 
### The Movement of Crowns

### Nadine C. Keels

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by Nadine C. Keels

Cover Design:  
Nadine C. Keels

Literary references to Scripture are taken from the King James Version of _The_ _Holy Bible_.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is not intended.

Find Nadine online at:  
www.prismaticprospects.wordpress.com

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Contents

~~~

"Providence blesses you."

Twenty Years Later

Times of Trial

The Battle

The End of the Following Summer

~

There's More

Excerpt from The Movement of Rings
~~~

He's the God of time and eternity

working every moment in history

the firsts, the lasts, what each new season brings

the changing of times, the rise and fall of kings

the movement of crowns, of scepters, of rings

prologues, epilogues, inductions, eulogies...

~His Order of Things

~~~
"Providence blesses you."

~

"Destiny. There it is."

No one save Matthias heard the low declaration he uttered into the parlor he was sitting in on a late afternoon, alone, where brilliant, auburn sunlight was flooding in through the room's massive windows. Those windows afforded a somewhat removed but clear view of the activity some ways off along the grounds. Horses that had been gathered from the stables were standing ready for the messengers who would mount them as soon as an affirmative announcement was made. The messengers would carry the announcement out to the main thoroughfare of the capital and beyond from there.

Yet, Matthias was blind to the view. All he could see before him were the abstract results of his own anticipation. His eyelids lowered to a close, shutting out the rose-gold glow in the room and shielding his bearded cheeks from the rush of searing moisture that flowed into his eyes as he listened to the telling cries coming from a room across the hallway.

There they were.

Matthias would have been present in that other room, had it not been for the doctors who'd been wary regarding his condition, wanting to be certain that he'd completely recovered from his unexpected fever of days before. He felt quite well now, but he was sure the doctors knew what was best.

"In some cases, they know," Matthias murmured, his steepled fingers coming up over his nose and mouth as he sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes still closed. Yes, it had been those same doctors who'd once warned him that if he did not set out on a different course of action, he may never see this day: a day that arrived after a full ten years of fruitful and fruitless, yet unbroken, love. He wouldn't take back any one of those ten years. He'd never had a serious thought of taking them back, despite what a good many souls across the nation, and possibly even abroad, may have thought or said. What did it all matter now, what anyone else had had to say? All that was of significance, in this moment, was the long-awaited sound that was coming from the other room.

Eventually, the cries quieted. Matthias did not move, at first, when he heard soft footsteps enter and stand lingering on the edge of the lush carpet of the parlor. He recognized those footsteps, and he knew he would not be disturbed as long as the lingering individual thought him to be in prayer.

After bracing himself, Matthias lowered his hands and opened his glistening eyes. He looked over to see Merry, a favorite servant of his, straightening her apron and tucking a wayward lock of her graying hair back into its slack coiffure. An unusual sight for the ever-tidy woman, but she had more than earned having a hair or two out of place and a rumpled apron on this day, for all the work she'd seen to. Matthias sat up, his anticipation escalating but being strangely checked by the smile in Merry's kind gaze, a smile warm with elation and affection, even while it held a trace of something that bore a strong resemblance to an apology.

Reading Merry's gaze, Matthias was slow in rising to his feet. One hand ran absently over the front of the fine, informal tunic covering his solid chest, his heart knowing what news his servant had brought before she spoke.

"Providence blesses you, my king," Merry all but whispered, her smile tenderly reaching her mouth as she stepped into the parlor. It appeared as if she would have shaken her head, but after a glance out of the windows to see the evidence of expectation out on the palace grounds, Merry nodded. Matthias's breath was suspended, due to the blend of joy and empathetic resignation thickening Merry's voice.

"Your Majesty has been given a daughter," she said.
~~~

Twenty Years Later

~~~

An unseasonably warm winter in the kingdom of Diachona was poised to bow out in seamless surrender to spring, and a current of felicity was flowing through the early morning atmosphere in the capital city of Topaz. The sprightly greetings and bright expressions heard and seen were genuine, by no means intending to belie a collective, niggling unease over the prospect of war or a censored strain of doubt concerning an alleged, longtime confinement of a monarchical figure. It seemed that no one found much sense in dwelling on any downbeat likelihoods today: a day marked to celebrate the nation's promise, when an adored Daughter would be receiving a rite of passage into royal junior standing. There would be festivals throughout the country and a gala at the palace in Topaz. As a small number of dignitaries from other nations had come to town to attend the gala, it was a highly suitable time for the city to put its choicest face forward.

It was on this morning that a robust Diachonian man stood still in a crowd of people, staring. Perhaps his azure, disbelieving eyes had yet to wholly awaken with the rest of him, at this hour.

The marketplace south of the capital's main thoroughfare was decorated for celebration and was already busy with patrons. The bustling and noise around the vendors with merchandise out in the open may've been addling the man's mind. He gave himself the benefit of a few hard, purposeful blinks, wanting to be sure that his imagination wasn't putting one over on him.

One more flicker of his eyelids, however, and he knew he was not mistaken. The others within his proximity seemed too engrossed in hailing familiar faces and rushing to inspect handmade items the vendors had been working on during the winter to take much notice of a young woman with bronze hair flowing from beneath a red head scarf. Her movements were quick and careful as she wound her way through the crowd, snatching up and paying for goods to put in her woven basket. She was likely aware of the other patrons' oblivion, using the market's busyness to her advantage. Although it would not be strange if any member of the community here wouldn't recognize her anyway, someone still might.

After a final and unnecessary blink, accompanied by a shake of his sable head, Staid Alexander decided to go ahead and allow his curiosity to have free course, hoping that he'd somehow manage to proceed catching as little notice as she seemed to be. It did not take Staid long to spot the two plainclothes guards hovering nearby, and Staid acknowledged them both with a look, ensuring that the men had identified him and silently returned his acknowledgment before he approached the young woman. She was now taking whiffs through bags of incense in front of a garrulous vendor, a man too keen on showing forth the praises of his mixed plants and spices to realize that the customer before him wasn't listening.

"A good morning to you," Staid greeted the woman before he lowered his voice so that she would be the only one to hear his reverent addition. "My lady."

The woman took her time to select a bag of incense to place in her basket before she turned to look up at Staid, her mild brown eyes meeting his amused blue ones. Her stare flitted over his unassuming shirt and trousers before she returned his greeting. "And a good one to you, Alexander. A surprise to see you here in the market, this morning."

A grin broke out across Staid's clean-shaven face. "My aunt is recovering from illness. I'm letting her rest before the festivities tonight, since she insists upon making an appearance. Unfortunately, I'll be late arriving, since I must tie up some loose ends of pertinent business, so I'm sending a driver to get her there in time for the Sally of Ladies. I hope she'll sit down after that. She's not had time to sew a new dress, but I thought I might find a beaded necklace for her here, to help her feel extravagant. What brings you down here?"

The young woman dug a coin out of the small purse tucked in her basket, paying the vendor for the incense she'd taken. "No special reason," she answered Staid. "I've told you I enjoy going about to purchase goods on my own from time to time. The household has gotten used to it. But no one speaks to me much, whenever I come here. I can't tell if I'm altogether hiding when I do this, or if I'm simply not fitting in."

It was Staid's turn to look over her clothing, seeing the dress that matched her head scarf in color, with tiny yellow flowers printed all over it, and the long, white apron covering the front of its skirt. "I too would question whether you're hiding," he told her, "or if you've had a heartfelt but failed attempt at appearing—oh, how can I say it respectfully?—appearing to be someone who actually has a need for aprons."

The woman's eyebrows lifted. "What could you mean? You'd do well to know that I make good use of my aprons, thank you." She crouched clear down to the ground, running a hand over the dirt at her feet before standing upright again and smoothing her palm over the waist of her apron, leaving a blatant smudge against its whiteness. "Why, I soiled this apron here just this very morning. Not long ago at all."

Staid knew he should have expected such a dry reaction from her. He had to swallow a guffaw. "You don't say? Pardon my ignorance, then, and consider me now well enlightened on the matter." He gave a slight bow and went on to ask, "But you haven't much more time for soiling aprons and such today, have you? I'm sure there are lofty preparations to be made. What's next after you leave the market?"

A shadow passed over the young woman's face. She threw a cautious glance around, as if in sudden apprehension about being overheard. "Um, I'm going to visit my mother."

"Oh." Staid took a perfunctory glance about them as well, giving a cough to clear his throat. "Then she'll be glad to see you. I know she always must be, in her own way. Please send her my greetings." The woman graced him with the fleetest smile of thanks, and he switched subjects, lifting his tone. "Are you excited?"

The woman gave a nod, seeming grateful for Staid's tact. "You could say I'm working my way there. Though I'm not certain of all the significance it will hold for me on a personal level, I'm nervous about the ceremony this afternoon. It sounds like it will be a severe affair. But I am looking forward to the gala."

"As you should be. It'll be a splendid night for the tipping of hands, as men—and, probably, nations—may give evidence of their plans to find ways to persuade you into a deeper alliance."

A corner of the woman's mouth edged upward. "If you are speaking of romance, Commander, be informed that I'm currently unable to feel, when it comes to sentiments of the kind. I'm more concerned about what I'm going to do with my people, marital alliances or no."

The hint of a smile that Staid now offered held no mirth but plenty of understanding. "Hey. No fear about that. It'll come to you. In time, what you need will come to you. Permit me to offer a word of advice, before I take my leave?"

"You're permitted."

Staid's smile deepened, though still in all seriousness. "You only reach this milestone once in life, and you are ready for it. This day and tomorrow are yours. Don't allow anything to stop you from enjoying what you are meant to enjoy."

After surveying Staid's eyes, the woman dipped her head in acceptance. "Thank you. I'll do my best to relish it."

Staid hesitated then. There was more pressing on him that he'd long wished to say, but he figured if he'd been waiting to speak on it for four years, waiting a little longer wouldn't hurt. He took a step backwards, his full grin returning. "Thank _you_ , for this moment of your valuable time. I'll not take any more of it now, and let you carry on. Good day to you, my lady."

"And to you, sir," she answered.

~~~

As Staid bowed to her again and turned to be off, the woman stood there staring at his departing back, broad as it was, as she knew she'd formed a habit of doing over the past year or so. Staid Alexander was only four years her senior and was already the head of the kingdom's army. To the surprise of some, he'd been bequeathed the position by the former commander who'd died from a collision with a boulder after being thrown from a spooked horse. The military bequest had had to stand the approval of the king. While more than one voice had expressed doubts about granting that high position to a man who had not yet reached the qualifying age of thirty years to sit on the National Council, the king had deferred to the previous commander's trusted judgment concerning the young man's aptitude, vigor, and readiness to lead. Alexander had been named the new head of the army, and by default, he was given a seat on the Council, which was made up of the patriarchal elders, the prominent landowning chieftains, other key military leaders, and King Matthias.

The young woman sighed as Staid disappeared into the throng of marketplace patrons. Protocol oftentimes had a way of demanding a particular brand of aloofness, but if she had any real peers, Staid was the one of them she regarded as her closest friend. She'd known him all her life, some of her early memories of him consisting of games they'd played and races they'd had outdoors with other children of Council members, military men, and courtiers. Staid, with his age and size, had always been a faster runner than she was, but she'd liked him because he would let her win every now and then. They had reached the first of many true meetings of their minds in conversation when she was twelve, and her current sigh was a wordless query, asking if she'd just been inadvertently dishonest in regard to sentiments. She could not deny to herself that she'd been thinking more of Staid lately, in ways she had barely thought of him while they'd been growing up.

Perhaps it was because, over the years, she had been spending so much time in her family library, and in the State Library, and in the World Annals, reading everything she could get her avid fingers on. She had been so occupied with her desire to see more of the lands and peoples she was reading about, and while other girls her age in her circle were experimenting with new fashions and lavish hairstyles and talking of beaus, she had been traveling near, far, and a bit farther, sometimes with her father and his company, and other times with only a smaller company of her own. Not to say that she had any dearth of style or fashion, as the frame of mind she usually returned from her travels with influenced her fashion to degrees that she knew made her attendants tense, on occasion. Yet, she was also aware that what most unsettled those she knew was the changed gaze and the weighty, fervent hush with which she would come back home. She'd have an almost eerily meditative aura about her, and she would take her time before speaking to anyone about what she had seen, the individuals she'd met, insights she'd gained. Her father astonished many by allowing his daughter to make so many journeys before she had officially entered womanhood, and he was one of the first she would speak to of any trip she'd taken without him. Staid was the other first, whether it was in person or by letter, if he was away.

