The difference between my chambers and the rest of the palace settled over me before Mother and I reached the end of the corridor. The identity filter did not announce itself or snap into place all at once, but the broad access I had enjoyed inside the Safe Area narrowed while the palace became immediately familiar again. I knew which stairway led fastest toward the audience chamber, which servants warranted acknowledgment, how closely I should walk beside the Queen Consort, and exactly how much dignity was expected from a Crown Princess who had recently stormed out of court.
Mother noticed when my pace faltered, though she spared me another question. By the time the audience-chamber doors came into view, my posture had settled into its practiced courtly precision almost without effort. This time I understood what was happening well enough to let the skill do its job instead of fighting every familiar movement simply because Luke Thompson had never personally learned it.
The guards opened the doors as we approached, and the conversation beyond them quieted almost immediately. The larger court had been dismissed during my absence, leaving Father, several senior Calderian councillors, the Valenne delegation, Adrian, Renee, and a scattering of attendants whose presence registered as ordinary enough that none of them demanded particular attention.
Renee stood near one of the carved pillars and visibly relaxed when she saw me. I gave her a small smile before following Mother toward the dais, where Father watched my approach with the expression of a man attempting to decide whether his daughter’s return counted as progress or merely the opening move in another argument.
“You came back.”
“I was told allowing everyone else to discuss my future without me was poor strategy. Apparently Mother has decided to weaponize competent parenting.”
Mother continued toward her place beside him without breaking stride. “I am pleased you retained something from our conversation.”
Father glanced toward her, and suspicion crept into his expression. “Should I be concerned about how much of that conversation involved me?”
“Considerably.”
“I suspected as much.”
I looked between them and found the exchange strangely reassuring. Whatever impossible thing had happened to me, this at least felt like an argument between two people who had been irritating each other for years, and some part of me understood the rhythm of it even without the memories that should have made it familiar.
“Can we continue without another performance?” Father asked.
“I make no promises about quality.”
“Radiance.”
“I said I was listening.”
“That is not the same as behaving.”
“Then your expectations were poorly defined.”
A suspiciously quiet sound came from somewhere near the Valenne delegation. I did not need to look toward Adrian to know exactly who had failed to suppress it, and Father’s brief glance in that direction bought me enough time to arrange my face into complete innocence.
“The marriage discussion will be tabled for now,” Father said.
My tail stopped moving behind me, though I managed to keep the rest of my expression under control. The words were different enough from what I had expected that repeating them seemed considerably safer than celebrating before I discovered whatever qualification might be hiding behind them.
“Tabled.”
“Yes.”
“Actually tabled?”
“Yes, Radiance.”
“No surprise betrothal documents waiting beneath the throne?”
“No.”
“Secret priest behind a curtain?”
“No.”
“Conveniently assembled wedding guests waiting in another hall?”
Father’s expression flattened further with every question. “Do you intend to invent increasingly ridiculous possibilities until I regret conceding anything?”
“I was determining the exact boundaries of the concession.”
Mother lifted one hand toward her mouth, but not quickly enough to hide the beginning of a smile. Father noticed her amusement, which improved my mood considerably.
“The discussion is tabled,” he repeated. “The families have already agreed to the match in principle, and that provisional arrangement remains recognized. What I am telling you is that nothing further will be decided today, and the marriage will not proceed without your participation.”
“That is almost suspiciously reasonable.”
“I am capable of reason.”
“I have insufficient evidence.”
“Radiance.”
“I remain attentive.”
Father closed his eyes for a moment, and Mother’s smile became impossible to hide. When he opened them again, some of the irritation had drained away, though the seriousness beneath it remained.
“There is another matter we need to discuss.”
“There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The thing attached to the reasonable part.”
“It is not attached to the marriage discussion.”
“That sounded extremely carefully phrased.”
“It was carefully phrased because I have learned that you treat ambiguity as an invitation to commit crimes against language.”
I put a hand against my chest. “You wound me.”
“I have been trying for years.”
That nearly got me, but the composure built into years of court performance kept the laugh contained to a smile. Adrian was less successful somewhere to my right, and I heard the low chuckle before Father continued.
