Page 3 of Twin Crowns

They were standing under his statue, after all, the marble gaze of Rose’s noble ancestor silently watching over the palace. Watching over her. Privately, Rose had always found the sculpture a bit overbearing. It blocked the light in her garden, and the roses in its shadow never grew as tall as the others, but she would rather have it close by than not have it at all. It reminded her that she was blessed, that—

“Come. Now.” Willem curled his fingers around her wrist. “I’ll have flowers sent to your room.”

Rose wilted as she trailed after him, away from the heady evening air and all thoughts of romance and adventure and into the reaching shadows of the palace.

When I am Queen, everything will be better, she promised herself as she climbed the stairs in her tower, winding around and around and around.I will dance all night if I want to, and no one will tell me what to do.

She smiled at the guard in the stairwell as she pushed open the door to her bedroom. It was only when she glimpsed the blood on the doorknob that she realized she had pricked her fingers on the thorns.

3

Wren

The sky above the white palace was starless, and Wren was ill at ease. It was well past midnight, and the wind was biting. She drew her cloak tighter. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” came Shen’s whisper from the dark. “We’re about to break into the palace.”

Wren cast her friend a withering look. “I meangenerally, Shen.”

“This is the easy part,” he reminded her. They had already scaled the south wall and spelled two palace guards into sleep on their patrol. It was only the east tower before them now, rising like a snaggletooth in the dark. “It’s just hand over hand. Foot over foot.”

“Gravity might not concern you, Shen Lo, but the rest of us have to play by its rules.”

Shen’s smirk glinted in the moonlight. “Go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Will you catch me if I fall?”

“No, but I’ll wave at you on your way down.”

“Ever the gentleman.” Wren pressed her palms against the stone. There were subtle grooves in the paving, just enough that she could digher calloused fingers into the crannies and drag herself up. She kept her body flush against the tower, her cloak spilling out behind her until the clasp pressed against her throat.

“Focus now, my little Wren,”echoed her grandmother’s voice in her head.“Once inside the palace gates, there can be no room for error.”

Wren’s breath made filmy clouds in the air, her drawstring pouch tapping softly against her hip as if to remind her it was there. Soon, sweat dripped down her face and pooled under the collar of her shirt. Her fingers began to ache, the muscles in her legs screaming as she scrabbled up the tower like a beetle. Hand over hand, foot over foot.

Behind her, Shen moved like a shadow in the dark.

The tower window edged into view. It peered out over the Silvertongue River like a glassy eye. The latch was open, an inch cracked to welcome a slip of cool air, and tonight, the bandits who came with it.

Wren lunged for the clasp. The window swung open in a keeningcreak!as she hauled herself onto the narrow ledge. She fought the urge to smirk over her shoulder at Shen as she slipped quietly into the room. Gravity be damned.

Moonlight crept in after her, fracturing across the bedroom in pearly shards.

Wren freed the dagger from her boot and kept one hand on her drawstring pouch, readying herself for the palace guard she suspected was stationed in the stairwell outside. When the silence swelled, she let herself relax. The bedroom was grander than she expected. Fringed tapestries hung on ivory walls and gilded wardrobes loomed like specters in the dimness. The carpet swallowed her footsteps as she snooped around.

She caught sight of her own ghostly reflection in a mirror and nearly jumped out of her skin. Her braid was coming undone, the runaway strands frizzing around her face, where stubborn smudges of dirt and sand had accumulated over the last two days. She looked as if she had been dragged through the desert backward, then dipped inside a swamp.

A vase of fresh roses perfumed the room with a sickly sweetness. Wren wrinkled her nose.Ugh.The cloying scent was a far cry from the wild heather of Ortha and the familiar tang of seaweed rolling off the ocean.

The sudden rustle of silk drew her to the four-poster bed in the middle of the room. The canopy shifted like mist in the breeze, revealing the Crown Princess of Eana.

Princess Rose Valhart was as pretty as a painting, and as still and gentle as a cat in slumber.

“Danger is a faraway thought to Rose,”said Wren’s grandmother’s voice in her head.“She will never see you coming.”

Wren peered over the sleeping princess, ignoring the furious thudding in her chest. The pull toward her was even stronger now, like a fist closing around her heart. “Hello, sister,” she whispered. “At last we meet.”

Rose was smiling in her sleep. Her chestnut-brown hair spilled out around her in a halo. In the moonlight, her pale skin was glowing, the apples of her cheeks absent of freckles. Though their faces were identical, it was clear that Rose had never glimpsed the searing desert sun nor known the icy whip of a sea wind.

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