Whatever the case or distraction may have been, she'd given little of her time to romantic sentiments, and she'd recently started to suspect that because of her years of neglecting them, such sentiments may have begun rising in revolt, storming around her pulse to make it jump whenever Staid approached her these days, regardless of whether he was bringing his jaunty air with him or if he was more subdued. It wasn't an implausible idea that her sigh may've also been somewhat due to the notion that, though she'd been thinking more of him, she had no evidence that he'd been having any more than his normal sum of thoughts about her.

She'd yet to figure out why he wasn't married to anyone by now.

Oh, goodness.

"Percy," she abruptly said, as if in a desperate attempt to call herself out of her own reverie by speaking someone else's name. Her guard Percival was at her side before she turned around, and Henri was not far behind him. The two men accompanied her out of the marketplace and on her walk home, and a white-haired woman met her upon her arrival, inquiring after her morning excursion. "It was wonderful, Merry, thank you. I saw Staid while I was there. Please have my basket taken to my quarters. I'm washing my hands and going up to see Mama. Have I an hour? Be sure to come for me, since I might lose track of time."

Not many minutes later, the young woman had climbed a carpeted staircase up to secluded quarters of her home, stopping to knock at a door standing ajar. "Mama?" she called, poking her head through the door.

"Constance," she heard her name in response, and she entered a sitting room, looking across it to see her mother in a plush chair facing a floor-to-ceiling window. Constance moved toward her mother from behind, glad to find the older woman in a morning dress instead of a nightgown. Constance leaned to place a kiss on her mother's soft cheek, and her mother smiled faintly, not looking away from the window.

"I've just come from the market," Constance announced as she lowered herself to a settee not far from her mother, facing her without obstructing her view of the outdoors. "I found handkerchiefs with little roses stitched on the corners and the most delightful smelling incense. I'll have some brought to you later. I saw Staid while I was there. He sends his greetings. And he is partly responsible for my apron being dirty," Constance added with a little laugh.

The smile remained on her mother's face. She did not look away from the window.

"He asked if I'm excited about today," Constance went on. "I am, but I confess that I'll be glad when the ceremony at the cathedral is over. I've rehearsed and have been told what to expect, of course, but I still don't know what to expect. And I don't think it will have such a great impact on me, formally becoming a royal junior. You know that much of what royal juniors do, as far as more rigorous study and increased travel to other nations, I've been doing before I was even twelve. But I understand that the rite is still important to the kingdom, for what it symbolizes. All uncertainties and unanswered questions aside, our people need this time to celebrate the future. To hope. For that, I can endure a rigid ceremony. Maybe it will turn out to be a brighter event than I think. There is still time for you to let me know if you would like to attend. I had two gowns made for you, in case..."

Constance's voice drifted. After only watching her silent, inert, smiling mother for a moment, Constance rose from her seat, crossing over to kneel on the floor beside the older woman, taking one of her hands and reaching up to place a palm alongside her face. "Grace," Constance murmured.

She had never been sure if her father would approve, if he were to find out that Constance, at rare, private times, addressed her mother by her given name. But Constance had learned, a few years ago, that this had become the only way should could get her mother to look at her.

The smile left her mother's lips, but a glow was in her eyes as she turned her head, gazing down at her daughter.

"Mama, it's my birthday," Constance stated, undecided as to whether she was providing a reminder or an explanation. "It's my twentieth birthday. I'm being recognized as an adult today. You may come to the cathedral if you like. All you have to do is say so. Or, if you'd still rather not leave home, you can come to the gala for a while tonight, right down in the ballroom. You wouldn't be obligated to speak. You could just wear your new finery I got for you and sit there next to Papa and listen to the orchestra and watch the dancing. Everyone would be so overjoyed to see you there. Mama?"

Constance's hand left her mother's face as the two women stared at each other, Constance's expression full of searching while her mother's was glowing, loving, present, and faraway.

To this day, Constance wasn't clear on how much the nation knew about this in accurate detail, apart from rumors, but the once active and effervescent Queen Grace of Diachona had done little more than sit in her separate quarters of the palace for the last five years. Barely a word was heard from her anymore. She would stare around or through people. She would allow her attendants to walk her about the palace grounds for exertion, but if she was brought anywhere else where she was expected to stay for more than a few minutes, she would hazily wander off and head back to her quarters. She no longer went to the family wing of the palace or to her husband Matthias's chambers.

Matthias didn't speak much to his daughter about the effect the altered state of his wife had on him, but Constance had once peeked around the door of her mother's quarters while Matthias had sat in there in a chair, holding Grace in his lap while she napped. Constance had not been able to see her father's face, as he had buried it in her mother's chestnut hair. But seeing the heaving of his shoulders in soundless weeping, Constance had backed out of the room, resolving that looking in on her parents unannounced was a deed she would not repeat.

Matthias had told Constance more than once, however, that he did not lament having the queen he'd chosen. It had taken a decade of marriage before their persevering love had produced offspring. Even when the kingdom esteemed Grace for her charity, intelligence, and the prudent legislative influence she had with the Council, through her husband, in matters of civil law and rights, still, doctors and advisors had warned Matthias that he would be left with no blood heir to his throne if he did not put away his barren wife for another. Matthias's only retort had been to continue favoring his wife, and Grace had eventually stunned everyone when she conceived.

Nonetheless, while the queen had gained even more of the nation's respect when Constance was born, the people were looking for her to give the king at least one son, a true Junior: the title given to the first male in line to succeed to the throne. All sons and daughters in the royal line were given junior standing and were commissioned to start their diplomatic travel when they came of age, but no daughters were given the honor of the distinct Junior title, that title of "the king's everlasting confidence," since daughters naturally married into other families within or without the country, taking on different family names.

Further, the implicit conclusion was that daughters had no real need for the title. In all the generations of Diachona's history, no king had failed to produce a male heir to the throne, even if it took passing through a number of wives or concubines to do so or naming a son of one of his brothers as the heir. However, the past four generations of Diachonian kings had each taken only one wife while virtually spurning the tradition of concubines, mentioning pecuniary strains caused by the disposable cost of harems. Matthias's father and grandfather had had just one son each, Matthias being the only child born to his parents whatsoever. Therefore, the nation looked to Matthias to add more males into the royal line.

And he had one daughter. One child to stop any foreign kings from assuming headship over Diachona. When Matthias passed on, his daughter would be queen, but Diachona would, for the first time in its history, be a kingdom without a king. If anything ever happened to Constance before she brought forth an heir, the elders on the National Council would have the authority to select a councilman to be king. Yet, for many years running, the Council had been notorious for reaching untimely stalemates over the most momentous decisions. A longstanding joke among Diachonian citizens was that the kingdom might be taken over by an outside empire, with a new flag, a new anthem, and a new capital imposed upon them, and the Council would still be in their assembly hall, deliberating and quarrelling about which man to promote to a throne that had already been usurped.

The nation was thought to be better off not having to leave the crucial choice of a king up to the Council, and so the people looked to the current royal heir for hope. Surely Constance wouldn't allow the original line and national sovereignty to be lost through a merger with a foreign monarch in marriage. Constance would do best by marrying someone who would not disrupt the line of succession, birthing as many sons as she could by him, so that the nation would have to endure no more than one generation in a kingless situation. Thus, from the day of Constance's birth, her people stood anticipating the time when she would marry and commence having children.

Then, when Constance was fifteen years old, unexpected news went flashing its way through the kingdom. Queen Grace had conceived again. In truth, the difficult delivery she went through nearly finished her, and it left her quite unwell afterwards, but the jubilation throughout the country was overwhelming at the birth of King Matthias's son. Indeed, the initial rejoicing over the birth hadn't yet ceased before the subsequent, mournful disclosure came that after two months of fighting for his life, the frail baby boy had died.

Constance, during her adolescence, had grown into an understanding of the pressure her mother had been under, and she had admired the poise her mother maintained for years whilst facing a nation of people who resoundingly admired her, even while they quietly regretted her. But the death of her son had routed her to the core, and as the queen's body recovered as much as it could, it became clear that she had borne her last child.

The kingdom's future was at stake, asserted the primary doctor who had been treating the queen. He deemed it the safe and sensible thing to guarantee that Diachona's young successor to the throne was fit and fertile. In a confidential meeting with the king, the doctor had proposed a series of critical tests that should be performed on the king's daughter as soon as possible, to confirm that her female capabilities were in order.

The details of the doctor's proposal were never made public. All the same, on the day of the meeting, Constance received a report from Percival that palace guards on duty had heard a crashing sound and had burst into the meeting to find an enraged Matthias holding the doctor up against a wall, the doctor, with a bloodied face, caught in a frantic struggle while Matthias was choking the breath out of him.

Matthias had relented at the urging of the guards, but he banished the doctor to spend the remainder of his life in prison, and the rest of the condemned man's medical colleagues assigned to the palace were soon replaced, as a precaution.

Constance had not wasted time in seeing her father in their family parlor, the day after the incident with the doctor had occurred. "It is most unfortunate," Matthias had told her, setting aside a cup of tea that he'd been drinking, "but I'm not ready to discuss all of it with you yet, Apple."

"But, Papa, I think I deserve to know what was said," Constance had insisted, not sitting when her father motioned for her to join him on the couch. "You very nearly killed someone yesterday."

"Nearly. And if I'd come more than near doing so, it wouldn't have been the first time."

"Oh, well, yes, I know that back when you were in the military, combat required you to—"

"I'm talking nothing about my time in the military." Seeing the shock threatening to pervade his daughter's eyes, Matthias went on to stop it before it appeared. "Oh, _destiny_. Don't be so quick to forget what you've been taught, Constance. I've told you of the importance of mercy and compassion in the throne, but have I not also told you that there's no place for cowardice in kingship? Inauspicious episodes do come up. Our place is sometimes a dangerous one. I'll admit that I did lose my temper yesterday, what with your baby brother's passing and your mother weighing on my mind of late, but do not believe for an instant that I would not expire anyone aiming to bring harm to the kingdom I'm accountable for, let alone to my own family. I don't know what got into him, but if that most miserable of fools was audacious enough to propose what he did, right to my face, then, yes, he is beyond lucky that he was taken out of my capital with his contemptible head still on."

Constance looked down at her hands, her voice small but steady. "But what will happen if I do turn out to be barren, for some reason?" She brought her eyes back up to her father. "I've wondered before how the Council might react if I ever proposed adopting a Diachonian infant, maybe an orphaned one, and raising him in the family name, if I had to." Matthias began to shake his head, so Constance was swift to say, "It's merely a thought, Papa. I don't think it's going to come to that. But is it wrong to consider possible options ahead of time? I'm sure that you were forced to consider other options back when it seemed that Mama would never have a child. You effectively chose to risk the future of Diachona for the love you had for Mama, correct? But it could have gone another way."

Matthias scratched at his peppery beard. "I'm not saying there's anything wrong with thinking things through. My 'options' were put up to me a number of times, by different ones. Of course various ideas crossed my mind. But if you imagine that I must've sat down and thought to myself, 'Let me consider giving up on Grace,' you're mistaken. I didn't see myself to be risking Diachona for the love of my wife, as I did not believe that my devotion to her and my expectation for the kingdom's continuance were incongruent. This nation was given to me by the one Who removes and sets up kings. And I carefully chose the wife who would be best for me and the best queen over this people. It did appear for a while that she would not have any children, but it pleases Providence to use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the weak things to confound the strong. I believed that exactly what my people were in need of would come through me and my wife."

"And...do you still believe it?" Constance asked. Seeing the line of puzzlement between Matthias's eyebrows, she pressed him with, "You don't think the country would fare better by your leaving them a son? Do you ever wish that I might have been the one you could have named your Junior?"

Matthias stared up at her for a time, the line lingering on his forehead as he sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees while he ran the fingers of one hand over the fist of the other. Then he rose from the couch and went to gently take Constance's face in both of his hands, asking, "Why would I ever have need of calling you Junior, when I already have the singular privilege of calling you Daughter?"

Constance stared back at him before readily walking into the embrace he drew her into. "I wouldn't trade you for anyone, Apple," Matthias earnestly added, resting his chin atop her head. "I would never trade you."

Wrapping her arms around her father's middle, Constance appreciated the fierce, familiar love she felt from him, even as she wasn't settled on how she felt about Matthias's eloquent question.

And, today, Constance was kneeling on the floor beside Grace's chair in her sitting room, looking up into her face. Constance was aware of the rumors that Diachona's queen had gone mad after the demise of her son those five years ago, and although Constance wouldn't say that she agreed with that assessment, she could not say that she wasn't often at a loss on how to deal with her mother's condition. She felt that she was coaxing Grace about her birthday events in vain, but she had to do it. She was convinced that this woman, who could either hear her but wasn't listening or who was listening but couldn't really hear her, would know, in her soul, if her daughter ever gave up on trying to draw her back into life.

