make sure they don’t harm me or lead me astray.”

“Indeed,” he said, “that is exactly what I mean to do.”

In the morning I felt absolutely dreadful. My head was pounding and my stomach clamped down when I so much as thought about breakfast. For some reason, this seemed to amuse Darius and Dannette. “Too much beer the night before makes the dawn a grievous chore,” Darius chanted. I gave him a heavy look of condemnation from eyes that felt scratchy and hot. His stupid little verse didn’t even make sense.

“I don’t think I can move,” I said, still sprawled on the bed after the other three had washed and dressed. “Let’s stay here another day.”

“You’ll feel just as bad lying here as you will sitting in the wagon, so you may as well travel on,” Darius said, with rather less sympathy than I’d hoped for. “Come on. Dannette will help you get dressed while Harwin and I go down and order a meal.”

I allowed Dannette to cajole me into a loose fitting gown, and then she combed out my hair and put it in a simple braid. I was horrified at my image in the mirror, my face pale, my eyes shot with red. “I’m ruined!” I cried.

Dannette laughed. “You’ll be fine later today and show no ill effects at all by tomorrow,” she said. “That’s because you’re twenty-one. If you drink a pitcher of beer every night until you turn fifty, well, that’s another story.”

I met her eyes in the mirror. She looked perfectly rested and cheerful as always. She’d put her own ginger blond hair back in a bun, a careless style that looked good on her since it accentuated her high cheekbones. This morning she had added small gold earrings to her ensemble, or maybe I saw them only because her hair was pulled back. I wondered if she was trying to improve her appearance in subtle ways to attract Harwin’s attention.

“Why do you cry out in the middle of the night?” I asked abruptly.

“Do I?” she said. “I’m sorry. Does it keep you awake?”

“Yes, and it kept Harwin awake last night, too,” I said, watching her closely.

She turned away from the mirror. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I will try to muffle my sounds.”

I stood up and turned to watch her as she put the last of her clothes in her bag. “But why are you so upset? What are you dreaming about?”

She merely continued to fold her skirt, carefully lining up the pleats. “Things I cannot remember in the morning,” she said.

Clearly, she was going to give me no better answer. I made a little snort of irritation, hoisted my own bag over my shoulder, spared a moment to be vexed that neither Darius nor Harwin had thought to carry it downstairs for me, and left the room. Dannette came behind me, no longer smiling.

“Let’s throw our things in the wagon before sitting down to breakfast,” she suggested, so I followed her out into the innyard.

The wagon was already in place and a groom was leading the horses up to be hitched. Ours was not the only vehicle in the yard; I saw half a dozen gigs and carts lined up, waiting for their owners to down a hasty breakfast. My attention was caught by a particularly fine black carriage pulled by a matched team. I had a moment of intense longing. Oh, if only I could travel in that, how much more tolerable this expedition would be!

When I was married to Darius and I became queen of Kallenore, I might journey around the kingdom from time to time watching him practice magic if it made him happy, but I was not traveling in a cart and I was not sleeping four to a room, listening to people breathe and snore and chatter in their sleep.

Well, of course I would hear Darius breathe. And snore.

“Hungry?” Dannette asked.

“Not really,” I said, “but let’s eat and move on.” We stepped into the crowded taproom, trying to avoid the three women and one boy threading their way through the packed tables as they delivered trays of eggs and sausage. My stomach clenched as it had this morning, but this time I thought the response might signal hunger, not nausea. I looked around for Darius and Harwin, and finally spotted them sitting at the end of a long common table. I was a little surprised to see Harwin speaking intensely to a woman sitting next to him, for he was not the type to strike up conversations with people he did not know.

I was astonished when I realized the woman was Gisele.

I marched through the taproom without bothering to get out of the way of the scurrying servers. “What are you doing here?” I cried, standing behind Darius and pointing at Gisele.

She touched a coarse napkin to her mouth and gave me a limpid look. “Having breakfast,” she said.

Dannette slipped into one of the two empty seats next to Darius. “You’re the queen, aren’t you? I saw you sitting by the king in the throne room.”

“I’m married to the king, yes,” Gisele replied with some bitterness.

“What are you doing here? Why are you following me?” I demanded.

Darius smiled at me over his shoulder. “Sit down and eat something,” he said. “The oatmeal is very good if your stomach is queasy.”

“Why should her stomach be queasy?” Gisele wanted to know.

“Too much beer last night,” Dannette said, helping herself to one of the platters handed to her by a woman sitting toward the middle of the table. “Olivia, do you want any of this? It looks like apple fritters.”

“Yes—I suppose,” I said, flopping into the seat next to her and still staring resentfully at Gisele. “You haven’t answered me.”

Harwin spoke up. “She says your father decided that Dannette would not be a sufficient chaperone. He did not know that I had come after you as well, or perhaps he would not have been so worried.”

Gisele gave him a quick, droll look. “Exactly so.”

I tried a bite of the fritters. They were excellent. When the woman to my right handed me a steaming bowl of oatmeal, I ladled out a lavish portion and passed the bowl to Dannette. “My father never worries about me,” I said.

Gisele shrugged. I noticed that her clothes were very neat but not at all fancy, and her hairstyle was almost as plain as Dannette’s. She looked as tired as I felt, but her eyes were not as puffy. “Perhaps now that you are about to be married, he is realizing how much he will miss you.”

She was obviously lying. I narrowed my eyes and took a big mouthful of oatmeal. It had been seasoned with honey and raisins and tasted delicious. “So you plan to travel with us for the next week or two?” I asked slowly.

She nodded. “I know you do not like the notion, but—”

“Oh, we’re happy to have you with us,” Darius said. He sounded sincere; after two days in his company, I was pretty certain he was. “But I’m not sure how much more room there is in the wagon.”

“And she brought a maid with her,” Harwin said. He glanced at me as if to say, And if you truly cared about your reputation, you would have brought a maid as well.

“Well, it’ll be a tight fit, but if one sits up front and three ride in back—”

“I have my own coach. And a coachman,” Gisele interposed. “All I require is that you allow me to join your caravan.”

I stopped with another spoonful of oatmeal on the way to my mouth. “The coach,” I breathed. “It’s yours. Oh, Gisele, I want to ride with you!”

“Tell me again how sitting inside the coach with me is helping you become better acquainted with your bridegroom,” Gisele said twenty minutes later.

We were on our way again, a much augmented party from the one I’d started out with a couple of days ago. The coach, with its team of high-spirited horses, led the wagon by an appreciable distance. Harwin had cantered ahead of us but I was sure he would circle back soon to check on our progress. Gisele’s maid was sitting outside with the coachman, probably flirting madly. Dannette rode with her brother. Everyone was happy.

“You tell me the real reason you came after me in this ridiculous fashion,” I said. “I know it wasn’t because my father asked you to.”

There was a flare of malice in her eyes. “Oh, but he did,” she said. “I could tell how pleased he was when he came up with the idea. Ever since Neville arrived, he’s been trying to get me out of the way.”

I was bewildered. “What does Neville have to do with it?”

“Nothing. His daughter Mellicia? Everything. Your father is infatuated with that simpering, stupid, soulless girl. He wants to court her while I am not on hand to watch.”

“But—what—I mean, you’re his wife. I suppose he could take her as his mistress, but—”

“I am a wife who has failed to produce the son he is determined to have,” Gisele said softly. “I will not be his wife much longer, I guarantee it.”

I simply stared at her.

She met my gaze briefly, then looked out the window. The prospect was not particularly inviting. The treelined hills of the past two days had flattened into grasslands that supported grazing livestock, though the occasional stand of elm and oak shuddered in a brisk wind. The sky was scudding over with clouds, and the air had that damp, overburdened feel that promised a storm.

“So!” she said brightly. “If he’s going to marry again, he needs to review the likely candidates. Naturally, she must be young enough to be fertile, and beautiful enough to catch his fancy. And by now he’s realized that he doesn’t like clever women—or, at least, he doesn’t like me, and I’m clever—so vapidity has become an important attribute—”

It took me this long to find my voice. “Is he going to divorce you?”

She turned to look at me again. I had never seen her face so sad. Then again, I had never paid much attention to the emotions on Gisele’s face. “I hope he is going to divorce me,” she said.

“Why, if he wants to marry again, what else could he…” My voice trailed off. “Surely you’re not suggesting… I mean, I know he is not an admirable man, but…”

She looked out the window once more. “I have been wondering if I should take a ship to Newmirot,” she said. “Dannette was describing it over breakfast. Surely your father would be so glad to be rid of me that he would just allow me to disappear, don’t you think? And declare me dead, rather than killing me outright.”

“Gisele! You can’t be serious!”

“I’m quite serious. I should like to see Newmirot.” I reached across the open space between us and shook her by the shoulder. “You don’t truly believe my father would have you murdered,” I said. “Merely so he could marry again.”

She met my eyes for one long, sober stare. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Perhaps he wouldn’t.”

But perhaps he would.

I released her, took a deep breath, and leaned back against the cushions. I was on the seat facing backward, which I normally despised, but today I was so happy to be traveling in relative luxury that I didn’t mind at all. “Can you go to your father?” I asked. “Would he take you in if you told him you were afraid for your life?”

She made an inelegant sound. “No.”

“Do you have other relatives who would give you sanctuary?”

“A brother who is so much like my father that he could not be trusted. No one else.”

“Do you have money? How long can you afford to travel like this?” I gestured at the interior of the coach, with its silk-covered walls and leather bound seats.

“Your father is footing the bill for this particular trip,” she said. “The coach is his and I have his vouchers for any inn I patronize while I am with you. I believe he expects Neville and Mellicia to stay with him two weeks. After that—” She shrugged. “I have some money. I have all my jewels. I might be able to find work in Newmirot. They have quite a textile industry there, and I’m a good seamstress. I’ll get by.”

“I might be able to send you money,” I said. “My allowance is generous enough.”

“That’s kind of you,” she replied. “But don’t forget what I said before.”

I had to think a moment. She had warned me to be safely married before my father managed to get himself a son. At the time, I had scoffed at her, and I still had no proof that anything she said was true, and yet…

And yet I believed her. My father was the kind of man who would get rid of an inconvenience in the most efficient way possible. I remembered the piebald stallion that had been my father’s favorite ride until the horse took a tumble that nearly snapped his right leg. The groom had thought the horse might be succored and saved, and certainly would be able to hobble around well enough to serve at stud, but my father had ordered the stallion destroyed. “If I can’t ride him, I don’t want him,” he’d said. “He’s of no use to me now.” A wife who could not bear him a son was of no use to him.

