“I am Darius Kent, son of a landowner and also my father’s heir. I am possessed of a sunny temperament, a wealth of fantastical stories, and the ability to do small magics. If you marry me, your life will be filled with laughter and decorated with enchantments, and both of those serve to lighten even the dourest days.” He flung the flowers into the air and they were transformed into white butterflies that danced and fluttered around my head before winging their way up into the painted dome. I clapped my hands together like a child, and all the women in the audience cooed and applauded along with me.
My father turned toward me. “Daughter, can you choose between them?”
“Darius,” I said with what might have been unbecoming haste. “The magician. I will marry Darius Kent.”
The reaction from the crowd was so loud that I couldn’t hear what my father or Gisele might have said in response. But Darius flung his head back and laughed, then spread his arms wide in invitation. “Come to me, then!” he called, and I didn’t even hesitate before jumping off the stage into his arms. He caught me deftly and twirled me around until I was as dizzy as one of those butterflies.
“We shall plan the wedding immediately!” My father’s declaration rose above the excited chatter of the crowd. “Everyone shall be invited!”
That caused the noise to intensify even more, but somehow Gisele’s cool voice cut across the clamor. “Not for another month,” my stepmother said. “You promised Olivia her period of betrothal.”
Still in Darius’s arms, my feet ten inches off the ground, my eyes locked on the smiling face of my chosen fiancé, I desperately wished I had not negotiated such a concession from my father. But before I could recant, Norbert’s loud voice came from somewhere among the watchers.
“The lad must take the princess to meet his family,” the old lord said. “It would be unseemly for her to marry him without such an introduction.”
“I shall take you to meet my grandmother,” Darius said. Although everyone in the hall could hear him, he seemed to be speaking only to me. “Will you like that?”
“Indeed, I think I will like anything you have to show me,” I replied breathlessly.
“Excellent,” my father said. “You can leave in the morning.”
I was delighted at the notion of wandering off in Darius’s company, so I was greatly displeased when Gisele’s voice once again made itself heard above the din. “She cannot travel alone through the kingdom with a man she has just met,” the queen said coldly. “The possibilities abound for misfortunes and errors in judgment.”
“She is to marry him,” my father said. “There could be no scandal attached to any of their intimacies.”
The very word made me blush and suddenly wish Darius would put me on my feet. As if he could read my mind, he set me down gently, but kept my hand in his, and planted a light kiss on my knuckles.
“I think you are too sanguine,” Gisele said. “There must be a chaperone.”
There was a movement in the crowd behind us, and a young woman stepped up beside me. I remembered her from the firelit circle two nights ago. “I will guarantee the groom’s good behavior,” she said. “I am Dannette Kent, and he is my brother. I will travel with the princess on this journey.”
My father spread his hands. “There! All problems solved!” he said. “Let us retreat to the dining hall for a grand meal to commemorate this occasion.”
3
The Magical Journey
My betrothed and his sister and I set out the very next morning, waving good-bye to the servants and friends who had gathered in the courtyard to see me off. My father was not among them. I had elected to travel without a maid, since, at dinner the night before, Darius had made some offhand comment about how tiresome it was to always be waiting for women to primp and beautify themselves.
“Especially when they are already beautiful,” he had added, smiling at me.
I had also considerably cut down on the amount of luggage I packed, though even so he had seemed astonished at the number of trunks and boxes I had brought to his campsite. Dannette had merely grinned. “Good thing there’s room in the wagon,” she said.
I had not realized until that very moment that an ordinary farm wagon, and not a luxurious carriage, would be our method of transportation. It was relatively large and well built, with a raised tarp over the bed to shelter all of our possessions, but it was still a wagon. The bench up front was only long enough to hold the driver and one passenger, so someone would have to sit in back among the crates and bundles. When we first started out, Dannette volunteered to take that less desirable spot, and so I sat beside Darius and watched as the countryside unrolled around us.
Which it did very slowly. It turned out that traveling in a heavily loaded wagon behind two horses could not be compared to traveling in a specially built coach pulled by a team. The road seemed rougher than I remembered, and much longer, though the lightly wooded countryside offered a pretty enough colorful autumn landscape. By nightfall we had made it no farther than a crossroads town that I had never bothered to stop at before because it was too close to the palace grounds.
“This looks like as good a place as any to break for the night,” Darius said, and Dannette agreed. I thought glumly if I turned my head and squinted hard enough, I might be able to glimpse the turrets of the palace behind me.
But what did I care how much ground we covered in a day? I had no particular eagerness to make our destination; I just wanted the chance to enjoy the company of my fiancé. In the wagon, it had not been so easy to talk to him as you might suppose, for we spent more of our energy surviving the jouncing than making conversation, and half the time Dannette took the reins while Darius sat in the back. I hesitated to admit it, but our first day of travel had teetered between boring and uncomfortable, and though I was resolved not to complain, I was glad to finally pull off the road.
But I was shocked when we checked into a modest inn and Darius requested only a single chamber. “One room?” I hissed to Dannette while Darius paid the fee. “For all three of us?”
She seemed surprised. “By the time we make it to my grandmother’s and back to the palace, we might be on the road ten days or more. We can hardly afford two or three rooms a night.”
“We cannot?” I said blankly.
I thought she was trying to hide a grin. “Well, Darius and I cannot. If you have brought lavish funds with you, I suppose you could reserve your own accommodations.”
I stared at her. I hadn’t brought any money. I never did. Bills were always paid by footmen and servants. The proprietors this close to the palace would surely recognize my face, but once we made it another fifty miles down the road, would anyone believe me when I claimed to be Princess Olivia? Would they sell me goods on credit and send the bills to my father? Would he pay them?
“No, no,” I said faintly. “I will share the room with you and Darius. We are supposed to be getting acquainted, after all.”
Now her grin was definitely visible. “Nothing like a journey to find out everything you need to know about someone,” she said cheerfully.
After this, I was not as surprised as I might have been to find we were dining in the taproom, and not a private parlor. Still, Darius’s charming smile—and perhaps a little extra magical persuasion—secured us our own table in the corner where we didn’t have to share trenchers with laborers, families, and local shopkeepers.
“To my bride!” Darius toasted me with his beer while we waited for food to arrive.
I’d never had beer before, my father considering it common, and I wrinkled my nose after the first sip. “I don’t like that so much,” I said. “It’s bitter.”