I don’t blame her. They’re the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.
People.My mind snags on the word like an errant piece of thread. Prince Bram and Queen Mor aren’t people, not really, not like us.
Queen Mor clears her throat, and the room snaps to attention. “I don’t intend to waste anyone’s time. I’ve summoned you all here today for the joyous announcement of a mother who loves her son deeply.” She straightens in her throne and casts a loving glance at Bram. “This will be the season my son, His Royal Highness Bram, Prince of Wales, will select a bride.”
Chapter Four
The room erupts.
There is a chorus of gasping and shouting as everyone struggles to contain themselves.
Olive Lisonbee’s mother doesn’t manage to catch her when she falls this time, and her head bounces off the toe of my boot as she collapses to the floor, unconscious.
Bram is only eighteen, young for a prince to take a wife. No one saw this coming.
He shocked the whole of England when he arrived at court from the Otherworld four years ago, just fourteen years old. No one knew she had a son. One day he arrived wearing a beautiful green velvet coat and a smile so wide he had the entire court endeared to him in less than a week.
The details we know of the Otherworld are minimal, but we do know that time works differently for the immortals who live there. What was four hundred years here was only ten for Bram.
His presence at court over the past few years seems to have thawed some of his mother’s ice. She sometimes lets a smile slip through; her bargains have become marginally less bloody.
Bram fits in at court so well, most people forget that he wasn’t raised on palace grounds. The papers are filled with glowing reports of his studies, his heroics, his good looks. The whole of the country is half in love with him.
To marry him would be to make the greatest match of any girl in the history of England.
It would mean not only a title, influence, money, and security, but all of thatforever.Bram and Mor are immortal. This isn’t just about us, but about every generation that follows.
Queen Mor’s cool voice rises above the cacophony. “Contain yourselves.”
Olive blinks awake, and I haul her to her feet and pass her to her mother. Everyone hushes, but ragged breathing echoes through the cavernous room.
Bram coughs into his hand like he’s trying to cover a laugh.
Queen Mor has had a human prince consort for as long as she’s been queen, but it’s been decades since the last royal wedding. Her kings age into old men while she stays young and beautiful, trapped in amber forever. Once they die, she waits a few months and then finds another young man to marry.
Some wonder if her original bargain with King Edward IV requires that she take a human spouse, some clever wording around the wordking, but no one can be sure. I wonder if she might just be lonely. Castles are large and drafty, and eternity is an awfully long time to be alone.
Her current husband, Prince Consort Edgar, Prince Emmett’s father, is in his late forties, with a reputation for being kind and sociable, but he doesn’t accompany the queen on any official business. It is made clear that she is the ruler and he, her companion.
For one heartbeat, her eyes bore directly into mine. I glance away in shock, but by the time I look back, she’s already moved on.
“I ask for decorum as I continue,” Queen Mor declares, but her mouth is twitching like her son’s, and I have a feeling they both find this whole circus entertaining.
“In order to ensure dedicated courtship and fair play through the season, any young lady who wishes to be considered as a potential bride must abide by the following rule: If you are not chosen, you will never take another spouse. You will live the rest of your days as a spinster. These are the terms.”
There’s an uproar from the crowd. Confused daughters, indignant mothers, shouts of “Why?” and “Surely you wouldn’t do this to our girls?”
I can’t hold back my laughter.
“What on earth has gotten into you?” my mother hisses.
I wipe my tears, but I can’t manage to get any words out. It’s all so absurd, standing here in this grand room, in this fancy dress, watching everyone panic about a future so terrible they’d shout at the queen, but it’s a future they’ve already condemned me to.
When I turn back to face the dais, Bram is staring directly at me, his head cocked slightly to the side.
Queen Mor stands and the room falls into a hush. She’s tall, but not inhumanly so. She just moves in a way that makes you look at her, like she’s walking on water. “When I take a husband, my suitors abide by this same contract. This is protocol.”
Of course, the men who don’t find wives still have options and financial and social freedom; we poor girls will have nothing.
