“What did you call me?”
I eye the blonde hair streaming down her back. It was in a loose braid when she came to find me and asked me to accompany her out of the hotel, but the hairdo fell apart as soon as the bus started moving. It’s windy in Windgaard—big surprise—and now her hair is a mess. No wonder she keeps it up all the time.
“You heard me,” I say with a shake of my head. “Here’s the deal.”
She lifts an eyebrow.
“I still think this is a bad idea and that we should get off at the next stop and hightail it back to the hotel before you’re swarmed by people hoping to get a glimpse of you or worse.”
Her eyebrow rises a little higher, giving her a haughty look that stokes the irritation and anxiety burning in my gut. “But?”
“But if I’m going to let you be out like this, you have to try.”
As her expression shifts into confusion, she glances at the tour guide, who is somehowstilltalking about fish. “Try?” she repeats.
“Try to talk in a way that will make people feel connected to you. In a way that will make people trust you.” I think back to one of my missions in Eastern Europe, when Griff and I had to convince a whole community to trust a wannabe politician who was trying to beat out his tyrannical opponent. We had to teach him how to talk in a way that didn’t put distance between him and his constituents, as he had grown up in a completely different walk of life from their poverty-stricken area. Until he learned to match the people he wanted to represent, he had no sway.
Freya’s eyebrows pull low as she watches me. “You are serious about this,” she murmurs.
As if I might have been joking all the other times I suggested it. I thought for sure she would have at least believed her brothers, but they tease her too much for her to realize when they have good ideas. They should work on that if they’re ever going to be anything but ‘The Princes.’
“I’m always serious,” I say and smirk, which makes her chuckle, but I let my smile drop because Iamserious and need her to know as much. “I can admit you’ve gotten better in the last two days, but do you really think Mr. Halevik up there thinks he’s your equal when you talk about rectifying your insignificant time spent in his birthplace?”
“Here is the infamous Colgrave Square!” Halevik, our tour guide, says brightly. The last two words distort over the speakers in his enthusiasm. “It was here in 1803 that a local Windgaard legend once protested a royal edict by running through the square stark naked.”
Honestly, I’m not sure he’s even noticed Freya here at the back. That, or he doesn’t care that there’s a princess on his tour. From the way he’s been talking, I’m guessing he has given this tour hundreds of times, and the nine people on this bus are just a few of thousands that he will forget as soon as we step off the bus.
But then Freya raises her hand.
Halevik is about to keep speaking, but he stumbles over his words when he catches sight of her hand in the air. “A question?” he asks in pure shock, as if no one has ever had a question for him. Maybe his constant talking has put off anyone who might have.
Six pairs of eyes turn back to us as the other members of the tour look back, and my muscles tense. We’ve been pretty lucky in terms of attention from our fellow tourists, except for the one couple, but now I’m clocking recognition from almost all of them. Even the bored-looking teen who was probably dragged along by his parents.
“Yes,” Freya says loudly, to be heard over the wind. “What was the edict he was protesting?”
Halevik frowns. “Oh, well, it was the change in who is allowed to inherit titles.”
At some point I should read up on Candoran history. I have the last century pretty solid, but anything before that? “What was the change?” I ask.
“Titles were once passed through only the male line,” Freya answers before Halevik can, “but the change made it possible for women to inherit.”
“Exactly that,” Halevik confirms, and he sounds impressed. Does he really not know who Freya is?
“That sounds like a good thing,” I say.
“Many would agree with you,” Halevik replies.
“What’s your opinion?” Freya asks.
The other tourists keep looking back and forth from the front to the back as we speak, and I wonder if Freya’s question has completely derailed the tour. We’re still driving, passing landmarks we might have heard about if Freya hadn’t interrupted.
Halevik shrugs. “I am nowhere close to being noble, so it means nothing to me.” For a second, I think that’s all he’s going to say on the subject, but then he adds, “It left things more chaotic, not knowing who would have power and influence, particularly when a single woman was to inherit a title.”
Freya’s shoulders grow tense. “What’s wrong with a woman having influence?”
“Nothing,” Halevik answers without hesitation. “But they are more likely to be seen as a means to an end, which was why Colgrave was protesting. He thought the change left women vulnerable if they were titled and unmarried.”
“Progressive,” I mutter as I start tapping my fingers on my knees.
