Page 14 of Tangled Sails

I bit my tongue, too uncomfortable to keep fighting and too aware of how dejected my brother looked. “We’ll talk of this later. I have to check on Father, and you should too.”

Leaving the library, I traversed the castle corridors in the early morning light as I tried to breathe through the shock of what Dorian had told me. Surely Princess Saria would not truly expect a proposal. The very idea made my chest tighten, and the sound of my own feet hitting the stone floor echoed in my head.

Chapter five

LYRIELLE

When I woke in the morning, I went immediately to the window. It was large and offered a brilliant view of vegetation-covered mountains rising to my left and the sea stretching out to my right. My mind was overwhelmed as I started cataloging all of the differences between this view and the one from my tower. The sea was a beautiful teal blue, and there were islands off in the distance. The little houses that populated the village below were some sort of white stucco with red tile roofs, so different from the drab coloring of Eldmere.

Unfortunately, my appraisal was cut short when a young girl walked into the room and bobbed a curtsey with a “Good morning, miss. I’m here to help you dress.”

It seemed strange to lend me a helper since I certainly wouldn’t be staying here for long, but I tried to accept with grace. Aunt Ethel had often helped me dress while avoiding my hair, so accepting this girl’s assistance wasn’t too awkward, although as she opened the wardrobe, which was somehow filled with dresses, she didn’t look particularly happy to be helping me.

Once I was dressed, with my short hair braided and coiled around my head, I followed the girl through the labyrinth of halls, looking longingly out each window that we passed, until we reached a large but cozy room where breakfast was set out. The young girl turned to me and curtsied before leaving the room, which was utterly baffling. Why would anyone curtsey to me? Was it simply because I’d been taken in by the royal family?

My stomach turned over at that thought. I was staying in a castle—with a royal family. But for how long? I needed to look ahead and decide what my next move would be.

I turned back to the room, which had appeared empty at first, but then a chair scraped across the floor and I saw Prince Tavric rise to his feet at the far end of the table. “Good morning, Lyrielle.” He gave a solemn nod.

“Good morning,” I responded, my hands clasped with nerves.

“Please.” He gestured to a long, skinny table pushed up against one wall that held an assortment of food. “Help yourself to anything you’d like.”

Certainly, I thought to myself. No problem. I’ll just fix a plate and sit down to breakfast in a beautiful, elegant room with a prince.

And then, tomorrow, I might fly amongst the clouds and train a chipmunk to dance.

“Perhaps I’ve gone insane,” I whispered to myself as I crossed to the table of food. “This could all be in my mind.”

After sitting with my plate of food, breakfast was a quiet affair. Prince Tavric had a stack of what must have been correspondence that he was reading or reviewing at one end of the table, and I was sitting about halfway down, wishing to give him his privacy.

I finished my food but was still hungry. Perhaps falling from a tower into a different world will do that to a person. I looked from my plate to the still heaping table of food, wondering if it was acceptable to go get more and realizing once again how little I knew of etiquette in this situation—or any situation.

I sat there, undecided, staring at Prince Tavric and willing him to look at me so that I could just ask. But he didn’t look up.

I huffed a sigh and gave an awkward clearing of my throat.

He lifted his eyes to me.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. I was just”—I gestured to the food—“Is it all right if… I didn’t know if it was appropriate for me to perhaps get more, or…”

“Yes, of course. Please help yourself.” He returned his focus to the papers in front of him. “My mother would be mortified if I allowed a guest to leave the table unsated.”

“Thank you.” I liked the queen. She’d been just as Prince Tavric had told me—gushing and effusive, and clearly happy to have someone to take care of.

My second plate of food was gone just as quickly as the first, and I was nearly finished when Tavric gathered his papers and stood. “Would you like to see the library?”

I shook my head.

His face crunched in confusion. “No?”

Perhaps my honest answer had been rude. “I’m sorry. That’s a kind offer, but…I have spent too much of my life surrounded by books.”

His head tilted. “What would you like to do, then?”

I froze at the question. No one had asked me that since my parents had died. I’d spent the last ten years being told what I must do, not being asked what I wanted.

Did he truly wish to know? It was hard to imagine that my frivolous wants were something a busy prince would be interested in.