Page 9 of Twin Crowns

And Shen Lo.

He smirked. “I was born in this desert and have ridden through it many times, Princess. I know it like the back of my hand.”

Rose appraised the bandit with new eyes. She had always been taught it was impossible to cross the desert, and yet, here stood this insufferable boy—barely older than her—claiming he’d done it.Many times.And more impossible still—that he was doing itnow. With her.

Her surprise gave way to wariness. “What do you want with me, Shen Lo?”

Shen locked eyes with her, staring at her brazenly in a way thatnobody had ever dared to before. “Nothing.”

Rose frowned. “I don’t understand....”

“Understand this,” he said. “I promise I won’t hurt you. Can you try to trust me?”

She swallowed thickly, cursing her still-trembling limbs. If she didn’t go with him now, she would die in this desert. She had to stay alive until she could escape. “Very well. But only for now.”

“Now is enough.” Shen knelt in the sand and offered his leg as a step.

She sashayed past him. “Oh, please. I know how to get on a horse,” she said as she vaulted herself onto the horse’s back. She landed neatly, leaning forward and stroking Storm between the ears.

Shen leaped up behind her. “Isn’t it easier when we get along?”

His breath tickled the back of her neck. Rose’s spine stiffened. In that moment, she made a vow to herself. She would survive this kidnapping, and when she was back on her throne, whenshehad the power again, she would make the bandit pay for this.

Shen wrapped an arm around her waist. “Hold on, Princess,” he said as they took off across the Restless Sands.

5

Wren

Long after sunrise, Wren woke to the sound of knocking. She bolted upright in bed and wiped the drool from her chin. Usually, the dawn gulls would be wailing through her creaking walls by now, the children of Ortha knocking on her door, seeking her nose for adventure. But the skies above Anadawn were silent, and somehow she had overslept.Rotting carp!

Sunlight flooded the room with syrupy warmth as she leaped out of bed. Wren stole a glance at herself in the mirror to make sure her enchantment from the previous night had held, just as a round-faced woman with a frizz of gray hair swept inside rump first. She was cradling a large copper jug. “Morning, Princess Rose,” she said, blue eyes twinkling. “Not like you to sleep so late. Must have been a pleasant dream?”

Showtime.

Wren tossed her hair back and cleared her throat. “Oh, themostpleasant,” she crowed. “I dreamed I was galloping on a wild black horse across the Restless Sands!”

The old woman blinked at her, and Wren’s heartbeat slowed inher chest. An age seemed to pass, her fate balancing on the edge of a knife, and then the maidservant threw her head back and released a wheezy laugh.

“Oh, mercy! Sounds like a nightmare to me. That sun would bake me alive!” She chuckled to herself as she bustled across the bedroom and disappeared through a narrow archway, into an adjacent bathing chamber. “I’ll have your bath ready in two ticks, love.”

Triumph flooded Wren, and she giggled like a carefree princess. “Howwonderful. Thank you—” She froze midsentence. Her name. What was her bloody name? She had it parceled away, but her mind was still foggy from sleep.Think!She had learned all of them by heart before coming here—the names and descriptions of Rose’s inner circle, the people Wren would have to fool to get to her coronation—reciting them to her grandmother five times a night. Sometimes more.Celeste? No. Cam? That’s the cook. Oh! It’s...“AGNES!”

Agnes ducked her head around the archway. “What’s happened, Princess? Is it another river spider?” She scanned the floor frantically. “A woodroach? I’ll call down to Emory.”

Wren cleared her throat. “I... oh. No. No, everything is fine. I was just saying thank you.”

And I hardly need a man to rescue me from a harmless critter.

Agnes’s face said differently. She sighed with relief, before returning to drawing Wren’s bath. Wren seized the moment to stash her dagger from where it was peeking out from beneath her pillow.

Her grandmother scowled at Wren in her head.“A careless witch is a dead witch.”

When Wren was a little girl in Ortha, she would swim every daywith another young witch called Lia. She was an enchanter, too. Lia loved the sea so much, Wren had to drag her back to shore in time for lunch most days. But one morning, when Wren was still asleep, Lia used a spell to carve gills into her neck and turn herself into a merrow. She swam deep into the belly of the ocean and got so caught up in the thrill of swimming like a fish that she forgot to return to the surface and renew her spell. When her bloated body finally washed up on the shore, Banba left it there to bake for three days and three nights as a warning to the other young witches.

“A careless witch is a dead witch.”

Wren would never forget that.

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