By the time we reached the palace courtyard, the sun had moved well past its highest point and the morning had somehow become afternoon without asking my permission. Considering everything that had happened since I woke up, I was beginning to suspect time itself had joined the conspiracy against me. I had discovered I was permanently Radiance, survived two rounds of royal family politics, acquired a provisional fiancé, accepted responsibility for a developing agricultural crisis, endured an argument with my own bladder that had become disturbingly philosophical, and negotiated the survival of two gowns against Renee’s campaign of ruthless practicality. Through all of it, I had never actually changed clothes. The same court dress I had put on that morning still swept around my legs beneath the traveling coat Renee had added before we came downstairs, which made the collection of horses, road gear, and expedition supplies waiting beyond the archway feel even more surreal.
The palace courtyard looked as though someone had tried to assemble a respectable royal expedition and then lost an argument with my luggage. Three horses stood saddled beneath the afternoon sun, while a fourth animal that was unquestionably a mule waited harnessed to a small covered cart. Stable hands moved between them making final adjustments to straps and buckles, and several servants were finishing the last work of securing cases, provisions, and expedition supplies beneath the cart’s weather cover. Enough baggage had accumulated around it to suggest I might be quietly relocating rather than leaving Calder City to investigate failing crops.
Renee stopped beside me beneath the archway and followed my gaze toward the cart. Her expression remained perfectly neutral, which I had already learned meant she was enjoying herself far more than she intended to admit.
“I thought you said you reduced my luggage.”
“I did.”
“There is a cart.”
“There would have been a larger cart.”
I turned slowly toward her, but the composure on her face did not crack. “How much larger?”
“Large enough that I decided preserving your dignity required not answering that question.”
The mule flicked one ear in my direction as though it had already been briefed on my involvement in its immediate future. Several of my cases were secured beneath the cover alongside food, camp equipment, and other supplies, while two smaller pieces of luggage I distinctly remembered from my chambers had somehow migrated onto the broad saddle behind another horse.
“That is mine.”
“Yes.”
“On his horse.”
“Yes.”
“I object.”
“You may carry it yourself.”
I looked down at my hands before examining the case strapped behind a saddle that sat approximately level with my chest. Whatever principles I possessed regarding personal ownership abruptly became less important than not hauling a trunk across Calder under my own power.
“I withdraw the objection under protest.”
“Noted.”
Adrian was already beside the horse in question, speaking with one of the grooms while checking a leather strap along the animal’s flank. The horse suited him in an irritatingly effective way, enormous and dark bay, broad through the chest and shoulders, with thick muscle beneath a glossy coat and the steady demeanor of something that would regard an approaching battlefield as an unfortunate scheduling inconvenience. Nothing about him suggested speed had been the breeder’s first priority, but he looked capable of carrying Adrian in armor for twelve hours and still having enough energy left to drag my luggage out of a ditch.
My attention shifted toward the mare standing several yards away, and almost everything else in the courtyard stopped mattering.
She was pale silver-gray beneath the afternoon light, fine-limbed and elegant without looking fragile, with a long mane that shone almost white where the sun caught it. Her narrow, intelligent face was already turned toward me, and recognition arrived before I had time to wonder whether I was supposed to know her.
“Skydancer.”
The mare’s ears snapped forward, and every ounce of polished royal dignity vanished from her in the space of a heartbeat. She stepped toward me as far as the groom holding her reins allowed, stretched her neck, and gave an impatient little sound that somehow communicated both greeting and profound dissatisfaction with how long I had taken to appear.
I was smiling before I consciously decided to move. My feet carried me across the remaining distance while the lack of any remembered history with her collided with the immediate certainty that this horse was mine.
“Hello, beautiful.”
Skydancer shoved her nose against my shoulder hard enough to shift me half a step, apparently deciding that greeting me delicately was beneath her. My hand found the side of her face without conscious instruction, fingers slipping beneath the edge of her bridle before scratching near her cheek in precisely the place that made her eyes soften.
There was no accompanying memory of learning that spot. I did not suddenly remember brushing her when I was younger, taking my first ride through the palace grounds, feeding her stolen fruit, or anything else that might have explained years of familiarity. I simply knew her name, knew she belonged to me, knew where she liked to be scratched, and knew with a warmth spreading unexpectedly through my chest that I adored her.
