The Princess Search: A Retelling of The Ugly Duckling (The Four Kingdoms Book 5) Read online

  Well, why not? asked that same inner voice. He’s a person, just like anyone else. Only this time my internal dialogue sounded far too mischievous.

  I had long ago decided that pain was best pushed from my mind—life was easier if viewed light-heartedly. But that didn’t mean it was a good idea for me to offend the most powerful family in the kingdom.

  But the thought of my past pushed a far more gripping concern to the front of my mind. I was about to have a great deal more to worry about than a prince who seemed as serious as he was handsome. More important even than preserving my secret source of extraordinary fabric and ensuring no gown I created contained any poor stitching. Because I had just agreed to a full tour of Lanover.

  Which meant the royal family—my most important clients—were about to find out exactly what had driven me to the capital the previous year. How long would it be before even Celine regretted befriending a commoner who she knew almost nothing about?

  Chapter 2

  Six days later, I entered the royal palace with some trepidation. A servant had already disappeared with my mountains of luggage, and I had no sooner watched him go than I had begun second-guessing how much I had packed. I had some experience of the fashions that dominated in the various parts of the kingdom, but fashions could change quickly, and I wanted to be prepared. I grimaced. Even so, I had probably brought an excess of fabric. Hopefully I wouldn’t receive a reprimand from the steward who was overseeing all the practical arrangements for the Tour.

  “Evie!” Celine almost tripped down the stairs in her haste to reach me. “You’ve arrived. Oh, thank goodness! I need you to talk some sense into Frederic.”

  She grabbed my arm and towed me back up the stairs. “He has the most ridiculous notions. And our first couple of stops are going to be near the capital. I need you to convince him that his current outfit just will not do.”

  I breathed an internal sigh of relief to hear we would be starting with the towns directly south of the capital city, Lanare. I had passed through several of them briefly on my way to the capital, but no one there would know me. My relief turned to panic, however, when I recognized where she was taking me. Celine had given me a tour of the palace when I had visited earlier in the week, and we were now in the wing containing the royal suites. I pulled back against her.

  “Your Highness!” I whispered. “I can’t go into the prince’s bedchamber.”

  She threw me an impatient look. “We aren’t going into his bedchamber, just his dressing room. And you’re going to have to get used to it, Evie. You’ll be dressing all of us on this trip.”

  I stopped resisting and gave a low chuckle. “Not actually dressing, I hope.”

  Celine giggled. “You know what I mean. Frederic takes his responsibilities seriously. We just have to convince him that dressing well is serious royal business.”

  She flung open a door, and a quiet voice I didn’t recognize floated out, making her pause. “We should be heading straight south all the way to Largo. Or the Great Desert, at least. That’s where these rumors are coming from, not from the nearby towns or the islands.”

  “I want to tackle the threat head-on as well, Cass, you know that,” said Frederic, identifying the other speaker as the second Lanoverian prince, Cassian. “But you also know that Father is sending us on this Tour for a variety of reasons, and we can’t leave out any of the regions.”

  “Yes.” Cassian sounded dejected. “Apparently we can’t hope to have you accepted as king one day unless you’ve been paraded in front of each and every one of our citizens like a performing monkey.”

  “Oh, not just me, brother,” said Frederic. “They all need to eyeball their future Royal Chief Advisor as well. Naturally. It’s why I assured Father you needed to be included.”

  I blinked. Was Frederic making a joke? Teasing his brother? It was hard to tell when he always sounded so serious.

  “So why did you ask for Celine to be included, then?” asked Cassian dryly. “Don’t tell me she’s going to be your Second Advisor one day.”

  Celine, who had been listening with interest and without shame, made a face and bustled me through an opulent sitting room and into the connected dressing room.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Cassian,” she said breezily. “There isn’t enough gold in even Lanover’s treasuries to pay me to do a job like that. I’m heading off for adventures just as soon as Mother decides I’m no longer a child. But for now, I’m the Tour’s Wardrobe Mistress. And this is my seamstress.”