“Several villages in Calder’s western reaches have suffered severe crop failures,” Father said. “The first reports suggested an isolated poor harvest. More recent reports indicate the problem is broader than we initially believed.”
The humor left me quickly. I did not need specialized agricultural knowledge to understand what a failed harvest meant in a kingdom where most people could not simply import dinner from somewhere else, and the political consequences surfaced almost immediately alongside the human ones.
“How many villages?”
Father looked toward an older councillor standing below the dais. The name Councillor Marrec surfaced with his position as he stepped forward carrying several bound reports, along with the broad understanding that he served somewhere within Calder’s domestic administration.
“Seven are confirmed, Your Highness,” Marrec said. “Four additional villages have reported losses substantial enough that we expect at least some of them to be added after verification.”
“Eleven villages potentially affected.” I looked at the reports in his hands and then back to him. “How severe are the confirmed losses?”
“Several harvested less than half of what was expected. The worst fields produced almost nothing usable.”
My stomach tightened as the likely consequences assembled themselves faster than any explanation for the cause. Food prices would rise. Royal stores would begin moving. Families would become frightened, landowners angry, local officials desperate for relief, and people understandably hostile if the Crown appeared more interested in palace politics than whether they ate.
“Are people already going hungry?”
“Not broadly,” Marrec said. “Most settlements have reserves from previous harvests, and the Crown has begun moving grain toward the districts reporting the worst shortages. If another harvest fails or the affected region expands, those measures will become considerably more difficult to sustain.”
“Have we sent people to investigate?”
“Local officials, agricultural stewards, representatives from the western estates, and two assessors from the Crown.”
“And they have not found an answer.”
“Not yet, Your Highness.”
I disliked how little that told me. My scientific training was still there, but crops are failing was not data so much as the beginning of a question. Disease, pests, soil chemistry, water, weather, toxins, nutrient deficiencies, or something entirely magical could all produce bad harvests, and without symptoms, samples, environmental information, or even knowing whether every affected field was failing in the same way, I had nothing useful to diagnose.
Father waited until Marrec stepped back before continuing. “The situation is further complicated because the failures are not limited to Calder.”
My attention shifted toward Valenne’s delegation. One of their representatives moved forward at Father’s invitation, while Adrian’s amusement disappeared beneath a concentration that made him look much more like the trained protector his character sheet said he was.
“Six settlements on the Valenne side of the border have confirmed similar losses,” the representative said. “Several others are being evaluated. The affected villages on both sides are concentrated within the same general region.”
“So whatever is happening does not care where the border is.”
“It would appear not, Your Highness.”
I glanced toward the large map table positioned near the councillors. The marked settlements clustered along both sides of the western border, close enough together that even I could see why the two kingdoms had begun treating their problems as connected rather than simultaneous bad luck.
Father rose from the throne and descended the short dais. He stopped on the chamber floor instead of speaking down to me from above, and after the disaster our previous conversation had become, I doubted the choice was accidental.
“These villages need more than reports moving between officials,” he said. “They need someone with enough authority to act when local interests conflict, coordinate with both Crowns, determine what assistance is actually reaching the people, and return with a clearer understanding of what is happening.”
I stared at him as the destination of the conversation became obvious. Father watched recognition arrive and, annoyingly, waited for me to say it first.
“No.”
“I have not asked anything yet.”
“You have been my father for twenty-one years. Surely I have learned something.”
The sentence came out with perfect confidence despite the fact that I possessed none of the twenty-one years of memories that should have supported it. Father merely gave me the tired expression of a man who apparently believed the accuracy of my prediction proved his point.
“You disappeared for months, Radiance.”
The humor vanished from his voice, and Cassia’s absence hit before I had any chance to brace against it. I still had no remembered nights with her, no shared mornings, no private conversations to replay, but loving her and failing to find her hurt with enough force that none of those missing memories made the grief less real.
“I did not leave because Calder stopped mattering.”
“I know.”
“I went after someone I loved.”