That last part was becoming harder to treat as borrowed information.
Skydancer breathed against my hair and nudged me again, her affection considerably less complicated than mine. She recognized me completely, without hesitation or confusion, and whatever philosophical argument I might have constructed about whether I had earned the right to feel attached to an animal I could not remember meeting collapsed under the much simpler truth that seeing her made me happy.
“You missed me.”
“She did, Your Highness,” the groom said, smiling as he loosened his grip enough to let Skydancer crowd closer. “She was not especially pleased with anyone while you were away.”
I stroked along the mare’s jaw while she leaned shamelessly into the attention. “I cannot imagine where she learned that temperament.”
Behind me, Renee made a suspicious sound that bore very little resemblance to an innocent breath. I turned enough to catch her carefully blank expression while keeping one hand against Skydancer’s face.
“Say it.”
Renee’s expression became even more innocent. “I am exercising professional restraint.”
“You breathed judgmentally.”
Adrian looked over from his horse, amusement already spreading across his face. “Is that a court skill?”
“Advanced training,” Renee said.
“Renee, he is already insufferable without coaching.”
“Do not encourage him.”
Skydancer nudged me again before the argument could develop, and I turned back to run my hand down the sleek curve of her neck. Once the first rush of recognition settled enough for me to look at more than her face, I noticed how little had been attached to her compared with every other animal waiting in the courtyard.
Her tack was beautiful enough to hang in a ceremonial hall. Dark leather had been worked with subtle gold detailing, the Soulflame crest appeared tooled into several pieces, and the fittings looked expensive enough that part of me wondered whether they required their own guards. The only practical storage consisted of a pair of relatively small saddlebags that appeared almost decorative beside what Adrian’s horse carried.
“She is carrying almost nothing.”
Renee joined me near Skydancer and examined the mare as though the answer should have been obvious. “She is carrying you.”
“That sounded insulting.”
“It was factual.”
“I am very small.”
“You are wearing several layers.”
“That is fashion, not cargo.”
Adrian left his horse in the groom’s hands and crossed toward us, his attention moving from Skydancer to the cart with increasing amusement. Whatever diplomatic instinct he possessed apparently lost another argument with his personality before he reached us.
“I was wondering whether mentioning that distinction would be considered diplomatic.”
“It would not.”
“Excellent. I am learning.”
I looked back toward his horse and finally appreciated the difference in purpose between the two animals. His saddle carried large saddlebags, a bedroll, tools, practical traveling equipment, and two pieces of my luggage without the horse appearing particularly burdened, while Skydancer looked as though asking her to carry a cooking pot might constitute an offense against generations of careful breeding.
“I assume your horse was bred to carry castles.”
“Only small ones.”
“That explains my cases.”
“He has survived worse.”
Skydancer tossed her head when Adrian stepped near enough to enter her personal space. She did not shy from him or appear frightened, but the look she gave him managed to communicate that his presence had been noticed and found unnecessary.
“She does not appear impressed by you.”
Adrian regarded her with exaggerated seriousness. “I respect a woman with standards.”
“That line was terrible.”
“You smiled.”
“I can smile at bad things.”
“That must be very useful at court.”
Renee wisely removed herself from the argument and crossed toward the third horse instead. The mare waiting there was a sturdy chestnut from the royal stables, broad enough to carry traveling gear comfortably without approaching Adrian’s horse in sheer size, and even my limited remembered experience with horses was enough to recognize that nothing about her was ordinary simply because she lacked Skydancer’s dramatic beauty.
Renee slowed when she reached her, and for the first time since we entered the courtyard genuine surprise disrupted her composure. One hand came up almost cautiously to rest against the chestnut mare’s neck while a stable hand checked the final straps on the saddle.
“She is for me?”
“The King’s orders, my lady,” the groom said. “Assigned to you for the duration of the expedition.”
Renee glanced toward me before returning her attention to the horse, and the softness in her face made it clear the gesture had landed more deeply than she wanted to display in front of half the courtyard. “I expected one of the ordinary traveling mounts.”