  She pushed me forward, and I dipped into a curtsy.

  “Mistress Evangeline,” said Frederic with a respectful inclination of his head.

  Cassian regarded me curiously while Celine dismissed Frederic’s words with a wave of her hand.

  “This trip is going to require a lot of different garments,” she said. “Evie and I are going to have to work superhumanly fast to continually prepare and adjust all of our outfits.”

  “By which I assume you mean she’s going to be working hard?” Cassian’s dry voice didn’t hide his amusement.

  She put her nose in the air and ignored him. “We’ll all be seeing a lot of each other for fittings and such things. So you might as well dispense with ceremony now. Her name is Evie.”

  Frederic regarded his sister silently and then turned to me. “How do you feel about that?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably, although I was touched by his consideration. “Evie is fine, Your Highness.”

  “That goes for you, too, Evie,” said Celine. “It’s going to get horribly confusing otherwise, what with us all being Your Highnesses.”

  “But, Your Highness…” My voice trailed away.

  “Exactly!” she said triumphantly and then glared at both of her brothers as if daring them to protest.

  Neither prince appeared in the least perturbed by her dismissal of formality.

  “Well, that’s that, I suppose,” said Cassian. “Welcome to our inner circle, Evie. If you haven’t learned it by now, you’ll soon discover that Celine is a force to be reckoned with. Once she has an idea in her head, there’s no getting it out.”

  I blinked several times. I knew Lanoverian culture was far more relaxed than the other kingdoms, but I still wasn’t at all sure about a seamstress being included in any sort of royal inner circle. Surely they were joking and would expect proper respect when I next crossed their paths.

  But when I glanced at Frederic, I found him watching me with a relaxed expression on his face. I had to admit that nothing about him gave me the impression he was the sort of flighty person who frequently changed his mind or forgot what he had said the previous day. Or even the previous month.

  And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort. The Lanoverian princes and princesses didn’t really have an inner circle of friends. I knew that much at least from the noble girls who visited my shop and often gossiped as they chose their fabrics, oblivious to my presence. The younger royals were friendly with everyone at court, but with seven of them, they had always relied on each other for their closest companionship. Except now Prince Rafe and Princesses Clarisse, Celeste, and Cordelia had all married foreigners and moved to other kingdoms. The oldest princes, Frederic and Cassian, and the youngest princess, Celine, were the only ones left.

  I supposed the departure of all her sisters might explain why Celine was looking to her seamstress for friendship. Unaware of my inner qualms, Celine grabbed my arm and pointed accusingly at her brothers. “You can see the problem, Evie.”

  “Celine,” said Cassian patiently. “You know that we’ll be riding for the first part of the Tour. We have to wear practical clothes.”

  “No one needs to wear clothes that practical,” Celine muttered to me.

  I bit my lip on a laugh.

  “You know how close the nearby towns are to both the capital and each other,” Celine told her brother in a louder voice. “It’s a parade as much as a ride, so you need to look appropriately princely. We wouldn’t want
anyone to think the royal treasury is starting to run dry.”

  Cassian opened his mouth and then closed it again, an arrested look in his eyes.

  Frederic threw his brother an amused glance. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember she’s not ten anymore. She’s actually been making some good points lately.”

  Celine scrunched up her face. “Older brothers.”

  I stepped in as diplomatically as possible. “The Tour doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning. If I get started now, I can modify one of your current outfits to be both comfortable and fashionable if you like.”

  “Would you?”

  Frederic’s surprise made me chuckle. “That is why you’re bringing me along, remember.”

  “Don’t worry, she’s a genius with a needle,” said Celine.

  I smiled at them all, but it faltered a little. No pressure, I thought to myself. Needlework was something that had always come easily to me, and I had worked hard over the years to cultivate and extend my skill. But her words still made me nervous, and I appreciated the reminder not to get too comfortable with these strange royals. They might have chosen to adopt me, like a pet or a mascot for their trip, but they would change their minds.