Constance squeezed at her mother's hand, refusing to sigh. The queen would not come, she knew, but Constance would make sure that attendants brought up the queen's ornamental diadem and had her new gowns and a robe ready and waiting in her dressing room. Constance stayed there on the floor, talking to her mother until Merry came to retrieve her for ceremony preparations.

~~~

That afternoon, amid the dynamic resonance of a grand pipe organ, the huge sanctuary doors of Topaz's foremost cathedral were opened to welcome the entry of Princess Constance, dressed in a modest and traditional white and light blue frock with a short train, its colors signifying purity and faithfulness, and with her long bronze tresses bound in a single braid laced through with white and blue ribbon, resting over her shoulder. She wore no jewelry but held in both her hands a small, shining headdress with blue stones: her first coronet, which had been waiting for her on a cushioned stand in the cathedral's vestibule, minded by two sanctuary attendants.

Constance walked solemnly down the sanctuary's aisle, knowing that the faces of everyone watching her were Diachonian, except for those of two foreign princes, sent from two of Diachona's allying nations to witness the occasion. She was conscious of Staid's being in the room, along with the other members of the Council, but she dared not look for him in the crowd. Her father, in resplendent ritual robes and a coronal on his head, was standing up at the altar near the officiating bishop, and Constance came to kneel at the steps of the altar, as she had rehearsed, while still holding her coronet.

As the music ended and the ceremony progressed, Constance found that she had been wrong to assume that the rite would not have much of a personal impact on her. A variety of emotions surged and receded within her during the bishop's admonitions and blessings to her and the kingdom's other citizens there. By the time her father took her coronet from her outstretched hands and placed it on her head, and she stood and turned to face her people, she knew that the prospect of the ceremony's severity was not what had unnerved her beforehand. It was more than probable that many of the country's citizens, even some of them here, had wished, at and after her birth, that she had not been female. And while, from now on, it would be this adored Daughter's recognized duty to purposely buoy the hopes of the nation, she was cognizant of the impression that the people were not looking forward to her reign so much as they were looking forward to the masculine one that should succeed it, if she adequately performed that essential aspect of her duty.

Constance thought, not for the first time, that perhaps the undoing of her mother had had a little less to do with the death of her baby alone, and a little more to do with the nation's indubitable disappointment in their queen. Constance had no intention of turning in the kingdom's sovereignty through a marital merge of international powers, but she could not help the passing idea that, if she was otherwise unable to give the people what they truly wanted from her, then she, like her mother, might one day prove not to stand above being undone.

Pipe organ tones were again swelling through the room. Constance did not know how long she might have stood there musing, staring at those in front of her, if she had not felt her father's hand pat at her back. After glancing up toward the sanctuary's east balcony, where her mother would have been sitting if she'd come, Constance swept both of her hands up to her heart and deeply curtsied, not removing her hands from her heart as she made her way back down the sanctuary's aisle. As soon as her feet hit the vestibule, attendants swarmed around her, and the organ ceased in favor of the ringing of bells in the cathedral's tower, soon to be echoed by church bells throughout the capital. It was time for the festivals to begin.

Constance made a short visit to one of them, in the marketplace she had patronized that morning. When she and her retinue rode into the midst of singing and dancing city residents, she gave out baskets of food she'd had prepared, sure that no one here knew her laughter was due in part to the inevitable change in attention. She'd gone mostly unrecognized through these same streets hours earlier, as well as several times before that. Would she still be able to come out shopping on some mornings like any other citizen, after this?

That evening found Constance back at the palace, making an entrance into the palace's brightly lit ballroom on the arm of her father. He was clad in white and black full military dress bearing medals from his past service, with a silver councilman's sash over his shoulder, affixed near his waist with a medallion bearing his family's royal emblem. Constance felt the emphasis of the gazes turned in her direction as the gala's mass of guests halted to behold the tangible picture of fervor this young woman was tonight, her countenance unsmiling but not uninviting, her luminous eyes taking everyone in, looking for Staid until she remembered that he would be coming late.

Constance had been content to follow tradition in her attire for the royal junior ceremony at the cathedral, but she had chosen to take a different course for the gala. Instead of any intricate, upswept coils or plaits, she'd opted to have her hair in loose curls, falling freely down beneath a filigreed circlet adorning her head. Daughters in the royal line customarily wore blue to their twentieth birthday celebrations, but Constance had donned a rich ruby gown, off the shoulder with a glittering bodice and no lack of flowing skirts. Around her neck was a ruby choker from Matthias, and her lips were enhanced with crimson.

Constance's attendants had been doubtful, in their typical way, over her order to have a red dress made. What if her vivid departure from traditional twentieth birthday array for royal junior women reinforced what a number of people had been whispering for years: that this girl, who made relentless trips out to the State Library and the World Annals like a fiend before it was required of her and who'd been traveling almost as much as an adult ever since her childhood, was allowed too much freedom by her father? Constance had answered her attendants by saying she was choosing red as an act of family honor. She had not gone on to explain about her years of being affectionately called love's fruit, a young lady firm and sweet, since her place as "Papa's Apple" was none of her attendants' concern. She'd felt no qualms when, after her stop at the festival, she'd come back to stand for the painter assigned to capture her twentieth birthday likeness, arrayed in red, and she believed that her guests at the gala would have a marvelous time, regardless of whatever gown she wore.

Yet, knowing that the surprising moment of her entrance should be tempered for her guests' sake, Constance allowed for a public display of familial fondness, tipping her head against Matthias's shoulder. Her father chuckled at her gesture, planting a kiss on the top of her hair, and a sigh seemed to go through the ballroom as the people were apparently put at ease enough to applaud the royal junior's awaited arrival.

Inspired by the music streaming from the ballroom's elevated orchestral chamber, Constance was ready to join the dancers who were moving to the floor. But she and Matthias first had to go to the room's dais for dignitary reception, reminding Constance that not everything floating through Diachona's air was celebratory.

The string of notables from the allying nations present, including the two princes who'd also been at the cathedral that afternoon, were principal visitors, given that even now, Diachona was facing a heightening disagreement over national territory with a country called Munda. Constance had studied about the country, but the fact that she'd chosen to make a friendly visit to it a couple of years earlier had drawn horrified reactions from more than a few Diachonians. Munda had been on virulent campaigns to expand its wealth and borders for about the past decade. While the country had recently grown quieter, Munda's King Aud had expressed his interest in lush lands in Diachona's southeastern region. He asked if he could send Mundayne people into the land to farm it, asserting that Diachona was letting it go to waste by not making the utmost use of the territory. Matthias had respectfully denied Aud's request, stating that Diachona would decide what to do with its own land, and with the kingdom's rate of growth, there was no telling of the great use they could soon make of all of their territory. Aud had then asked what Diachona thought would stop him from coming into the land and taking it over, if Matthias was unwilling to share it.

Matthias and an untold number of other leaders in a range of nations knew that Munda was a daunting military power, boasting one of the largest armies in the world. Diachona had a sum of smaller allies to petition for assistance in defense, but even with combined forces, they would still fail to be a match for Munda and its colonies, in numerical terms.

And the timing for the threat of war could hardly be more inconvenient. The nation of Rêeh, Diachona's ally across the Eubeltic Sea, was trying to cope with its own unforeseen trouble, as a vicious earthquake had racked an ample portion of their country, destroying a number of towns. Forlorn, panicked citizens of theirs were beginning to run wild, and escalating plundering and violence was becoming a near overwhelming problem for its soldiers to handle. Relief donations coming in from different countries weren't putting a halt to the unrest. Notwithstanding rumors of displaced rodents and such leading to declining sanitary conditions in the affected areas, Diachona had pledged to send some of its own troops to help restore peace and order, whenever Rêeh sent the word for outside military support. Because the word could come at any time, Aud's decision to breathe down Diachona's neck just now was a grating scourge on Matthias's and his people's throats.

"I feel for the populace of Rêeh," a chieftain by the name of Greenly, the newest addition to the National Council, had stood in the latest Council assembly to say, as reported to Constance by Commander Alexander afterward. "I truly do. They have a beautiful country, and I hear the efforts to rebuild broken towns there are progressing too slowly. But Munda is our main concern now, and our focus should be to take care of home. We need our military here."

"I understand, Chieftain," King Matthias had replied, "but it is better to make no vow than to make one and break it. We'd already pledged our support to Rêeh before this business with Munda came up. And, honestly, we would in fact need Rêeh's help to stand before Munda. It is in both ours and our ally's best interest that that country comes back to order.

"On the other hand, whether we send help to Rêeh or not, Munda still has us outnumbered. We could do our best to protect our territory with what we have, but no matter how little or much our power, if Providence doesn't keep our territory, we watch but in vain. What substantial benefit would it be to anyone for us to withhold the support we've pledged to our friends? No, if Rêeh calls for our help, we will give it, as we said we would."

Chieftain Greenly had nodded, and had taken his seat.

Now, the eldest son of Rêeh's king was one of the princes Constance was obliged to greet before she could go dance. As he conveyed his pleasure at their meeting, kissing her white-gloved fingers, his eyes lingering on hers, it was clear that here was one of the tipping of hands Staid had spoken of. Never mind that this particular tipping came as no shock. Constance gave the prince a nod to send him off the dais.

As the prince was leaving, Matthias inclined toward his daughter. Constance opened and lifted the fan she held to shield their exchange as Matthias told her, "He has requested a private audience with you tomorrow, after the presentations of your gifts at court."

Constance fluttered her fan. "Oh, that should be remarkable. I look forward to it."

Matthias raised an eyebrow at her, seeming to restrain a laugh before he straightened back up to receive the next dignitary in line.

After they had completed the necessary receptions, Matthias took his daughter out to the floor for her first dance as a junior, to more applause from their guests. Afterward came the collective Sally of Ladies, a dance that Constance had always participated in on the girls and younger women's side of the formation but now danced on the side of the women who were of age. When the dance was finished, Constance went straight over to Staid's aunt, embracing her with personal thanks for attending the gala and calling for a plush chair to be brought near the dance floor for the woman to rest in.

Constance went back up to the dais to take a seat beside her father, but she hadn't long to sit there. She spied Chieftain Greenly coming across the room, dressed in a slick black suit and his councilman's sash, making his way over to the base of the dais. "Your Majesty," he said, bowing in greeting to Matthias, receiving the king's consenting wave to come on up.

Constance evenly met the chieftain's gaze as he came toward her. This tall man with the smart mustache wasn't a stranger to her, as she'd conversed with him on different occasions over the past couple of years. She knew him to be the proprietor of lands in three cities, and despite his having no wife or children of his own, he was recognized as a reliable mediator and advocate for the distinguished Greenly clan. Constance liked him well enough, but when she would have dialogue with him, she often got the feeling that he was challenging her in some way. She'd never detected any definite contempt or mockery in his attitude toward her, though, and she'd therefore grown relatively sure that this man must just find stimulation in having a challenge. While she did not always return the stares she felt from him when they were in the same place, Constance could tell when Greenly had his eyes on her, whether or not the two of them spoke to each other.

Snapping her fan closed with one hand, Constance extended her other to Greenly. "A good evening to you, Chieftain."

"Your Highness," Greenly acknowledged her, kissing her hand and not letting go of it. "My congratulations and best wishes to you on your birthday. My gratitude would know no bounds if you would honor me with this next dance, and, if I may be so bold to request it, if you would also reserve your final one of the night for me."

Constance's head tipped to one side. "How will you know when I'm going to have my final dance, sir? I could take my leave of the gala at any time."

"You could. But I have determined to keep an eye on you, and it will not be difficult to tell when you're preparing to go. I can approach you then. What's more, I've had a number of servants here alerted of my objective to have the last dance with you, so word of your impending departure can be sent to me speedily before it takes place."

Constance's mouth opened, but she did not speak, taken aback. She found the chieftain's actions to be somewhat intrusive, but sensing the humor emanating from her father at her side, she knew that Matthias had been informed of Greenly's objective before she had.

Greenly pressed lightly at her fingers. "My lady? Will you so honor me?"

Constance said nothing, her eyes washing over Greenly's self-assured visage as she rose from her seat, allowing the chieftain to lead her off of the dais.

As was his way, Greenly was not shy about initiating conversation with Constance while they danced. "So," he began, "Her Highness has major plans to embark upon, following her birthday."

"What plans are you referring to?"

"I hear tell that you mean to seek a place on the Council."

Constance was again rather surprised at the chieftain, but she summarily reckoned that she had no reason to be. She'd known that this matter she'd brought up to her father a while back would be mentioned to the Council at some point. She gave a nod. "You've heard correctly."

Greenly's smile stopped just short of teasing. "Do you truly believe that would be possible?"

Constance's shoulder moved in a shrug. "As possible as you gentlemen will allow it to be."

Shaking his head with a laugh, Greenly told her, "You are definitely a conundrum, my lady."

"I'll regard that as a compliment."

"Please do."

Constance received her fill on the floor with many partners who entreated her that night, including each of the visiting princes. Though the manner of the first was in no way ungracious or even uninterested toward her, Constance could tell that his being here was an ambassadorial responsibility he was fulfilling for his country, with no other designs attached. The prince from Rêeh, however, was keenness itself while he whisked Constance around the floor, telling her that he had heard so much about her over the years, that he had once seen a portrait of her and had been impatient to observe her in person ever since. He asked her to grant him a second dance, to stretch his time in her company, and she indulged him.

Eventually, Constance took a breather from dancing for some refreshment. She was talking with other young women in a cluster, having just finished off a little bowl of fruit she held when she heard the deliberate "A-hem" of a familiar voice behind her.

Her pulse jumped. Constance hesitated and then turned to find Staid standing there, his white-gloved hand smoothing down the silver sash across his stalwart chest. He was in his full, medaled commander's dress, the midnight blue hue of it only a hint lighter than his thick black hair. Constance stood waiting for a grin to break out over his face, but no grin came. Instead, as his gaze swept down the length of her and back up to her face, a low, zestful murmur issued from his serious lips. "My _goodness_ , Princess."

Constance's heart leapt clear up to her throat. She stood there, frozen beneath the heady pressure of a look she hadn't thought to prepare to receive from Staid. This wasn't an ordinary night, but neither was it the first time he'd seen an aesthetic representation of hers of herself. Yet, enduring the nature of this scrutiny from him was a novel experience for Constance, and she felt her empty bowl being eased from her fingers by one of the young women with her.

As enlivened whispers started around the cluster of women, Staid took both of Constance's unoccupied hands, guiding her out to the floor. The speechless pair had been engaged in dancing for a minute or two before remembrance flashed into Staid's eyes, widening them. "Oh! Please forgive me, my lady. I didn't even ask."

Constance released an airy chortle, her grip tightening on Staid's arm when she felt him slowing down. "Oh, no, no—don't stop. It's quite all right. I wasn't thinking either. That is, I was, but...yes."

Staid laughed as well. His pace picked back up, and he grinned at last. "Happy birthday to you."

"Thank you, Commander. I've been enjoying it, as you told me to."

"Glad to hear it. I have a gift for you, you know, but there's something of a predicament in relation to it. In the first place, I won't be able to present it to you at court tomorrow with your other gifts. And in the second place, I'm anxious that you might think it to be a ridiculous scheme, at such a time."

Constance was anticipating the normalizing of her pulse's rate, but it wasn't happening yet. "Can you tell me what it is?"

"Certainly. I had to tie a good part of it up today. You know they've finished building the new hospital in Nonpareil, a boon for that city's civilians and the military men who'll pass through. I'm going to represent the Council at the hospital's grand opening next week, and I've arranged for you to come on the trip. I figured that we've both been about frequently, since we've been friends, but we've never been about together, outside of the capital."

Constance's eyes were the ones to widen then. "What? Alexander, that's wonderful. I would love to be there for the hospital's opening. Why would I think that to be a ridiculous scheme?"

Staid's smile turned sheepish. "Because of Rêeh. I know Nonpareil isn't that far from Topaz, and the trip would only be a week long, plus the time to get there and back. But if Rêeh were to call, I'd have to head out immediately, cutting our time short. Wouldn't that ruin the gift?"

"No. You're an important man, sir, and it's no unusual thing for you to be called to duty, with or without warning. No sense in letting that fact deprive me of having at least a part of an excellent birthday present."

"Ah." Staid laughed, an extra spring animating his step. "She has spoken. It's settled, then. Nonpareil it is."

Constance remained on the floor with Staid for three consecutive dances. She would have been willing to remain for more, but at length, Staid declared, "This isn't altogether proper. It's your party, and I'm monopolizing your time. There must be others who still need a turn with you, and I should be on my way from here."

"On your way? Already?" Constance asked, trying to keep any displeasure from showing in her posture while Staid led her to the dais. "I was hoping we'd have a chance to go out to the terrace, to talk."

"I'm sorry. I would love to do that. But I must fetch my aunt and get her home. She would never complain of discomfort to me, but her body might complain to her in the morning."

With a conceding nod, Constance stepped up onto the dais. Staid did not relinquish her hand, so she turned to face him, seeing the gravity that had returned to his look. "Please be so kind as to pardon my tardiness and my early departure on your night," he appealed to her. "And, again, forgive me for my previous blunder. I was overeager but meant no disrespect."

Constance's head turned somewhat, as if she meant to shake it but stopped. "I know," she told Staid, her eyebrows drawing closer together. All of the apologies over a dance didn't seem necessary, coming from him.

Staid bowed, bestowing a parting kiss on her hand. "Your Highness," he said.

"Commander," she replied, and he let her hand go, reversing a few steps and turning to leave. Constance stood watching his formidable back as he walked off, and she threw open her fan, fluttering it vaguely. She'd been doing so well to relish the day as she'd promised to, but she could not ignore the disproportionate sinking of disappointment within her as Staid went to retrieve his aunt and withdrew from the gala. Though he'd been right in mentioning that others here might still want a turn with her, she no longer felt much up to it. Neither did she want to go sit with her father behind her, who was now absorbed in conversation with friends of his who'd joined him on the dais.

It did not take long for Constance to spot Chieftain Greenly, who was staring at her from way across the ballroom. She did not smile or signal to him but stared back at him, continuing to flutter her fan as he made his way over to her. She would have her last dance, she would bid her father goodnight, and she would quit the gala. It was sufficiently past midnight anyway, she was sure, and she would need good rest prior to her forenoon appearance at court.

She understood that the pomp of the event would pale in contrast to court presentations she would prevail over as queen in the future, but Constance did find the continuance of her birthday celebration at court the next day to be gratifying, as Diachonians and foreign dignitaries processed in and out of the palace to offer her gifts. Her father was on his throne up on the platform behind the seat of honor that had been brought in for her, her coronet was on her head, and her nods and words of approval and thanks to the presenters were genuine.

What she did not take quite as much delight in was her subsequent meeting with the prince of Rêeh. Their conference was in private: as private as it was going to get, in a less formal reception room with two of her attendants standing over on a wall, Percival standing behind her, and an attendant of the prince waiting right outside of the doorway with Henri. There were but three chairs in the room, being the king's, the queen's, and Constance's in the middle of them, and there she sat erect in a silken cerulean gown with her hands folded in her lap while the prince had out with his piece.

A pity it was, he deemed, that in all of her travels, she had not yet visited Rêeh. If she could only envision with him how Rêeh possessed some of the loveliest landscapes and most dazzling sunsets one could find anywhere in the world. His nation and hers had been on affable terms for generations, as she well knew, and trade between the two had been abundant. And he had seen that portrait of her, as he'd told her, but he'd found at the cathedral the afternoon before that the fine likeness he'd seen in advance had been unable to manifest the exquisite energy her actual presence brought when she stepped into a room. And the sight of her at the gala had been an unforgettable one, he was persuaded, and dancing and talking with her had been for him an encounter with bliss that had been over far too soon.

Now, she would please bear in mind, he was no dimwit. With the dire circumstances his country was facing, due to the damage caused by the terrible earthquake, he would not be able to propose marriage, just yet—Constance's eyebrows flew upward—but it would please him greatly if she would keep in correspondence with him, if she would consider inviting him to see her in Diachona again, and furthermore, if she would allow him the divinity of now gracing her with a farewell salute, since he would be leaving for his land on the morrow.

Constance sat there, blinking. She would have given in to unbelieving laughter, but in no way was this prince jesting with her. Besides, even if his oratory struck her as over the top, he did not make an inane picture, standing there before her. The astuteness in his countenance was unmistakable, and if a man could radiate a craving for a woman he'd known for less than a day, this man was doing so. Careful thought had gone into the jewelry he'd presented to her at court; Rêeh was not in a position to send anything ostentatious, but the pieces the prince had gifted her with were refined and delicate, crafted with precision, meant to move her. The prince and his country were serious about this.

Constance's look was unreadable. "I honestly do not know how to thank you, good Prince," she admitted, unfolding her hands and extending one to him to receive his salute. "I trust that the promising esteem between our nations will continue for years to come. I wish you a safe journey back home, with my best to Rêeh's noble king and queen, of course, and to the rest of your family and your people. God be with you."

The prince wavered for a second in reflection and stepped forward, lowering himself into a bow and taking Constance's hand, his eyes holding hers as he quietly told her, "It would be thanks enough for now, Princess, if you might lend me your charming cheek, as I was hoping."

Constance felt her insides tighten. She swallowed the urge to issue an incredulous chortle and gave a single nod, thinking that on behalf of diplomacy, it would be acceptable, especially with Percival there.

The prince moved further forward, his lips coming to brush a warm, smooth sigh against Constance's cheek. It was all she could do not to be frowning when he backed away from her after what seemed too lengthy a pause.

"Yes, I'm fine, Percy, thank you," she answered her inquiring guard after the prince had gone. Constance reached up to reassure her charming cheek with a speedy pat or two, resolving that she'd think twice before lending anything to the next prince or other in a private audience.

She had the impulsive desire to relay this episode to Staid, to see what he would say about it, but she would have to wait until their trip to Nonpareil to talk to him in person.