Was a daughter of any use to him?

Particularly if he had a son?

“So you’re not going back to the palace,” I said.

“That’s my plan.”

I leaned forward, rested my elbow on my knee, and cupped my chin in my hand. After three years of trying to pretend Gisele did not exist, I found myself suddenly wanting to be her champion. I did not stop to puzzle over why it did not seem strange. “I wonder,” I said. “Perhaps you can meet with an accident on the road. Harwin and I can bring back the sad news that you died while we were traveling.”

Gisele looked amused—and a little intrigued. “But wouldn’t you be expected to return with my corpse in tow?”

“Not if you—fell off a cliff and drowned, and the water carried you away,” I said, improvising quickly. “Not if you were mauled by wolves and eaten.”

“Oh, yes, do have me devoured by wild creatures.”

“We could bring back your bloody clothes as proof,” I said. “And maybe your wedding ring—with the finger still in it. Someone else’s finger, of course, but no one else will know that.”

“Where will you find such a thing?” She was trying not to laugh.

I waved a hand. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll come across a fresh grave while we’re traveling. Maybe Darius will manufacture one for us. He can change things from one shape to another, you know.”

“Yes, so I had heard. Perhaps he will not like to use his magic in such a fashion, however.”

“Oh, if he thinks you’re being abused, he’ll be happy to oblige. He’s very softhearted.”

She studied me a moment. “And perhaps Harwin will not like to lie to your father.”

“He will if I ask him to,” I said confidently.

“Well! You are quite fortunate in the men who attend you,” she said. “How will you choose between them?”

Now I scowled at her, my sudden amity evaporating. “I have already chosen.”

“So you have,” she said and settled back against the cushions. She closed her eyes, as if she was too weary to keep them open any longer, and in a few moments, she was either asleep or pretending to be.

I looked out the window and watched the autumn trees shake off their red and yellow leaves as if they were dogs shaking off water. I saw the clouds overhead grow angrier and closer to the ground, reminding me of furious taskmasters bending down to berate a clumsy servant. I wondered if anything Gisele had told me was a lie.

I wondered how I could bear it if everything was true.

5 The Dreadful Secret

We arrived in a prosperous little town just around sunset and followed Harwin to the inn he had recommended, having patronized it with his father. By this time, it had been raining steadily for two hours, and both Harwin and Darius were thoroughly soaked. So was the coachman, I imagined, but Gisele’s maid had taken refuge inside the coach the minute the first drops started falling, and I had invited Dannette to join us as well. The four of us passed a rather pleasant afternoon playing cards with a dog-eared deck the maid had in her bag. She was a freckle-faced and friendly girl who didn’t seem to understand her place, but I was too lazy to try to stare her down and Dannette wasn’t the type to enforce class distinctions. I spent a few moments wondering how much we would have to bribe her to lie about Gisele’s death before I realized that such a step wouldn’t be necessary. This was a servant Gisele had brought with her when she married; this was a servant loyal to the queen. No doubt she would accompany Gisele as she set off for Newmirot or Amlertay. I felt a little better knowing Gisele would not be completely alone.

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you joined us when you did!” Dannette said to Gisele as we prepared to disembark in the courtyard of a very fancy inn, four stories high and faced with white marble. I started to glow with happiness just thinking about the luxuries awaiting us inside. “How lovely to sit in your coach on such an ugly day.”

“I am glad that someone appreciates me,” Gisele returned with a smile.

“Even I appreciate you today,” I said, climbing out after the two of them. The maid clambered down behind me.

“Then I must call the journey a success,” Gisele said.

I grinned at her and hurried in. Darius was still outside with the wagon, but Harwin had arrived ahead of us, and I could see he had already dealt with the proprietor. He stood near the front desk, a cluster of keys in his hand, and let water drip from his overcoat to the floor. Oh, surely in such a large hotel we would not all have to cram together in one room!

“The inn is quite full but I have bespoken three rooms,” he said, pushing his wet hair from his eyes. “There are bunks in the servants’ quarters for the coachman and the maid.”

Dannette was glancing at the heavy tapestries on the wall, the brightly woven rug on the floor. “The place looks a little dear for Darius and me,” she said quietly.

“I have paid for one room, and the queen’s vouchers will cover the other two,” Harwin replied, smiling down at her. “You will have a room to yourself for a change.”

I mentally populated the remaining two rooms and instantly frowned. “Wait—you and Darius will share quarters, of course, but I should not have to sleep with Gisele,” I said.

“And here I thought you had started to hate me a little less,” Gisele remarked.

“It’s just that—I can’t sleep with other people in the room. I would so much like privacy, just for a night.”

Harwin’s frown was as heavy as mine. “Yet one of them must act as chaperone so that no one takes advantage of you in the night. If you do not want your stepmother, then Dannette must stay with you.”

“Oh, let her have the room to herself,” Dannette said. “You don’t need to worry about Darius accosting her in the middle of the night, but even if he did have such plans, you’ll be there to thwart him.”

“Yes, Harwin, please, let me have the room.”

Dannette laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “You don’t have to plead with him. We’ll just apportion the chambers as we like. He can hardly force us to rearrange to his taste unless he wants to bodily carry us from bed to bed.”

Gisele and I both laughed at that, though Harwin looked embarrassed. “I am merely trying to make sure the princess is treated with the utmost care,” he said.

Now Dannette patted him on the arm in the same friendly fashion. “And maybe you’ll find that Olivia likes you better if you don’t always make such a fuss,” she said.

Darius swept through the front door, totally drenched and unrelentingly cheerful. His boots left wet footprints all the way down the hall. “Isn’t this fit for royalty!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never stayed at a place so elegant! I like traveling with the queen.”

“Harwin chose it,” Gisele said with a laugh. “Not I.” Darius rubbed his hands together to warm them. “Then I like traveling with Harwin! Who’s hungry? I imagine the dinner here must be outstanding.”

The meal was excellent—and Harwin paid for everyone’s dinner, not even bothering to use Gisele’s vouchers. I know, because I saw him do it. My room was splendid, heavenly, regal, private, and I even took a real bath in a hammered tin tub. I tumbled into bed and lay in the middle of the mattress, stretching my arms and legs as wide as they would go. I had peeked inside the other two rooms, so I knew that Gisele and Dannette had to share a bed, but Darius and Harwin each had his own. I imagined this would be the best night of sleep any of us had managed so far.

The morning brought sunshine and clear skies and all of us smiling at one another around the breakfast table. “I want to ride with Darius today,” I said, for Gisele had been right yesterday. Sitting in the coach with her was not doing much to acquaint me with my betrothed. “Dannette, you can ride with Gisele. It’s much more comfortable than the back of the wagon.”

“I’m happy to do so, unless the queen prefers solitude.”

“The queen prefers any company that is good-natured,” Gisele retorted.

“Then Dannette is the one you want,” Darius said with a nod. “There’s not a mean bone in her body.”

Scandals. Accusations in the dead of night. They must not have been crafted from cruelty, then. “Then we’re all satisfied,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Harwin was not satisfied, I could tell by his expression, but soon enough we were on our way. As before, Harwin took the lead on his bay gelding, followed by the carriage, followed by the wagon. After yesterday’s extraordinarily comfortable coach ride, travel in the wagon was even more torturous, but I was determined not to complain.

“How much farther to your grandmother’s house?” I asked as we set out.

“About a day and a half.”

“Have you sent her a note? Is she expecting us?”

He laughed. “She knows that I might drop in on her at any time, so in some sense she is always expecting me, but she will be quite astonished to see you.”

I smiled. “She didn’t think you would marry a princess?”

He rubbed the back of his hand along his jaw. “She didn’t think I would ever marry,” he said. “I have never been particularly interested in the notion.”

“Oh, with your blond curls and your handsome face, you must have had girls falling for you wherever you went,” I teased.

He laughed. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in women,” he corrected. “It’s all the things that belong to marriage that haven’t appealed to me.”

I was a little deflated at that. “What don’t you like about it?” I said.

“I’m not very good at staying in one place,” he explained. “Even after a couple of nights, I’m itching to move on. The wagon broke down once just as I was leaving a small town, and it took a week to get it fixed. By that third day, I felt like I’d been shackled in a dungeon for a year. No sunlight, no fresh air. It was an awful time.”

“But Darius,” I said. “Once I’m queen, I’ll need to stay at the palace, conferring with councilors and—well—ruling the kingdom.”

“Yes, but not all the time,” he said eagerly. “Wouldn’t your subjects like it if you traveled around the country, meeting them in the towns and villages where they live?” He fluttered a hand over his shoulder. “We’d travel in something much finer than this, of course. We’d have a carriage like your stepmother’s, and we could travel for weeks.”

I thought it sounded both exhausting and impractical, but I didn’t like to say so outright. Surely once we were married, Darius would see that he would have to give up parts of his old life. He would see how many responsibilities he must assume once he was king. “Well—that does sound delightful. I’m sure I would enjoy getting to know my subjects that way,” I said, and was rewarded with Darius’s blinding smile. “Perhaps we can take a honeymoon trip all around the kingdom,” I added. “People will line up in every small town to greet us—”

But he was shaking his head. “No, no, for our honeymoon we should go to Liston and tour the diamond mines,” he said. “You can pick the very stone you want from the bones of the land itself, and I’ll chip it out for you and polish it by hand.”

I yielded to a moment’s worth of romance at the picture, but then—“Isn’t Liston very far away?” I asked.

“Two thousand miles,” he said with a nod. “Depending on the weather through Amlertay, the journey could take six months each way.”

“But I can’t be gone for a year!”

He looked surprised. “Why not?”

“I have to be ready to rule if something should happen to my father!”

“He looks pretty healthy to me.”

“Even so! He could fall off a horse—or be felled by an assassin—or devoured by wolves—”

“Wolves? At the palace? His fighting dogs, maybe, but not wolves.”

Perhaps I was too enamored of the idea of someone getting eaten by wild animals. “The point isn’t how he might die. The point is that if something happens to him, I must be available. We must stay within the kingdom for our honeymoon, I’m afraid.”

He was silent for a moment, something so rare for Darius that I feared he was angry. I was relieved when, finally speaking, he sounded disappointed instead. “Maybe I should go to Liston by myself one last time before we get married.”

Now I was bewildered. “But that would mean we wouldn’t be able to marry for at least a year. And I wouldn’t see you that whole time.”

He nodded. “I know. But I can’t bear the thought that I’ll never see Liston again.”

“Surely you will,” I said, having no real idea how to answer that. “Surely we will work it all out.”