“I know that too.” Father’s voice remained firm without becoming cruel. “Your mother knows. Your family knows. The people who watched their Crown Princess disappear from public life do not know what was in your heart when you left.”
“Then perhaps someone should have told them.”
“Perhaps you should have been here to tell them yourself.”
Mother’s gaze sharpened toward him, and Father visibly reconsidered whatever he had been about to add. He took a slower breath before continuing, keeping the point while stripping away enough accusation that I could actually hear it.
“I am not asking you to apologize for loving Cassia, and I am not asking you to pretend you would have chosen differently if you believed she needed you. I am asking you to recognize that the Crown does not stop carrying responsibilities because your private life becomes painful.”
I hated how difficult that was to argue with. I wanted Calder’s crown badly enough that claiming all the privilege attached to it while refusing the obligations would make me exactly the sort of princess I insisted I was not, and no amount of anger at Father changed that.
“What exactly do you want?”
“I want you to go west.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You asked what I wanted.”
“I was hoping the answer involved paperwork.”
“It will.”
“That does not improve it.”
Father ignored the objection with the practiced endurance of someone who had apparently raised me. “I want you to visit the affected villages, speak with the people living through this, meet with local officials, assess what they need, and determine what Calder can do while the councils continue investigating the cause.”
I looked toward Marrec and the reports in his hands, then back to Father. The responsibility itself was difficult to reject, which meant my attention immediately went searching for some other part of the proposal I could object to instead.
“How far?”
“Several weeks to the most heavily affected districts, depending on the route and road conditions.”
My horror must have shown because a smile started threatening Adrian’s mouth before I could stop myself from noticing. I returned my attention to Father immediately, though not quickly enough to avoid catching one of the dimples I had apparently considered essential when designing the exact sort of man I should have known better than to find attractive.
“Several weeks,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“On the road.”
“That is normally how overland travel works.”
“You picked a remarkably poor moment to discover sarcasm.”
Mother looked down with unmistakable concentration, which meant she was trying not to laugh. Father had the audacity to look mildly pleased with himself as though discovering sarcasm this late in our relationship represented some kind of personal victory.
“There are inns along much of the route.”
“Much.”
“Yes.”
“That word is carrying an irresponsible amount of weight.”
“Some stretches will require camping.”
I stared at him while everything I understood about royal travel supplied enough context for the word to become immediately offensive. Tents. Limited bathing. Dust. Insects. Meals prepared somewhere that did not have an actual kitchen. Sleeping arrangements that apparently expected the ground to participate.
“Camping.”
“Yes.”
“As in tents.”
“Yes.”
“Sleeping outside.”
“That is frequently involved.”
“On purpose.”
Adrian coughed into one fist, and the sound was considerably too suspicious to be medical. I turned toward him and caught the amusement in his dark eyes before remembering that looking at him for very long had become an irritatingly unreliable decision.
“Something amusing, Your Highness?”
He arranged his face into admirable solemnity. “I was merely impressed by the thoroughness of your investigation.”
“We have established that tents are involved. I consider the matter extensively investigated.”
“I would never question such rigorous methodology.”
His grin finally escaped, dimples included, and warmth curled unexpectedly low through my middle while irritation arrived quickly enough to give me something safer to concentrate on. The reaction was mine, however inconvenient that fact might be, and knowing that did absolutely nothing to make Adrian’s expression less distracting.
“You are enjoying this far too much.”
“A little.”
“At least he is honest,” Mother said.
I looked at her in open betrayal. “Whose side are you on?”
“Calder’s.”
“That is an extremely Queen-like answer.”
“I have had considerable practice.”
Father cleared his throat before the conversation could wander any farther. “Radiance, you demanded this morning that we treat you as the future Queen of Calder rather than a child whose decisions are made for her.”
“I remain confident that adulthood can include mattresses.”
“There probably is a version that does. It is not the version I am offering you.”
“That feels personal.”
“It is educational.”
“That is considerably worse.”
Father’s expression softened despite himself before seriousness returned. “You have been absent for months. Go among your people, listen to them, let them see you listening, and help where you can. I do not want you arriving behind a wall of royal guards, hearing prepared speeches from officials, and returning home convinced that counts as knowing the kingdom you intend to inherit.”
