From the triple-height ceilings to the maze-like hallways, the palace is beautiful but also overwhelming. Servants bustle from one room to the next, while men in robes stroll past, so deep in conversation with one another that they barely notice us.
In the throne room, the King and Queen of Willowhaven sit atop a dais that overlooks a space so golden, I have to squint my eyes against the blinding brightness.
Ronan’s fingers squeeze mine as he brings me closer, and it takes everything in me to keep from yanking my hand from his. When we reach the bottom step, he bows, and I drop into a curtsy.
“Welcome, son,” a smooth, sweet voice greets. The queen smiles demurely from her throne. The prince clearly favors his mother, from the color of his hair and eyes, right down to the shape of their mouths.
His father’s features are harsher, his deep-set eyes the light brown of a wren’s wings and his hair matching his aubergine-colored waistcoat. The king says nothing but gives a tight nod of greeting.
Ronan sweeps a hand toward me, beaming. “Mother. Father. This is the woman I was telling you about. Kerris Dawn of Gravale. She is staying with her aunt and uncle in the city.”
My mother and father might have taught me manners, but they never prepared me for how to properly greet a king and queen. It feels silly to curtsy again, so I settle for dipping my chin. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both, Your Majesties.”
“You were right, Ronan,” says the queen. “She is quite the rare beauty. Who is your mother, Kerris?”
My molars clamp together. Is my mother’s name respectable enough to share? “Celeste Hanson Dawn.”
The queen leans forward, bracing a velvet-clad elbow on her throne’s scrolled arm. “I believe I met your mother once. She and Madame Ella were good friends, no?”
“That’s what Madame Ella said, but I lost my mother when I was young, so I never had the chance to ask about life in Rosehill.”
“Pity.”
Pity that I lost her or that I didn’t get to ask her?
“What of your father?” the king asks, his tone intrigued as he stares down his nose at me, the golden crown on his head glittering with the morning sun streaming through the arched windows.
“He is thankfully still with us but chose to remain in Gravale.”
“But what does the man do?”
Ronan squeezes my fingers.
Tell them your father is something respectable…
My family might not have had much, but I was lucky enough to grow up in a home filled with laughter and love—for the first five years of my life, anyway. Although we all felt my mother’s loss acutely, we honored her memory by continuing to laugh whenever possible.
Standing in this room with its gilded ceiling and colorful tapestries, I feel so small, so insignificant, that I don’t want to answer at all.
Tell them your father is something respectable…
An accountant.
A foreign dignitary.
A king of a distant land.
Would Ronan thinkthatis respectable enough? If he’s so ashamed of where I came from, why did he bother bringing me here at all?
Ronan might be ashamed, but I’m not.
“My father raises goats, Your Highness.”
The queen’s tittering laugh echoes, and she presses her fingers to her smirking lips.
Farming might not be the most glamorous position in society, but it is a vital one. Without people like my father, the castle kitchens would have no food to feed their royal mouths.
Ronan’s grip tightens as he pulls me tightly to his side. “What she means to say is that her father owns the largest farm in Gravale.”