At that I, too, lapsed into silence. We watched the road ahead of us, lost in our own thoughts, and I imagined we were thinking about two very different futures.

By noon, the autumn sun was warm enough to make us forget we’d ever been chilly, all of us were hungry, some of us were cranky, and one of Darius’s horses had thrown a shoe. Fortunately, we had arrived at a good-sized town with a central square that offered everything we needed at that exact moment: a blacksmith, a butcher shop, and a chance to switch passengers around. There was even a modest fountain in the center of town where Dannette declared she was going to sit so she could splash her face and cool her feet.

“How very common,” Gisele said with a laugh.

Dannette had already perched on the edge of the basin and trailed her fingers in the water. She laughed back. “I never pretended to be quality,” she replied.

We had left Darius, the coachman, and all the vehicles at the blacksmith’s shop. Harwin was eyeing the butcher’s storefront, where a sign promised fresh meat, smoked meat, and meat pies. “I will undertake to purchase our luncheon if you ladies would like to stay here,” he said, glancing down at Dannette. He added, “Amusing yourselves.”

I had spotted lengths of fabric and ribbon in another storefront. “Ooh, let’s go look at pretty things,” I said to Gisele, tugging her in that direction. “I don’t have any money, so you’ll have to buy me anything I like.”

She followed willingly enough, her maid at her heels, but said, “I thought you were worried about my finances?”

“Oh. That’s right. Well, we’ll just look at things and feel sad that we can’t purchase them.”

The shop was small and crowded, with bolts of fabric piled up in no discernible fashion and knots of ribbon covering the walls like the most chaotic and jubilant pattern of wallpaper. Women that I assumed to be the shopkeeper and her daughters darted among the seven or eight customers who were probably the high-ranking gentry of this county. Gisele and I looked bedraggled enough that I was glad we were both plainly dressed; I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to recognize me at this juncture. But, aside from giving us speculative glances because we were clearly strangers, no one seemed to notice us.

I strolled between aisles, rubbing the velvet between my fingers and letting the silk pour through my hands like falling water. “Look at this blue,” I said to Gisele as I unwrapped a few inches of a cobalt-colored wool. “Wouldn’t I like a cape made of this!”

She had been right behind me up till this point, but somehow I had lost her attention. “Olivia,” she said, staring out the window. “Someone’s approached Dannette, and she looks afraid.”

That brought me right across the shop so I, too, could peer outside and see that two men had accosted Dannette. It was clear she had made good her promise to cool off in the fountain, because the front of her dress was spattered with water and her shoes lay on the ground. One of the men had hold of her shoulder, the other was leaning down and shouting in her face, and Gisele was right: She looked afraid.

“Where’s her brother?” I demanded as I charged for the door.

Gisele grabbed my arm. “You can’t endanger yourself—Olivia, you are too valuable to go brawling—”

I gave her one incredulous look, broke free, and raced outside. Behind me I heard the rising murmur of women’s excited voices, and the sound of Gisele’s footsteps as she followed. “Get Darius!” I called over my shoulder.

But that wasn’t necessary.

I didn’t see where he came from, but suddenly Harwin was on the scene, crashing into the interlopers and sending one cartwheeling to the ground. Gisele caught me from behind and held me in place, while her maid grabbed one of my arms. Nonetheless, we were close enough to hear the other man’s oath as he whirled around to confront his assailant. Harwin already had a sword drawn and a look of menace on his face. He appeared to have shoved Dannette into the fountain to get her out of the way, for she was splashing around in the water, dripping from head to toe.

“Step away! Leave this young woman in peace!” Harwin thundered.

“You wouldn’t be defending her if you knew what kind of soiled goods she was!” shouted the man who had been knocked to the ground. Unfortunately, he was now on his feet.

“I would defend any woman, no matter how debased, from someone as contemptible as you,” Harwin snarled in reply.

I had to admit, that surprised me a little. That he would say such a thing, and about a woman he scarcely knew—and that his size, posture, and attitude indicated he would be able to make good his boast.

“Would you?” sneered the other man, and then he leaned in to hiss some kind of accusation in Harwin’s ear. I noticed that Dannette, floundering about with her wet skirts, suddenly grew very still.

Whatever he said didn’t impress Harwin unduly. With his free hand, he shoved the man hard in the chest, knocking him into his unsavory companion. “Leave her in peace,” he said. “Now, unless you truly want to contest her virtue against my sword.”

The two men growled a few more insults but slouched away, glancing back over their shoulders twice. Half turned to watch them leave, Harwin extended his free hand to Dannette to help her out of the fountain. I shook off my captors and ran over to Harwin just as Darius came racing up from the stables. In a moment, we were all huddled together around Dannette, and Darius was stripping off his jacket to put it around her shivering shoulders. Only then did I realize that we had gathered a small audience of townspeople, standing in the corners of the square and peering out from the surrounding storefronts. All of my companions ignored them, so I did, too.

“What happened? Who were those men?” Darius demanded.

Dannette gave him one despairing look. It was an unfamiliar expression to see on a face that was usually so merry. “They were from Borside,” she said.

It was a town toward the western edge of the kingdom. I supposed it couldn’t be far from where we were now.

“They recognized me,” she went on in a halting voice, “and they said things—”

Darius looked around in swift fury. “Where did they go? I’ll turn them both into toads.”

“No!” she cried, and grabbed his arm. “Harwin was here to defend me, and I don’t want to cause any more uproar. Let’s just go.”

His arm still in Danette’s grip, Darius gave Harwin a stiff little bow. “If there was ever a debt between us, it is canceled now,” he said with unwonted formality. “Thank you for coming to my sister’s aid.”

Harwin shrugged. “Any man would have done the same. This erases no imbalance between us.”

“To me it does,” Darius said.

“Let us discuss who owes whom at some later date in more privacy,” Gisele interposed. “Come. Let’s gather all our conveyances and go.”

Darius was unwilling to be separated from Dannette, and I did not want to intrude on her unhappiness, so we completely redistributed ourselves. We swathed Dannette in a cloak and bundled her into the coach, Darius beside her. Harwin parceled out the meat pies he had just bought for all of us, then took the reins of the wagon. Gisele rode Harwin’s horse.

I sat beside Harwin, getting to know the wrong potential bridegroom.

But I didn’t mind because I was dying to ask him a few questions.

“How do you know how to drive a wagon?” were the first words out of my mouth.

He was negotiating around a narrow turn, the last little kink in the road before we were able to leave this benighted town behind, but he had attention to spare to cast me a sardonic look. “Why wouldn’t I be able to? It’s no harder than driving a team, and you know I keep my own stables.”

“Well—but—I never thought about it,” I said.

“Imagine how surprised I am,” he said dryly.

I bounced a little on the hard seat. “What did those men say to you?” I demanded. “Did they tell you whatever Dannette’s dreadful secret is?”

“I suppose.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

He gave me another look, this one considering and troubled. “I’m not sure it’s my place to repeat it.”

“Are you going to make me ask her?”

He thought it over and then, in a voice completely devoid of emotion, he said, “It seems that when she lived in Borside, Dannette was found in a compromising situation—with another woman. There was a scandal because the girl was the daughter of a prominent local lord. Apparently this was not the first time Dannette had been known to take women as intimate companions.”

It took me a moment to comprehend exactly what he meant with his delicate phrasing. Then I said, “So?> She prefers women. Who cares?”

I could tell I had surprised him, but I didn’t know why. “You seem singularly free of shock,” he said. “You live a life so sheltered that I would have thought you would find the concept hard to grasp and perhaps revolting.”

I shrugged. “My father’s apothecary and her assistant have been sharing quarters since I was born,” I said. “And there are days I like them better than anyone else at the palace. But I don’t see why anyone would care—me or you or those men who assaulted Dannette or anybody.”

“No,” Harwin said, clucking to the horses to encourage them to improve their speed, if only a little, “neither do I.”

“I would have thought you would be even more conventional than I am,” I said. “And yet, you don’t seem offended.”

He considered a moment. I had always found it irritating that he often paused to think over his replies, but now I found myself respecting his unwillingness to give an easy or incomplete answer. “I have seen too much damage caused by individuals who were certain that theirs were the only ideas with merit,” he said at last. “It has engendered in me a passionate desire to extend tolerance to anyone who does not seem to be harming anyone else by his or her actions. I am not always quick to adopt new or unfamiliar behaviors—but I am slow to condemn them.”

I sat back against the bench. “But that’s admirable!” I exclaimed. “Why do you say it so apologetically?”

I thought I caught the faintest trace of humor on his face. “Perhaps because you dislike so many of my opinions that I always feel apologetic when I am talking to you.”

I felt a hot blush spread over my face. “No—not that—well—I think perhaps I have not always extended tolerance to you,” I said in a rush.

“You think me dull and lumpish, and you think that being married to me would seem like a lifetime sentence in prison,” he said calmly.

“No!” I exclaimed, feeling even worse. Because of course he was exactly right—except it didn’t seem quite so true as it once had. “It’s just that—perhaps I am silly and shallow, as Gisele has said—”

“But you’re twenty-one and you think life should offer a little excitement and romance,” he said, nodding as if that was a perfectly legitimate expectation. “And I do not seem to embody those traits.”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I unwrapped my meat pie and took the first bite. Neither of us made the obvious remark. Darius embodies both those traits, and quite beautifully, too.

“Well,” Harwin said, clucking at the horses one more time, “perhaps this trip will give you as much excitement and romance as you can handle, and then you might assess how much of it you really want in your life.”

I thought he was probably right on both counts.

We didn’t stop again until nearly nightfall, when Gisele circled back for us on Harwin’s horse. We had long ago lost sight of the faster carriage, but Gisele had moved between the two vehicles a couple of times during the afternoon. By the pleased expression on her face, I could tell she relished the freedom of riding in the open air.

“Darius has found an inn for the night. It’s not very big, so there might not be three open bedrooms—but he’s reserved a private dining room,” she told us. The chill afternoon wind had whipped color into her face and she looked very pretty. I wondered how my father could prefer Mellicia to Gisele. “I think he doesn’t want to expose Dannette to any more chance travelers who might recognize her.”

Harwin glanced around. We were in farm country now, and no mistake. Stretching in every direction for limitless miles were flat, brown fields filled with the dying clutter of harvested crops. “Might there be many people here who know her?”

Gisele nodded. “His grandmother’s house is half a day’s ride away, he says.”

“I thought he couldn’t afford a private dining room,” I piped up.

Gisele looked genuinely amused. “I think he’s found a way to pay for it.”

