“He was a deadly dull, skinny as a stick, and couldn’t dance worth apiseta.And he had a big nose and spots.” Autumn grimaced at the memory.
Summer sighed. It was true, Prince Rampion hadn’t been particularly attractive, but there’d been a kindness and vulnerability beneath his stiff pride that garnered her sympathy. “He was very intelligent,” she said. “And he grows roses.”
Spring rolled her eyes. “No wonder you liked him.”
Gabriella smiled. She’d inherited their mother’s looks, her gift for Persuasion, and her love of flower gardening. Though Spring was, hands down, the best gardener in the family, she preferred turning her gifts in a more practical direction: the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and grains. “Flowers are all well and good,” she would say, “but they won’t feed a family in winter.” Summer was the one with their mother’s passion for flowers. There was something very soothing about tending flowers on warm summer days, the rich smell of loamy earth, the heady scent of fragrant blooms, a fresh breeze on her face. Gardens were peaceful, and Summer loved them for that.
But Spring was wrong. Summer and Rampion’s shared interest in gardening wasn’t why he had appealed to her. He was, quite simply, a gentle, kind man she absolutely would never fall in love with.
And that had made him perfect husband material in Summer’s opinion.
Unfortunately, Papa had not agreed. Rampion wasn’t rich enough, his father’s kingdom not influential enough. Papa had been determined to wed his three beloved daughters to the wealthiest, most powerful kings on Mystral—and for the best, most advantageous marriage contracts. Oh, he prettied it up, of course, when talking to them. Saying things like, “I only want the best for my daughters,” and that was true enough, else Autumn’s fierce objections wouldn’t have stopped him from accepting one of Maak Korin’s previous offers.
But Summer had also always known that as much as her father loved his three, beautiful Seasons, in the end, he’d loved power even more. Had their brother Falcon not forged an alliance with the Calbernans two years ago for an army of mercenaries in exchange for the island prince’s pick of the Seasons, Autumn would already have become Maak Korin’s forty-first wife.
It wasn’t that their father had been a bad man—at least, he hadn’t started out that way. It was simply that Verdan of Summerlea’s truest, deepest, most giving love—and he had once been capable of truly great love—had died with Mama. Then that love had turned to grief, and grief had turned to rage and an insatiable, ravening hunger for power, for wealth, for anything to fill that yawning emptiness once filled by his love for his wife.
Or so Summer had decided this last year as she’d tried to come to terms with the madness that had consumed her father so completely that he’d destroyed his son’s life, thrown his kingdom into war, and sought to kill his youngest daughter on multiple occasions—only to lose his own life in her stead on the last attempt.
And as horrible and awful as King Verdan’s descent into madness had been, Summer was perhaps the only one of his daughters who truly understood it. Because, despite everyone’s belief that Summer was like her mother in all ways, the truth was, she the one most like Papa when it came to how deeply and unreservedly she loved, and how completely those emotions could consume her.
And that was precisely why, no matter what, Summer Coruscate, who longed for a true, deep, passionate love, would never marry any man who could lay the slightest claim on her heart.
She closed her eyes briefly, clamped unyielding chains around the caged monster in her soul, then opened her eyes again and pasted on a pleasant smile.
“I’m sure you’ll both find Sealord Merimydion much more to your taste than Prince Rampion,” she said. She was pleased that not a hint of her inner struggle showed in her voice or expression. Her meditation in the grotto had done its job.
“That’s not saying much,” Spring grumped. “I’d find eating ceiling plaster more to my taste than Prince Rampion.”
“At least he wasn’t Korin beda Khan,” Autumn pointed out.
“Point taken.” Spring steepled her hands before her. “Now back to the p—Sealord.Reports aside, what do we really know about this Dilys Merimydion?”
“We know that he’s wealthy, he’s a skilled warrior, he’s handsome, charming, and helped save the world from a dread god who would have plunged the whole of Mystral into unending winter,” Autumn added. “Not to ruin your determination to find something wrong with him, Viviana, but that last one tells me all I need to know. The man literally helped save the world.” She shrugged. “I can spend three months of my time being nice to him for that.”
Spring sighed. “Yes, yes, but in the reports I’ve read, there isn’t one bad thing about him listed. Not one, and that’s just not normal.”
“You’re complaining because the reports say Dilys Merimydion is a good man?” Summer shook her head.
“Not just good. Too good. As in too good to be true. I’m just saying, something smells fishy to me.”
Autumn laughed. “You know, there’s a good joke in that remark.”
Spring rolled her eyes. “Don’t. Please. Spare us.” In addition to her addiction to food, Autumn possessed a terrible love for pranks, puns, and bad jokes. Which, of course, she took inordinate glee in inflicting on her family.
Autumn sniffed with mock indignation. “As if I would cast my pearls before swine. What were we talking about again? Oh, yes, Dilys Merimydion. The Scrumptious Sealord.”
“Oh, dear gods,” Spring groaned. “You’ve nicknamed him. Alliteratively.”
“I thought about Delicious Dilys. Or Manly Merimydion. After all, from what Storm said, he’s very easy on the eyes. I don’t know about the rest of you, but after ten years of being pursued by the Verminous Vermese, I’m looking forward to being courted by a handsome, young suitor who actually respects women and considers them—gasp!—real human beings. Like men, but without the dangly bits. Shocking, I know, but there you have it.”
Summer couldn’t help it. She started laughing.
Spring glowered. “Stop that! Don’t encourage her!” She turned the glower on Autumn and said, “Aleta Seraphina Helen Rosalie Violet Coruscate, can you please, for one moment, take this seriously?”
“You’re taking it seriously enough for the three of us, dearest Viviana.” Autumn lowered her voice and boomed sternly, “He wants to marry a Season so he must be investigated. Something about him smells fishy.” Cupping a hand over her mouth, she quipped to Summer in a loud aside, “I dunno, do you think maybe it’s—you know—thegills?”
Summer covered her mouth with both hands and spluttered with laughter.
