“To Tove Kroner,” I said.
Willa squealed and clapped her hands over her mouth. I don’t think she could’ve been more excited if she were the one getting married to Tove.
“Tove?” Matt asked, looking unsure. “That guy’s a spaz, and I didn’t even think you really liked him.”
“No, I like him,” I said. “He’s a good guy.”
“Oh my gosh, Wendy!” Willa yelled and jumped off the couch, nearly kicking Duncan in the head. She ran over and hugged me enthusiastically. “This is so exciting! I am so happy for you!”
“Yeah, congratulations,” Rhys nodded. “He’s a lucky guy.”
“I can’t believe you guys didn’t tell me,” Duncan said. “I was with you both this morning.”
“Well, we hadn’t really told people yet.” I detangled myself from Willa’s embrace. “I’m not sure if we’re supposed to tell people, but I thought you should know.”
“But I don’t understand.” Matt stood up, clearly disturbed by this news. “I thought you were all hung up on that Finn guy.”
“Nope.” I shook my head and lowered my eyes. “I’m not hung up on anybody.” I let out a deep breath. “That’s all behind me.”
“Your wedding is going to be so fabulous!” Willa held her hands together in front of her chest to keep from hugging me again. “When is the big day?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I admitted. “After I turn eighteen.”
“That’s only three months away!” Matt shouted.
“We have hardly any time to plan!” Willa paled. “We have so much to do!” Then she grimaced. “Oh, Aurora’s gonna have her hand in all of it, isn’t she?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I scowled too when I realized that I was going have the mother-in-law from hell. “I guess she is.”
“I’m so glad I’m a guy and I don’t have to plan any of these things,” Rhys said with a lopsided grin.
“The planning is the best part,” Willa insisted and looped an arm around my shoulder. “Picking out the colors and dresses and flowers and invitations! That’s the funnest!”
“Wendy, are you really okay with this?” Matt asked, looking at me directly.
“Of course she is, Matt,” Willa said with an exaggerated eye roll. “This is every little girl’s dream. To be a Princess and marry a Prince in a big grand wedding.”
“Technically, Tove’s a Markis and not a Prince,” I pointed out.
“You know what I meant,” Willa said. “It’s a fairy tale come true.”
“Willa, stop for a second.” Matt’s icy stare rested on her, and she shrunk back, retracting her arm from my shoulders. He turned to me. “Wendy, is this really what you want? To marry this guy?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. This is what I want.”
“Okay.” Matt reluctantly gave me his approval. “If this is what you want, then I’ll support you on it. But if he hurts you, I will kill him.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less from you,” I smiled. “But I’ll be alright.”
Willa continued with her excited prattling, telling me all the amazing things we had to plan, but I tuned her out. Rhys and Matt didn’t really want or need to hear all of that, so they escaped to do something vastly more fun. Duncan was my bodyguard, so he couldn’t leave, but he was actually more involved in Willa’s conversation than I was.
Eventually, she exhausted herself. She said she would go home and get a few things, so she could come back bright and early in the morning to plan. We left the room with her listing everything she would bring with her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Willa squeezed my arm.
“Yeah.”
“This is exciting, Wendy,” she reminded me. “Act like it.”
“I’ll try,” I forced a smile.
She laughed at my weak attempt as she departed. I leaned against the wall outside the living room door. Duncan was next to me, but he didn’t say anything.
Willa was right. This whole thing was like a fairy tale. So why didn’t it feel like one?
I glanced down the hall and saw Finn, doing his evening rounds. He was walking towards me to inspect the North Wing, but when he saw me, he stopped. His dark eyes rested on mine for a moment, then turned and walked the other direction.
Oh yeah. That’s why. Like in a fairy tale, I was marrying the Prince. I just happened to be in love with the pauper.
I woke up the next day excited to train and get my mind off the engagement, but I’d only been awake for ten minutes before Aurora got me. She arrived even before Willa did and stole the whole thing from her. Willa was not happy about it when she found out, but she did her best to be polite around Aurora.
We met in the grand dining room because Aurora had so many papers she wanted to spread out all over the long table. She had guest lists and seating charts and color swatches and fabric material and magazines and dress designs and books and everything anyone would ever need for a wedding.
“We need to have the engagement party this weekend, obviously, since the wedding is only a few months away,” Aurora said, tapping a calendar on the table.
I sat in a chair at the head of the table with Aurora standing on one side and Willa on the other. Aurora bent over the table, her green dress flowing around her. Willa had her arms crossed over her chest, and she glared down at Aurora.
“Before the engagement party, we need to have your color scheme and have the bridal party picked out already,” Aurora said.
“That’s too soon,” Willa shook her head. “There’s no way we can have all that ready, plus plan a party. It’s only a few days away.”
“We need to get invitations out for the wedding as soon as possible, and we will hand them out at the engagement party,” Aurora said. “When is your birthday, Princess?”
“Uh, the ninth of January,” I said.
“Why do we have to hand out the invites?” Willa asked. “Why can’t we mail them like normal people?”
