Page 5 of Twin Crowns

Wren stuck her tongue out. “I hope she gives you hell.”

“Good luck, Wren. I’ll see you on the throne.” Shen winked as he dropped into darkness, leaving only the echo of his words behind.

Wren jolted into action then, gathering the rope and burying it under a stack of linens in the bedside table. She slipped out of her climbing clothes, balled up her muddy trousers and loose shirt, and stuffed them under the bed. She stowed her dagger underneath her pillow.

She found a blue nightgown in a chest of drawers and shrugged it on, reveling in the slip of silk against her skin. It was a little big around her middle and the straps were loose on her narrow shoulders, but it was clean and luxuriously soft.

Wren smirked. When the moon was full again in a month’s time, she would have her fill of luxury. All she had to do was make it, undetected, to her eighteenth birthday—the day of Rose’s long-awaited coronation. And then she would be Queen: the sole ruler of the island nation of Eana. Free to tear it down and rebuild it exactly as she liked.

Exactly as it once was.

When she became Queen, Wren would finally be able to take revenge on the Kingsbreath, the man whose frenzied devotion to the Protector had led to the murder of her own parents eighteen years ago. Even just the sight of Willem Rathborne in the rose garden earlier had made Wren’s fingers itch. But she had learned to be patient. First she would get the crown and then she would have her revenge.

She settled herself at Rose’s dressing table, riffling through endless jars of scented oils and pots of pungent creams. So many perfumes for one princess! Wren unraveled her braid in the mirror, her eyes shining like emeralds in the dark. Her lips were chapped, her skin speckled with desert-borne freckles, and her hair was a bird’s nest on top of her head.

“Hmm,” she murmured. “Not quite a princess.”

She retrieved a pinch of sand from her drawstring pouch, closed her eyes, and conjured an image of Rose in the center of her mind. She raised her arm and offered her spell into the silence.“From earth to dust, with poise and grace, please help me wear my sister’s face.”

The sand disappeared before it touched the crown of her head. Wren reveled in the feather-light touch of her magic, the gentle prickling underneath her skin. She watched her cheeks glow, her suntanned skin shedding its freckles for a light rosy blush. Her hair thickened, the darkening locks growing long and luscious until they reached her waist.

She smirked at the mirror. “Hello, Princess.”

Wren turned her hands over, deciding to keep her rough calluses.They reminded her of the wind-battered cliffs of Ortha and the witches perched along its spine, waiting for a new world. The world Wren’s grandmother had promised them. As if summoned by thoughts of Banba, a rogue gust of wind slipped inside and knocked a perfume bottle over. Wren yelped.

There was a sharp knock at the door and then the gruff voice of a palace guard. “Everything all right in there, Princess Rose?”

Wren swore under her breath. “Perfectly fine, thank you,” she called back, praying her voice sounded like her sister’s. “That pesky wind! I was just getting some fresh air.”

She rushed to slam the window shut, her eyes pinned to the door handle across the room. Silence, then. And with it came the slow trickle of relief. Wren sagged against the glass.

“I can do this,” she reminded herself. “I wasbornto do this.”

Wren had spent her whole life preparing for the switch. Under the watchful guidance of her grandmother, she had honed her magic on the beaches of Ortha until she could fire off quick-tongued enchantments like arrows. She had wiled away long hours with Shen practicing stealth and self-defense, learning when to strike and when to be silent. Thea, Banba’s wife, had instructed Wren in royal etiquette. Wren was no princess, but she had learned how to act like one. How to hold her tongue and trap her swear words, smile demurely and skip gaily, as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

After all, how hard could it be, to play a girl who had never known life outside these palace walls?

Wren flung herself onto the four-poster bed, landing facedown likea starfish. She burrowed between the pillows, sinking into the warmth her sister had left behind. She might have felt strange about it if her blood wasn’t buzzing with the success of the switch. She hoped Shen had made it out safely, that the spirit of Ortha Starcrest would guide him safely home to the cliffside haven the witches had named in her honor.

Wren turned onto her side and slipped her hand underneath her pillow. The dagger was cool to touch, a comfort in this foreign place. With it close at hand, sleep came swiftly. She drifted into darkness, leaving all thought of home behind her.

In the morning, she would be Rose Valhart, heir to the throne of Eana.

Sweet and pure and dangerous.

4

Rose

Rose had never heard the sound of the Restless Sands. She’d never even been outside the capital city of Eshlinn. On the rare occasions she did venture beyond the golden gates of Anadawn Palace, it was always in the company of a chaperone, with a slew of palace guards following close behind.

But the princess often dreamed of places in Eana she’d never been. “I am Eana; Eana is me,” she would whisper before bed, her thoughts turning to the far-flung lands in her kingdom. At night, she imagined herself wandering along the white-sand shores of Wishbone Bay, galloping through the verdant plains of the Errinwilde, or exploring the bustling marketplaces in the south, where the stalls were brimming with decadently seasoned meat and brightly colored spices. Rose dreamed of the rolling Ganyeve Desert, too, and the sun floating like a gold coin above it, but the legendary hum of its sands had never been so clear before.

In this dream, it felt as if they were calling out to her, coaxing her awake.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see the white walls of her bedchamber. Instead, she glimpsed an amber sun rising over the Ganyeveand heard the song of its sands ringing in her ears.

All at once, she was struck by other things. Her lips were dry, and her throat was parched. There was sand in her mouth, grains mottled to the sides of her face. She blinked furiously. She must still be dreaming. How else could she explain waking up in the desert, half slumped on a horse...?

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