The groom looked mildly offended on behalf of the entire royal stable. “His Majesty said his daughter’s lady-in-waiting was not traveling west on an ordinary mount.”
Something warm moved through me at that, even though the gift had not been intended for me. Father had thought far enough beyond simply ordering the expedition to make certain Renee had an animal he trusted to carry her safely, and that small evidence of his worry reached me more effectively than another speech about responsibility would have.
Renee stroked the mare’s neck with obvious approval while the horse turned her head toward the touch. “She is beautiful.”
“She is sensible,” I said.
Renee glanced from the chestnut toward Skydancer. “You say that as if it were an insult.”
“My horse is also sensible.”
Skydancer chose that exact moment to begin mouthing delicately at the sleeve of my traveling coat. I pushed her nose away before she could decide expensive fabric counted as lunch, while Adrian folded his arms and looked far too pleased by the timing.
“Very convincing,” he said.
“She has refined opinions.”
“About eating your clothes?”
“About texture.”
Renee laughed and returned her attention to her new horse while I inspected Skydancer’s saddle more closely. Something about its shape had been bothering me since I first looked at it, even though the rest of me regarded the arrangement with the calm familiarity of equipment I had used countless times.
Then recognition finally caught up with what I was seeing.
The seat, supports, and entire arrangement were constructed for riding sidesaddle. My first reaction was that somebody had invented an unnecessarily complicated way to sit on a horse because dresses existed, while the equally immediate certainty in my balance and posture insisted there was nothing complicated about it at all.
I stared at the saddle long enough for Adrian to notice.
“Problem?”
“No.”
“You sound offended.”
“I am evaluating.”
Renee glanced over while adjusting one of the chestnut’s reins. “You have ridden sidesaddle since you were old enough to require one.”
The information settled into place without creating a single false memory around it. I still could not remember learning, but I knew how I would position myself, where my weight belonged, how my legs would settle, and how to compensate for the arrangement before I had actually climbed into it.
“Of course I have.”
Adrian’s mouth twitched. “You seem delighted by tradition.”
“I am a princess.”
“That was not what I said.”
“It was the answer you were getting.”
Movement near the palace steps interrupted whatever response Adrian had prepared, and the atmosphere throughout the courtyard changed before I even turned. Grooms straightened, servants stepped back from the animals, and conversations softened as Father and Mother emerged from the palace with the rest of my family following behind them.
Seeing all ten of my younger siblings together made the number considerably more intimidating than it had ever looked in written form. Six sisters and four brothers had once been useful background information that made House Soulflame feel like an old royal dynasty with a frankly irresponsible number of children. Now they were ten actual people standing beneath the afternoon sun, each possessing a lifetime of opinions about the sister who had apparently occupied the center of their family whether they liked it or not.
Most of them did not look especially devastated that I was leaving. A few appeared bored, two were speaking quietly until Mother glanced back and silenced them with nothing more than an expression, another looked at the horses more often than she looked at me, and at least one of my brothers seemed almost pleased by the entire occasion. I could not trust myself to interpret much more than that because I had never written enough about every one of them to justify certainty about what those expressions meant, and the life that had instantiated around those fragments was plainly more complicated than the notes I remembered creating.
Before I returned home, assuming this expedition ever ended, I was going to sit somewhere Safe and review every detail I could access about my siblings rather than continue walking blindly into ten separate relationships armed with little more than birth order and whatever recognition surfaced when I looked at them.
One sibling did not require that effort because recognition struck the moment I saw him. Alistair stood close enough to Father that his intention to speak was obvious, and the family resemblance around our eyes and the shape of his face would have made our connection apparent even if I had not known exactly who he was. The differences between us were just as obvious. Where the Soulflame inheritance declared itself openly in my horns, impossible coloring, iridescent skin, and the tail currently twitching with growing unease behind my skirts, Alistair looked completely human despite sharing my birthday and entering the world only seven minutes after me.
The anger on his face needed no special knowledge to interpret.
