Page 10 of Twin Crowns

“Your bath’s a-bubbling, Princess!” Agnes grinned at her around the doorframe. “I’ll fetch your breakfast while you bathe. Any special requests this morning?”

“Oh... just the usual!”

Wren waited for Agnes to leave before flinging her nightgown off and sinking into the tub. She groaned with pleasure. The water was soft and soapy and deliciously warm—a far cry from the salty bite of the ocean. If this was what it took to be Princess Rose every morning, then Wren could certainly get used to it. After she had popped every bubble and soaked until her fingers crinkled, she donned a silk robe and emerged to find a feast waiting for her in her bedroom. She chuckled to herself.

Thiswas Rose’s usual?

Her sister certainly had taste. Not to mention an appetite.

There were ornate bowls of blueberries and raspberries, grapes still on the vine, and pomegranates bursting with so much flavor, Wrendevoured them by the fistful. Next, a plate of thickly sliced rye bread, warmed and slathered with butter and accompanied by fresh marmalade and honey to drizzle. There was freshly squeezed orange juice and a thimble of dark coffee so strong, Wren could feel it racing through her bloodstream.

After breakfast, when she was feeling fit to burst, Wren flung the window open, welcoming the morning breeze. It was late spring, and the flowers were in full bloom in the capital city of Eshlinn. The trees beyond the palace walls swayed lazily in the morning sun. Outside in the courtyard, upon an emerald-green flag a golden hawk spread its wings in flight. The Eana crest was rippling valiantly.

Centuries ago, long before Wren was born and the kingdom had been stolen from the witches, there had been a woman riding that hawk. But the crest, like so much else in Eana, had been changed by the Protector. It was a place that still worshipped him, the first in a long line of mortal Valhart rulers. The Protector’s mission to rid the land of witches had recently been reinvigorated by the scheming Kingsbreath, a man whose days were numbered.

But first, Wren had bigger things to worry about.

She sat at the vanity to renew her enchantment. Another pinch of Ortha sand and some carefully chosen words would assure Rose’s appearance for the rest of the day. Of the five branches of witchcraft, enchanters alone needed earth to trade for their spells. It was a tricky craft, so Wren used rhymes to guide her enchantments. But she knew with enough practice, one day she wouldn’t need words anymore. Just her thoughts.

Healers, like Thea, used their own energy for their craft. Warriors,like Shen, were born light-footed and charged by the sun. Tempests, like Banba, weaved their storms from a strand of wind and cast infernos from a single spark of lightning, and Seers turned to the night sky for their visions—an open space to watch the starcrest birds cast patterns of the future among the stars—though that craft was so rare, Wren had never even met a seer in person.

Wren was a gifted enchanter, but she had spent much of her childhood longing to be a tempest like Banba. Over time, she had learned to do the best she could with her craft. To accept it, not just as who she was but where she had come from.

After all, Wren’s mother had been an enchanter. Wren had grown up hearing stories of Lillith Greenrock, a lowly palace gardener who had wandered into the king’s rose garden one day, and soon after that, into his heart. And though her mother had died for who she was in this cold and hostile place, Wren was glad to have the same gift inside her. To have any magic at all.

Princess Rose, on the other hand, was no witch. She had inherited nothing from Lillith but her green eyes and her meek temperament. Or at least that was how Wren had always imagined her sister to be. How could she be anything other when she had grown up coddled in her precious tower? With servants to bathe her and footmen to dispose of her spiders! There was certainly nothing meek about Wren. She was a storm brewed by Banba, and when the crown of Eana sat upon her head, she would cast out the memory of the wretched Protector and all those who worshipped him.

Mindful of the time, Wren crossed the room and flung open her sister’s wardrobe. Living along the Whisperwind Cliffs made dressesan impracticality at best and a death trap at worst, but now... riffling through some of the finest gowns in all of Eana, she was seized by the giddy exhilaration of a child playing dress-up.

She chose a dress of cornflower-blue silk, the bodice delicately embroidered with white flowers—just in time for Agnes’s return. The old woman nattered away as she helped Wren get dressed, and though Wren was surprised to find her sister had fostered such friendliness with her maidservant, she couldn’t concentrate on a single word of their conversation. Just the desperate wheeze of her breath as the laces cinched her waist tighter and tighter. Did her sister put herself through this fresh hell everysingleday? When she was Queen, Wren would have to introduce the long-suffering noblewomen of Eana to the simple wonder of trousers.

The second Agnes left, Wren tucked her dagger into her corset—just in case—and then set about draping herself in jewelry. Rose had enough bracelets to launch a fleet of ships to the southern continent and purchase another orchard with the leftovers. It was absurd! If Wren ever dared wear any of it in Ortha, a magpie would come and carry her away.

When she spied a majestic gold crown, Wren let out a gasp of delight. It sat on its own plinth in a glass case at the very top of Rose’s armoire and took her four attempts and a stool to lift it down from its perch. It was a beast of a thing, heavy and shining and inlaid, with an intricate row of emeralds. Green and gold—the colors of Eana.

Wren tried the crown on, grinning at herself in the mirror. Every part of her was sparkling, as though she were lit from within by a star. “I truly am the jewel of my kingdom,” she crooned.

She swished her skirts back and forth.Swish, swish.

“The beating heart of Eana.”

Swish, swish.

“And I may wear whatever I please.”

Swish, swish.

“For that is what pretty little princesses do.”

“Good grief, Princess Rose! What in the name of the Great and Noble Protector are youdoing?”

Wren froze mid-swish. Her stomach lurched as Rathborne’s face flashed through her mind. But...no. It wasn’t him. In the mirror, she could see a short, scowling man standing behind her. He wore a burgundy frock coat that dwarfed his slight frame, his generous swoop of dark hair perfectly matching his finely groomed mustache. He was clutching a parchment scroll to his chest and staring at her with an expression of such abject horror, he looked like an oil painting.

She knew him at once—Chapman. Willem Rathborne’s scurrying assistant: his eyes and ears in the palace.

Wren turned on the heel of her shoe, ignoring the violent flush crawling up her neck. “Good morning, Chapman,” she said brightly. “I was just... taking inventory of my many,manyjewels.”

Chapman waved his hands in a panic. “Put that away! The royal coronation crown of Eana isnota dress-up toy.”

---