That silenced me more effectively than criticism had. I could complain about roads, tents, dirt, and the apparent collapse of civilization involved in sleeping outdoors until everyone in the room regretted my return, but people in Calder were facing the possibility of losing their food. I could not make that somebody else’s problem while still insisting the Crown should eventually become mine.
“If I agree, the marriage discussion remains tabled until I return.”
“Yes.”
“No negotiations completed while I am gone.”
“No decisions will be made without your participation.”
“No convenient interpretation where my absence becomes consent.”
“It will not.”
I studied Father’s face before continuing, because this part mattered more than any tent ever could. “And when I return, if I still tell you I will not marry Adrian, you will respect that.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation, and I narrowed my eyes because easy victories had become suspicious. “Completely no?”
“If, after the journey, you tell me you will not marry Adrian, I will honor that decision.”
That changed the shape of the entire arrangement enough that I stopped searching immediately for another joke. Father had not abandoned the match, and technically neither family had withdrawn from the engagement already agreed to in principle, but he had drawn a clear line between expecting me to know the man before deciding and forcing me to marry him regardless of what I wanted.
“I want the village reports before I leave.”
“You will have them.”
“I want access to whatever records the local officials have.”
“You will have appropriate authority.”
“And if someone decides information is inconvenient enough to hide?”
“You may compel cooperation within Calderian law.”
“I decide what within Calderian law means.”
“No.”
“It was worth trying.”
Father’s mouth twitched. “Will you go?”
I looked toward the marked villages on the map and then toward the reports in Marrec’s hands. Eleven Calderian settlements were already affected, more might follow, and the crown I claimed to want meant considerably less if I refused to leave the palace the moment being its heir became uncomfortable.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go.”
Father’s satisfaction appeared quickly enough that I immediately distrusted it. He exchanged a glance with Mother, then another with the Valenne delegation, and the brief sequence told me there was still some piece of this arrangement everyone else understood before I did.
“Good. Prince Adrian will accompany you.”
I stared at Father and waited for the sentence to rearrange itself into something less objectionable. It stubbornly remained exactly what he had said, while Adrian stood to my right with the irritating composure of someone who had known this part was coming.
“My what will do what?”
“Prince Adrian will accompany you.”
“I heard the words. I was giving you an opportunity to reconsider them.”
“I do not require one.”
“That makes one of us.”
Father gestured toward the map table rather than acknowledging the glare I aimed at him. “The affected region lies along the Calder-Valenne border, and villages in both kingdoms are experiencing the same failures. Valenne has as much reason to send a royal representative as Calder does.”
“Then they may send him in an entirely separate direction.”
“That would rather defeat the purpose of coordinating the investigation.”
“We could coordinate by letter.”
“You complained about reports replacing direct investigation approximately five minutes ago.”
“I was younger then.”
Adrian’s laugh escaped before he could disguise it, and I turned toward him with every intention of reminding him that none of this was funny. Unfortunately, that required looking at him again, which continued to be an irritating tactical error because amusement softened his face and brought those damned dimples back with it.
“You knew about this.”
“I knew Valenne intended to send me west.”
“That was not my question.”
“I suspected your father might ask you to represent Calder. I did not know whether you would agree.”
“And yet you remained remarkably quiet while I walked willingly into the trap.”
Adrian placed one hand over his chest with entirely too much innocence for a man his size. “I would never interfere in a private disagreement between a woman and her father.”
“This is an audience chamber.”
“Then I would never interfere in a very public disagreement between a woman and her King.”
“That distinction does not save you.”
“I was not especially confident it would.”
Warmth returned low in my middle alongside an increasingly inconvenient desire to keep arguing with him simply because he kept giving me answers worth answering. I dragged my attention back to Father before either reaction could become more distracting than it already was.
“You said I was going among my people to rebuild trust. Arriving with a foreign prince attached to me rather undermines the image of independent royal competence.”