Father had barely reached the bottom of the steps before Alistair moved forward, and whatever worried softness had been present in Father’s expression when he first looked toward me tightened immediately. Mother remained beside him without interrupting, though her attention settled on Alistair with the alertness of someone who already knew this conversation was going somewhere unpleasant.
“Father, I need to speak with you before they leave.”
“You have had all morning to speak with me.”
“I thought you might reconsider once you saw how absurd this is.”
My hand stilled against Skydancer’s neck as Alistair gestured toward the assembled expedition. His gaze did not remain on the horses, cart, or baggage for long before fixing directly on me.
“Send me instead. If Calder needs a royal representative at the western border, then it makes more sense for the eldest prince to go.”
Father’s expression remained controlled. “Radiance is the heir.”
“I know what she is.”
The bitterness beneath those five words carried considerably more history than anything I remembered writing about sibling rivalry. I did not need private memories to understand what seven minutes had probably meant to a boy who grew up knowing the crown would pass to his twin sister instead of him.
He looked at me rather than Father when he continued, and whatever restraint he had brought into the courtyard began slipping almost immediately. “She has barely returned. She disappeared for months without permission, and now everyone is pretending she is prepared to manage a crisis because she agreed to sit on a horse and ride west.”
My tail snapped once behind me before I caught the movement, and Skydancer shifted beneath my hand in response to the sudden tension. I stroked her neck automatically and opened my mouth, but Alistair continued before I could decide which part of his argument deserved to be dismantled first.
“She is spoiled, Father. She has servants dress her, pack for her, follow her everywhere, and apparently requires a cart just to leave the palace for a few weeks. She is going to complain the moment anything becomes uncomfortable.”
“That is enough.”
The warning in Father’s voice should have ended it, but Alistair had apparently waited too long for the opportunity to make his case. Years of resentment were finally within reach of an audience, and he looked too angry to recognize that Father’s patience had already disappeared.
“She is a brat princess who has never had to prove she deserves any of this. I am your eldest son, and I should be the one representing Calder instead of her.”
Several responses arrived in my head at once, all of them sharp enough to draw blood, but Father stepped forward before I chose one. His voice did not become louder. It did not need to. The restraint vanished from his expression so completely that the entire courtyard seemed to recognize the change.
“Mind your tongue, Alistair.”
Alistair’s confidence faltered for the first time, and the silence around us became heavy enough that even the horses seemed quieter. Father held his son’s gaze without giving him room to mistake the warning for negotiation.
“Father, I only meant that I am better suited to…”
“I know precisely what you meant. You will not speak of your future queen that way, and you will remember your place when addressing the heir to Calder.”
Alistair’s jaw tightened, but Father did not turn away or soften the correction. His eyes shifted toward me for only a moment before returning to my brother, and when he spoke again the words stopped sounding like a king defending the dignity of his successor and became something much more personal.
“More importantly, you will not speak about my daughter that way.”
Something changed in Alistair’s face. The anger remained, but Father had reached beneath it far enough to remind him that this was not merely a dispute over succession, competence, or royal assignments. He had been standing in a courtyard publicly tearing into his twin sister while their parents listened.
“I am trying to protect Calder.”
“So is she.”
Father answered without hesitation, and Alistair’s mouth tightened again. Mother remained beside him with her hands folded neatly before her, but the faint narrowing of her eyes suggested she had considerably more to say if he forced her involvement.
“She ran away.”
“And she came home.”
“She abandoned her responsibilities.”
“And now she is accepting one.”
Alistair looked toward me as if waiting for some sign that Father’s defense had embarrassed me into silence. Whatever he found instead apparently disappointed him because his attention snapped back toward Father.
“You truly believe she can do this?”
Father’s expression hardened. “I believe she must.”
That answer landed differently from everything that had come before it. Father finally turned fully toward me, and beneath the authority I could see the worry he had been carrying since he entered the courtyard.
“She tells me she intends to wear Calder’s crown one day. She tells me she will decide what kind of queen she becomes, and she has reminded me repeatedly that she is no longer a child to be directed according to everyone else’s wishes.”
“I may have made that point once or twice.”
Mother’s mouth twitched. Father gave me a look suggesting the actual number was considerably higher before returning his attention to Alistair.
