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“Five hours, my lady. Perhaps less.”
Cryssa leaned close, ruffling my curls with her breath.
“Please tell me we aren’t going to be trapped in a hovercraft with your darling mother for five hours?”
My fingers fisted in the neatly pressed trousers.
“Not if I can help it,” I murmured.
“We have sent word ahead with the time of your arrival. A suite is being prepared for you in the east wing,” Robertus continued, his sonorous voice echoing through the study.
East wing.
An unexpected and wildly misplaced pang of hurt throbbed in my chest. For a long time, Highblade Palace had been my second home. I’d spent summers there—winters, holidays, birthdays—and we hadalwaysbeen shown to the enclave of the north wing.
Most of Highblade Palace was a living museum of Agnivale’s history, perfect and manicured for esteemed guests who wished to visit. The north wing, however, was cozy and lived-in, filled with eccentric decor and kitschy collections by past rulers and high consorts. As a child, it had felt like a home away from home, and I’d even been allocated an adjoining room with Zoei so we wouldn’t disrupt others by running up and down the halls.
It was fitting, I supposed. After almost two decades of separation, I had been relegated to the guest wing like a stranger.
Ignoring the surprising sting of rejection, I stood, holding out a hand for Cryssa.
“Get your assistant,” I told her as she adjusted the corset. “We’ll leave before mother. Ten minutes.”
Cryssa nodded, placing a kiss on my cheek before walking across the thicket of carpet to retrieve her shoes. With a smile over her shoulder, she left with Robertus by her side.
I filled my lungs with the scent of old books and sage, staring up at the portrait of my father.
“I hope you’re happy.”
The glow of the sun faded behind the haze of a passing cloud, shadowing father’s face with a thickening gloom.
Apt, I mulled, given the direction we were heading today.
I tracked Cryssa’s heels as they clicked down the hallway in quick strides, slowly fading into the background.
Tucking the speech into my pocket, I moved to my desk, kneeling on the carpet that surrounded it. I reached underneath, extending my fingers as far as they would go, seeking a small dip in the wood.
My fingers moved impatiently, impeding progress, until I found the familiar grooves of the catch that released a small concealed compartment. A ring of keys fell with a muted clatter.
Most wouldn’t deem the contents of the locked drawer at the bottom of my desk to be noteworthy—not important enough to hide, perhaps. But as I lifted the pile of letters out of the shallow drawer, my tongue grew dry.
The sheaf of paper had begun to yellow with age, I noted with irritation. Cursing the touch of time was a foolish endeavor, but I did so anyway.
I’d seen my name written in many ways—from the print of the cruel tabloids to the overbearing formality of the council.
But in Zoei’s hand, the name seemed bigger.Iseemed bigger.
Her Highness, The Honorable Princess Olympia Summerstream
I traced the familiar scrawl with the tips of my fingers, wondering how she’d felt when she’d addressed the letter to me. Did she find it odd to use my honorific title instead of my nickname? Had she begun to write an ‘O’ before realizing her error? Had she taken a breath, a pause, as she scrambled to remember the last time she’d called out to me in the quiet of Highblade Palace?
I placed the letters against my nose, eager for a breath of her—needing just a brief whiff of her comforting scent. But too much time had passed, and all I huffed was the bluntness of old paper.
I flipped past years of old correspondence, some addressed to me, others to the council. None of them were personal in nature. Most discussed cessations of certain treaties or renegotiations of terms that did not suit Agnivale any longer.
But one—justone—was a personal letter. This single page note had arrived just two days after the Summerstream clan had been rushed out of Highblade Palace.
I knew it word for word, each one etched into my brain.
