“Even I have my limits!” Rose declared. “I’m not obediently trotting off to Lanover to marry Crown Prince Leo like everyone wants!”
“That’s good,” Natalie said matter-of-factly, “since I intend to marry him myself.”
Rose blinked at her. “You’regoing to marry Prince Leo?”
Natalie cocked her head to the side. “Why not? Your mother was a commoner before she married your father, and so was Charlotte before she married your brother.”
“I didn’t mean…” Rose shook her head. “I just had no idea you’d been to Lanover before! Or has Leo visited the mountain kingdom? I had no idea he was already in love.” She looked lighter and happier than she had moments before.
“Oh, Leo and I have never met,” Natalie said. “But I’m going to be a queen one day, like Charlotte.”
During the rebellion, Natalie had been just as central to what was happening as Charlotte, and only a few short years lay between their ages. But no one had told Charlotte to forget about rebellions and go back to a boring, ordinary life. Why was that? Because Charlotte had become a royal. She had made herself too important to be shut out.
And now that Natalie was eighteen and no longer confined to the mountain kingdom, there was no reason she couldn’t do the same. Her spirits rose. If everyone was busy planning a wedding between Rose and Leo, then they obviously weren’t planning one between him and anyone else. And if Rose didn’t want Leo for herself, after all, then Natalie’s path was clear.
Across from her, Rose had stiffened. “Are you serious? You asked to accompany me to Lanover because you want to trick Prince Leo into marrying you so that you can become a princess?”
“A queen,” Natalie corrected her absentmindedly, before realizing the depths of the other girl’s indignation.
“That’s outrageous!” Rose cried. “I would never have done as you asked and requested to have you accompany me if I’d known you were going to Lanover with…with mercenary motives! I may not have met Prince Leo before, but I won’t let you trick him!”
“Who said anything about tricking!?” Natalie tried to keep a lid on her temper. It had gotten her into trouble before, since itusually burned hot, if short. “It’s not as if I have an enchanted object on hand to force him to fall in love with me. I’m just giving him the chance to get to know me. If he falls in love with me on his own, then fair’s fair. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. And I’m not mercenary at all. I have no particular interest in gold. I didn’t pick Lanover because it’s the wealthiest kingdom. It was the only one that had a crown prince the right age.”
“The only one that…” Rose sputtered, her sentence trailing off and her eyes enormous as she regarded Natalie.
“What’s the matter now?” Natalie asked, indignant.
Rose’s condemnation abruptly melted into a fit of the giggles. “You…You’re…” She couldn’t get a full sentence out, so Natalie was forced to watch her in silence as she got herself under control.
“You might not be mercenary for money, but you’re certainly pursuing Prince Leo for his rank,” she finally said, when she could speak steadily again. “You can’t deny that.”
Natalie considered the matter. “That’s true. But it’s not as if I want the rank so I can live a rich, easy life, or have people bowing to me all the time.”
“Why do you want it, then?” Rose demanded.
“I want to matter,” Natalie exclaimed, her earlier resentment sparking a torrent of words. “Or, at least, I want to do things that matter. Is that such a terrible thing? During the rebellion, my actions helped to change everything—not just for me but for my whole kingdom. It was incredible!” She deflated. “But I’m just a commoner girl, so it was easy for them to exile me after their desperate need was over.”
“Exile?” Rose stared at her, startled out of her anger. “Queen Gwendolyn brought you to Arcadia herself! She seemed genuinely fond of you.”
“It wasn’t Gwen who barred me from court,” Natalie said, fair as always. “She even argued my case to my parents. But theywere convinced that the best thing for me was to go back to an ordinary life and forget about everything that had happened.”
She scowled out at the unoffending view.
“Perhaps,” Rose said, sounding like she was once again smothering a laugh, “they were concerned about your obsession with becoming royal. Or is that a newer goal?”
Natalie looked across at her, smiling reluctantly. “The idea may have occurred to me back then, yes. But it started as a momentary dream, fueled by beautiful dresses and the excitement of the moment. It was only later that I realized that becoming royal was the only way to ensure no one could shut me out again.”
Natalie’s declaration that she would marry Prince Leo one day had been the smallest of her parents’ reasons for excluding her from court, but Natalie had no desire to explain the largest. She had played no part in her older brother Baden’s betrayal, and it was unjust of her parents to punish her for his crimes. He had been truly exiled—banished from the mountain kingdom—and Natalie hadn’t seen him in three years. Usually she didn’t even like to think about him. He had lost his place in their family when he chose to turn against them all.
But her parents had been convinced that Natalie’s presence at court was an unwelcome reminder of her brother’s role in the rebellion. Even though Natalie had successfully completed the task assigned to the two of them on her own—assembling the crucial assistance that had turned the tide—she couldn’t escape the shadow of her brother’s actions.
In fairness, her parents had been seeking to protect her as much as to protect their family’s position at court. They didn’t want her exposed to the vitriol of the court in Baden’s place. Not everyone had felt that banishment was sufficient punishment for a traitor.
But whatever her parents’ intentions, their actions had sentenced Natalie to three endless, tedious years of watching the happenings of the kingdom from afar. And if she hadn’t fled the mountains, she might still be in that position despite having turned eighteen. Gwen viewed Natalie with affection, but she had already assembled her court, and there was no empty place for Natalie to fill.
But Lanover was different. They had yet to fill the position of crown princess, and there was no reason Natalie shouldn’t be the one to step into that role. In Lanover, she could make a place for herself—a place that would always be at the center of everything that mattered.
“There must have been a lot of work needed to rebuild the mountain kingdom after the old queen’s brutal rule,” Rose said, her tone sympathetic. “I can understand why it was hard to be excluded from that after being central to the rebellion. But that’s hardly poor Prince Leo’s fault!”