“I cannot tell your sister she is old enough to choose her own future and then shelter her from every responsibility that future requires. The western settlements need to see the woman who expects one day to rule them, and Radiance needs to see the people whose lives will someday depend upon her decisions.”
Alistair folded his arms. “And if she fails?”
“Then she will learn from it.”
Father’s answer was calm enough to make the words more forceful rather than less. He did not look at me while he continued, and I suspected that was deliberate because the next part was meant as much for me as for my brother.
“A crown does not require perfection. It requires a sovereign capable of carrying responsibility when the outcome is uncertain, listening when she does not have the answer, and getting back up when she discovers that wanting authority is easier than exercising it.”
There were at least three separate things in that statement I wanted to argue with, which probably meant Father had planned it carefully. I stroked Skydancer’s neck instead and felt the mare settle beneath my hand while I grudgingly admitted that none of what he had said was unreasonable.
Alistair did not look convinced. His gaze drifted toward the mule cart, which was unfortunate because the luggage remained an extremely visible argument against my maturity.
“She cannot even leave the palace without half her wardrobe.”
“That is not half.”
Renee made a small choking sound behind me, and Adrian turned his face away with suspicious speed. Father closed his eyes for a moment before looking back at Alistair.
“Radiance’s luggage is not a matter of succession.”
“It is evidence.”
“It is luggage.”
The sheer paternal exhaustion in those three words warmed something in me despite the situation, and I had to look toward Skydancer before anyone noticed how close I was to smiling. Apparently even constitutional monarchies could eventually be defeated by an argument over their daughter’s dresses.
Alistair’s expression remained sour, but some of the fight finally left his shoulders. He looked at me one last time before stepping back among our siblings, doing nothing to disguise how deeply he hated the outcome.
I wanted to say something cruel enough to win the exchange anyway. Several possibilities were still waiting, most of them excellent, and I could have delivered any one of them with enough polish to make half the courtyard remember it for years. Instead I let them go. Father had defended me before I needed to defend myself, and turning the moment into another fight suddenly felt smaller than I wanted to be.
Mother crossed the distance first once the tension broke. She reached me with the composed grace she seemed to carry everywhere, though the hand she lifted to smooth the front of my traveling coat was unmistakably maternal rather than regal.
“You packed enough?”
Renee answered before I could. “More than enough, Your Majesty.”
“Traitor.”
Mother glanced toward the cart and raised one eyebrow. “Apparently not enough to satisfy you.”
“I made sacrifices.”
“I am sure the kingdom will compose songs about them.”
“I left several gowns behind.”
Mother’s expression softened with mock solemnity. “Then Calder owes you a debt it may never repay.”
I kissed her cheek before she could continue, partly because the warmth beneath the teasing made me want to and partly because saying anything else would only encourage her. She caught my face gently between both hands afterward and studied me for several seconds, all humor fading without becoming fear.
“Write when you can.”
“I will.”
“And listen to Renee.”
“I sometimes do.”
“More often than that.”
“I will consider your proposal.”
Mother sighed, kissed my forehead, and pulled me into an embrace. I went willingly, wrapping my arms around her and resting against her for a moment while the impending departure became more real than it had beside the horses. I still did not possess the memories that should have explained a lifetime of being her daughter, but I did not need them to know that leaving her hurt.
When she released me, one of my sisters stepped forward from the group. Her name surfaced immediately: Emma, the sister closest to me in age. No convenient memories followed to explain the expression on her face or tell me what our relationship had looked like across the years, but she crossed the remaining distance without ceremony and wrapped both arms around me tightly enough that this was clearly not a required royal farewell.
“Come back safe.”
“I intend to.”
“You always intend to.”
There was enough familiarity in the answer to make me smile. I hugged her more tightly before letting her go, filing the exchange beside everything else I needed to understand later instead of inventing explanations I had not earned.
Emma had barely stepped away before someone much smaller escaped from the cluster of siblings. I knew Andrew was the youngest before he reached me, and then he threw himself against my waist hard enough that my tail jerked sideways to avoid being trapped between us. I caught him automatically and laughed as his arms locked around me, whatever royal etiquette applied to farewells apparently incapable of surviving contact with the youngest prince.