Indeed, twenty minutes later, after we’d found the quaint little inn, turned our horses over to the grooms, and strolled inside, we found Darius in the taproom performing tricks. He turned one man’s hound into a tomcat and then changed it back. He passed his fingers over a woman’s dull gray hair and made it a vibrant gold, not neglecting to make her eyebrows match. He waved his hand over the back wall of the taproom, and it ran with vivid autumn colors, cranberry, then ochre, then frosted pumpkin. The patrons were murmuring their delight, while the proprietor stood behind his bar, nodding and smiling. It certainly looked like a performance that merited some remuneration in return.

“The servants are already settled in the kitchen, but we’re down this way,” Gisele said, leading us through a narrow hallway to a small, smoky room. The ceilings were low and the paneling was so dark as to create an air of foreboding, but the prospect of a private meal among the five of us made the room seem welcoming and warm. Dannette was pacing between the table and the far wall, a matter of about six steps, and she turned jerkily to face us as we stepped through the door.

Afraid of what Harwin might think of her, afraid of how much he had told me, afraid of how she might be judged.

I crossed the room to kiss her on the cheek. Then I took hold of both her shoulders and held her at arm’s length to inspect her. The look on her face was one of profound relief, and she couldn’t quite keep the tears from spilling over.

“You should have told me,” I said. “All this time I was thinking how you might make the perfect wife for Harwin, and now I have to abandon those excellent plans.”

She laughed a little too long at such a feeble joke, and it was clear she was still feeling shaky. She accepted Gisele’s hug with melting gratitude, but continued to watch me over the queen’s shoulder. “I don’t know that I trust your judgment in matters of the heart so much that I would let you pick someone out for me,” she said, attempting to tease in return.

“She is singularly blind to both good and bad qualities in other people,” Harwin agreed. “But now and then she allows her natural intelligence to assert itself, so I don’t quite despair of her.”

I gave him a mock scowl, though I thought his assessment was fairly accurate. “I’m hungry,” was all I said. “I hope Darius ordered food before he went off to astonish the masses with magic.”

“I believe he did,” Dannette said, wiping her eyes and attempting to restore herself to her usual state of sunny serenity. Just then the servants’ door opened, and two scrawny young housemaids stepped in, bearing platters. “And here it is.”

There was the usual jumble of scraping chairs and bumping bodies as the servants set the table and we found our seats. Gisele asked Harwin something about driving the wagon and he answered, while Dannette began pouring water into all our glasses.

And the whole time, I sat there determinedly keeping a smile on my face, while I felt as though my stomach had been opened up by a rough hand and scraped out with a jagged blade.

How could I feel so relieved at the notion that there was no chance Dannette might fall in love with Harwin?

Oddly, that mediocre dinner in the cramped room of a slightly run-down roadside inn was the most delightful evening I had spent with this group of travelers so far. I couldn’t exactly tell why. Maybe it was because Dannette was so grateful to be relieved of the burden of her secret among people who did not think it was such a shameful thing. Maybe it was because surviving a threat brings you closer to anyone with whom you’ve shared it. Maybe it was because Darius was in high spirits, or I was, or Gisele was, for the three of us laughed a great deal, while the other two smiled at us benignly.

Maybe it was because, for no real reason that I understood, I suddenly had an overwhelming sense that each person in this room was in some way a dearest friend. Even Harwin. Even Gisele.

I didn’t even mind that there were only two rooms available to the five of us. I made Gisele and Dannette share the bed while I piled pillows and blankets on the floor. A hard night’s rest, but at least there was no thrashing bedmate to contend with.

Dannette’s nightmares did wake me up once, sometime in the dead of night. It took me a moment to remember where I was and why I lay on such an uncomfortable bed. While I was working it out, I heard Gisele’s voice, soft and comforting in the dark. Everything is all right. You’re safe here. You’re with friends.

And since that was true for me as well, I instantly fell back to sleep.

6 The Wise Old Grandmother

A half day’s easy travel brought us to the house where Darius and Dannette had grown up, and where their grandmother still lived. It was a sturdy, well built country manor of warm gray stone, with a flower garden out front, a small orchard to the left, a few outbuildings arrayed in back, and enough rambling bulk to make me guess there were about twenty rooms inside.

We were met at the door by two footmen and an aging butler, but we had barely crowded into the hall before the lady of the house swept up to greet us. She was thin and tall and dressed in the height of fashion, with artfully styled dark blond hair and a smile that made her look like her grandchildren.

“Darius,” she said, putting her hands on either side of his face and inspecting him with great pleasure. “You look well.”

“As do you,” he replied. He kissed her cheek, put an arm around her shoulder, and turned her to face the rest of us. “I’ve brought company, as you can see—and very exalted company, at that.”

It seemed that it was only with some reluctance that she brought herself to look away from him. Though she extended her smile to us, I had the sense she wasn’t interested in anyone except Darius. “Welcome,” she said. “I am Arantha Kent. You must be the princess and the queen.”

“How did you know?” Darius exclaimed. “I had thought to astonish you!”

Arantha made very correct curtsies to me and to Gisele, but she eyed me as if I were a horse she might buy and she wasn’t sure I was up to her weight. “The news has spread throughout the kingdom about the king’s competition for his daughter’s hand,” she said a little absently. She reached out a hand to rearrange the way my hair fell across my forehead. Frowning a little, she moved it back. “When the winner was described as a blond young man with a knack for magic, I knew it must be you.”

“I hope you did not find the news overwhelming,” Gisele said kindly. “Sometimes people are awed at the idea of marrying into a royal family.”

But Arantha shook her head. Now she pursed her lips as she considered my gown, muddied and travel-stained. “I always believed Darius was destined for great things,” she said. “I could hardly have hoped for better.”

I heard a muffled laugh behind me, which was when I realized Dannette hadn’t uttered a word since we walked in. Nor had her grandmother even bothered to acknowledge Dannette’s presence with so much as a wave. Even now, Arantha didn’t glance in her grand-daughter’s direction when she said, “I’ll have the servants show you to your rooms. You must be starving. Luncheon will be on the table in an hour.”

In contrast to the companionable dinner the night before, the first meal in Arantha Kent’s house was formal, awkward, and just plain odd, although the food was superb. In defiance of traditional protocol, Arantha had seated Darius to her left and let the rest of us choose our own seats. Dannette had taken the place at the foot of the table—more to distance herself from her grandmother, I thought, than to stake her claim to some position in the family. Gisele had pulled up a chair between Darius and Dannette; I sat across from Gisele and next to Harwin.

Arantha spoke to no one but Darius for the entire meal.

They discussed matters pertaining to the property itself—crops and taxes and a drainage problem in the lower acres—but that took up very little of their conversation. Mostly Darius filled her in on his recent adventures, which required a great deal of laughing and gesturing. She hung on his every word, rarely even noticing what she might be putting in her mouth. She was not a demonstrative woman, but the glow on her face as she watched him speak left no doubt that Darius was the center of her world.

And Dannette did not even have a place in it.

After about thirty minutes of keeping near silence, Gisele and Dannette and I began speaking to one another in low tones. “Does she dislike you because of your choices in life or because of your gender?” Gisele asked.

Dannette shrugged. “I’m not even sure she dislikes me. When Darius is not present, we have very civil conversations. She’s never indicated that I wouldn’t be welcome to make this place my home if I had nowhere else to go.” She smiled mischievously. “Of course, that might be because Darius has made it plain that I would always be welcome here, and she would never do anything counter to Darius’s wishes.”

Harwin scooted his chair down to join our discussion, since it was clear otherwise he had no hope of conversation at all. “She seems to have done an admirable job of running the estate, but I wonder what she expects to happen to it once she passes on,” he said in his serious way. “Since—from what I’ve observed of your brother—he does not seem ready to settle down and farm.”

Gisele gave me one quick glance, hard to interpret. “And he will soon be living in the palace with Olivia,” she said.

Harwin’s look was even harder to interpret. “Of course,” he said.

Dannette shrugged again. “She is certain Darius will choose the right course, so she does not worry,” she said.

“You could take over on your brother’s behalf,” Harwin suggested. “You possess great intelligence and a steadiness of purpose that seems to exceed your brother’s.” When all three of us giggled, he added hastily, “I meant no disrespect to Darius.”

“It has occurred to me,” Dannette admitted. “I am not sure it has occurred to Darius. And I do not believe the thought has crossed my grandmother’s mind.”

Servants brought in a new course, which ended that topic, and we did not get back to it for the rest of the meal. Gisele and Dannette had fallen into a discussion about clothing, so I took pity on Harwin and asked him a few desultory questions about his family estates, which I knew he was very proud of. I can’t say I was excited to learn about his successes with a new breed of pigs, but I was impressed by the depth of knowledge he had about every aspect of the land that one day would be his.

I didn’t know half so much about my own inheritance, the entire kingdom that would one day be mine if Gisele never bore my father a son.

Or if Mellicia never did.

I swallowed and glanced at Gisele. Since that first conversation in the coach, we had never again discussed the danger she was in. I turned to Harwin and asked in an abrupt undervoice, “Do you like Gisele?”

He watched me a moment with narrowed eyes as if trying to discern the question that lay under the question. “I do,” he said at last. “We have similar sober natures, and I have from time to time served as her confidante.”

Then he might know the answer to the next question. “Do you think my father wants her dead?”

He took even longer to answer this time. His eyes went briefly to Gisele and then back to me. “I think your father feels she has failed him in the singular duty for which he selected her.”

“She hasn’t given him a son.”

“Precisely.”

“She thinks he wants to get rid of her so he can marry Sir Neville’s daughter and she’ll have a son.”

His face didn’t change; this was not a new idea to him. “I’m not certain your father’s ruthlessness is so extreme,” he said. “But possibly it is.”

I took a deep breath. I had always disliked my father, but my reasons had been purely selfish. He was careless of me. Unkind to me. Uninterested in my wishes and desires. It hadn’t occurred to me to notice how cruel he might be to others, and to despise him for it. “He’s a bad father and obviously a bad husband,” I said. “Is he a bad king as well?”

“He could have been better, he could have been worse,” Harwin replied quietly. “He elevated favorites and seized lands from families that had held them for generations, but many kings do that. Ten years ago, he promoted skirmishes along the southern borders in a fruitless bid for territory, but it caused him to strengthen the army, and that might not be an entirely bad thing. Some of his taxes have been excessive. Some of his trade decisions have been disastrous. He has been open to bribes. He has been unfaithful to both of his queens. He has been an indifferent king, I suppose, but he has been a wretched man.”

“You hate him,” I said.