“Because we’re not normal people.” Aurora shot her a glare. “We’re Trylle, and we’re royalty. It’s customary that we hand out the invitations at the engagement party.”
“Fine, but if we have to do that, we should wait at least another week for the party,” Willa said.
“I’m not going to argue with you about this.” Aurora straightened up and rubbed her forehead. “As the mother of the groom, I’m throwing the engagement party. It’s none of your concern. I’ll plan it and set it up whenever I feel is best.”
“Fine.” Willa held up her hands like she didn’t care, but she still was irritated. “You do what you want. That is your right.”
“Let’s work on the wedding for now.” Aurora looked down at me. “Who did you want in your wedding party?’
“Um…” I shrugged. “Willa should be my maid of honor, obviously.”
“Thank you.” Willa gave Aurora a smug smile.
“Of course,” Aurora smiled thinly at her and scribbled down Willa’s name on a piece of paper. “What about the rest of your party?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t really know that many people here.”
“Excellent. I compiled a list for you.” Aurora grabbed a three-page list from off the table and handed it to me. “Here are upstanding eligible young Marksinna that would be perfect for bridesmaids.”
“This is just their names and a few random facts,” I said, looking over the list. “Kenna Tomas has black hair, freckles, and her father is the Markis of Oslinna. That means nothing to me. I’m supposed to pick strangers off a list based on their hair color?”
“If you’d like, I can pick them for you,” Aurora offered. “But I did list them from most desirable to least desirable to make it easier for you, although they are all acceptable choices.”
“I can help her,” Willa said, taking the list from me before Aurora had a chance to. “I know a lot of these girls.” She immediately flipped to the end of the list, and I felt a small satisfaction in knowing she�
�d pick the ones that Aurora liked the least.
“Can’t I just have Willa?” I asked. “I’m sure Tove doesn’t have that many friends for groomsmen, either. We could have a small wedding.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aurora said. “You’re a Princess. You can’t have a small wedding.”
“Aurora is right,” Willa said, sounding sad to be agreeing with her. “You need to have a huge wedding. You have to let them know that you’re a Princess to be reckoned with.”
“Don’t they already know that?” I asked honestly, and Willa shrugged.
“It doesn’t hurt to remind them.”
“Since your father is out of the picture, Noah can walk you down the aisle,” Aurora said, writing something else on her paper.
“Noah?” I asked. “Your husband?”
“Yes, he’s a suitable choice,” Aurora replied offhandedly.
“But I barely know him,” I said.
“Well, you can’t walk down alone,” Aurora said, giving me an annoyed look.
“Why can’t Matt walk me down?” I asked. “He practically raised me anyway.”
“Matt?” Aurora was confused, and when she remembered who he was, she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That human boy? Absolutely not. He shouldn’t even be living in the palace, and if others were to find out he was here, you’d be the laughing stock of the kingdom.”
“Then… fine.” I scrambled to think of someone other than Noah. “What about Garrett?”
“Garrett Strom?” Aurora was appalled, but I think it was because he was actually an acceptable candidate.
“He is nearly her step-father,” Willa pointed out with a sly smile. Having her father walk me down the aisle would give her and her family more prestige.
That’s not why I picked him, though. I actually liked Garrett, and he was the closest thing I had to a decent father figure around here.
“If it is as the Princess wishes,” Aurora said, and grudgingly, she crossed out her husband’s name and wrote Garrett’s instead.
They continued that way for a while, and eventually, I had to excuse myself. I needed a break from their subtle jabs and bickering. I wandered down the hall. My plan only went so far as to be anywhere that they weren’t.
As I got closer to the War Room, I heard voices. I stopped and poked my head inside. The pasty Chancellor sat at the desk with a stack of papers spread out before him. Finn and Tove stood on the other side of the desk, talking, and Thomas was at the bookshelves, searching for something.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked and came into the room.
“The boys here have an idiotic plan, and I’m indulging them,” the Chancellor said.
“It’s not idiotic,” Finn said, glaring at the Chancellor, who was too busy dabbing sweat from his forehead to notice.
“We’re trying to find a way to extend the embargo,” Tove explained. “We’re going through old treaties with the Vittra and any other tribes to see if we have a precedent.”
“Have you found anything?” I asked.
I went over to the desk and touched some of the papers. Most of them were written in a language I didn’t understand. It was all symbols, almost like Russian or Arabic. I’d found that to be common of the older documents when I looked in the library.
“Nothing useful yet, but we only just started,” Tove said.
“You won’t find anything useful.” The Chancellor shook his head. “The Vittra never put their deals in writing, and they never extend them.”
“What kinds of things could extend the embargo?” I asked, ignoring the Chancellor.
“We don’t know, exactly,” Tove admitted. “But often, there are loopholes in the language that we can use against them.”
“Loopholes?” I asked.
“Yeah, like Rumpelstiltskin,” Finn said. “They usually throw in something clever like that when they make a deal. It seems impossible, but sometimes, you can break it.”
“I heard the deal. They didn’t say anything like that,” I said. “Except that the peace only lasts until I become Queen. What if I never become Queen?”
“No, you need to be Queen,” Finn said and picked up a stack of papers.