~~~

When the time came, Constance was too thrilled about her birthday trip for the episode with the prince of Rêeh to matter as much. She and her company left the palace in two full coaches with her guards riding along on horses, and they met up with Commander Alexander's small band to head out of the capital together. Constance did not get to greet Staid personally until they all made it to Nonpareil, when Staid insisted on being the one to help Constance, in her modish traveling suit and feathered hat, out of her coach.

"Your Highness! Welcome to your birthday gift."

"My thanks, Commander." Constance returned the smile that Staid gave her, taking hold of his offered forearm for their walk over to the committee of citizens delegated to hail their arrival into the city. "My word, this is by far the longest birthday I've ever had in my life."

Staid leaned his head toward her to let her know, "I wish it to be the best, my lady. I felt bad having to miss so much of your monumental celebration in Topaz. I want this to make it up to you."

"You don't have to make anything up to me," Constance replied before Nonpareil's delegates came forward to receive her and the commander.

The city's largest inn had been reserved to accommodate its guests from Topaz. Supper in the inn's dining room that night was a spirited, jovial affair, with the maids bringing in plates of Constance's favorite fruit tartlets for dessert, "For Your Highness's birthday" and "For Her Highness's birthday" serving as explanations as they set the pastries down on the tables. Constance looked over to a beaming Staid, knowing that this was his doing.

The spirit at the opening program outside of the hospital the next morning was more subdued. Staid, his demeanor stately and sober, was in uniform along with two of his army men accompanying him as he fulfilled his governmental task of addressing the hospital staff with words of sanction and goodwill from the National Council. Constance looked on, soaking in this rare chance to watch the commander in this aspect of his work, in front of a listening crowd of Nonpareil's residents. After he finished, the staff gave their guests from Topaz a complete look around inside of the new hospital facility.

The remainder of Constance's trip was spent mostly in recreation and tours of the city hosted by citizens overjoyed to meet the princess and the commander over their nation's army. Constance passed a couple of mornings about Nonpareil with only her attendants and guards, while Staid was busy with exercise, shooting, and swordplay with his soldiers. But during the time he spent with her, Constance was more than conscious of Staid's goal to make the week memorable for her.

She was roused before dawn by one of her attendants one morning. "Please pardon me, Your Highness," the young woman whispered. "You might want to dress. Commander Alexander has asked if you would like to come out and sit in the inn's garden to watch the sunrise with him."

Constance, immediately wide awake, sat up and flew out of bed. She made ready and went out to the garden to meet Staid, where he was waiting with a lamp and a sprig of laurel. "I don't think they'll mind that I snipped a bit of this," he said after bidding Constance a good morning, gingerly slipping the laurel leaves into her hair above her ear. He led her over to a short bench, where they sat to share in hushed, unhurried conversation, and as the morning sky began to illumine with color, Staid blew out the lamp.