Harwin looked at me a long time. “He’s only done one thing that I’ve ever completely approved of,” he said.

He didn’t specify, but I had no doubt what he meant. He produced you as his daughter. I felt my cheeks heat up, and I quickly turned my attention back to my plate of food. But I have to admit I was smiling.

Arantha and Darius disappeared after lunch, no doubt so she could show him estate accounts or rent rolls or other receipts. Dannette invited us to a small sitting room, where we all collapsed on a pair of dilapidated sofas. Warm afternoon sunlight poured in from the tall windows and made us all cheerful. It was the first time we’d relaxed since we’d walked into the house.

“This was always my favorite room,” Dannette said. “Probably because I usually had it to myself. My grandmother was always in her office, and Darius was rarely even on the property.”

“Where were your parents?” Gisele asked.

“They died when we were quite young. Darius remembers them better than I do, and he says they were very like the two of us—my father was improvident, kind, and full of magic, while my mother was practical, lighthearted, and curious.”

“My sympathies, then, that you missed the opportunity to get to know them,” Harwin said.

She smiled at him. “It is hard to regret something you never had,” she said. “And we managed well enough without them.”

I remembered my own mother quite clearly. When I was a child, she had seemed like a fairy princess, beautiful and glittering and magical. And, like a fairy princess, impossible to get close to, impossible to touch. I don’t imagine I spent more than an hour a week with her for the whole of my existence. But I cried and cried after her funeral. I had been looking forward to the day I grew old enough for her to take notice of me. I had been so sure that once I was ten, or fifteen, or twenty-five, she would be interested in me, would find me fascinating and delightful. But I had not grown up fast enough. She had died before she could love me.

My father had married Gisele six months later.

I caught Harwin’s quick look and knew he was remembering my tears at the funeral. He had tried so hard to comfort me, but I would not let him take my hand, or distract me with a story about a new litter of puppies, or even talk to me at all.

I wondered if it was too late to tell him how much I appreciated his effort.

Darius poked his head inside the door before any of us had replied to Dannette. “Oh, good, I was sure you would be here,” he said, crossing the room to flop down beside his sister.

“Free so soon?” she teased. “I was sure we wouldn’t see you again until tomorrow—if then.”

“There was a crisis in the kitchen, and you know she doesn’t like me to worry over small domestic trifles,” he said with a grin. “So I made my escape.”

“Is it always like that?” Gisele asked. “You so favored, Dannette so ignored?”

Dannette laughed but Darius looked embarrassed. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t know how to change her. Apparently she was the same way with my aunts. While my father lived, they were invisible. I think the situation was even worse because my father was the youngest of four, and she had wanted a boy for so long.”

Gisele and I exchanged swift glances, and she spoke up in a quiet voice. “I believe a lot of people pin so many of their hopes on their sons that they have no energy or interest left for their daughters.”

“Perhaps there would not be such emotional inequity if there were economic parity,” Harwin said.

Dannette smiled at him. “I love to hear you speak, but I often have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

Gisele stirred. “I think he means that if women were allowed to inherit more property, parents would find it just as easy to love their daughters. But if they know their property most likely will fall into other hands if they only produce daughters, it is hard to feel much affection for a girl.”

“Which makes me think that if I ever have children, I’m going to try to have a girl,” I said, so fiercely that the rest of them laughed. “Well, I am.”

“I would want a daughter also, if I were ever to have children—but—well—I’m not so sure—” Dannette began, and then floundered a little. This earned another laugh from the assembled group.

“I am supposed to be having a son,” Gisele said with some astringency, “but so far I have not been fortunate enough to conceive at all.”

She didn’t say it like she was sorry for herself, but nevertheless I felt a certain amorphous dread in response to her words. If she bore a son, I was cut out of the succession. If she failed to bear a boy… she might well be dead.

Dannette nudged Darius with her foot. She had slipped off her shoes, and her toes were long and elegant. “What about you? Do you hope for boys or girls?”

Darius looked surprised. “Oh, I never thought much about it,” he said. “I’m not sure I would be a good father. I might be very careless. It’s probably better if I don’t bother with children at all.”

Gisele’s voice was carefully neutral. “Of course, when you’re living at the palace, there will be many servants on hand to care for your children, no matter how many you produce.”

“Living at the palace?” Darius repeated, and then actually blushed. “Oh, right, right! Then, I say, why not have dozens? Boys and girls.”

“Perhaps not dozens,” I said. “If I am to bear them all.”

Darius looked, for a moment, even more abashed, and then he offered me a smile of breathtaking sweetness. “Then we will have just as many as you desire,” he said, reaching out to take my hand.

I wondered if I was the only one in the room who realized, at that moment, that Darius would never be my husband—or if I was the only one who had not realized it until right now.

Gisele made sure the silence did not become awkward. “And you?” she asked Harwin. “Have you given any thought to your own progeny?”

“I have,” he said in his serious way. “I am certain I would welcome any child born to me and a wife I love. And if I am privileged enough to have a daughter, I will fight to give her the same advantages any son of mine might have, and I will not allow her to be placed in any situation that stifled or abused her.”

“Now, there’s the kind of man I wish my own father was,” Gisele said with a sigh. “Or my own husband.”

I had to admit, I was thinking the same thing.

Dannette poked Darius with her foot again. “So how long must we stay here to appease our grandmother?” she asked. “A day? A week? A month?”

He looked as if he hadn’t given the matter a moment’s thought. “Must we stay? Don’t you think we could leave in the morning?”

All of us cried out against that—not because we had any particular desire to linger, but because none of us, even Dannette, could bear the idea of depriving Arantha so soon of the joy of Darius’s company.

“A week, then, I suppose,” Darius said glumly. I wondered if it was the thought of staying put here, or merely of staying put, that made him despondent.

“And then what?” Harwin asked. “Would you travel on to visit nearby sights and cities? Or would you return straightaway to the palace and begin planning your nuptials?”

There was a small blank space of silence, and then, almost in unison, Darius and I said, “Travel on.”

“We are not far from the coast,” Dannette said to me. “If you’ve never seen the ocean, you will find some magnificent views.”

“I would like to make my way to a harbor town,” Gisele said. From the matching looks Harwin and Dannette wore, I knew both of them realized why Gisele was interested in such a destination.

But Darius hadn’t noticed. He said, “My grandmother asked if we were planning to visit Kannerly, since we’re so close.”

Harwin and Gisele exchanged significant glances. “No,” Gisele said tightly.

“What’s Kannerly?” Dannette asked.

I was frowning. “One of my father’s properties,” I said. “He goes there three or four times a year.”

Dannette looked at me. “But you’ve never been?” When I shook my head, she transferred her thoughtful gaze to Gisele’s face. “I wonder why.”

“If you’re to inherit the estate, shouldn’t you at least know what it looks like?” Darius said.

“I don’t think Olivia would find it a very—welcoming—place,” Gisele said. She was still staring at Harwin, who wore an unreadable expression.

“She’ll have to visit it sometime,” he said.

If they were going to be all mysterious, I had better find out what secrets lay at the heart of Kannerly. “I say we should go there now,” I said firmly. “Just as soon as we can get clear of here.”

Gisele wrenched her gaze from Harwin and said, “Olivia, I truly do not think you will enjoy the journey.”

“A princess has many duties she does not enjoy,” I said loftily. “But that does not mean she should shy away from them. We’ll go to Kannerly when we travel on.”

7 The Cursed Destination

As it happened, we did not stay a full week at Arantha’s house. All of us were restless by the end of the second day, and Darius himself was like a caged hunting cat who had been deprived of too many meals. I enjoyed the chance to sleep in private, bathe in luxury, and spend the days in idleness, but soon enough even I was longing to be on my way. So four days after we arrived, we packed our bags, bid our hostess farewell, and set out again.

Another day and a half of travel took us to Kannerly, where my life changed.

It was a smallish property, accessed off a narrow road devoid of any ornamental planting or fencing. In fact, the ground on either side of the drive was tangled with unkempt vegetation—low shrubs, tall weeds, and the occasional oak standing surprised and doleful on the overgrown land.

The manor house itself was squat and narrow, built of yellow stone that had molded over to black along the foundation. It was smaller than some of the outbuildings that fanned out behind it—what looked like a couple of enormous stables, constructed of weathered wood, and a few storage sheds. I saw three circular arenas, heavily fenced, and a huge pile of mounded debris. Something was giving off an unpleasant smell, heavy and meaty and foul, but I could catch only the occasional whiff as the wind shifted—and as we grew closer.

From some distance out we could catch the ceaseless cacophony of many dogs.

I happened to be riding in the wagon with Darius for this leg of the journey. I looked at him with a questioning expression that in no way mirrored the trepidation that had coiled in my stomach. I could not have said what, exactly, but something at Kannerly was very wrong.

Darius was looking about him with a small frown weighing down his cheerful features. “Strange sort of place,” he said in a hesitant voice. “It feels—off—somehow, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” I agreed. “I don’t like it.”

Harwin had circled back and now wheeled his rangy bay up beside the wagon. “There will be guards at the entrance,” he said. “I assume they’ll recognize your stepmother.”

“Harwin,” I started, but he spurred forward to say something to Gisele through the coach’s open window.

Another few minutes brought us to the gate, where four soldiers lounged, looking bored, though they all came to attention to inspect us. Gisele poked her head out and said in a colorless voice, “I have brought Princess Olivia and some companions to spend a day at Kannerly. We will travel on in the morning.”

The guard who seemed to be in charge studied her face for a moment, then glanced at me. Unimpressed, he waved us toward the gate. “Pull on through,” he said.

A footman and a butler awaited us on the exceedingly modest front porch, and two grooms raced up to take charge of the horses. The footman helped Gisele and Dannette out of the carriage, while the butler bowed to the queen.

“Majesty,” he said with an inflection of surprise.

“An unexpected detour on an unexpected trip,” Gisele said lightly. “Grayson, this is Princess Olivia, who has never had the honor of touring Kannerly. We will require five rooms for a night, dinner, and breakfast. We do not plan to stay past the morning meal.”

“Very good, majesty,” Grayson replied.

Just inside the door was a woman who looked less like a housekeeper and more like a tavern waitress, young and full-figured and sullen. She recognized Gisele, because she dropped an unwilling curtsy, but she neither knew nor cared who the rest of us were. In silence, we followed her through the house, which was clean enough, though not nearly to the proud standards of the palace. It was also rather bare—no portraits or tapestries on the walls, no rugs to soften the hard stone floors. I peered into a few rooms as we passed and saw nothing but dark leather furniture and heavy, blockish cabinets and tables.