Father’s expression told me he had been expecting that objection. “Arriving with the prince whose kingdom is suffering the same crisis demonstrates cooperation between two Crowns whose people share a border and a problem.”
“I dislike how prepared you are.”
“I have had children longer than you have had arguments.”
“You have had me for exactly as long as I have had arguments.”
Mother made a quiet sound that might have been agreement, and Father looked toward her with the weary realization that his wife was not going to provide reliable reinforcement.
“There is another consideration,” he said. “You will not be traveling with a full royal guard.”
The objection arrived so quickly it nearly collided with the previous one. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
“Yes, but apparently today is devoted to hearing increasingly terrible things twice.”
Father ignored that with impressive discipline. “You will travel with Renee and Prince Adrian, without a large military escort or ceremonial procession.”
I looked toward Renee, who had gone very still near one of the carved pillars. She did not appear shocked, which meant either she had known or she possessed considerably better control over her face than I did over my tail.
“No guards.”
“Not a royal company, no.”
“I am the Crown Princess.”
“I am aware.”
“People occasionally attempt unpleasant things involving Crown Princesses.”
“I am also aware.”
“And your solution is to send me onto weeks of roads with my lady-in-waiting and a man I met once at a ball.”
Adrian raised one finger slightly. “Twice now.”
I turned toward him. “Your contribution has been noted and rejected.”
“Cruel.”
“You will recover.”
“I have been trained for hardship.”
The smile threatening his mouth made the heat stir again, and I refused to reward either it or him by continuing the exchange. Father had watched enough of it to develop an expression I did not trust, so I returned to the considerably safer subject of how insane his travel plan was.
“Send guards. A small unit if you insist on avoiding a procession.”
“A small unit becomes a large one the moment local officials know the Crown Princess is arriving. Then come outriders, servants, supply wagons, heralds, additional local security, prepared receptions, and every person between here and the border rehearsing what they intend to tell you.”
“I like prepared receptions.”
“I know.”
“They frequently involve baths.”
“I am aware.”
“And beds.”
“Radiance.”
“I am explaining why civilization developed.”
Father’s patience visibly strained, but Mother’s shoulders moved with suppressed laughter. Even Marrec looked dangerously close to possessing a personality.
“The point,” Father said, “is that I do not want you traveling as a court on wheels. The people in those villages have spent months speaking to officials who arrive with entourages, inspect what they are shown, and leave. I want you close enough to hear what people say when there is not a line of soldiers standing behind you.”
“That sounds distressingly like expecting strangers to speak to me.”
“You are their princess.”
“Exactly. They should be intimidated from an appropriate distance.”
Mother finally laughed. “Rae.”
“I am joking. Mostly.”
Father shook his head, though some of the severity had left his expression. “This is precisely why you need to go.”
“I walked directly into that one.”
“You did.”
I glanced toward Adrian again, more carefully this time. “And His Enormousness is supposed to replace an armed escort?”
One of Adrian’s eyebrows rose. “His Enormousness?”
“You are absurdly tall.”
“I had not noticed.”
“I imagine weather forms differently around your head.”
“Occasionally. I will warn you if I see rain coming.”
The answer was so immediate that I almost laughed, which only annoyed me more because I genuinely enjoyed the exchange. I caught the smile before it fully formed and redirected it into something suitably disdainful.
Father waited until we were finished before answering the actual question. “Prince Adrian is not replacing an entire military escort. He is, however, a trained Court Protector, and more than capable of dealing with dangers you and Renee should not face alone.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I did not say you could not.”
“You implied it.”
“I implied that three capable people are safer than two, particularly when one of them has trained specifically to protect others in dangerous circumstances.” Father paused, then added more deliberately, “And I will not send my daughter across weeks of unfamiliar roads without a suitable escort when I have a perfectly qualified one already traveling to the same destination.”
I folded my arms. “Suitable.”
“You are the Crown Princess of Calder, Radiance. You are young, conspicuous, and recognizable. There are men in this world who will interpret an inadequately protected woman as an opportunity regardless of what title she carries or how capable she is of defending herself. I would prefer they never receive the chance to discover how badly they misjudged you.”