One evening, Staid took Constance out to Nonpareil's commons for a night of alfresco folk dancing. Constance was unfamiliar with a corporate dance or two, but the city's people were happy to demonstrate for her and to lengthen the dances until she caught on. Such a night didn't require the same kind of ballroom protocol, so Constance was by no means reluctant about accepting Staid as her partner each of the several times he asked her.

On an afternoon when Constance arrived at the inn from a tour she'd taken while Staid had been out with his soldiers, one of the attendants who'd remained at the inn told Constance that the commander had sent a request for her to change into one of her "work cottons, and no apron." With the trace of a smirk, Constance rolled her eyes at Staid's assumption that she'd brought any such cottons, but all the same, she changed into one, letting her hair down and tying a scarf over it.

"What's happening here?" Constance questioned when their party pulled up at an open, grassy field where children were playing.

"We, my lady," a plainly-clad Staid announced as he helped Constance out of her coach, "are going to teach these tykes some of the games we invented when we were young."

"When we _were_? We are young still."

"You know what I mean," Staid enthused as he maintained his hold on Constance's hand, quickening his step as he pulled her toward the action on the field. "I had my men search for a place where children could be found after dismissal from school. So now Her Highness will be able to get her dress all nice and authentically soiled."

Constance let out an unreserved laugh. She and Staid spent the afternoon frolicking around with the children who welcomed this addition of playmates into their group, albeit the newcomers were grownups. The youngsters even stood as judges at the starting and finish lines of a race in which the commander may've (if so, not overtly so) allowed the princess to outrun him.

"Whatever am I going to do with you?" Constance blurted to Staid while she caught her breath.

"Whatever makes you ask?" was his innocent response, and he gave Constance a wink over the chatty children's heads.

On the evening before their scheduled departure from Nonpareil, with guards at an unassuming distance away, Staid and Constance sat alone near a pond at twilight, Staid stretched out on his back in the grass, and Constance sitting up against the trunk of a tree, with a book in her lap. She'd been reading while the light had allowed and then had closed the book to watch the sky over the trees. She was sure that the sunset couldn't be much more beautiful than this anywhere else. Not even in Rêeh.

Constance took in and released a deep, comfortable breath, and she looked over at Staid, who was also watching the sky but with eyes that were only partially open. "I don't remember the last time I've seen you so relaxed," Constance told him.

Staid's eyes slid over to glance at her. "Have you ever?" he asked with a short chuckle.

"I know I have. At some point while we were young."

Staid sat up with another low laugh, running a hand through his hair to remove blades of grass from it. "Well. I suppose you've been able to tell that I wanted to make this a relaxing trip for you, after we got the official business out of the way. I know how much you enjoy meeting people, having some time to be a part of their lives. Not at all a bad thing, taking your position into account. I can tell the people here have enjoyed you, especially the children. If we were in a different city, I might have opted for jaunts to the opera or to the theatre, for you."

"No, no." Constance drew her palm over a patch of grass. "Do you have any idea how grateful I am to you? This has been perfect, just like this. My favorite birthday gift this year. Well, this, and the rubies my father gave to me, which are just delicious."

"Oh?" Staid laughed yet again. "His Majesty made me promise to shield you with my life and flesh, when I asked him if I could bring you here with me." He shrugged. "As if I wasn't going to do it anyway, but, hey. That's how fathers are, as they should be."

Constance gazed out across the tranquil pond, her hands idly turning her book over in her lap. "I can't help thinking that you've done all this not only for my relaxation, but for my reassurance." Staid didn't say anything to that, so Constance went on with, "Alexander? You think we're sitting in a calm before a storm, don't you?"

Staid's eyes were out toward the pond as well. "I know I will have to go to Rêeh. Soon. And King Aud—he certainly has a mind and a purpose all his own. Given how he's chosen to expand his kingdom over the past decade, brutally taking over other nations' territories, we know that his looming threats about stealing land aren't empty ones, even if they're coming after what's been something of a period of silence, for him. So I'm glad I was able to give you this week, before whatever else happens." He sighed, willing himself not to turn around and look at Constance. If he looked at her just now, his resolution about ensuring that his timing would be correct might unravel. His hand went up and through his hair a second time, rubbing at the back of his neck as he brought his voice down. "Please keep this with you, long after it's over. My lady."

Having almost missed Staid's ending words, which seemed to be left hanging, in a way, over the edge of an intangible crest, Constance peered over at Staid, perusing the outline of his meditative profile in the fading light. Was it her imagination that something thick was creeping into the space between them? She thought then of telling Staid about her episode with the prince of Rêeh, in an attempt to lighten the air, perhaps, but she decided not to. This moment, as it was, didn't call for any more discussion.

That night, Constance lay in her bed, staring at a wall. She was having trouble falling asleep amid her fight against dreamlike images of Staid and his soldiers being shipwrecked on their way across the Eubeltic, and images of Staid running like savage fire on a battlefield, swinging and thrusting his sword through many men before a Mundayne soldier would come up behind him and stab him full in the back. In his broad, mortal back.

_Providence_ , Constance pleaded in silence, turning over. She forced her mind toward reflections of Staid trotting along at her side through the years, working up artificial huffs and puffs, and Staid in Topaz's marketplace, on a caring mission to procure a beaded necklace, and Staid laughingly inviting her to join him in a folksy jig under the stars in Nonpareil's commons.

