When she finally lay down again sleep came quickly and left before the bell rang.
She was already dressed when Senna arrived.
A servant died that same morning.
But earlier.
Elyndra heard about it the way everyone heard about things in this palace.
Not announced, not explained.
Just present.
In the lowered voices of the maids moving through the corridors before dawn.
A woman.
One of the well servants.
Found beside the stone well with her hands still wrapped around the rope, eyes open and glassy and staring up at the sky.
No one knew exactly when.
No one said what had caused it.
By the time the princesses came out for morning assembly the stone had been scrubbed clean.
Breakfast was on the table.
Everything in its place.
The gap where the woman had been was already filled with someone else going about the same task.
Elyndra ate nothing and watched everything.
Two princesses were already gone.
Nobody said their names.
—
The second test came without ceremony.
They were assembled in the hall again, the remaining princesses arranged in their line, and the queen’s handmaid walked slowly down the row and stopped at each girl in turn.
One question.
The same one for all of them.
”A famine spreads through the outer regions of the kingdom.
The people are hungry and unrest is growing.
Crops have failed for the second year.
What counsel would you give the Crown Prince?”
Princess Laynira of Valyria clasped her hands neatly in front of her.
“Open the royal storehouses . The people’s loyalty is won through generosity. A prince who feeds his people in hardship earns their devotion for a generation.”
A few heads nodded faintly along the line.
Princess Zevra of Elarion spoke carefully.
“Negotiate with the northern territories for grain imports and reduce taxation in the affected regions temporarily. The kingdom’s stability depends on the people’s faith in the throne.”
Princess Seraphine of Frostvale kept her chin level.
“Send aid from the capital stores and dispatch officials to assess the damage. The Crown Prince should be seen to care.”
Princess Rhael of Astravia said softly, “Prayer and patience. The land has cycles. What fails one season recovers the next. Guide the people’s faith and they will endure.”
Down the line heads turned slightly.
A few of the princesses pressed their lips together.
Lythia of Naevana stepped forward with a graceful incline of her head.
“Forgive me but I would counsel differently. The outer regions must not come to rely on royal generosity in times of hardship or they will manufacture hardship to receive it. I would send a limited measure of aid, enough to calm the unrest but not enough to create dependency. A queen must love her people and manage them.”
The handmaid’s expression didn’t change.
She moved on.
She reached Elyndra.
Elyndra was quiet for a moment.
”The people are hungry,” she said.
“That is the only fact that matters at the start. Feed them first.” She kept her voice even.
“But feeding them is not the end of it. Find out why the crops failed twice. Natural causes or something else. Mismanagement, hoarding, intentional interference. A famine that happens once is bad luck. One that happens twice has a reason. The Crown Prince should feed his people and then find whoever allowed this to happen a second time.” A pause.
“Hungry people don’t forget. And neither should the crown prince.”
Silence.
Not the polite silence that had followed the other answers.
Something quieter than that.
Three princesses down the line had turned their heads very slightly toward her.
The queen who was sitting at the far end had not moved but her eyes were on Elyndra with an attention that was different from before.
Lythia was looking at her with a frown, not friendly look at all.
The handmaid wrote something down.
”Next,” she said.
Elyndra looked forward and said nothing more.
But she felt the queen’s eyes on her for a moment longer than they rested on anyone else.
—
It was already late morning, the hall had settled into the low tense rhythm that was becoming familiar.
The remaining princesses moved through the motions of the day.
Tea, quiet conversation, the performance of composure, and Elyndra stood near the window and watched all of it and thought about everything that has happened so quick.
A servant died early in the morning, the tests and a garden she wasn’t supposed to have been able to get into.
She thought about the crown prince in the dark garden, telling her about the flower that was poisonous.
The way he’d said *you keep reminding me of someone* and then pulled it back.
The way his eyes had moved over her in the corridor the day before.
He was looking for something.
She needed to find out what he was looking for.
She picked up her tea and this time she drank it.
”Princess Elyndra.”
She was called.
The voice was sweet.
Warm.
The kind that made you look up without meaning to.
—
First five chapters