That answer stole the easy objection from me. Father was not looking at me as though I were helpless, and there was enough quiet anger beneath the words to make it obvious he was imagining dangers considerably less abstractly than I had.
His gaze shifted briefly toward Adrian. “You are also already formally intended to one another. Traveling with your fiancé is entirely proper in circumstances where traveling alone with an unrelated prince would invite exactly the sort of attention neither kingdom needs while people are worrying about their harvests.”
There was the other half of it.
I looked at Adrian. “So you are simultaneously a diplomatic representative, a bodyguard, and a defense against gossip.”
“Apparently Valenne believes in getting full value from its second prince.”
“That may be the first argument against bringing you that I have found genuinely compelling.”
His mouth curved again. “I was afraid you were beginning to approve.”
“I assure you, Your Highness, we remain safely distant from that catastrophe.”
He inclined his head. “Apparently Valenne has found an efficient use for its second prince.”
“That may be the first argument against bringing you that I have found genuinely compelling.”
His mouth curved again. “I was afraid you were beginning to approve.”
“I assure you, Your Highness, we remain safely distant from that catastrophe.”
Adrian’s expression lost some of its amusement when Father’s reasoning settled back over the conversation. “For what it is worth, your father is not asking me to treat you as helpless, Radiance. I would refuse if he were.”
I looked at him before remembering that his serious expressions were somehow more dangerous than the flirtatious ones. Without the grin, there was nothing easy to dismiss while he met my eyes with uncomplicated certainty.
“I do not require a keeper.”
“Good. I have no interest in being one.”
“Then we understand each other.”
“I was hoping we might eventually.”
The warmth curled through me again, stronger for having no obvious flirtation attached to it, and I broke eye contact before the reaction had time to become any more distracting. Being attracted to him was inconvenient enough without discovering that apparently basic respect made it worse.
I turned toward Renee instead. “And what exactly are you expected to do while my trained protector and I wander through villages with dying crops?”
Renee answered before Father could. “My usual duties, Your Highness, along with keeping you from attempting to pack fourteen gowns for a journey that requires riding clothes.”
I stared at her in betrayal. “You too?”
“I have served you too long to pretend that is not a realistic concern.”
“I would never pack fourteen gowns.”
Renee’s expression remained perfectly respectful. “Of course not, Your Highness.”
“That sounded judgmental.”
“I apologize.”
“You do not.”
“No, Your Highness.”
Adrian looked away, which did nothing to hide the single movement of his shoulders. I pointed at him without bothering to preserve royal dignity.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I have said nothing.”
“You are laughing.”
“I am attempting not to.”
“You are failing.”
“Then perhaps your standards are unreasonable.”
I stared at him until he finally lost the battle with his smile. My tail flicked behind me with irritation that was becoming increasingly difficult to separate from enjoyment, and I decided the distinction could remain somebody else’s problem for the moment.
Father allowed the room several seconds to recover before reclaiming the discussion. “Renee knows you, understands royal protocol, and can help you navigate local households without turning every visit into a formal audience. Adrian knows the roads, has the training to protect the party, and represents Valenne’s interests in the same investigation.”
“And I provide what, exactly?”
Father looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious. “You are the Crown Princess of Calder.”
“That is a title, not a traveling skill.”
“It is authority. More importantly, it is responsibility.”
I disliked that answer precisely because I understood it. The crown meant more than jewelry, status, beautiful rooms, and the right to make half the court nervous when I smiled too sweetly. If I wanted to rule Calder someday, then there were moments when simply being the person empowered to listen, decide, compel cooperation, and make resources move was itself a useful skill.
“There is still the matter of the engagement,” I said. “Traveling together for weeks hardly sounds like tabling it.”
“No one said the journey would erase the arrangement already recognized between our families.”
My attention sharpened. “You are going to need to be very precise about that sentence.”
Mother closed her eyes briefly beside him, which suggested Father had already discovered that precision would be advisable.
“The families agreed to the match in principle before your return,” Father said. “You and Prince Adrian are therefore formally recognized as intended partners. What I tabled was any further progression toward marriage until you have participated in the decision.”
