Page 18 of The Abandoned Princess

The young man gazed around the clearing with keen interest, his gaze skirting over the tower in a way that had become familiar. He couldn’t see me.

“You’re sure she’s here?” the man asked Charli, his deep voice pleasant although the slight accent was unfamiliar.

Charli laughed, looking up at him with a slightly dazed expression that I recognized. I used to wear it myself whenever I looked at Gabe, the Talinosian prince who had spent years as a ward of my family. I had been a child during his stay, so he had always regarded me in the light of a young sister, but that hadn’t stopped my crush. I had outgrown it years before my imprisonment in the tower and had been delighted when he married Addie, the nicest of the royals his own age. But I remembered the feeling well enough to recognize it on Charli’s face. I only hoped he hadn’t goaded her into bringing him here just so he could mock her.

“Of course she’s here,” Charli said. “She’s always here. She’s stuck in a tower, remember?”

“And you can see this tower?”

I tensed, but the man sounded intrigued rather than mocking.

Charli nodded. “It’s right there.” She pointed straight at me. “It’s made of stone and has a large window up the top facing in this direction. There are no doors, though, and no stairs.”

He followed her pointing finger, his eyes looking right at me, although his gaze remained unfocused.

“And she’s there, in the window? Did she come when you called?”

Charli looked at me and nodded. “Daisy, this is Prince Xander of Kuralan. The tour arrived in the village this evening, and he was accompanying them. He started asking around about the girl in the tower immediately, and everyone told him I’m the oldest of the children who still believe. So he asked me to bring him here. He wouldn’t even wait for daylight tomorrow.”

“I traveled a long way to get here.” He grinned. “I don’t like waiting, and I won’t be hurt by a little darkness.”

“Kuralan?” I asked, preoccupied by the beginning of her introduction. “What’s that? It’s not one of the Four Kingdoms.”

The name sounded familiar, though, as if it was an old companion I had merely forgotten for a moment.

“Oh wait!” I cried before Charli could answer. It was a name from my dreams, although I had heard it once in real life as well. “Isn’t that one of the new kingdoms? The ones Cassie discovered across the desert?”

I stared down at the supposed prince with even greater interest. Had he really come from across the vast desert that bordered all the maps of these lands? How had no one known there were kingdoms on the other side of the sand?

“She wants to know where Kuralan is,” Charli diligently repeated. “She’s asking if it’s one of the new kingdoms Cassie discovered across the desert.” She paused and looked back at me. “Who’s Cassie?”

“I think she means Princess Cassandra of Ardasira,” the prince said.

“Cassie really is a princess now?” I gasped, remembering the elaborate wedding I had dreamed up for her, the one where she had married a handsome prince.

Charli opened her mouth to repeat my question, and I called for her to stop.

“Never mind, don’t tell him I said that.”

She obediently subsided, looking confused, while I bit my lip and stared down at the young man in my clearing. Revealing my connection with Giselle’s delegation might give away my identity. My astonishment at the situation had nearly overpowered my good sense.

But should I be hiding who I was? Five years ago, his family and mine hadn’t even known each other existed, but if he was really a royal, they might have established dealings in my absence. He might have connections to all the kingdoms. If he knew that Princess Margaret was missing, might he have come here to see if the children’s claims were true and I was the missing princess?

Fresh excitement gripped me.

“Wait there! I’m coming down!” I dove back inside and snatched up the dresses that were conveniently still lying across my bed, pulling the blankets and sheets up with them.

“You’re coming down?” Charli called up. “Right now? In the dark? You never come down in the dark.”

“It’s not that dark,” I shouted back, not bothering to return to the window.

My fingers moved feverishly as I secured knots, tugging and re-tugging them to check they were holding firm. Despite my excitement, I knew better than to make a sloppy chain. If a knot failed too high up, I would have to send Charli back for a grappling hook and rope before I’d manage to get back inside. Something I knew from bitter experience.

“What do you mean she’s coming down?” the prince asked, still appearing to accept Charli’s claims of my existence without a second thought. “I thought she was trapped in the tower.”

I snorted as I imagined Charli’s eye roll.

“We may be children, but we’re not useless,” I heard her say. “And Daisy herself isn’t a child. She’s been in there for five years. Do you really think we couldn’t find a way for her to climb down in all that time?”

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