The property seemed more like a hunting lodge than a family estate. The sort of place men would go without their womenfolk.

“Cozy,” I heard Dannette murmur to Gisele, who smothered a laugh.

The bedroom I was assigned was utilitarian and chilly. I took advantage of the amenities and then stepped over to the window, hoping for a scenic view. But nothing so pretty awaited me, since my room looked out over one of the monstrous barns and an attached arena.

Through the still, sunny, autumn air, I caught again the sound of barking. A little more distinct from this vantage point, so that I could almost make out layers of sounds. High, fast yips of excitement or distress; low growls of warning; an occasional howl that made my skin prickle all the way down my spine. How many dogs were there at Kannerly? And why were they so agitated?>

I intended to wait for Gisele and the others to get settled, so we could tour the grounds together, but curiosity and that growing uneasiness in my stomach shoved me out of my room. The housekeeper was nowhere to be seen, so I found my own way down the stairs and out the front door. The footman held it open for me, but made no attempt to stop me.

I supposed I could wander around Kannerly on my own and find out what made it so mysterious.

I hiked directly toward the nearest barn. With every step I took, the noise of the dogs grew louder and the stench from the mound of debris grew stronger. Other odors were also mixed in, the smells of dung and urine and wet fur, all of them so intense that I pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and held it over my nose to ease my breathing. As I got closer, I could hear the sound of men calling to one another over the whining and baying of the dogs. Although no one had told me not to investigate the property, I instinctively shrank back against a side wall of the barn, not wanting to be seen. I waited until their voices faded away as they headed toward one of the other buildings, and then I looked around for an unobtrusive entrance. A small side door had been left conveniently ajar, so I kept in the shadows and slipped inside the barn.

For a moment I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

Partly that was because the lighting was poor, provided by a couple of murky skylights and a handful of oil lamps. Partly because the scene itself made no sense.

There were cages. Dozens of cages—crates—stacked on top of one another. Each one held a dog that barked and howled and whined and scraped its paws at the flooring as if trying to dig its way free. Some dogs were quite big—too big for their quarters—others were so small, and so thin, they looked as if they might squeeze out between the slats. They were all mangy and matted, covered with dried mud and what took me a few minutes to realize was old blood. Most of them sported a variety of half-healed wounds; more than one had had an ear partially torn off, or a nose slashed, or an eye clawed out. Several were missing limbs. There might have been more horrors, but I couldn’t look long enough to find them. I pressed myself back against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut and still holding the handkerchief to my nose.

These were fighting dogs.

Kannerly was where my father bred and trained them.

The arenas must be where the handlers introduced them to the sport, after the animals had been beaten, starved, or whipped into a frenzy so they would attack on command.

My eyes still closed, I frowned. But the creatures in here were too thin and scrappy to last for long against the dogs in my father’s kennels back home. I called up a memory of the last time I had seen those beasts in action—when they had been loosed on Harwin and Darius and my other suitors. All those animals were well kept, well muscled, well fed.

The ones here must be bait dogs—prey for the fighters no doubt kept in much better condition in the other barn. Once an animal was relegated to a cage in this building, its life expectancy must be very short. Which no doubt explained the odor of rot and decay seeping from the large mound at the back of the property.

I barely made it out the side door before I fell to my knees and vomited. And then all the mixed, dreadful smells of the property overcame me, and I vomited again. And again, and again, until there was nothing left in my stomach but bile.

When I pushed myself to my feet and turned to stumble back toward the house, I saw Harwin running across the lawn in my direction. He must have spotted me from the house and instantly come after me.

Which meant he had known exactly what I would discover when I went roaming through Kannerly.

I could not talk to him—I could not speak to anyone—I could hardly think. How could such cruelty exist in the world? I turned blindly away from the barn, away from the house, and blundered on in a random direction, hoping my path didn’t take me past some fresh abomination. I had gone maybe twenty steps before Harwin caught up with me and took my arm.

“Olivia,” he said, his voice both wretched and compassionate. “Olivia, please wait—”

I shook my arm free and then turned both of my hands into fists and beat at his chest. “You knew!” I sobbed, for it turned out I was weeping. “You brought me here and you knew what I would find! How could you? How could such a place be? How could you bring me here and let me find it—”

“Shh—shh—let me explain—I would never have let you out of my sight if I had realized you would start exploring—Olivia, hush a moment, be still—”

“I can’t be still, I can’t stop crying, and everything is too horrible, and it’s all your fault,” I wailed. I dropped to my knees and began crying even harder.

Harwin bent over, scooped me up, and, heedless of my flailing fists, carried me a good hundred yards before settling down on a narrow bench that appeared to be situated for no good reason in the middle of a desolate acre of lawn. From one of his pockets he pulled out a rather shriveled orange and handed it to me.

“Here. Peel that and eat a slice. You lost your lunch back there and your mouth must feel horrid. And don’t say a word,” he added, raising his voice when I began ranting again, “while you listen to what I say.”

My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t make the first gouge in the tough skin of the fruit. Harwin took it from me, teased back a small section, and returned it. My hands grew sticky with juice as I continued to work away at the rind. When I crammed the first two sections in my mouth, I couldn’t remember anything that had ever tasted so good.

“Your father brought Gisele here the day after they were married,” Harwin said. “Told her to pick out a dog that she could call hers, and then proceeded to fight it in a few rounds, all of which it won. Her own father keeps a pack of fighting dogs, so she’d known how to choose a good one. She knew if she selected a weak animal, and it was killed in the first round, her marriage would be unbearable, because it was clear your father thought this particular exercise represented something about power. She said she cried herself to sleep every night they spent at Kannerly on that first visit, and then she never let herself cry again.”

“How can someone do such awful things?” I burst out. “Because he’s the king? Because he has money and power and he can always get his way?”

“There are people with much fewer resources who are just as brutal as your father,” Harwin answered. “What makes a man enjoy someone else’s pain? What makes him feast on violence? The answer is, I do not know. It is not just kings who are cruel. All sorts of people are unfair, unkind, or truly evil.”

“You’re not,” I said.

He bowed his head. “I try not to be,” he said.

“You don’t own fighting dogs.”

He shook his head.

“And you don’t shout terrible names at people in the town square,” I said, remembering the scene with Dannette at the fountain.

He half smiled. “And I don’t beat my horses or starve my servants or kick beggars in the streets,” he said humorously. “The list of my virtues is truly long.”

“I mean it,” I insisted. “You’re a good man.”

“I hope so,” he said, serious again. And then, as if he added the words reluctantly, “And so is Darius. I find him—more frivolous than I might like, but I also find him completely devoid of malice. I think you might have chosen him for reasons other than his good heart, but I have discovered that it is the most impressive thing about him.”

I didn’t want to talk about Darius. I ate another section of the orange, then shut my eyes, but that just caused my mind to re-create the nightmarish scene in the barn. We were still close enough to hear the incessant howls and whimpers of the dogs, though the smell was not so strong here. I sighed and leaned my head back against the nearest support. That happened to be Harwin’s arm, still wrapped around my shoulders.

“Why did you let me come to this dreadful place?” I whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me no when I insisted?”

He was quiet a moment. “It’s not my place to tell you yes or no,” he said at last. “I will always offer you my counsel, but I will never tell you what to do.” There was another pause before he went on, his voice even slower. “And, in this case, my counsel would have tallied with your inclination. If you are to be queen, you must know everything your country holds. You must know what your father has promoted and what his subjects have embraced. If you become queen, Kannerly will fall into your hands. What will you do then with this possession?”

“Tear it down,” I said instantly. “Burn it to the ground.”

“And the other estates that train such dogs?” he said. “And the men and women who profit from such activities?”

I opened my eyes and glared at him, but found I had no easy answer. If I indeed became queen, I would instantly outlaw the practice of raising fighting dogs. Of that I had no doubt. But folk who had run what formerly had been a legal enterprise would suddenly be without an income. What would my responsibility be to them? “I don’t know,” I snapped. “I’ll figure something out.”

A somber smile broke through the habitual gravity of his face. “Yes,” he said, “I have faith that you will.”

A sense of puzzlement settled over me; I felt my brows draw down in a frown. “I don’t know why,” I said.

“Why what?”

“Why you would have faith in me. I’ve never done anything particularly memorable.”

His smile grew by the tiniest margin. “Oh, there I must disagree. You have managed—with great creativity and boundless stubbornness—to thwart your father at almost every turn for your entire life. He wanted you to be charming and empty-headed, but instead you became sharp-tongued and opinionated. He wanted you to be meek and biddable, but you would not make friends where he wished you to or court the nobles he asked you to. He wanted you to marry me, and we all know how that turned out. You have won every battle of wills with your father, and he is not an easy man to withstand. I imagine you will accomplish almost anything you set out to do, no matter how difficult. It will be an entertaining saga to watch.”

Everything he said just made my frown blacker. “I sound like a terribly disagreeable person!” I exclaimed, sitting up straighter. I would have pulled myself away from him altogether except his hold tightened enough to keep me in place—and I did not try very hard to slip away. “Nothing to recommend me but a contrary disposition!”

“Yet fifty men showed up to strive for the honor when your father invited them to compete for your hand,” he reminded me.

“They wanted to marry me because I’m a princess,” I said glumly. “Perhaps one day to be queen.” I risked one sidelong look at his face. “That’s why you wanted to marry me, no doubt. A throne makes even a shrew seem attractive.”

“I would have wanted to marry you if you were a beggar’s daughter fighting for survival,” he said quietly. “I will want to marry you if Gisele is right and your father manages to sire a son by some new bride. I am moved by your indomitable spirit, I am awed by your determination, and I am impressed by your intelligence.”

He reached up his free hand to brush a stray lock of hair from my face. “And I remember always the lonely child you were, growing up in that unfriendly palace,” he went on. “The expression on your face, when your mother would walk into a room—the hope you would show—the smile you would produce. And the look of abandonment you would wear when she turned aside without noticing you. I never saw anyone so willing to be loved and so surrounded by people who were not capable of such an emotion. I thought, ‘I will love her, if she will let me.’ ” He gave me a smile of such tenderness that for a moment I couldn’t catch my breath. “All these years later, and that’s still how I feel.”

I wondered why he didn’t kiss me, and then I thought perhaps it was not quite so pleasant to be kissing someone who had just been throwing up, no matter how many oranges she had eaten since then. I didn’t have the right words to respond to his extraordinary speech, but I had to say something. “I don’t think I will be marrying Darius after all,” I said, speaking airily to cover my slight dizziness. “I feel rather bad about that, except I’m not so sure Darius wants to marry me, either.”