  Everyone always did.

  I tossed uncomfortably in my bed, gripped by a dream that followed all too closely with my true memories, despite the years that had passed. I had dreamed thus every night since my foolish agreement to accompany the Tour. Lanover held too many places I didn’t care to revisit. Too many places from my past.

  This night was one of my more unusual dreams. I huddled in a small woodshed trying to block out the sound of the other children hammering on the thin boards that made up the walls and calling taunts. I clenched my hands into fists, determined not to let the tears fall. If only I were bigger, or stronger, or not alone. Then I wouldn’t be hiding in here in fear. But I was alone. And in here was safer than out there. At least until one of them grew bold enough to knock down the door and face their mother’s wrath over the destruction.

  The dream veered suddenly away from reality as a flicker of heat touched my side a moment before bright flames consumed the wall of the shed. I gasped and scrambled away from them. The knocking grew louder and more frantic until I awoke with a jerk to stare stupidly around an unfamiliar room. A second later memory returned, and I slid out of my bed in one of the guest rooms in the palace’s servants’ wing. Flinging open the door, I had to half-catch a serving maid who almost toppled inside. The young girl looked half-terrified, half-thrilled, and the candle in her hand told me my mind hadn’t deceived me—morning hadn’t yet broken.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?” I had been up late working on an outfit for each of the princes, and my mind felt sluggish.

  “The Tour is leaving at once. It’s one of the towns. Tolon. Or possibly Medellan. I can’t remember now. But everyone is gathering in the gardens in front of the palace. The steward nearly forgot about you, so you’ll have to run or be left behind.”

  Her final sentence killed the questions hovering on my tongue. I almost slammed the door in her face as I scrambled back into the room, nearly tripping as I threw myself into my clothes. I was thankful now that I had taken the time the night before, despite my fatigue at the late hour, to deliver the princes’ outfits to the appropriate places and lay out my own garments.

  My personal bag took only a moment to assemble, and then I was racing through the corridors. I burst out into the pre-dawn night in time to see the princes ride out at the head of two columns of riders. The ground in front of the palace, lit by countless lanterns, churned with wagons and carriages. Despite the beginning of the train already departing, chaos still reigned at the back. I looked around frantically until I heard a voice call, “Evie!”

  I turned to find Celine riding toward me. “There you are! The steward almost forgot you, the idiot. Can you ride? I hope so, since I’ve ordered them to saddle a horse.”

  I nodded, still catching my breath, as the princess beckoned a groom forward. Celine, obviously unsure of my riding skills, had selected a placid-looking mare, and the groom threw me up into the saddle before I had time to gather my thoughts. A moment later, I was trotting out the gate beside the princess.

  Everything had happened so fast that our procession had made it half-way through the dark, quiet city before it sank in that I was leaving the capital. The strength of the pang I felt at my departure surprised me. Lanare had been a refuge for me where I had found—if not friends—at least success and security with my dressmaking shop.

  I tried to comfort myself that I would be back soon enough—the Tour was scheduled to last months, not years. But my mind couldn’t force my emotions to believe it. I had plenty of experience at leaving homes, but I had never returned to one.

  When I had arrived in Lanare, my expectations had been low. But I had surprised myself by how much I enjoyed life in the sprawling capital. The air here didn’t have the same suffocating heaviness that it did down south in the jungles, but it still carried enough moisture to prevent the burning dryness of the Great Desert that ran the length of eastern Lanover. And while it didn’t have the beauty of Largo, or the turquoise seas and pristine sands of the western isles, it had a beauty all its own. I had become accustomed to the reddish sandstone of the buildings. And the bright flowers and greenery that still burst forth wherever they could find root reminded me of the jungle without overwhelming the buildings with their presence.

