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Frida kept crying.
“Frida!”
With swollen, red eyes, she looked up at me. “Your father...he...the man. He came with his sister. Servants overheard him last night in the attic.”
I grabbed Frida’s shoulders and shook her. “Frida, get a hold of yourself. You make no sense.”
Frida took a deep breath. “Your father,” she said, slow and clear. “He has promised you to a carpenter who asked for work this morning.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, waiting for her to reveal she was jesting or something. But then it dawned on me that Frida had never so much as even laughed at a joke.
“A...a what?” Both of my hands fell lifelessly to my hips.
“It is the talk of the castle. A carpenter arrived this morning asking for an audience with your father to beg for work. He granted it...and, and—”
My rage returned. “And what? Offered his only child and heir to him as they discussed repairs around the stables?”
My fists balled so tight I could feel my fingernails digging into my palm. I twirled around and stormed out the door.
“Your Highness! You aren’t dressed properly!”
Who cared about that right now? I was to be a carpenter’s wife! My father had finally lost his mind, gone mad! Maybe it was that stupid little nut he always carried in his pocket, or the paintings of my mother had pushed him over the edge last night.
Or it was you.
I shook my head to dispel the thought from my mind.
Servants turned and fled the moment they saw me. Except for a few who were too deep into their gossip to notice me.
“A carpenter, they say,” one of the maids whispered in shock.
“No, I heard it was a fishmonger!”
Both of them gasped at their own gossip.
When I strode down the hallway to the library—where I suspected my father and whatever man he vowed to make my husband were—the guards hastily flung the doors wide as soon as they saw me coming.
I was almost through the door when I heard my father’s voice. I stopped when I noticed a woman sitting on one of the benches outside the library doors. The green wool dress she wore was simple but not too dirty, her boots old but without holes. Her hair was as black as the night, her nose a little crooked. She had a sassy look in her eyes, which were slowly analyzing me from head to toe. Whoever this was, she was clearly waiting for the man who was inside with my father.
“Am I to be your mother?” I mocked her to counter her rude stare. Which was absurd, considering she was perhaps a few years older than I was.
“Ha! If my brother is smart, you won’t be anything to us,” she answered, then narrowed her eyes at me. “I see trouble, nothing else.”
“Let’s hope he is smart, then.” There was nothing clever about a man who would refuse the hand of one of the wealthiest princesses in the kingdoms. No man in all the kingdoms would say no to a match like this—not unless they were simple in the head. I decided not to waste another word on this woman.
Fists clenched again, I stomped into the library, where I found my father in his chair by the fire, a tall man sitting across from him. He was a few years older than I was, his hair as black as the woman’s outside.
The man turned his head the moment I was close to them, his blue eyes locking in on me with great interest.A large scar ran from his lower cheek down all the way to his collarbone. If it wasn’t for that, one might consider him handsome. There was also something familiar about him. But of course, that was impossible. I never frequented with beggars. It must have just been my tired state and nervous mind playing tricks on me.
“No, no, no!” I said, stopping right in front of my father. I had nothing to lose at this point, so I let my outrage flare.
“Mina, my child, I was just—”
“Wasting your time, Father.” I saw the shock on his face. My words, my tone, were unacceptable, and I knew it.
“I will not marry the fishmonger, so lock me in my room, send me to the nuns, throw me in the dungeon or the river for all I care, but I will not go, by God I will not!”
My father rose to his feet, anger written all over his face, his mouth opening wide to unleash an inferno upon me, but the sudden laugh from that fishmonger behind me threw us both off.