“So I am technically engaged.”
“Yes.”
“To a man I have spoken to twice.”
Adrian lifted a hand slightly. “I am hoping the third conversation improves my standing.”
“It has not.”
“I appreciate the timely evaluation.”
I turned back to Father before Adrian could make being technically engaged to him any more annoying than it already was. “And traveling together is supposed to look proper because he is my fiancé.”
“In part. You are an unmarried Crown Princess traveling with a very small household and an unmarried foreign prince. The existing engagement gives both of you recognized standing in one another’s kingdoms and removes a great deal of unnecessary speculation about why you are sharing an itinerary.”
“There are easier explanations.”
“Name one.”
“We are investigating the same crop failures.”
“That explains why Calder and Valenne are cooperating. It does not stop every noble house between here and the border from deciding there must be another reason the two of you are spending weeks traveling together.”
“I could simply tell them nothing improper is happening.”
Father stared at me. Mother stared at me. Renee stared at me. Even Adrian stared, although his expression was considerably more entertained than the others, and the collective response became irritating enough that I folded my arms.
“What?”
Father rubbed two fingers against his temple. “You vanished for months with the woman you loved.”
“That was different.”
“You are one of the most discussed women in Calder.”
“That is hardly my fault.”
Mother’s eyebrows rose.
I sighed. “Fine. It is not entirely my fault.”
Adrian’s voice came from beside me, far too innocent. “I am beginning to understand why your father prefers the simple explanation.”
“You are welcome to travel twenty paces behind me and deny knowing me.”
“That seems difficult if we are engaged.”
“Provisionally.”
“Of course. I would hate to overstate my good fortune.”
The heat returned with enough force that my next answer almost arrived late, which was intolerable. I narrowed my eyes and let years of practiced court disdain handle the expression while I recovered the rest of my dignity.
“You are very confident for a man whose engagement has an expiration condition.”
“I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to make an argument.”
“I have already heard several of your arguments.”
“And yet you keep answering them.”
“That is not evidence in your favor.”
“I did not say it was.”
Father cut in before we could continue indefinitely. “When you return, if you tell me you want the arrangement ended, I will end Calder’s participation in it. I expect you to spend this journey actually getting to know the man your family believed suitable for you, but I will not force you to marry him if, after doing so, your answer remains no.”
That was the distinction I had been pushing him toward all morning, and I studied his face carefully before accepting it. He was not offering me freedom as a reward for completing the journey. He was asking me not to make the final decision about a man I barely knew before spending weeks in circumstances where pretending to be someone else would probably become difficult for both of us.
“No punishment.”
“No.”
“No new condition after we return.”
“No.”
“No argument that I owe him another season because he behaved himself on the road.”
Father’s mouth tightened, but he answered without hesitation. “No.”
“If I come back and say absolutely not, you honor it.”
“Yes.”
Mother’s gaze moved between us before settling on Father. “And I will hold him to that.”
Father looked mildly offended. “I do not require supervision.”
“I have been married to you too long to agree.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and even Father surrendered enough to smile. The tension in the chamber loosened for a moment, though the map beside us and the reports still held in Marrec’s hands kept the reason for the journey from disappearing beneath the family argument.
I looked toward the western border again and tried to imagine the weeks of road stretching between the palace and those marked villages. The prospect included camping, uncertain baths, too much riding, strangers, agricultural disasters, political responsibility, and an enormous fiancé who appeared to consider irritating me a recreational activity. None of that was remotely how I would have chosen to spend the immediate aftermath of discovering my entire existence had permanently changed.
The people represented by those marks on the map had not chosen their problem either.
“I reserve the right to complain.”
Father’s smile deepened. “I assumed you would exercise it extensively.”
“Daily.”
“I would have been concerned otherwise.”
Adrian inclined his head toward me with exaggerated gravity. “I will endeavor to survive.”
I gave him my sweetest court smile, the kind that came with enough instinctive precision to make several councillors suddenly very interested in the map.
“That remains to be seen.”