Lily is the first crown princess her kingdom has ever had, and many
look forward to having a queen on the throne someday. Others are
vehemently against it, and the anger stirred up by dramatic and
severe changes to certain laws is causing even more turmoil.
When
that tension finally explodes, Lily finds herself running for her
life, forced to leave behind everything she knows and plunge blindly
into the dense, dangerous forest that surrounds the royal palace. A
forest said to be filled with ancient ruins, monsters, and ghosts who
laugh at unwary travelers.
Instead of finding monsters and
ghosts, Lily is found by a woodcutter, gruff and quiet and clearly
not pleased to be saddled with an uninvited guest who doesn't even
know how to fetch water from a well. But Lily has nowhere else to go,
and no way of getting home safely, not when there are people still
looking to remove her head.
If she hopes to live long
enough to claim her throne, she must first prove her worth to the
woman who can't wait to be rid of her.
"Who is that?" Lily asked, staring down from the balcony into the main courtyard of the palace.
Five figures had arrived, dressed entirely in black and riding dark horses. How very dramatic. They bore no crests, and she hadn't heard a crier announce them, only the horns to signal important visitors had arrived.
Next to her, looking up from the book she was reading, her handmaiden Clarissa wrinkled her nose. "I've no idea. They look like bandits."
Lily set aside the cards she'd been reading through for her speech to open the spring games at the beginning of the month, stood, and gathered her skirts. "I'm going to go see."
"I was just at the good part," Clarissa said with a sigh as she marked her place, tucked the book into a pocket, and followed her.
As they reached the hallway, two more of her four handmaidens joined them: Alice and Penelope. Poor Leigh was still sick. Lily had sat with her last night and read to her for a couple of hours, and managed to get her to drink some tea.
People greeted them as they walked through the halls, but Lily didn't linger to speak with anyone, though a few clearly wanted her to. No, she continued on stubbornly to the receiving hall, where sure enough, the five dark figures had gathered.
She held back to look them over. Five, all men with scruffy beards, dirty clothes, tromping around like this was their palace. Big, every last one, though two were on the lean muscle side rather than the wall of muscle. The one who seemed to be in charge did bear a crest, a gold broach pinned to his left shoulder, though she couldn't make out any details at this distance.
They all bore weapons and weren't listening as the servants tried to tell them that weapons were not allowed on the premises, save those carried by the royal guards.
Time to do her job. Setting her shoulders, lifting her chin, Lily walked briskly down the hall, flanked by her handmaidens. "What is the cause of all this ruckus?" she said in the ringing tones her tutors had drilled into her. A voice that could pierce a crowded room, no matter how large.
All eyes turned to her, including the visitors. The man with the broach watched her like a cat watched a mouse, but if he thought she would be intimidated by such nonsense, he would soon find himself mistaken.
"What is going on here?" she demanded, drawing to a stop at a perfectly appropriate distance of five paces. "Who are you?" The gold broach was of a wolf's head opened on a snarl, and it was only gold plated.
The men stared at her with gross inappropriateness, and the man with the broach lingered on her tiara. She didn't normally wear one in the day to day, but she had an event in a couple of hours that required it, so she'd gone ahead and dressed for it, so she wouldn't have to go back to her room to change.
"Your Highness," Gold Broach finally said. "We are here to speak with High Majesty the King at the request of the Grand Duke."
"I see," Lily replied, not seeing at all. Her father had told her nothing this morning about a group of ruffians coming to see him. What was Ferdinand thinking, inviting men like this into the palace without at least giving her notice? "You'll forgive me if I wait until His Grace arrives to confirm that. Who are you?" She gave a slight upwards jerk of her chin to Clarissa, who immediately went off to find Ferdinand if he wasn't already on his way.
Gold Broach smiled like a hungry wolf. "I'm Richard, Your Highness, Richard Fortley, Captain of the Black Wolves."
Mercenaries? There were mercenaries in her palace?
.png)