“But that would make indefinite peace, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “If I was never Queen.”
“I doubt it,” Tove said. “The King would find a way around it eventually, and it would only make him more pissed when he finally did.”
“But…” I trailed off and sighed. “So he’ll find his way around anything, including an extension. Why are you even bothering?”
“An extension isn’t our goal.” Tove met my eyes. “We’ll settle for a temporary fix if it’s all we can find, but we want to find something that will end this.”
“Do you think something like that exists?” I asked.
“The only thing that King will listen to is violence,” the Chancellor sputtered. “We need to attack them with everything we have, as soon as we can.”
“We have tried that,” Tove said, exasperated. “Over and over again! The King is immune to our attacks! We can’t hurt him!”
It suddenly hit me when he said that. When Tove had talked about Loki, he’d said that only he, Elora, and I were strong enough to hold him, and he wasn’t even sure if we could execute him. By Elora’s own admission, the King was stronger than Loki. He’d killed her mother, who was as powerful as her.
Nobody had ever been able to stop the King. Elora wasn’t strong enough, and Tove was too scatterbrained. But I had the King’s strength and Elora’s power.
“You want me to kill the King,” I said. “You want to extend the deadline so I have more time to train.”
Tove and Finn wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I knew I’d gotten it right. They expected me to kill my father.
25. Fairy Tale
Thomas grabbed a large book from the bookshelf and dropped it on the desk with a heavy thud. Dust rose from the leather cover. Tove had been so busy avoiding my gaze that he jumped when the book banged.
“That might be of some help.” Thomas motioned to the book. “But it’s written in Tryllic.”
“What’s Tryllic?” I asked, eager to change the subject to something that wasn’t patricide.
“It’s the old Trylle language,” Finn explained, and pointed to the papers I’d seen written in a symbolic language. “Only Tove is any good at reading it.”
“It’s a dead language,” the Chancellor said. “I don’t know how anyone knows it anymore.”
“It’s not that hard.” Tove reached for the book. He opened the pages, letting out a musty odor. “I can teach you sometime, if you’d like.”
“I should learn it,” I said. “But not right now. We’re trying to find a way to extend this thing, right? How can I help?”
“Look through the papers.” Finn sifted through some on the table and handed me a small stack. “See if you can find anything about treaties or embargos, even if it’s not with the Vittra. Anything that might help.”
Tove sat down on one of the distressed leather chairs to read the book. I sat down on the floor with my stack of papers, preparing to dig into Trylle legalese. It always seemed to be written in riddles and limericks. A lot of it was hard to understand, and I had to ask for interpretations.
I didn’t feel so bad about that, though, when Tove called Finn over to help him understand a passage. Finn leaned over the chair so he could peer down at the page, and he and Tove discussed what it meant.
I thought about how strange it was that Finn and Tove got along so well. Finn seemed to turn into a jealous freak whenever I flirted with a guy, but I was engaged to Tove, and he seemed perfectly okay with him.
Finn looked up from the book, and his eyes met mine, only for a second before he looked away. I saw something in them, a longing I missed, and I wondered again if I made the right decision.
“Princess?” Aurora called from the hallway.
I’d only been sitting on the floor, reading pages, but she probably wo
uldn’t approve of it. I jumped to my feet and set the papers on the desk to avoid a lecture about ladylike behavior.
“Princess?” Aurora said again, and she looked in the room. “Ah, there you are. And you’re with Tove. Perfect. We need you to go over engagement details.”
“Oh. Right.” Tove set the book aside and gave me an awkward smile. “Wedding stuff. We have to do that now.”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
I glanced over at Finn. His expression had hardened, but he didn’t look up. Tove and I followed Aurora out as she talked about the things we needed to do for the wedding, and I looked over my shoulder at Finn.
Aurora held Tove and me hostage for far too long, and Willa couldn’t lighten the mood. It would’ve been so much easier if Aurora and Willa were just marrying each other. By the time Aurora let us go, even Willa was relieved to be escaping.
Duncan was waiting for me, and we went down to the kitchen to eat supper together. Tove went to the War Room to work on things, and Willa said she had plans. I knew I should go back with Tove to help, but I was starving. I had to get something to eat first.
I talked to Duncan about what Tove and Finn were researching, and how some of the papers were written in Tryllic. Duncan said he thought he’d seen a book on Tryllic upstairs in Rhys’s living room, which made sense because a lot of mänks went through a phase where they tried to learn it.
I didn’t really need to learn it this second, but I wanted to get a feel for the language. As soon as we were done eating, I headed up to the living room. The door was shut, but most doors in the palace were kept closed, and I opened it without knocking.
I hadn’t been trying to be sneaky, but since Matt and Willa didn’t hear me, I must’ve been awfully quiet. Or maybe they were too caught up in themselves.
Willa was lying on her back on the couch, and Matt was on top of her. She had on a short dress, the way she always seemed to, and Matt had his hand on her thigh, pushing her hem up. Her other leg wrapped around his waist, and she buried her fingers in his sandy hair as they kissed.
“Oh my god!” I gasped. I didn’t mean to, but it just came out.
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