“I think Darius likes you very much,” Harwin said. “But I also think Darius would be relieved to learn he’s not expected to take up the crown and scepter after all. He is not—shall we say—a man who flourishes in a lifestyle bound by conventions.”

That made me laugh, but I tried to assume a thoughtful expression. “Still. I agreed to marry the man who proved his strength, valor, and intelligence by winning my father’s three contests. I can hardly break my word now.”

“May I remind you that I also succeeded at each one of those contests and that I am therefore a perfectly eligible bridegroom?” Harwin said. “I do not like to boast about myself, but I, too, am strong, courageous, and wise. You will be breaking no compact if you marry me instead.”

“Well,” I said. “I will think about it.”

I expected him to come back with some kind of gallant reply—I mean, think of it! Harwin was actually flirting! — but suddenly I felt his muscles grow tense and I sensed that I had lost all his attention. I slewed around to see what he was staring at and saw a line of soldiers trotting in through the front gate.

Royal soldiers. Eight of them. Sporting my father’s livery. The leader wore a closed, purposeful look, and all of them were armed as if for combat.

“Why are they here?” I asked in a fearful voice.

Harwin came swiftly to his feet, almost dumping me on the ground, though he kept a hand clamped around my arm to help me find my balance. “Gisele,” he said.

We both took off running for the house.

The parlor was a scene of madness.

Soldiers milled in the cramped hallway outside the room, half of them with their swords drawn, three of them shouting. The slatternly housekeeper was shrieking and sobbing, but no one paid attention to her until one of the guards shoved her unceremoniously down the corridor, where she fell to her knees. Two of the soldiers were beating at the door to the parlor, as if trying to break down a heavy panel of wood, but there was nothing there except a block of shimmering, translucent air. Through this scrim I could spot bodies roiling inside the room—Darius, Dannette, Gisele, her maid, even the coachman—all of them holding makeshift weapons, all of them poised for battle.

Darius’s weapon appeared to be the magic in his hands, with which he had created a shield across the open doorway, and none of the soldiers could breach it with their blades or their fists.

Behind me, I felt Harwin gather his strength as if to join the fray. But he hadn’t been wearing a sword when he came after me and I didn’t know if he carried a dagger and I did not want him plowing through the mass of irate soldiers with only his rage to defend him. I drew a deep breath and demanded in my iciest voice, “What is going on here? Answer me, in the name of the king!”

That caused a big swell and commotion as the soldiers spun around to face me and my friends began shouting to me through the ensorcelled doorway. I held up a hand for silence and glared at the whole group.

“Quiet!” I shouted. “One of you—give me some answers! Why are you here?”

One of the guards pushed to the forefront—a man I knew, more’s the luck. His name was Mackoby, and he had been at the palace since I was born. A bleak, hard, but honest man. “Princess Olivia,” he said, his voice raspy. “Your father has sent troops out across the land, looking for the queen. We got word that she arrived at Kannerly this afternoon.” He gestured toward the doorway. “And you see we have found her.”

I kept both my expression and my tone glacial. “And why are you so interested in Gisele’s whereabouts?”

“She has practiced treason and must be brought to justice,” Mackoby said.

“I did not!” Gisele retorted furiously. “What treason? What is the charge?”

I didn’t look at her. “The queen asks a legitimate question,” I said. “What is her exact offense?”

Mackoby stood to stiff attention. “It was not my place to know that,” he said. “But she knew she did wrong, because she stole jewels and money from the palace and she ran away.”

“I stole nothing! I only took what was mine!”

I was thinking very fast. Everything depended on the soldiers’ orders. Gisele was convinced my father meant to kill her. It would be simpler to do that several hundred miles from the palace walls with very few witnesses. But a public condemnation might earn my father sympathy for an execution, once he manufactured evidence of Gisele’s crime. That was the question. Did he want her back at the palace alive or dead?

“Those are serious accusations,” I said. “What is my father’s plan for the queen once she is back in his custody?”

“Olivia!” Gisele cried, but I continued to ignore her. I could not make it appear as though I were her ally, or I would lose any leverage I had with the soldiers.

“He spoke of a trial to produce proof of her wrongdoing,” Mackoby said.

I gave him my sternest look, one of the regal stares I have cultivated over the years. “If I allow you to take her now, will you swear that she will come to no harm in your custody?”

Mackoby looked insulted. “Princess! My orders are to return her to the palace with all speed. During our journey, I will defend her with my life.”

I pretended to deliberate. Behind me, I felt Harwin standing mutely, a strong, supportive presence. He certainly would understand that I was playing a role. He certainly would know that I was straining my wits to think of a way to save Gisele, not betray her. But those others inside the enchanted parlor—oh, I could tell they were all shocked and horrified by my sudden treachery.

“I will allow you to take her,” I said, “but I insist on accompanying you. All of us will come,” I added. “My betrothed and all my companions.” I let everyone in the hallway determine who they thought my betrothed might be. I was fairly certain not everyone guessed correctly.

Mackoby spoke stiffly. “We cannot breach the door. Magic blocks our way.”

“Darius will remove his spell,” I said, “once he is convinced the queen will suffer no harm at your hands.”

“I swear it,” Mackoby said, “and I offer surety for my men.”

I finally faced the parlor again, letting my gaze rest on each occupant in turn, trying to convey a silent message first to Gisele, then to Darius, then Dannette. I don’t know; maybe Harwin, behind me, was adding his own unspoken reassurance. But Gisele’s face smoothed out, and she nodded infinitesimally, and Darius let the golden screen evaporate. Mackoby stepped across the threshold and took the queen’s arm in a firm hold.

“We leave as soon as you are all ready to travel,” he said.

“We need no more than a few minutes,” I said.

So, as it happened, I did not spend even a single night at Kannerly. Not that I minded. I had learned everything I needed to know in the few short hours I had been on its tainted acres.

8 The Cruel Father

We made the journey back to the palace in half the time our outbound trip had taken. Mackoby had conjured a second carriage and a handsome team of horses from the Kannerly stables, so I traveled in comfort, if you discounted the high level of anxiety. Even Darius had been outfitted with another pair of horses, so that the wagon kept up with the rest of the party. Not that I was allowed to speak to Darius, or Dannette, or Gisele, or even Harwin. Mackoby didn’t trust me, and in order to keep us from plotting Gisele’s escape, he kept me segregated from everyone in my party.

Except Gisele’s maid. Who ever notices the servants?> She came to me every morning to help me dress and carried messages from me to Gisele and the others. We formulated a hasty and desperate plan, but none of us had any idea if it would work.

We arrived at the palace close to midnight on our third day of travel. I was kept locked inside my own carriage until Gisele had been escorted inside under heavy guard. When I tumbled out the door, I looked around wildly. Dannette and Darius were being ushered inside—by servants, not soldiers, so they were probably safe—and Harwin, still on horseback, was being crowded back toward the courtyard exit.

“Don’t leave me!” I called in a sudden panic.

He pulled on the reins to bring his horse around. “If they make me go, I will be back in the morning!” he shouted.

We had no more time to speak, for footmen were on either side of me, urging me toward the door. The minute I stepped inside, I let all pretense of cooperation fall away. “Take me to my father,” I said in my haughty-princess voice.

The steward, who had overseen this whole debarkation, said smoothly, “Princess, the hour is late, and the king is no doubt sleeping.”

“The king has no doubt been wakened with the news that his queen has been returned,” I said coldly.

“Take. Me. To. Him.”

The steward hesitated a moment, then bowed. “Highness,” he said, and led the way.

My father was indeed awake, wearing a gaudy purple dressing gown, drinking a glass of wine, and conferring with Sir Neville. The minute I stepped into the room, I asked a single bald question. “What are your plans for Gisele?”

He rose to his feet and eyed me with disfavor. I was reminded of the fact that he was a rather small man. Not nearly as tall as Harwin, for instance, and I myself was almost exactly his height. “I see you are back from your trip with your betrothed,” he said. “I trust you have grown well enough acquainted to consent to a hasty wedding.”

“Yes, I feel certain I will want to marry soon,” I said. “What are your plans for Gisele?”

“Why would you care?” he said. “You have never had any interest in her fate before.”

“I am always interested in the affairs of the kingdom, Father,” I said in an edged voice. “The soldiers said she will be tried for treason. I would like to see how such a trial is carried out.”

Sir Neville spoke up in his gruff voice. “Your father will convene three trusted lords to sit in while he reads off evidence of her crimes. If we agree that she has committed the acts she has been charged with, she will be convicted and punished.”

“Traitors are executed,” I said.

My father nodded. “They are. And she will be, if she is found guilty.”

So it was true. Gisele had not lied. He planned to kill her and then marry Sir Neville’s stupid, scheming daughter. It was not a surprise, but somehow the news caught me like a blow.

What good sense I had always shown by hating my father.

“I want to watch the trial,” I said.

My father looked annoyed, but shrugged impatiently. “Fine. We will meet in the morning. Sir Norbert and Sir Milton have agreed to be ready at such short notice.”

“I will bring my betrothed with me,” I said. “And his sister.”

My father flung his hands in the air. “Shall you invite the cooks and the grooms as well?”

“It’ll be like a damned fair,” Neville snorted.

I made a show of hesitating, and then I said in an uncertain tone, “We all traveled with her for the past week, you know. She said some things—they might be useful to you—all of us heard her.”

Now my father’s eyes sharpened. “Did she, the little bitch? Then, yes, you may bring them both, if they are willing to testify.”

I was not feeling civil enough to curtsy, but I did nod my head in acknowledgment. I could only imagine how unkempt my hair looked, how ratty and wrinkled my clothing. But I fancied I still managed to make the nod look stately. “We will join you in the morning.”

Smoky oil lamps and sputtering candelabra provided suitably gloomy lighting in the throne room the next day as we gathered for Gisele’s trial. My father sat on his engraved chair while Norbert, Neville, and Harwin’s father, Sir Milton, settled in more ordinary chairs beside him. Sir Milton was a big man, as brown as his son, and even more serious and less inclined to idle conversation. It was no surprise that he was frowning.

Gisele stood meekly before the four of them, plainly dressed, head bowed, silent; a heavily armed soldier was in place beside her. Darius, Dannette, Harwin, and I had been relegated to uncomfortable benches at a slight angle to the dais. My father hadn’t seemed to notice that I’d augmented my party by one. No one else was present, though two more soldiers watched the door.

