“I’m not a queen.”
“Princess?”
Imelda muttered, “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Prisoner.’”
“Your esteemed father sent a note to be read prior to bringing you back home.” The servant consulted a roll of parchment in his hands. “You are hereby required to wear shoes.”
Imelda glanced at her bare feet. She dug her toes into the mud.
“No.”
“But, my lady, you…you have so many…surely one pair might do.” The servant eyed one of the two carriages full of Imelda’s heels.
“Acquiring shoes is not the same thing as deciding to walk around in them.”
“But your father—”
“My father wants me to come home more than he minds the state of my dress,” Imelda said grimly.
“Forgive me for asking, my lady, but why possess so many shoes if you have no wish to wear them?”
Imelda eyed the servant, then lifted one eyebrow. “I forgive you for asking.”
And then she stalked off toward the carriage.
“Are you ready to go home, Queen Imelda?” the driver said brightly as he held open her door.
Imelda glanced at the carriage door, which bore her father’s sigil of a beady-eyed hawk in mid-flight.I’m always watching, it said.Home, she thought. Home was supposed to mean a place of peace and rest. But she knew she would find neither of those things in her father’s narrow halls. There would be only the giant room she’d once shared with her sisters, six of whom had found husbands and homes far from their father’s controlling eye. Every step she took would be monitored. Every dress she wore would be decided in advance.
Home, it seemed, meant the end of freedom.
Imelda turned to the gate of Love’s Keep. She’d found no love here, but she had found independence. And quiet. No screaming sisters squabbling over dresses, no younger sister sneaking into her bed because of a nightmare. No one calling her by the wrong name because “my goodness, all twelve sisters look so alike!” Enough quiet to be, well,herself. She danced. She painted. She read books. She helped in the village, and although she could tell her people pitied their loveless, doomed queen, they liked her anyway.
This was goodbye to all of that. Goodbye to her husband too.
Husband. What a concept.
She barely knew Ambrose, and he had made it clear early on in their days at Love’s Keep that he was not at all interested in her. It was for the best. She had no wish to share her bed. She loved hoarding pillows, sprawling out sideways, and a husband would get in the way of all that.
Sometimes, she’d thought of running away, but then what? At least as queen, she answered to no one but herself. If she fled, she would always be on the run, always under the threat of being discovered and dragged back to either her husband or her father.
Perhaps it was better to know what full freedom felt like…even if it was only for a year and a day.
“It’s time,” said the driver firmly.
Imelda said nothing as she eased herself onto the carriage seat. Why didshehave to go home when Ambrose could wander out into the woods?
Imelda curled her hands into fists. “It’s all just so—”
***
AMBROSE
“Unfair!” muttered Ambrose.
Ambrose grimaced, staring out at the dark, shadowed woods that unfurled just beyond a spit of graveled pathway that marked the boundaries of Love’s Keep. He cast a longing glance at the wrought-iron gate of the castle, now closed to him forever.
He waited outside the courtyard as his elder brother, Ulrich, exited his chariot and came out to meet him. No doubt waiting to gloat as the clock struck. At noon, a year and a day would officially be up, and Ambrose would be cast out of the palace.