Then, Constance went to sleep.

~~~

The day after the princess arrived back at home in Topaz, her father bid her to come out riding with him in the meadows a short ways north of the palace. Constance was content to accompany him, since when it was only the two of them, Matthias didn't care whether she rode sidesaddle or astride, as long as she kept up and wasn't afraid to jump.

While their horses were at a leisurely pace, Matthias inquired after Constance's trip to Nonpareil and their people there, and she conveyed an affirmative report, mentioning at the end, "Now Staid says he knows he will have to go on to Rêeh soon."

Matthias nodded. "Yes. That assignment is imminent." He rode on for a second before looking over at his daughter, a smile visible in his narrowing eyes. "You know, you never told me what the prince of Rêeh wanted in his audience with you, Apple dear."

Constance tilted her head toward her father, her tone dry. "You know exactly what His Highness wanted, Papa darling." Matthias chucked his head back in laughter, and Constance waited for him to quiet before she went on. "In all honesty, though, I don't know why you're letting me go through these motions. We both know I have no plans to marry outside of Diachona."

"You have said so. But it can often be easy to say beforehand what you will never do when you haven't ever been asked to do it. I don't think hearing what other nations may have to offer you will hurt you. Then when you do make your final decision, you won't only be making it according to fancy, but it will be according to knowledge, and experience."

Constance's forehead furrowed. "But what if I hear an offer that entices me?"

Matthias shrugged. "What if you do?"

"I could elect to take the kingdom in another direction because of it. Wouldn't you disapprove of that? Or would Your Majesty formally forbid me to do it?"

Matthias reached down to pat at his horse's neck. "I've taught you so much, Constance. I hope I've instilled in you what you will need in order to take Diachona forward. Not that I believe I have no more to teach you, but at some point, a predecessor has to trust the instruction—and more so, the spirit of the instruction—he's imparted to his successor, without resorting to coming down with a heavy hand that could wind up causing more damage than it prevents. I believe, when the time comes, you'll make the right choice, for you and for our people."

Constance smiled. "No thoughts on what you think that right choice might be?"

Matthias met her smile halfway. "There's no point in my telling you anything about it now that you already know. But, as I've said, when it's time, you'll do what's right." The two of them fell into silent riding, but then Matthias asked, "Constance? Are you absolutely sure you would like a place on the Council? Now?"

Constance met her father's eyes square on. "I'm positive, Papa."

"Yes? But you may run into some difficulties you aren't anticipating. Several of the councilmen don't think it's a good idea."

"Ah. Chieftain Greenly?" A flat question that wasn't a question.

Matthias shook his head. "Now, now. Don't be hard on Greenly. He's a bright mind and a worthy asset to the Council. And he thinks very highly of you." Constance had no time to dwell on the flicker of interest Matthias's last comment incited in her as he carried on. "I said 'several' of the councilmen. Greenly isn't the only one who'll wonder what I'm thinking if I let you in with me, and at twenty years to boot."

"Twenty years to my credit. Acceptable years, I hope. But you know as I do, the general age restriction doesn't apply literally to a royal junior. If something happens to the king, the junior heir takes his place on the Council, whether the heir is thirty yet or not."

"It's the idea, Constance. The idea that a person, even an adult, needs time to mature. Sometimes a junior must be thrown up into an exalted position early, necessity caused by tragedy, but we don't like it to be so. And there's a reason why seniors and juniors don't sit on the Council simultaneously."

"I know, because there's only one throne, and we need not run the risk of giving the venerated Father and celebrated Son too great an opportunity to clash on momentous matters while the nation is watching."

More vehemence had entered Constance's voice than she'd intended, and Matthias stared at her. Constance reined herself in and gently asked her father, "While trusting the spirit of your instruction, my lord, do you really fear my seat clashing with your throne?"

Matthias stared at her a while longer before replying. "You wouldn't have a seat yet, so to speak. Just a place, until we figure out precisely what your seat would be. The next assembly is this coming week..."

"A place is all I would need for now. A place where I could be of help, as I believe I can. Especially in light of the business with Munda, which I know the Council is worried about. I told Staid that at any time now, I should be receiving news from some of the residents and imperial servants I've been keeping in contact with since my visit there, so long as the post between our nations doesn't get cut off to accommodate hostilities too soon. And what I've learned about that country will benefit the Council."

Matthias examined his daughter's determined look, his jaw stirring, and then he turned his gaze out across the grasses before them. "We begin to see what our children will be, from the time when they're still toddling. But as time passes, at intervals, we find ourselves virtually having to relearn our children, all over again."

Constance's lips haltingly parted, but she did not speak, and Matthias soon looked back at her with a refreshed smile. "Well. Enough of this plodding about. These handsome beasts of ours are getting bored. Let's go, shall we?"

Relieved for the respite being offered, Constance reciprocated her father's smile. "I declare we shall." The two of them clicked to their horses and took off into what became an outright race through the meadows.

The day of the National Council's next assembly approached with its own grade of haste, but before that came the night of Constance's goodbye to Staid. Rêeh had finally called. Personal meetings had happened before in which Constance had to bid her friend farewell as he went off for an indefinite time of military duty outside of the country, but it was now happening for the first time since something within Constance concerning Staid had started to change. Or, maybe the change wasn't merely starting but had already taken place, in effect.

In any case, no such meeting had ever happened after an incredible gift of a trip to Nonpareil.

Constance ordered for the palace ballroom to be partly lit in the evening, so that she and Staid could talk outside together on the ballroom terrace, as they hadn't had the chance to do on the night of her gala. Constance chose to have her hair curled and hanging freely about her shoulders once more, as Staid had seemed to like it that way on her birthday, and she picked a golden dress that had a rounded neckline, to feature her ruby choker. Then, at the last minute, she took the choker off, leaving her neck bare.

She wondered if she was making too much of a fuss over this. Staid's leaving her now might not be, to him, so different than the other times he'd gone away.

Constance was full of nerves as she made her way through the ballroom to head to the terrace, where Staid had been sent out to wait for her, but when he, dressed in a fine gray suit, turned and looked through the open ballroom doors, spotting her coming toward him, and a grin spread over his face, Constance's nerves eased to a degree. This was the same Staid Alexander she'd known all her life.

What turned out to be the most pivotal farewell meeting they'd ever had left Constance dazed and battling for sleep when she retired afterward, much as she had on that last night in Nonpareil. But rest was so essential tonight, given that the coming day would be her inaugural one in Topaz's assembly hall with the National Council. By sheer will and a prayer, Constance coaxed herself to sleep.

When she arose in the morning, a delivery in a polished wooden box bearing Matthias's seal was waiting for her on the message table outside of her sitting room. Opening the box, she saw that her father had sent a medallion with their family's royal emblem on it. It was clear he'd had one taken out of the capital's vault for her. Constance fingered the medallion, marveling at her father's gesture, swallowing past an affected tightening in her throat.

Constance chose to wear a red dress with wide, regal sleeves, affixing the medallion at her shoulder, and she had an attendant gather all of her hair into a simple twist behind her head. She wanted her face to appear open and undaunted before the Council.

After making an excursion to the palace's south balcony, where she could step outside and take in her favorite, far-reaching view of the capital and some of the Diachonian land lying beyond it, Constance had her driver take her down to the assembly hall early. She would be making no grand entrance into the hall with her father. Instead, she wanted to be there and settled before the councilmen showed up. She did not have a seat at any of their tables aligned from the center of the floor, but she took a place up in one of the empty audience stalls as close to the floor as possible, all the while mentally rehearsing the protocol for assemblies. The councilmen started trickling in, each one looking about the room, apparently to find the princess, and she could see the awkward expressions that came over some of their faces when they spotted her.

"Your Highness." Constance was greeted with bows from the councilmen before they went over to their designated seats. She wondered if it was only her imagination or if Chieftain Greenly put a bit more of a flourish into his bow than this occasion called for.

King Matthias, wearing an august cape over his right side and his medallion fastened on the front of his embroidered tunic, was the last to arrive in the assembly hall, at which time everyone else stood to their feet and bowed, or curtsied, in Constance's case. "Your Majesty."

Matthias took his seat at the head of his table, allowing the others to sit back down, and the assembly commenced. Constance sat listening to the proceedings for over two hours, observing the range of the councilmen's interactions with each other, from heated to humorous. She noticed that her father wasn't doing much talking, sitting back at times with his elbow on an arm of his chair, his temple propped up against two of his fingers. Constance was struck with the impression that much of the information and opinions that were brought forth about Munda were a compound reiteration for which the Council had drawn no conclusion.

She'd talked about the upcoming assembly with Staid the night before, and he'd briefed her on how everything might unfold. Then he'd retracted some of his assumptions, saying he wasn't sure how the dynamic would change with Constance's being there. As her mind now began to wander over the rest of that meeting on the terrace with Staid, Constance knew she could afford only a moment of preoccupation, if that...

" _Please don't take offense, Princess, but you're a lot more intelligent than they wish you to be."_

" _What? Is it because I'm a woman? I don't understand why our distinguished Council should be intimidated by the intelligence of a lady."_

Staid smiled at that. "Intimidated? Nah. Maybe I shouldn't say it's your intelligence. It's more about your involvement, in general. The councilmen would justifiably grow nervous when one of the nation's ladies has to trouble herself so much over perilous matters of state, let alone matters of war. If you, the adored Daughter, have to worry to more than a fair extent about these issues, then our Council may not be showing themselves to be the admirable defenders they are called to be."

" _I must admit, I have a contrary line of reasoning, Commander. The Council has made civil adjustments on behalf of the wellbeing of the women of this country, under King Matthias."_

" _On account of his beloved wife, in part, I'm sure."_

" _Quite sure. After all of the progress they've made, they should be heartened by the fact that a woman who is not of supreme rank has the courage to not only think privately but to speak out publicly concerning such matters."_

" _Could be." Staid leaned to rest his forearms down on the terrace railing, looking out over the palace grounds. "Or it_ could _be that she's not only a woman, but she's the radiant symbol of all that is still hopeful and pure about this land. Some part of us that we wish to keep intact, sheltered from alien forces and influences. Not only is she our beacon of hope and purity, on the verge of becoming soiled by the grime and blood of war, but she is coming precariously close to tipping the scales and altering the political paradigm we've trusted in for generations. If her voice ever rings too wisely, if she ever proves to be too correct, then of course we'll have to question why such a voice shouldn't be given a seat on the Council before her elevation into royal senior standing. And this one seat to this one woman would force us to look at our complete, eternal paradigm and wonder what else is in danger of seeing the discomfort and inconvenience of change._

" _Queen Grace, with all of her influence on civil law, was a change. I was a change, being appointed as commander and given a Council seat before thirty. And now, you too? It isn't your womanhood itself that's the problem. It's the change that you would bring with you, and the indication that the way we've been doing things for so long isn't good enough."_

Constance stood staring at Staid, mulling over this key angle that hadn't crossed her mind before. "Well," she said slowly, "I don't see why it should be such a bad thing if I helped us along. Isn't that what my sex was made for, to be of help to a species that could really use it?"

Staid remained at ease on the railing, but he turned his head to peer at Constance, something about his look causing her to lower her eyes. "If..." she started to go on after a pause, studying the immaculate shrubbery outside of the railing, "if members like Chieftain Greenly and his close compatriots would only see that I might be of more help than harm, they might open up somewhat."

" _Yes. Chieftain Greenly. Recognized to be one of the best of Diachonian men. Trust me, my lady, he sees a great many things about you, and about what you might be. His principal problem with the prospect of your voice on the Council has much more to do with the fact that he's besotted with the woman who will one day be his queen."_

Constance's eyes shot up to meet Staid's.

" _That is," Staid continued, "the senior sovereign over him, over the Council, his family, his holdings. Surely, even if he finds you to be the most wonderful aspect of the entire continent, he mustn't allow you to rule over him to too great an extent before your time. But, maybe I've become something of a talebearer for even mentioning it."_

" _Hm. A talebearer, Alexander?"_

" _Yes, though I hope not. I just think it's important for you to be aware of exactly what it is that you're dealing with, when you face the Council. You're what this government has needed, ever since..." Staid's voice trailed off for a second, his eyes narrowing. "You're not surprised."_

" _Surprised? About Chieftain Greenly? No."_

" _But you've said you're not able to tell anything when it comes to sentiments like those."_

" _No, I said that I'm not able to_ feel _about them, currently. That's not the same thing."_

Staid went mute for a moment. How such a still look from him could be so moving, Constance did not know, but something inside of her quavered on account of it. Staid's next words shielded themselves in quietness, as if seeking for safety in a whisper. "Totally devoid of feeling, then?"

" _What?" Constance tentatively moistened her lips. "Well, not devoid of feeling. Not all feeling. It just depends. That is to say, I mean, if I were to—"_

" _Constance."_

Staid stood up straight and turned to her fully, capturing the hand of hers that had come out then in astonishment, though her hand hadn't known where it was headed.

That first exposure of such familiarity uttered from him was to Constance's senses, in that instant, the most intimate thing they could have experienced. She felt the pressure of Staid's fingers around hers as he said, in a voice that now had a rasp to it, "God help me, I believe I'm about to overstep a multitude of my bounds here, my lady, unless you favor me." Constance's mouth opened to speak, but Staid pushed on. "You've been my friend for so long, I've never considered it unfortunate to be with you. But you don't know what it's been like, the past four years, to have to wait until we'd both come of age, to be safe. I've had it in my mind that I would find a way to make my move on your twentieth, and I would have made myself plain on our last evening in Nonpareil. Yet with the talk of Rêeh and Munda coming up between us, it seemed like it still might not be the right time. But all I've been able to think about for weeks—well, not all in every way, but all in vital ways—is that I'm going overseas, likely right on the cusp of war, and it is possible that I may not again be honored with the exceptional gift of your company."

Whatever it was that had added the rasp to Staid's voice seemed to find its way into Constance's throat. "What do you mean? That's not possible. Of course things are bound to be different if we have to go to war, but when it's all over, there will be time. More than adequate opportunity to—"

" _I'm not speaking of time. We both know the hazards and the cost of battle. I don't make it my business to be afraid of it. I love what I am and what I do. But there is still always the chance that I may not come back."_

"No _." Constance felt her jaw stiffen, a sudden and unwanted dampness threatening to invade her eyes as the horrible images she'd thought up on her last night in Nonpareil came back to her. "There's no need for that. You're of much better service to our people alive. Heaven knows it. You'll be fine in Rêeh, and if war with Munda comes, it will not finish you."_

" _No, war won't finish me. No war could. Providence alone has the final say on when I'm finished, and we don't know when that will be."_

" _It will not be soon." A shudder went through Constance's jaw, forcing it to soften. "Please, Commander, refrain from speaking this way."_

" _Forgive me, love. I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you—oh, don't do this..."_

" _I'm not," Constance contended, blinking back the moisture in her eyes, refusing to let any of it spill over. "Oh, goodness, Alexander, God forbid it."_

" _Forgive me," Staid repeated, moving nearer to her, his free hand stealing around her waist, his forehead coming down to rest on hers._

Constance reached up to rub at her medallion. She dared not think of how the Council here might regard the knowledge, if they'd had it, that their princess had had such a meeting with the leader of their army the night before. Constance wasn't ashamed of it. She didn't regret it. But she still knew a grave gladness that Staid was now preparing to head overseas and therefore could not be present at this assembly.

She could not quite fathom how she'd been able to endure such a blatant and disarming embrace out on the terrace, much less to return it. She'd stood there unmoving at first, staggered by the definite illumination that Staid did in fact share what she'd been feeling for some time, that he'd even felt this way longer than she had. Then, she'd tugged her hand out of Staid's in order to reach up along the back of his neck, her fingers sliding into the thickness of his hair. He'd pulled her closer, and her other hand finally received the long-desired chance to explore the strength of a soldier in his back while his arms tightened around her. Yet, even in the firmness of his hold, something in it left her room to ask voiceless questions, to gradually get a feel for and to requite the affection of this man whom she didn't want to accept the odds of not seeing again.

Constance bit her lip now, looking across the assembly hall to a speaking Chieftain Greenly, who was addressing the Council about the Mundaynes. One of the best of Diachonian men, a bright mind and a worthy asset, besotted with the future queen, was he? Would it one day become her duty to consider him? To allow him, and however many other men and princes, to have a say with her? How much more would she be willing to hear from anyone else who would fail in such a way, who would thoroughly fail to be Alexander?

It couldn't have made much sense that Constance remembered no more of what Staid had said before he'd dismissed her last night. He'd spoken devoted words near her ear that had clearly been poised at the border of his mind for some time, but in essence, the words bypassed Constance's hearing on the way into her soul. She was somehow persuaded that whatever he'd said hadn't been wrapped in eloquence, no more than her replying words had been. By that time, there must not have been space left for anything but simplicity, and while relaying Staid's exact words to anyone would have been beyond Constance for the time being, she knew all she needed to know at present about that young man.

Constance hadn't been as ready as she would've liked to be for such an exchange. In retrospect, she couldn't help wondering to what level her response to his affection had pleased him. But his heart had been in his voice, particularly after he'd cupped her face with one hand, and, with more ardor than the prince of Rêeh had been capable of mustering in a day, Staid had impeccably pressed his warm lips to Constance's cheek for as long as he dared to stop time. She'd felt him hover near her trembling mouth, but might it have been a sign of haste or desperation for him to alight there, that night? Would it have been too soon—or too final?

His lips had hovered. And, then, they'd moved on, taking soft, steady possession of her other cheek before he'd eased her away from him at last. "Leave me, please, my lady," his heart had spoken through his hoarse throat. "Now."

Constance hadn't taken a second to think but had left Staid at once, her whole being ablaze with a mixture of desire, rapture, and dejection. Why on earth did she have to care so for this military man, of all the men in the country, at such an inopportune, trying national time?

Still, looking out at the assembly before her, Constance knew this was not the time to bemoan inopportunity. Critical judgments about life and death were waiting to be made. A force stood menacingly without their land, taunting their nation, and this woman, this royal junior, had something to say about it.

Constance rose from her seat in the audience stall, waiting to be recognized.

A full minute or two passed before her father glanced over at her, but she knew that he'd noticed the moment she'd risen. The king then held up a hand to pause the standing Greenly, along with the other chieftains, elders, and the handful of soldiers whose voices were colliding in the middle of the Mundayne deliberations. Matthias sat there with his hand up as the assembly hall grew silent, and while he looked at Constance in a way she could not interpret, she imagined that he was going to shake his head at her, and order her to sit back down.

He did not order her to do that, however, instead acknowledging her as she'd never thought she would be acknowledged by him in her life.

"Junior?" Matthias said.

Constance stared at him. The stillness in the hall became palpable as the councilmen, each of them frozen, also stared at Matthias, and then their eyes and heads turned to the princess, over in her humble stall.

Junior.

Constance took a step forward, coming to the edge of her stall. "Permission to address the Council, my king."

If any trace of pride had aspired to a reflection in Matthias's gaze, he hid it well, his hand moving down and outward toward his table. "Given."

Constance looked to the councilmen, clearing her throat. "It sounds to me like you all are putting your most excellent knowledge of war tactics and strategies to work here. The Mundaynes are a ruthless race, and there is no question that their military outnumbers ours now in an amount we are reluctant to say is astounding. Nevertheless, I submit to you the argument that while it is important to regard the Mundaynes militarily, in terms of their power and devices, it is just as important to regard them as a nation—one rooted deeply in culture and tradition. I have studied the history of Munda and have read a number of their legends. On the trip I took there two years ago, I saw their capital, spoke with their citizens, and even attended a couple of their sacred ceremonies."

"The Mundayne church?" an elder by the name of Cobalt spoke up and stood, appalled. The shock, or whatever the councilmen had been held under for the last minute, was officially broken. "With its foreign practices? You involved yourself in their religious services?"

Constance gave him a slight smile. "Well, there actually is no Mundayne 'church,' Elder Cobalt. And, no, I did not involve myself in their ceremonies. I went only to observe in a town square, and they kindly offered me a seat on the edge of the square to watch them perform their rituals. According to all that I have learned about the Mundaynes as a people, I have found them to be decidedly superstitious."

"Any religion's practices are prone to look superstitious to an outsider," Chieftain Greenly asserted.

"I'm not only referring to their religious practices, Chieftain. I said I've noted their superstition according to _all_ I have learned about them, from their history and folklore, and in interacting with their people. King Aud himself, as approved and invincible as he believes himself to be, doesn't risk missing monthly sacred ceremonies, nor does he risk taking a drink of wine at supper without first tapping his goblet with his little finger, a gesture they say keeps a drinker from choking in the event that the grapes may've come from a cursed vineyard. In light of what I've gleaned, I believe that we should not be lured into an immediate battle against the Mundaynes. Confrontation is imminent, perhaps, but we should do our utmost to delay it until after the first six days of autumn."

"Wait for autumn?" Greenly was incredulous. "Princess, our military is disadvantaged here as it is. Being the avid studier of history that you are, you should know that our armies commonly fare better in warmer climes."

"Ah." Constance thought to smirk but just as soon chose not to. "Not so much that I profess to be an avid studier of history, sir. I've read many of the national histories in our State Library solely for their gentlewomanly maudlin love stories."

A few chuckles floated around the tables, and one side of Greenly's mouth turned upward. "I stand corrected, my lady. But, in all seriousness, think of the fact that we've just come out of one of the warmest winters any of us can remember. Our next winter could be quite the opposite. The best thing we could do would be to gain whatever advantage we can in the warmer months ahead, which would help us to brace for winter warfare, if it comes to that."

"If we were discussing war with a country other than Munda, Chieftain, then I might agree with you. But as I'm sure many of us are aware, the Mundaynes will enter their year of _Donpoerh_ next month, a year that comes every one hundred twenty-four years. Munda's traditional autumn begins six days after ours, and it marks the beginning of their rainy season. If Munda has entered autumn, but there is no rain from their gods to bless the first day of battle, the Mundaynes will not fight."

Exclamations of surprise and disbelief rose around the tables of men, and Matthias waited to pick up snatches of their arguments before lifting his hand. "Council," he quieted them, and Cobalt and Greenly lowered themselves into their seats. Matthias then turned back to Constance, his brow creased. "How do you gather, Princess?"

Constance was not encouraged by the looks on several of the men's faces, but since she'd already started, she opted to sink her heels in. " _Donpoerh_ translates, 'The Great Siring.' A year that differs from the others in Munda's cycle of years, and not every generation sees it, but it's a special celebration of life and fertility, a prime year for marriages and childbearing, to give the country a burst of growth. The gods of heaven were said to have rained their seed down to the goddesses of the underheaven, bringing about the birth of what we call Earth."

"Just so," Chieftain Greenly spoke up again, "and I'm sure a number of the inquisitive and active minds here, including myself, found ourselves very intrigued when we learned of _Donpoerh_ as adolescents, imagining a land that takes a special year out of so many to procreate with the most extreme vigor conceivable."

A few guffaws broke out at that statement, but Constance pressed on. "Yes, yes, many are so intrigued by sensational details that they don't give any thought about less colorful ones or the possibility that there may be more. On my trip, while listening in a cluster of worshippers after a ceremony in the town square, I learned one important fact. Once autumn has begun during _Donpoerh_ , the Mundaynes will make no major national decisions or hold any major events until after the first rainfall, the sign of seed and life from the gods, lest the gods should be angered and curse the land, thinking that the people have forgotten where the life of Earth came from."

"I've never heard of that," Elder Cobalt remarked. "In all the years I've known of Munda and what I've gathered about _Dunpee—Donpoo..._ In all that I've ever heard about their special year, I've never heard of that."

"I never heard of it either, not until I went there and listened to their talk," Constance pointed out, swallowing a giggle before it could emerge. "When I came back home to study on it further, I couldn't find that specific detail in the history books. And the rains tend to come rather quickly once the Mundayne rainy season has started, so outside nations might not be able to tell if Munda has held back from making any national moves to wait for the rain, or if they annulled any major plans because the rains did not come soon enough to bless the endeavors."

"So then," Chieftain Greenly said, "you haven't read of Munda forfeiting any autumn wars because they didn't have the rain to bless them."

"No. I haven't. What I did find was an account about the head of a rich Mundayne family, long ago. His relatives spent weeks or months preparing to have a celebration for him in his native city, but somehow the celebration never took place, although everything had been made ready for it. The story didn't say in which season of the year that it was to happen, but it was during the year of _Donpoerh_. In another account of centuries ago—I'm sure you've heard of this one, Chieftain—Munda's king had promised to give his daughter to wed a prince from overseas. The wedding never occurred, and it drew the ire of the prince's nation. Our historians have seemed to assume that it was due to the political suspicions of the time, and the account doesn't say that it was _Donpoerh_ when the royal wedding was cancelled. However, an agricultural record from that same year does say that Munda experienced an unusually dry autumn, that season."

Constance took in the looks of growing interest and speculation from the men before her as she proceeded. "Council, I believe that familial celebration and that royal wedding did not happen because the autumn rains of _Donpoerh_ did not come in time. The Mundaynes judged that the gods did not approve of the events, and they cancelled them so that they wouldn't bring on a curse. I believe that the same can happen in the face of war. King Aud holds true to Mundayne superstitions and sacred practices, and as he's seen such a string of prosperous years during his rule, he wouldn't dare do anything to anger the gods and ruin it all."

The assembly was engrossed in thought for a while, until Greenly was again the one to speak. "Very well, Princess. So let's say that your suppositions are accurate. King Aud wouldn't dare irritate his gods during _Donpoerh_. But how would we delay a war until the exact moment we would like to have it, when we are the nation in greater danger and when Aud would know that his war may have to be cancelled if he doesn't get it started soon enough?"

Constance's eyes couldn't help their shine of looming laughter then. "Now, Chieftain, we know how to talk here, don't we? This Council can talk and re-talk and over-talk about some of the largest public and private matters, pulling out every side and angle of an issue until the issue itself moans in exhaustion." Constance noticed the smiles that passed over some of the soldiers' faces, and she thought she saw her father's head lower in noiseless laughter, but she didn't look directly at him as she continued. "We have some of the cleverest wits about us, here. We can devise a ruse, false negotiations, any kind of language that will defer combat but that will simultaneously arrest King Aud's mind. We know of his arrogance. A man of lowly beginnings who worked his way out of obscurity and onto the throne, against all odds. He has five sons. His reign thus far has been magnificent. The gods have blessed his family and his every decision. If he wants to war in autumn, surely it will rain on time, as he is so favored and unstoppable."

"And," King Matthias began then, gaining the attention of the assembly, "we may have to fight either way, whether immediately or further on in the year, as Munda could see rain as soon as the first day of their season. Moreover, our timing would have to be both meticulous and flawless to schedule a war so precisely. But, if we could do that, and if it would just so happen that the gods, for whatever reason, do not approve of Aud's war, and if there may be a chance that we could altogether avoid fighting what would, in all likelihood, be a losing battle for us..."

"If," Constance said, turning to look at her father full on, making sure that she had his eyes, "something foolish in the world might be used to confound the wise, or if something weak might be used to confound the strong..."

The two of them scrutinized each other, the rest of the assembly holding their peace. Constance chanced the smallest smile at her father, knowing that he wouldn't smile back but that he would receive it, nonetheless.

Matthias did not move his eyes away from Constance yet. "Council. Besides what we have been studying already, we are going to call for every remaining piece of history and folklore we can find about the Mundaynes, in the State Library and in the World Annals, with the help of the princess." He turned to face the tables then, and Constance took her seat as the king rose from his. "We the Council, our scribes, and our superior scholars will read all we can, as quickly as we can. We want to see the accounts Princess Constance has shared with us, plus any others that she may not have seen. Our military will still be made as ready as possible, our strategy laid out for war that may break out at any time. Chieftain Greenly and his men will be in charge of devising negotiations finer and more fascinating than Aud has ever heard of or imagined." Matthias started moving away from his table. "And as always, going forward, we will trust Providence. Adjourned."

A rumble of motion and conversation took over the assembly hall as Matthias left the room, and Constance let out a long breath. She looked downward, folding her hands in her lap, not reaching toward her shoulder again but now being even more mindful of the weighty symbol of identity, affixed there.

Junior.
~~~