  Even the palace was constructed of the same sandstone, a single-story building without even a wall to protect it like those apparently surrounding the palaces of the northern kingdoms. Instead it was placed on a large hill, encircled with living gardens instead of stone, the views encompassing the entire city. And, best of all, commoners making deliveries to the palace were permitted to wander around the gardens at will. I had often delivered my royal commissions myself just so I could spend an hour soaking up the view and the colors on my way out.

  But despite the unexpected emotion, my thoughts could not linger long on Lanare. Not when I had still received no proper explanation of our rushed, early morning departure. The maid had mentioned Tolon and Medellan, two of the towns directly south of the capital, but I had no idea how either of them could precipitate this unexpected haste.

  I was considering the question when Celine, who had ridden up the line to talk to her brothers, returned to position her horse beside mine.

  “I’m so glad you can ride, Evie. Just think how awful it would be to be cooped up forever in one of those carriages with all the fusty old nobles.” She wrinkled her nose and shuddered at the thought.

  “Your Highness…I mean, Princess…I mean…” I gave up on the correct address altogether. “What has happened? Why are we rushing?”

  Celine stared at me. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”

  I shook my head, and she sighed. “Because you were forgotten, I suppose. You must have had to rush even worse than the rest of us.” Her expression grew somber and still. “Medellan has burned.”

  I gasped. “How…how much of it?”

  She turned saddened eyes to me. “All of it.”

  “All…” My voice trailed away as I considered the horror of it. I had passed through Medellan on my way to the capital. While it was considerably smaller than a regional center like Largo, it was one of the larger towns close to the capital, home to hundreds of people.

  Questions ran through my mind, but it took me a moment to decide which to ask first.

  “The people?” I asked eventually, voicing my primary concern.

  “The messenger who reached us didn’t know anything for certain.” Celine swallowed audibly. “But he seemed to think the losses were minimal given the level of destruction. We don’t understand what happened yet, or how a whole town could be lost. But they requested a large contingent of royal guard to assist them.”

  Her hands on the reins twitched. “With so many guards already committed to the Tour, Father and Cass
ian didn’t want to leave the capital too depleted. Not after the attempted coup last year.”

  She looked down at her mount’s head, her brow furrowed, and I remembered hearing rumors that she had been involved in foiling the despicable plot against her family. I had been newly arrived in the capital then and had heard only distant tales of the clean-up required to sweep out the traitorous members of the guard. City gossip said the royals were still rebuilding the guard numbers.

  Celine looked up, recovering some of her natural bounce. “Frederic said there was no need to empty the capital or delay the Tour when we could simply leave immediately and begin our travels in Medellan. What better way to show ourselves to our people than by arriving with assistance in their hour of need?” She stilled slightly. “It was a good thought.”

  It was a good thought, and I admired the prince for it. Not all nobles, let alone royals, were so willing to get their hands dirty.

  “Someone’s supposed to come along with some food soon, something we can eat in the saddle,” Celine added. “The main food wagons will be trailing some way behind us. They stayed back so the steward could organize the loading of extra supplies.”

  “Thank goodness it’s spring,” I muttered, and Celine nodded in agreement. We might never be besieged by snow every winter like two of her sisters in Northhelm, but it still got chilly at wintertime this far to the north of Lanover.

  Our conversation was interrupted by a harassed looking rider with oat cakes, and we descended into silence as we munched.

  Chapter 3

  The smell of Medellan reached us long before the sight. The acrid odor of smoke mixed with smells so awful I didn’t even want to consider their source. I had to fight to keep the long-gone oat cakes inside my stomach. I already dreamed of bright flames many nights; I feared now that my nighttime visions would start to include a smell so terrible it would wake me screaming.

  When the road turned a slight corner and the town spread out before us, all thought of myself fled my mind. Medellan’s sturdy wooden walls were largely gone, giving us a clear view into the wasteland inside. Piles of ash lay everywhere and floated fitfully through the air on the slight breeze. Here and there whole walls or chimneys still stood, streaked with soot, but I couldn’t see a single intact building.