Lucy’s voice echoed in the background.
“Don’t die stupid!”
3
Esther
How to make an unforgettable entrance: like a sparkly duck.
Lucy jinxed Esther with her parting shouts.
She screamed as she fell, the sound tearing from her throat and scattering into the wind. The air whipped past her ears in a roar, stinging her cheeks and tangling her chopped hair. Staticexploded off her skin like a shower of shooting stars, streaking through the sky and fading into the orange glow of sunset.
Esther really hated the color gold.
Her magic shimmered gold, the chains on her jewels glinted gold, and even the cursed crown that marked her as the palace's property was gold. Every reminder of her cage gleamed in that same too-bright hue—the color of rules, of expectations, of things that pretended to be beautiful.
She could go the rest of her life never seeing it again, which wouldn’t last much longer at the rate she was falling.
Valedara’s tutors had tried to teach her about topography, ley lines, and magical interference zones. But Esther had spent most of those lessons sneak-reading romance novels behind atlases. She vaguely remembered Basil saying something about teleportation being “dangerously unstable without a designated anchor point,” followed by, “Princess, please stop doodling hearts around assassin characters.”
She should have asked where teleport spells normally landed.
Flat ground?
Soft moss?
Preferably a mattress?
Certainly not plummeting through the sky like a dramatic shooting star whose life choices were questionable at best.
There had long been old legends about teleportation mishaps, noble mages reappearing halfway through barn walls, or emerging inside fountains wearing nothing but embarrassment. Basil once told her, “Emotional instability will scramble coordinates.”
Well. She was the poster child for emotional instability. So this? This was deserved.
She mentally prepared herself to become flatter than the cinnamon bun she’d packed. And knowing her luck, the bun would probably survive.
She thought of those most dear to her as she plummeted toward her demise. In order:
Dear Mother, your daughter indeed died stupidly.
Dear Lucy, please, please, please burn those books.
Dear Basil, I didn’t blow anything up this time.
She decided not to send any thoughts or prayers to her father and brother, who were going to marry her off to an orc who already had children and probably lovers.
As if to rub salt in the wound, her satchel ripped open, releasing all its contents to the wind. The cinnamon bun that she would soon match slapped her in the face. The sugary glaze clung to her bangs, filling her nose with the scent of cinnamon and humiliation.
She could only imagine what the newspapers would say:
Disgraced Princess of Valedara: A Pile of Goop Surrounded by Smut.
Maybe she should have accepted her fate and married the orc king, but she quickly decided death was better.
She had acted rashly. But if they had invited the orc king to a dinner or afternoon tea instead of plotting behind her back, then she would have reacted more calmly.
Probably not, but it was the principle of it.
