The queen stepped forward so that she was standing at the end of the aisle. Kit continued to make her way in that direction. Avinia and Isla were nudging her forward, the guards staying out in the hallway.
Once she somehow managed to reach the front of the room and found herself standing next to her mother, the queen began to say a few words, reminding those in assembly of how important this ceremony was and what it meant to their realm that the heir to the throne would be embarking on a journey to find her mate, which would in turn allow her to create an heir. Kit heard very little of it, however, as she stood with her face frozen in a half-smile, half-grimace she could not control and thought about the table behind her.
“For the goddesses and our realm, I call upon you now, Katrinetta Ronatta, Princess of All the Lands East of the Galacial Mountains and Princess of the Provinces South of the Compazional Sea, to fulfill your duty as the heiress to the throne. No
Sunlight infiltrated Kit’s chambers as one of her ladies flung the curtains open, and the princess groaned in protest. She’d stayed up far too late the night before, dancing, drinking wine, and carrying on like a silly girl with her friends at the festival that followed her Proem Ceremony, and now that morning was here, her head ached, and she’d rather bury her face back beneath the downy pillows of her bed than acknowledge the day’s arrival.“Katrinetta,” Avinia’s voice beckoned as her shoulder was shaken, gently at first, and then a bit more violently. “Open your eyes. You need to get up!”Kit couldn’t think of a single reason in the world why she would need to get out of bed. She hadn’t slept well these past several weeks in anticipation of the ceremony, and now that it was over, she longed to make up for all of that lost time. But Avinia was insistent, so Kit opened one eye and looked at her incredul
Aeros, Eli’s horse, who was standing a few feet away, whinnied impatiently. Eli glanced behind him and saw the other two soldiers shifting uncomfortably. Kit assumed they were told to be gone by a certain time or to arrive by a certain hour, and she was delaying them. She caught her breath and fought tears, glancing over her shoulder at Galter and the other man, a tall, agile looking fellow with red hair she couldn’t name.“Listen, Kit, I need to go. But perhaps it’s for the better. We both know….” He paused, looking into her eyes, and she knew what the end of that sentence would be. There was no need for him to say it. They both knew it was never meant to be. Her mother would fight it at every turn, and even if he were to stay for her Exploration, he’d never be part of her Choosing. Kit would even go so far as to say, if he stood a chance at being selected as his province’s Representative, her mother would find some way to man
Two weeks was an eternity of seconds but when assembled together as minutes, hours, and even days, the passage of time seemed to shuffle on at an acceptable pace to the rest of the world. Kit spent too much of that time dreaming about someone she could not have and not enough of it focusing on the task before her.The large barn always called to her in her free moments when she was too restless to sit in the garden, so one afternoon, a week after her Clearing was over, she found herself meandering from stall to stall, petting the horses on the nose and slipping loose bits of hay to those who would chomp it from her hands. The men who ran the stable and their young helpers were used to seeing her and no longer bothered with the courtesies her station demanded. Rather, they bowed slightly or nodded their heads as they passed, bid her good day, and went about their usual tasks of mucking and feeding and other such chores Kit was glad not to be tasked with.A large roan st
Some of the hay was still in bales while other piles were spread throughout the loft, which didn’t run the entire length of the barn but was still large. She found a bale with a perfect view of the cloudless sky out the large window and spread her lavender skirts to one side so that there was room for Dullen to sit next to her.“The sky is a lovely shade of blue today, don’t you think?” she asked, noticing a warmth radiating from his leg which was just a few inches from hers. “I love it when it’s a deep blue, like a pool of water, as it is today.”“It is beautiful,” he agreed. “But your eyes are the loveliest shade of blue I’ve ever seen.”Her first reaction was to blush, perhaps to look away, but instead, Kit raised an eyebrow at him and let a slow smile spread across her face. The effect it had on him was what she’d hoped for. His breathing hitched, and perspiration began to form at
“Which one is he?” Avinia asked. Her head was cocked to the side as she studied Kit, her face puckered up in contemplation.“I told you. He has red hair. He’s tall, a bit lanky. Kind eyes. Green—but not the striking kind.” Kit had already given them every last detail of her encounter in the barn, and neither of her ladies had reacted the way she’d been hoping for.“Hmmm,” Isla picked up a section of Kit’s long hair and began to comb it out. “I would think if he were worth remembering, I would know which one he is.”“Yes, I was thinking exactly the same thing. There are so many attractive guards available to you, Katrinetta. You need a full grown man, not a boy child.”“I agree. You want your first pleasuring to be with someone who knows precisely what he is doing.” Isla hit a tangle, making Kit squeal, but her cousin just kept right on combing.“He
Two of the guardsmen were standing outside of her door, as was always the case, and as the three young women bounded down the hallway, the men fell into step behind them. Kit glanced over her shoulder to see if she recognized them. One was a large, musclebound brute of a man with flowing blond hair which he kept in a knot at the base of his neck when he was on duty. She’d seen him before when he was not, though, and remembered how attractive he looked with his hair flowing freely around his broad shoulders. She timidly smiled at him when he realized she was staring, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, as if he weren’t allowed to regard the woman he was protecting.The other man was tall and not as muscular. He had a hard set jaw and eyes that were small for the width of his face. Kit had noticed him before, too, but only because she found him particularly unattractive compared to most of her guards. She thought he was nice enough, but she certainly wouldn’t
Kit and her two ladies in waiting, Avinia and Isla, walked along in silence to Kit’s chambers, and once they were inside, the cousins went about readying her for dinner with her mother. There would be music before the meal was served, which was why she was expected so early, and Kit imagined her mother would introduce her to the son of some foreign dignitary, someone meant to find his way into her chambers. She was aware that queens had been bargaining with turns in their daughters’ beds for generations, and while that was just the way of it, Kit liked the idea of choosing one of her own guard members far better than the thought she might spend the night with a prince from another land who was only there because he was seeking pleasure as well. It was almost ironic that a queendom built on the belief that women superior to men and were entitled to be pleasured by them could make such deals, but that wouldn’t be the only law of the land that seemed backward to Kit.
The music and dinner were pleasant enough, but Kit found each second that ticked by on the large grandfather clock across the room seemed to take an eternity. While her mother supplied her with several visiting nobles to entertain her, Kit hardly heard a word any of them said. Perhaps she would have found one or two of the men attractive if her mind were not elsewhere. When it was time for her to head off to her chambers, nearly four hours after the festivities had begun, she did so without remembering a single one of the gentlemen’s names.Her mother had asked her several times what was on her mind, but with each question, Kit had only shrugged and said she wasn’t feeling like herself. As she headed down the long hallway with two other guards beside her, ones she remembered from her secret viewing out the window earlier but could not name, she tried to calm her nerves. It wasn’t as if she was feeling ill, but a stirring inside of her, something like the sen