“You are coming back, right?”
“Yes.”
“Before my birthday?”
I hesitated. I had absolutely no idea when Andrew’s birthday was, nothing surfaced to rescue me, and promising a return date I could not control sounded like precisely the sort of royal mistake Father had spent the day telling me not to make.
“I am going to try very hard.”
Andrew frowned at the answer but accepted it after a moment. He squeezed me again before finally releasing me, and I ran my fingers through his hair with an affection that felt natural even without a remembered history attached to it.
Most of the others stayed where they were. A few offered polite farewells when I looked toward them, while others seemed content to let Emma and Andrew represent the family’s emotional investment in my survival. One sister gave me a small wave that might have been sincere, another brother looked toward the open gates as though he was waiting for us to stop delaying his afternoon, and Alistair had apparently decided that looking at me at all was beneath him.
The contrast should probably have bothered me more than it did. Instead, it reinforced the growing certainty that before I came home I needed to learn what I had actually created about all of them and what the System could tell me now that they were real people rather than names and relationships on a page. Whatever family I had inherited, authored, and somehow become part of was clearly not a single uncomplicated unit waiting for its beloved oldest sister to return. Ten siblings meant ten separate relationships, and I suspected several of them were going to be considerably more complicated than Andrew throwing himself around my waist.
Father had remained near Mother while the hugs happened, and when Andrew finally retreated he approached me without any of the ceremony that had surrounded his confrontation with Alistair. He carried a leather document case tucked beneath one arm and handed it over before placing one hand against my shoulder.
“Your commissions and letters of authority. Local officials have been instructed to cooperate with you, though I expect you to remember that cooperation obtained by listening generally lasts longer than cooperation obtained by announcing who your father is.”
“I am very charming.”
“That is what concerns me.”
“I thought you liked my charm.”
“I like it considerably better when I am not responsible for repairing whatever follows.”
I smiled despite myself and accepted the case, then immediately passed it to Renee before I could accidentally prove his point by losing the documents somewhere between the courtyard and the palace gate. Father watched the handoff and gave Renee a grateful nod that said more about the trust between them than another speech could have.
His attention moved toward Skydancer next. He checked the mare’s saddle straps with his own hands, spoke quietly to the groom, examined the bridle, and asked whether the farrier had inspected her that day despite clearly knowing the answer before the increasingly nervous man provided it. By the third unnecessary question, one of the stable hands had become fascinated with a buckle on another horse while I folded my arms beneath my traveling coat.
“Father.”
He continued examining one of Skydancer’s straps. “Radiance.”
“You are fussing.”
“I am ensuring your horse is properly prepared.”
“We have people for that.”
“I am aware.”
“People who appear terrified that you are going to personally discover a buckle they overlooked.”
One of the grooms suddenly found the paving stones intensely interesting. Father finally straightened and gave me the unimpressed look I was beginning to suspect I had inherited in temperament if not appearance.
“You disappeared for months.”
The words stripped the humor away without turning into an accusation. Father rested one hand against Skydancer’s neck and looked at me for a long moment while the courtyard continued moving around us, servants finishing with the baggage and stable hands making themselves scarce enough to provide the illusion of privacy.
“You just came home,” he said. “And tomorrow morning I will wake knowing you are already farther from me again.”
My throat tightened before I could prepare for it. The expedition had seemed like an argument, then a quest, then a logistical nightmare involving gowns and a mule. Standing in front of him now, I understood that for Father it was also his daughter leaving again almost immediately after he had gotten her back.
“I know.”
“I do not want to send you.”
That admission hurt worse than anger would have. I looked at him and saw none of the king who had spent the morning explaining responsibility to me, only a father who had made a decision he believed was right and hated it anyway.
“Then why are you?”
His mouth curved without becoming a smile. “Because you would never forgive me if I kept you a child simply because being your father made that easier for me.”
I hated how accurately that landed. My first instinct was to argue, but there was nowhere useful to take an argument when he was essentially admitting that he wanted to protect me and had chosen not to because I had demanded the right to become something more than protected.
“I might forgive you eventually.”
“No, you would not.”
“Probably not.”