It was clear my father wanted to get through this charade as quickly as possible. “Gisele, queen of Kallenore, you have been charged with crimes against the throne,” he rattled off. “If you are found guilty of them, you will be put to death.”

“I would hear the list of my sins, majesty,” Gisele said quietly.

My father consulted a piece of paper. “You stole jewelry cases filled with three diamond necklaces, a complete set of emeralds, a complete set of rubies, and a total of fifteen rings. You also ransacked the royal safe for three bags of gold and a bag of silver. In addition, you took a royal seal with which you could forge my orders. How do you plead?”

I came to my feet. “Guilty,” I said.

My father sent me an irascible look. “You—what? Sit down, Olivia. I’m speaking to the queen.”

“Gisele did not take the jewels and coins,” I said, looking at my feet and mumbling a little. “I did. I’ve never traveled from the palace without your protection before, and I was afraid. I thought if I had money, I could buy my way out of any trouble.”

The look on my father’s face was indescribable. Norbert said in a fair voice, “Well, she makes a good point. Money will make almost any problem go away.”

Neville peered at me in some uneasiness. “So you’re saying—you took the goods? Not the queen?”

“I swear it.”

Sir Milton was frowning again. “Then that accusation must be struck.”

My father looked ready to burst into flames, he was so angry. “There are other charges,” he bit out. He rustled the paper again. “You sent messages to the envoy from Amlertay and arranged to meet with him to share secrets about Kallenore defenses. You sent similar messages to the envoy from Newmirot.”

Still on my feet, I turned to give Darius a wide, wondering stare. “Darius,” I breathed. “You told me you were talking to those men about trade goods. Not state secrets.”

A very satisfying tumult ensued. Darius leapt up and cried, “We were discussing trade! Nothing more!” while Norbert and Neville and Milton all talked at once, very loudly. It took my father’s roar of “Silence! All of you!” before the room subsided into anything like quiet.

“It appears she is not guilty of this crime, either,” Norbert said, his round, red face puffing up with disapproval. “If she has done nothing truly heinous, I do not think—”

“Perhaps this will strike you as a significant enough betrayal,” my father snarled. “While she traveled with my daughter, she took a lover into her bed. Two inn-keepers will testify they saw a second person entering and leaving her room. She sought to bear a bastard to the throne—to make a cuckold of the king and disinherit his true daughter.”

“That’s very bad,” Neville said eagerly.

It was—extremely bad. Harwin had been the one who guessed what the first two charges would be, so we had crafted defenses that might be far-fetched, but difficult to disprove. But it had not occurred to any of us that Gisele would be cited for infidelity, a crime that had sent more than one queen to her death before this.

“Yes,” Harwin’s father intoned, “that is a serious and treasonable offense.”

Norbert added, “A grievous accusation.”

“And completely untrue.”

Everyone turned to gape at the person who had just spoken. Dannette, rising gracefully to her feet to stand between her brother and me. She continued. “It was I they saw coming and going from the queen’s chambers, for we indeed shared a bed upon the journey. You may ask my brother—my grandmother—anyone who is acquainted with me. Everyone knows that all my lovers have been women. The queen is only my latest paramour.”

Now everyone was staring. My father looked flummoxed, but Neville and Norbert appeared to be intrigued, in a nasty, lascivious way. Even Gisele had turned to give Dannette a sidelong look over her shoulder—and I swear the queen was wearing a small, private smile.

It occurred to me with a sort of blank shock that this might be the only defense of the day that was actually true.

Harwin’s father gave a dry chuckle. “Well, Reginald, if that’s your queen’s lover, you might not like it, but there’s no chance she’ll be bearing any bastard child,” he said. “It doesn’t look to me like any of these charges are going to stick.”

My father’s face was suffused with fury, and beside him Neville looked nearly as angry. Both of them saw their carefully laid plans going awry. “I am not satisfied by the refutations,” my father ground out. “I do not believe the queen was blameless, particularly in the matter of treating with foreign nations. I suspect some collusion with—with that scoundrel my daughter has decided to marry.” He leaned forward on his throne, his eyes narrowed to evil slits. “And if you have shared secrets with spies,” he said, “it is you who will be charged with treason and you who will be put to death.”

Darius looked alarmed. “Majesty! I beg you! Shall I bring you proof of my innocence? In my bags—back in my room—there are contracts, deeds of sale, descriptions of the most common wares. Let me go fetch them—”

He made as if to dash for the door, but Harwin caught him by the collar of his jacket and hauled him roughly back. “I knew you could not be trusted to marry the princess,” Harwin growled. “I knew you were a charlatan and an opportunist. I would be glad to see you hanged for treason.”

My father’s rage was starting to subside as he saw a chance of salvaging this disastrous morning. He even managed a very unpleasant smile. “Yes, and you will be hanged,” he said silkily, “if you do not recant your testimony.”

Harwin jerked on Darius’s coat, practically choking him. “Throw yourself at the king’s feet and plead for your life, you commoner,” he said contemptuously. He dragged Darius up to the stage, while Darius continued to bleat that he was innocent, he was blameless, he had intended the king no harm—

His smile growing, my father leaned down and took Darius’s chin in his hand. “Now tell me,” he purred. “Who exactly was meeting with the representatives of Amlertay and Newmirot? Was it you? Or was it the queen?”

Darius lifted both hands in an unthinking gesture of lèse-majesté, and wrapped them around the king’s wrist. “My liege—”

“Who deserves punishment?” my father whispered.

Darius whispered back, “You do.”

And when the brief gold flash of sorcery evaporated, Darius was holding on to the forepaw of a small, furry black dog.

There were screams. Shouts. Swords drawn, doors thrown open. Soldiers rushed in; servants dashed up and down the hallways. The little black dog snapped and howled and scurried from one end of the dais to the other, snapping some more. He was a nasty little cur, his teeth bared in a permanent snarl; if Darius had been close enough to bite, no doubt the dog would have chomped hard on the magician’s arm.

But Darius had used more of that magic to whisk himself out the door, and he was nowhere to be found.

We were left with an exonerated queen, a trio of flabbergasted councilors, and one elated princess.

And her betrothed.

Epilogue The Happy Ending

There were any number of loose ends to tie up, of course.

Milton and Norbert instantly had soldiers grab hold of Dannette, who showed no disposition to flee. Indeed, she offered to hold herself hostage to her brother’s eventual return.

“I will happily stay at the palace until my brother realizes the enormity of his crime,” she said. “I will be his living collateral.”

Perhaps only I noticed the smile that passed between her and Gisele as Dannette made this generous offer.

Harwin immediately displayed his practical nature. “We must find fitting accommodations for the king as long as he is in this incarnation,” he said as he and the councilors gathered to discuss a plan of action. “For surely the kennels will not do.”

“Won’t they?” I murmured, loud enough for only him to hear.

“And then we must proceed with a provisional installation of the princess,” Harwin added. “She must govern the kingdom until her father is restored to his proper state.”

“I will assume my duties with a heavy heart,” I said,

“but indeed, I must assume them before the day is out.”

Neville still looked stunned at the turn of events that had dashed all his hopes, but Norbert and Milton appeared quite willing to see me on the throne, at least for the time being.

“But who will the princess marry now?” Norbert said with a frown. “That fellow won the competition!”

“I will have to make do with the only other man who passed the tests my father devised so carefully to ensure my happiness,” I said soulfully. “Sir Harwin will be my husband. Very soon.”

Harwin’s father did not look in the least displeased. “Not a bad day’s work, then,” he said, earning a glare from Neville and a smile from Norbert.

“Not a bad day at all,” Norbert echoed.

I didn’t say so aloud, but I heartily agreed.

I was very busy, of course, in the intervening hours, but after lunch I did have time to slip away to the gardens, where Darius was awaiting me by prearrangement. Laughing, I ran up and flung myself into his arms.

“You were brilliant!” I exclaimed. “Magnificent! I cannot believe we were able to pull it off!”

He swung me around in one full circle, then set me on my feet. “And Gisele is safe?” he asked urgently. “And Dannette?”

“The councilors have apologized to Gisele and she is totally restored to her former position,” I said. “I have noted very solemnly that I will rely on her for guidance in the days ahead, and she has replied solemnly in turn that she will do anything she can to aid me. Dannette expressed great chagrin to learn her brother is such a rogue and she has offered to do whatever it takes to make up for your crime. I believe Norbert plans to have her confined to the palace, at least for the time being, but she seems to be quite pleased at her sentence.”

“Dannette never did like roving as much as I did,” Darius replied. “A settled home and a familiar hearth constitute her idea of bliss, whereas I find the very notion of staying in one place for more than a day or two—” He shivered and did not complete his sentence.

“The very notion sounds like death to you,” I said calmly. “Which is why I cannot marry you, much as I adore you.”

He peered at me anxiously. “I cannot marry anyone,” he admitted. “But I feel dreadful about it. I know I have let you down.”

“I’m going to marry Harwin,” I said. “The thought makes me quite happy, actually.”

Now he looked relieved. “He’s a very good fellow,” he said. “No one I would rather see you with! But it seems a little unfair. I won the competitions, after all, but I don’t get to marry the princess. I never even got a chance to kiss her.”

I tilted my face up. “There’s one last opportunity.”

He didn’t need to be invited twice, and he laid a most enthusiastic kiss upon my mouth. “Oh, now,” he said, lifting his head and giving me a devilish smile, “I liked that so much I might want to stay another day.”

I laughed and pushed him in the chest. “No, you must go before someone finds you. But you must come back, you know—in disguise, perhaps, but as often as you can bear it.”

“I will,” he promised. “And whenever I return, you will have to let me know if it is time to change your father back to a man.”

“Well, I will,” I said, “but I don’t think that day will come soon.”

Hekissedmeagain,touchedafingertomycheek,and spun away into a golden sparkle. When my eyes cleared, he was gone, and not even his shadow remained.

I sighed a moment, remembering his blond curls, his happy air, his good heart. And then I shook my head and remembered my true fiancé, with his steady soul, his deep affection, and a very good heart of his own.

We would be married soon—by week’s end, if I had my way, and I always did. But before then, there was so much else to take care of! I must settle my father in his new quarters, make sure Dannette was comfortably situated, confer with Gisele, meet with my advisors, and write a proclamation for my subjects. And there would be much to do after the wedding as well—learning about trades and tariffs, outlawing the ownership of fighting dogs, changing the laws of inheritance, and generally becoming the very best monarch I could be. Oh, and doing everything in my power to secure a lifetime of happiness—for me and for everyone I cared about.

And if I didn’t achieve that final goal, it damn well wouldn’t be for lack of trying.