Page 13 of The Kingdom's Crown

We hadn't announced our journey south or informed any of the villages we'd passed through of our coming, but the word seemed to travel and there was usually a small crowd watching us as we passed through.

"We could take lunch in one of the—"

"No! Three shops, that's it."

Aric smirked and winked at me.

The villagers were trickling out of their doors as we reached the edge of the main road, where houses grew closer and shops with bright windows crowded together. I smiled and waved as I would've done from a carriage with my mother when she was in the mood for an excursion. The gazes staring back at me were cheerful and curious, none of that slow judgment I'd received in the north. These people were already happy, satisfied with my role above them, tickled by my passing by their homes and businesses.

I slowed Crescent as we neared one business, a bookshop with bryony vines climbing over the brick, framing the foggy dusty windows with white flowers.

"Here please," I called to Cresswell, ignoring the delicate gasps of the crowd as I jumped down from my saddle, straightening my skirts as my Chosen trickled out of the carriage and off their horses to surround me.

"A bookshop, princess?" Aric asked.

"I've never been in one," I said, shrugging.

Aric frowned briefly and then jumped ahead to push the door open for me, smiling as my eyes brightened at the scent of ink, parchment, leather, and glue spilling out to the street. I could stall returning to the capital for another hour.

One hour became two as I lost time browsing the spines of new and familiar books, forgetting about the faces still peering through the glass. Owen talked Cress into sending one of the other guards to a bakery for hand pies, and by the time we left the village, I was too deep in a new story to remember any anger or anxiety.

* * *

The dinof cheering faded as the trellis gates to the castle were pushed shut, my own eyes closing against the vision in front of me. The pale peach brick glowed brightly, hundreds of windows glittering with candlelight, carefully manicured flowering vines twining up the corners of the castle.

"It will be all right, Mistress," Owen murmured, drawing me back from the window to lean against his chest.

"Strange to think of the last time we were here," Cosmo said, still watching our approach to the castle. "Daniel, were you at the choosing?"

"I arrived late, somewhat intentionally," Daniel added sheepishly, shrugging at me. "I was in the line on the stairs when we were finally dismissed."

Thao and Wendell were riding, so it was only the four of us in the slow-moving carriage. I rested, trying to find peace in their aimless conversation, wishing it could drown out the torrent of thoughts in my head.

Camellia had wanted Sam to kill me. She had tried to force herself on Owen. My grandmother was dying, seemingly all of a sudden. My mother had confidence in me, but also in the Council, and probably Camellia, and possibly anyone who asked it of her.

"I don't even know where we'll be sleeping tonight," I said sitting up, blinking at Cosmo's frown. "A princess with Chosen usually receives a new suite."

"We'll be sleeping together, just as you like it," Owen said.

"That exactly, even if we're in a terrible pile on top of one another," Cosmo said, his expression softening.

I was more afraid that my men would be given their own rooms surrounding mine and they might find themselves gradually drifting away with the afforded space. Wouldn't it be more pleasant for them to be able to sleep without a half dozen other men surrounding them?

You don't mind it, why should they?I thought, and I smiled just as the carriage slowed to a stop.

An unfamiliar footman opened the carriage door, but Cresswell appeared behind him a moment later, watching with sharp focus as I was handed down. There were a great number of castle officials I knew vaguely all waiting around our party of travelers, and I wondered if I imagined the way they counted the men around me, their gazes assessing as I moved to Cresswell and took his arm. It wasn't the usual place for a princess and her guard to stand together, but Cresswell was more than that and I wanted it known from the start.

"Welcome home, Your Highness." It was Lady Amelia Goddard, my mother's lady-in-waiting, and she was falling into a deep curtsy, her dark head bowing and the others in front of us quick to follow suit.

Was this still home? It didn't feel like it.

"Your mother is waiting to receive you in the great hall," Amelia said, rising. She was older than my mother and very quiet, more severe than I would've expected my mother to favor in her company, but she followed like a shadow. Unlike some of the women in the castle, I had never once caught her staring longingly at any Chosen, or indeed any man. "And if I might introduce Miss Ophelia Goddard, my niece. You should've taken your own ladies with you to the north, but there was such a great rush. It is your mother's greatest hope that Ophelia will be a dear companion to you, just as I always aim to be to her."

Miss Ophelia Goddard stepped forward. She was about my age or younger, with glossy black hair and a great deal more spirit to her step than her aunt's. She curtsied again, but was unable to tear her eyes away from the men surrounding me.

No. She would not be dear to me.

I'd learned enough of my Hunger in all of our recent troubles to know that the animal jealousy rising up in me was as irrational as it was irrepressible. One day of Ophelia appearing and examining my men, and I would claw the poor girl's eyes out. We might've been friends once, but I didn't have that kind of control at the moment, at least not with my tension so high.

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