Father reached up and touched one of the loose strands of platinum hair near my temple before smoothing it back with surprising gentleness. I could not remember him ever doing that before, but the absence of memory did nothing to make the affection in the gesture feel less real.
“I am proud that you agreed to go.”
“You were fairly certain I would.”
“I hoped you would.”
“That sounds more honest.”
“It is.”
I moved before thinking through whether Crown Princesses were supposed to maintain dignity in front of half the household and wrapped my arms around him. Father hesitated for barely a heartbeat before holding me tightly enough that the formal layers between us stopped mattering. For a man who had spent the afternoon arranging for me to leave, he was remarkably bad at letting go, and I stayed there until he finally loosened his arms.
When I stepped back, his hands remained briefly on my shoulders as though he needed one final confirmation that I was still physically in front of him.
“I will come home.”
“I know.”
The certainty in his voice felt suspiciously like something he needed to believe. I chose not to challenge it and kissed his cheek instead, which made the worried line between his brows soften at last.
Father looked past me toward Adrian, and the prince straightened with the immediate awareness of a man who had just realized someone else’s father had decided it was his turn. Adrian came forward without needing to be called, stopping close enough to join us while wisely leaving the teasing expression behind.
“Prince Adrian.”
“Your Majesty.”
“My daughter does not require a keeper.”
Renee made another suspicious sound behind us, and I refused to turn around. Father’s mouth twitched before he continued.
“She also does not require you making decisions on her behalf merely because you believe they are sensible.”
“I understand.”
“If she chooses to do something catastrophically foolish, you may attempt persuasion.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“If persuasion fails, inform Renee.”
I turned toward him. “Father.”
Adrian’s composure finally cracked. “That also sounds reasonable.”
“You are both becoming unbearable.”
Father ignored me and held Adrian’s gaze. The amusement faded again before he spoke, leaving nothing casual in his expression.
“Bring each other home.”
Adrian answered without swagger or flirtation. “That is the intention.”
Father accepted the answer and stepped back beside Mother. The stable hands began moving into position almost immediately, and the change in activity made it clear that the farewell had finally reached the point where leaving was unavoidable.
A groom brought Skydancer forward and another steadied her while Renee came to my side to make certain the skirts of the same court dress I had been wearing all day were arranged safely beneath the traveling coat. The sidesaddle still looked unnecessarily elaborate to the part of me accustomed to modern tack, but the moment I placed a hand where it belonged, everything else became straightforward. I knew where my weight needed to go, how to manage the skirts, where my leg would settle, and how to mount without tangling several expensive layers of fabric around myself.
The groom offered assistance, and I accepted because apparently being a proper princess involved allowing other people to participate in basic locomotion. A moment later I was seated securely sidesaddle on Skydancer, and whatever lingering skepticism I had about the arrangement disappeared as soon as my weight settled correctly. The position was stable, comfortable, and so physically familiar that I adjusted without thinking when Skydancer shifted eagerly beneath me.
Delight followed almost immediately. I gathered the reins, felt the mare respond to the smallest change in my hands, and understood with sudden clarity why my horse had been bred for elegance and speed rather than hauling cookware. I might not remember a single ride with her, but my hands knew her mouth, my balance knew her movement, and every part of me wanted to see what she could do once the palace walls were behind us.
Adrian mounted his enormous bay with considerably less ceremony, while Renee settled onto her new mare and looked comfortable enough that Father’s choice appeared vindicated almost immediately. Behind us, the mule leaned into its harness when the cart began to roll, the covered load creaking softly as provisions, expedition gear, and an embarrassing amount of my luggage started after us under its own steady pull.
I looked back toward my family one final time before turning Skydancer toward the open gates. Emma had one arm around Andrew’s shoulders, Mother stood close beside Father, Alistair remained rigid among the others, and the rest of my siblings formed a scattered line of expressions I still did not know well enough to read. Father lifted one hand when our eyes met, and I returned the gesture before giving Skydancer the slightest cue forward.
She stepped eagerly into motion beneath me. Adrian and Renee fell into place nearby, the mule and cart followed behind us, and together we passed beneath the palace gates and onto the road beyond.