Times of Trial

~~~

The busyness of the next weeks was reminiscent of a controlled kind of commotion for Constance. Her mind hardly had time to rest, as ideas about more that needed to be done would still be humming through her head at each day's end, but with the potential for a plethora of differing emotions to go bubbling over at any moment if she were idle, she was glad that her hands had plenty to do as weeks slid into months.

She made visits to the marketplace a few mornings out of every week, even if she was only going to pick out fresh flowers, but she no longer rushed through her browsing and purchasing to keep from creating a stir. Uncertain times had a way of stipulating that the smallest of things should not be taken for granted and that human contact should not be avoided or reserved for special trips, for the sake of method. Having a chance to see the people in the market was just as important as her having the chance to see the ones at court, at church, and on her travels, Constance concluded.

Thinking of Staid's grin, she considered that one never knew how far an authentic smile might go to lift someone's day. Thinking of her mother's scarcely responsive, distant glow, Constance reflected on how hard it could be not to know how present someone else nearby truly was. So, Constance took more time in the market to look even some of the most bustling fellow patrons in the eye. Whenever she stopped to watch and listen to vendors who continued to hawk at her as if she hadn't stopped to listen, she stood and waited until they paused long enough for her to say, "A good morning to you."

As a result, word gradually spread around town that Her Highness could be found shopping and talking with others in the marketplace on some days. While she had a tendency to vanish if an excited ruckus over her appeared to be on the verge of starting up, the people found that the more they responded to her as they would to another good neighbor, the more of another good neighbor she became to them.

That little but valuable bit of increased time with the citizens of Topaz fueled Constance for her task of writing as she helped the capital's scribes compose letters of assurance to send to the kingdom's cities, to fortify the nation's morale and to calm likely fears about prospective peril. She was also spending more time with the scribes and select scholars in the State Library and the World Annals, assisting them in their scour for more facts and accounts about the Mundaynes. When she returned home some evenings, she felt that her skin and hair were positively laden with a layer of book dust, and her eyes did tire at times from even more hours of reading than usual, but with every small piece of new information that was gathered, Constance felt that progress was being made.

Progress was reportedly being made in Rêeh as well, as looting in the towns had slowed down since Rêeh had asked for outside help. Still, it was not clear how close they were to having everything under control over there, and Constance found herself waking up from disturbing dreams on some nights, dreams about the support mission there going horrendously awry. As Constance tried to keep abreast of what was happening overseas, she often imagined, with a sigh, that there would one day be a swifter way for communication to cross between nations. Until then, though, she figured that the world would have to be patient.

Matthias was also hard at work, in outside discussions with councilmen and in regular conferences with scribes, scholars, and advisors. There was never a point in Constance's memory when her father had had an overabundance of time on his hands, but she was seeing less of him over these months than she ever had while they were both in Topaz, despite the fact that a decent portion of their work now pertained to a joint mission.

As their talks were taking place less frequently, the "Junior" matter had yet to come up. While Constance knew that her father had been quite intentional in his public acknowledgment of her in the last Council assembly, she wanted to know further if his action had been meant to serve as an official (or at least the precursor to an official) conveyance of title. Was she to assume now that she was, and would permanently be, the king's recognized Junior for the rest of Matthias's life, or was it supposed to be only a temporary way to address her until the Council figured out what they were going to do with her? Constance wasn't sure about posing the question to her father, as there might have been something he was waiting on before explaining to her what he was thinking, and since he wasn't bringing it up to her, Constance decided to let the matter sit.

It was practically summer before Constance's next meeting with her father, late one afternoon. He sought her out in her sitting room, which was unusual to her since he commonly had her join him in the family parlor or come out riding with him when he wanted time with her, or he would make sure they had supper together, which didn't happen every night.

Constance put a marker in the book she was reading, smiling and rising to her feet when she saw her father appear in the doorway. "Well, Papa, hello," she greeted him, thinking they might be able to have their much needed discussion on title now, if he was going to stay for a while. However, when Matthias gave her no answering hello, merely standing there with a grim look on his face, the smile fell away from Constance's lips. "What is it?"

Matthias took a step into the room, motioning to his daughter with one hand. "You should sit back down, there," he recommended.

"What is it?" Constance repeated, remaining on her feet as a trickle of misgiving worked its way down her spine. "Mama?"

Matthias's hand went up to rub at his beard. "No. Nothing has happened to your mother. I just received some bad news from Rêeh. I wanted you to hear about it before the reports go out."

When her father came to a pause, Constance could barely constrain her insistence. "Papa, what _is_ it?" she asked a third time, making her way over to him.

"Please, Constance, you should have a seat," Matthias urged, his hand coming out again as she came toward him, and he took a hold of her shoulder. "Even with our progress, we've not made as much of a difference in Rêeh as we would have liked to by now. It's still been chaotic there, with violence popping up anywhere it can. There was an unfortunate confrontation in a town some of our support troops were sent to. Apparently, it started with hungry civilians fighting over donated rice just as our military men were entering the area. But a few of the civilians turned out to be armed, likely with plundered weapons. Three of our men were shot in the skirmish. That is, Commander Alexander wasn't a part of the skirmish. He was only close by, on his horse." Matthias's voice lowered. "The bullet that hit him was a stray one."

Constance took in a sharp breath, her book falling out of her numbing hands. "The commander's been wounded?"

"Well, no..." Matthias squeezed at his daughter's shoulder, reaching out to take her other as well as he slowly shook his head, his eyes reddening. "That is, he was shot in his chest, rather directly. He didn't survive it."

Constance's brow wrinkled. Her hands came up to grasp at her father's elbows. "How—wh-what do you mean?"

Matthias didn't answer right away, Constance's eyes shifting around him in a haze. When her gaze came back to cling to his, he told her, "Word is being sent to the commander's aunt now. And to one of the Greenly families. A cousin of Chieftain Greenly was also killed. Our third man sustained a leg wound. The whole city will know of the incident by morning, but I wanted you to hear it from me. The commander's been your good friend all these years, and, quite frankly, after he asked me if he could take you to Nonpareil with him, I figured the two of you might come back here with an understanding. I...I won't ask now if that was the case, since you and I haven't talked about it." Constance's head was moving back and forth, her eyes searching Matthias's with a bewildered brand of pleading. He heaved a sigh, a guttural break in his voice. "Daughter, I'm so sorry."

It was soon made plain that Constance should have heeded her father's recommendation to take a seat. In the next moment, she blacked out, Matthias's arms having to stop her from dropping to the floor. "Guards! Guards, send for Merry. She should be in the kitchen. Send her here!"

The next thing Constance knew, she was waking up in her bed to hear Merry's soft voice over her, along with a mysterious moaning sound. "Shhhh. It's all right, my lady. It's going to be all right." Constance, dizzy and nauseated, felt Merry's hand brushing back her hair, pressing a damp cloth to her forehead, but that moaning noise—was it coming from Constance's own throat? She didn't know there were tears on her face until she felt the back of Merry's fingers move to her cheek, and all at once, Constance knew that whatever was wrong, she didn't want to be awake for it. She slipped back into blackness.

During the following two days, which Constance spent in her quarters, there were several moments when she did not become aware of any sorrow she might have been suffering until she reached up to discover wetness along her face. She understood that a formal message had been sent out to the people of Topaz, telling them the young commander of the kingdom's army had been shot and killed on duty in Rêeh, but while some councilmen and military officers began quiet talks about naming someone to take Commander Alexander's place and getting his body shipped back to Diachona, Constance was in a wakeful sort of stupor over all of it. She did not snap back into her senses until the third day, as she stood looking out of one of her bedroom windows to the south, praying somehow.

"Oh, dear God. Alexander's aunt."

Constance had Percival and Henri come to wait outside when she made a visit at the home of Staid's aunt that day. As she sat in the matron's drawing room, peering at the drained face of the older woman over a steaming cup of tea, Constance could see that Staid's aunt had not been well. She'd accepted the princess's embrace earlier and had felt frail in Constance's arms. Whether it was a stubborn aftermath of the woman's previous illness, or if she had fallen sick again after receiving the dreadful news about her nephew, Constance could not determine. What she could determine, on the other hand, was that this last known, remaining relative of Staid Alexander's had no business being all alone in this house. Constance sent for a nurse.

Upon her return to the palace, Constance had a message dispatched right away. In addition to whatever the woman would receive upon the reading of her nephew's will, Commander Alexander's aunt was to have any further help she required or requested, even if that meant finding her a new, larger home that would accommodate live-in attendants. Constance would purchase the house, and the ongoing costs of any household staff would be covered by the princess's personal treasury. The offer was open, perpetual, and subject to the discretion of the beneficiary.

Constance's movement on behalf of Staid's aunt served to break down the barricade blocking her core from her consciousness, and her disbelief turned into distress. A stray bullet? Constance knew her empathy had a limit, as she had never experienced the kind of hunger that would make one human being willing to shoot another over food. The destruction of one's home and way of life, the loss of one's family members or friends or neighbors in a massive natural disaster, could indeed make one fearful and insecure.

Sure, relief donations were coming in, but how long would that last? What real guarantee was there that one would ever feel at home and safe again, or that there would be anything to eat and to feed one's children tomorrow? Maybe these were the kinds of questions that could lead to a stray bullet firing out of a skirmish, through a man's chest, and all the way across the sea to blow off a part of a young woman's heart.

There was an open book in Constance's hands, and she was dead set on not allowing falling tears to splash down and soak the leaves of the sprig of laurel that had been pressed between the book's pages.

When the sun had made its way over to the west, Queen Grace was sitting before one of the windows in her quarters, looking out at the meadows north of the palace. From her vantage point, a tiny figure could be seen moving in fairly straight lines through the grasses, in one direction, then in the opposite, back and forth with brief pauses.

Having donned one of her "work cottons," Constance had ridden out to the meadows alone, and she was now on foot, participating in almost frenzied races. She had no competitors and no audience, no one there to let her win, but still she ran, over and over between undeclared starting and finish lines, until her arms, legs, and lungs screamed for reprieve. And reprieve she gave them, falling first to her knees and then to her hands, gasping for breath, squeezing the grass and earth beneath her palms until an intense ache tore through her fingers. The sun was sinking, and she could but imagine how long she might have stayed out there, like that, if Percival had not eventually come riding up to collect her. He had her ride with him on his horse, leading her empty horse along with them on the way back home.

Early the next week, a request that Chieftain Greenly made to see Princess Constance at the palace was granted. She received him in a palace tea room, but a ways into their hushed, grave conversation, it became clear that neither one of them was much in the mood for tea.

"I am sorry for your loss, Chieftain," Constance told him at one point, setting her teacup aside on the table where they were seated, across from each other.

"And I for yours." Before amazement could be registered in Constance's posture, Greenly went on with, "I understand the commander was a very close friend of yours. I've heard that you two grew up together. It's hard to lose someone with whom you've shared your childhood, and much of your history. It was like that with me and my cousin."

Constance's hands folded together in her lap. "I really must make a visit to your cousin's mother and father. I've not been staying on top of everything as I should, these past few days."

"It's more than understandable, Your Highness. Even leaders need time to themselves. My family has received condolences from yours, so you needn't feel rushed to do more, especially since we haven't gotten..." Greenly came to an awkward break, glancing downward and clearing his throat. "Since their bodies aren't back yet."

Constance's stomach turned over with a sickened lurch. Greenly must have seen a change in her face, because he hurried on to say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't speak on that."

"It's all right." Constance blinked and took in a breath, sitting up straighter. "No need to apologize. Those are the facts. It's just life. It's all right."

Greenly stared at her, his head faintly shaking. "Have you always been so strong an individual as you are, my lady? Even before I met you?"

"Strong? Do I appear to be?"

After a moment, Greenly watched his hands as they set aside his own teacup. "Life is so fleeting. We hate to be reminded of it, as times like these inescapably do for us. And the way mankind still too often opts out of living to the utmost is criminal." His hands lowered from the table as his eyes returned to Constance. "But you inspire me, your being a person who has obviously chosen to _live_ as much life as the Almighty has blessed her with, never to take it lightly. I admire you for that."

Giving the chieftain a nod of thanks, Constance yet felt a churning inside of her, but Greenly was not finished, his words complemented by a passing smile. "I know it can seem like I'm looking to spar with you, whenever you and I encounter one another. But I've never found another woman anywhere I enjoy encountering more. I do admire you, Princess. Greatly, and for many reasons."

Constance's hands squeezed at each other under the table. She said nothing in response, and Chieftain Greenly sighed, rising to his feet. "A period of mourning like this does not permit me to say any more on it now, perhaps. Still, I wanted to take the chance to tell you at least that much, my lady. I might not be living my own life to the utmost, if I neglected to speak much longer."

Constance sat looking at the man, a disconcerting heat stealing over her face and neck. After the chieftain had taken his leave, Constance all but fled up to the secluded quarters of the palace, entering the sitting room to see her mother lying out on her settee in an afternoon gown, gazing up at the ceiling. Constance went over to her mother and sat on the floor, resting her back up against the front of the settee. She did not speak, and her mother did not look at her.

Hours passed. Constance sat there on the floor, then over in a chair, then stood up against a wall, staring out of a window. She was later lying on her back on the floor before the settee. Her mother had drifted off to sleep, so Constance took over the chore of watching the ceiling, and she tarried in rumination. She wondered if there was a specific instant when someone could identify that distress, grief, or despair was morphing into madness, a specific instant when someone might knowingly wash his or her hands of the struggle, the inward fight to keep on fighting. For hours, Constance loitered in her mother's sitting room, and then she left and retreated to her own.

Upon her entrance, she found that the room was brimming with bouquets of assorted types of red flowers. She hadn't been to the marketplace to pick out blossoms since before the latest news from Rêeh had come. "Where are these from?" Constance asked the attendant who was dusting the room.

"Chieftain Greenly sent them with his condolences ahead of his visit today, my lady. He said to have them brought up and arranged in your quarters while you met with him."

Constance was dumbfounded. She moved across the room to study one bunch of the fiery red blossoms on an end table while her attendant went on dusting, and Constance's fingers reached out toward the petals of one, and stopped. Her fingers hovered in midair for a second prior to drawing back, going up to massage at her temple. Passionately red flowers—of condolence. Her hand moved down to hold her stomach, which was now stirring with something more like butterflies in mystifying flight.

She would have to remember to send the chieftain her thanks. Later on.

