Page 9 of The Queen's Line

She gathered her skirt in her hands, and Cosmo and I hurried to help lift her from the bed.

"You're going to…to do something now?" Thao asked, stepping forward. I didn't understand why the Mennary prince looked so nervous. I'd noticed it as soon as I'd entered the waiting room, after seeing the princess for the first time, and it had yet to abate.

"I'm going to go and…think. Make a decision," Bryony said softly, smoothing her silks. She couldn't meet our eyes, and I wished I was the kind of man who might insist on joining her, reassuring her more. But she probably didn't want a stablehand as a witness to her worries.

"We could make a show of it," Wendell offered, glancing at the rest of us. "You wouldn't even need to be in the room if you weren't comfortable. If they're going to look at your sheets—"

Bryony's nose was scrunched as she shook her head. "I don't want to lie, especially not if that's what the queen's line has been doing this whole time. You may—" Her voice wobbled and she pushed away from the bed, heading toward the private door on the far end of the room. "You may do as you please. I'll be back before the morning. Just don't let anyone else in, and try not to tell them anything until I've made a decision."

Her dress swished with every quick step away from us, candlelight rocking up the walls as she passed and all but ran through the doors, locking it shut behind her. Gone. The princess was gone, and my dream of being a Chosen was burst like a bubble. My eyes slit and turned to Aric Martin, his own gaze fixed on the locked doors that hid the princess.

"You could've been kinder to her," I said.

He blinked but didn't bother turning to me. "I could have. Maybe she needed to hear the truth."

"What does this mean for her? Pope, you'd know best," Cosmo said.

Wendell Pope, who was tall and handsome and practically glued to the prince's side as they whispered to each other in a rapid foreign tongue, whipped his head up and looked between the far doors and Cosmo.

"I wouldn't," he said, but when we all remained staring at him, he frowned. "She may…she may have to abdicate the throne. Or she may be able to convince the crown to give up the notion of the Hunger."

Aric scoffed at that suggestion. "The Hunger has reigned in this kingdom for hundreds of years, excusing the royals from any responsibility to their people."

"And now you have a princess who does not possess it," Thao spat back. "If it exists at all."

Aric and Cosmo frowned at one another, and I glared at them both. "What? What does that look mean?" I asked.

"We were both…present for Camellia's second choosing. She…" Cosmo trailed off, and Aric continued.

"She's a beast possessed, is what she is. Either by the Hunger or her own whims, who knows. But if the queen wants to keep the Hunger, she has the perfect daughter in the younger of the two. Pope is right. They'll toss that little flower right out onto the doorstep to greet her starving people," Aric finished, his eyes drifting back to the closed door, a line furrowing on his brow.

4

Bryony

You failed.

You failed at the Hunger, which might as well be made up.

Kimmery is failing its people.

Can I be as I am and do any better for the kingdom?

Around and around the thoughts turned. I was curled in the window seat of my personal study, staring down at the rose gardens in full bloom, the fountains bubbling under moonlight, until the moon was sliding behind my grandmother's turret and the sun was turning the water pink with dawn. And I had made no real decision, only worn my lip bruised with worrying. At the very edge of the horizon, the Coraletti Sea was a shimmering line. I'd never wondered why the castle seemed to face south, but now I understood, all our faults lay in the other direction. Who carried the cost of my favorite view? Were my people really suffering as they said, or was that only what my grandmother would call a commoner's right to unrest?

My eyes strayed to my bedroom door, and I wondered what the men I'd left there had done. Was it too late to ask them to fake some kind of debauchery? Could I just carry on pretending like I had for most of my life? Could I ask those men to give up their lives for that kind of charade?

Knock knock knock.

I startled on the bench at the alert and my tired eyes widened.

"Princess, it is—it is Thao," the soft voice whispered through the door. "May we speak?"

My legs were stiff as I unfolded them, stretching up from my nest of pillows and cool window panes, heading for the door. I ran my fingers across the pale velvet of my settee, a reassuring touch to ground myself before reaching the door and turning the key in the lock. I opened it, and my eyes trailed past Thao and into the room. Aric Martin was asleep on the chaise, hunched under his own coat with his back to me. In my bed, Owen and Cosmo lay sleeping, sprawled out in the sheets, mismatched curls over their faces.

Wendell Pope was awake and hovering by Thao's side, the pair of them looking as restless as I was.

"I haven't really made a decision," I admitted.

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