Every morning, the High Palace servants put out a breakfast buffet, and someone who looked like the walking definition of a druid priest came to tell us a “story of olde.” He wore emerald-green robes, what looked like a full set of buck antlers on his head, and only spoke Old Irish.
The Shadow Princess was nice enough to translate everything he said as he said it, as if she had all the old stories memorized herself.
But she had the flattest Irish accent I’d ever heard, and that made even the few stories with happy endings take on a sense of that ever-pervading sadness I remembered from my European Lit class being a staple of 20th-century Irish literature.
By the third story about how it was prophesied that both the three bear kings and the three wolf kings would be blessed with brides from across the sea—brides that were apparently Sadie and Naomi—I’d decided to just start carrying my journal with me everywhere. I wasn’t even trying to hide that I was putting together a story anymore.
“Can you expand on this prophecy?” I asked the Shadow Princess. “Did it really tell the Irish Wolves to kidnap all those brides?”
My stomach twisted at the thought of my da being dead because the Irish Wolves thought their unseen three gods wanted them to kidnap a bunch of nubile virgin she-wolves. And one bear. “Are you sure that’s exactly what it said?”
“I am not,” the Shadow Princess answered in her monotone delivery. “I have never seen the Prophecy with my own eyes, only heard stories of it. You would have to ask my mother about its actual words.”
Which meant I wouldn’t be getting an answer to my question. Sadie had invited me here, but our longest conversation so far had been when she escorted me to the gate. I couldn’t say outright that she was full-on avoiding me. But she’d crammed the week so full of activities, I could barely get a sentence in with her, much less interview her about the Prophecy.
The afternoon was filled with a tour of the armory, where the village armorer gifted me with a small iron dagger. “Queen Sadie wanted me to give you that.”
“Thank you?” I said carefully, trying hard to keep the question mark out of my voice since a weapon wasn’t exactly what I’d consider a diplomatic gift.
I turned the dagger over in my hands after leaving the armory, studying the scrollwork on the handle. Why would Sadie specifically request I be given a weapon for a peace mission?
Also, why does the town employ an armorer if the bears didn’t even fight in the Bloody February battle?I wrote in my journal after the visit.
Next, I had my poem lesson with the Shadow Prince, which nearly did my head in. The poem was short—only five lines—but it was written in Irish and…
Not to be culturally insensitive, but Irish is a batshit-crazy language,I wrote in my journal afterward.Crapload of accent marks and doesn’t follow any kind of pronunciation rules I can understand. Like, “will get” = Bhfaighidh and is pronounced Wye-ee. Okay, what????
But… diplomat. So after finishing up the entry, I grabbed a quick shower and donned the emerald-green ballgown I’d found waiting in my room when I got back from poem duty.
Then I took a deep breath and mentally cheered,C’mon, introvert, you can do this!before emerging from my room for yet another evening event in the High Palace’s front foyer.
Yesterday, there had been a stage setup, and I’d served as one of the judges for an event they called Secret Kingdom’s Got Talent! A host of performers—from Irish step dancers to ballad singers to the adorable redheaded Second Mountain Prince doing a round of yo-yo tricks—showed off their skills, and I joined Sadie and the Mountain King, Tadhg, in giving everyonecompliments afterward before we declared an old man who’d told us “ten of the dirtiest limericks I can remember—cover the wee ones’ ears!” the winner.
Tonight, the foyer had been converted into a ballroom for a full-out regency ball.
Honestly, it felt like I’d fallen into an episode of that old 2D showBridgerton—but with giant bear shifters wielding advanced technology that allowed them to reconfigure their residences in less time than it took to watch one episode of the series.
I did my best to make my way over to Sadie, but she was already on the dance floor, being spun around by Tadhg, the affable Mountain King.
“I’m meant to give you this card,” the Mountain Princess told me when she found me at a side table where a sumptuous buffet had been set out beside the many round tables surrounding the dance floor.
Red-haired like her father and brothers, she was a few shades darker than me—and a lot of inches taller, though she was only sixteen.
She handed me a dance card—like an actual paper dance card filled with the ten princes’ and princesses’ names.
“Can I eat first?” I half asked, half tiredly begged.
“Of course you can. A bear would never get between a little wolf and her food,” the Mountain Princess answered. “I’ll join you for a second portion. We never get gorges like this outside of hibernation season.”
I’d made a notation about this in my journal earlier in the week.Gorges = big feasts,but I made a mental note to add that these kinds of meals were usually reserved for hibernation season.
After we made our way to an empty round table, and I figured out how to sit in the voluminous gown, it occurred to me to ask,“Does your kingdom always go all out like this when hosting… diplomats?”
I had to work to get the word out.
The truth was, I hadn’t done much to prepare for this role as a diplomat. I’d been in holoscribe-reporter mode ever since I discovered that pretty much every rock circle in Ireland was a freaking gate that led down to the secret realm underneath the Emerald Isle.
Other than relaying a message from Granni to Sadie at the first breakfast—which the Irish Queen answered with a cold, “Okay” before changing the subject so abruptly I didn’t dare bring up her mother again—I’d done exactly zero diplomating. I felt like a total fraud.