~~~

In due course and far too soon, the day came when two securely boxed coffins that the kingdom had been expecting arrived in a shipment from across the Eubeltic.

Rêeh had said they would do their best in terms of preparation and preservation of the bodies that would have to journey those miles over the sea in coffins that were specially made. Members from the Greenly clan were given permission to come out and claim the coffin of their loved one at the docks, so that they could hold a private vigil before the soldier's public military funeral.

Commander Alexander's aunt was too ill to leave home, and his coffin was delivered over to the city undertaker's to be held while his funeral arrangements were finalized. After ascertaining that the commander's aunt would not be able to venture out, Constance announced to her guards, some of her attendants, and Merry that she would go to view Staid's body first, alone.

"With all respect, Your Highness, I would advise against that," Merry told her, the lines on her seasoned face deepening with worry. "It might be a little too much for you."

"It might?" Constance replied, her look as intense as it was bereft. "And having to wait to see him for the first time at his army funeral might not be more, when I'll have to be strong in front of everybody? He was my closest friend, Merry. I want to see him by myself."

Constance took Percival and Henri with her to the undertaker's, and the men stayed behind in one room while she went on to the one where the commander's coffin had been unboxed and set up on a table. The coffin's inner lid of thick glass was sealed down tight, but the top half of the outer lid was open. Constance turned and closed the door of the room, tipping her head against it.

It could have been another lifetime ago, the last night she had seen Staid alive, and she'd never been alone in a room with a corpse before. Merry might have been right. Even so, when Constance felt that she'd gathered herself as well as she could be gathered for the time being, she slowly moved away from the door and over toward the coffin, blood pounding its way through her ears. Then, Constance's brown eyes became as large as they ever had, the pounding in her ears reaching a deafening peak as she became motionless, staring so hard into the coffin that her eyes protested from the strain.

Percival was immediately at the door, Henri not far behind him when they, and the undertaker, heard a scream, short and shrill, come from the other room. Percival was just reaching for the knob when the door flew open, and Constance burst through it, running right into her guard, her eyes wild with shock.

"That is _not_ Alexander" was the rasping declaration that found its way out of the princess's throat.

"My lady?" Percival spoke, taking Constance by both of her arms.

"It's not him," she choked out, her head shaking. "He's bigger than that. Wider. More robust. He—"

"Your Highness," Percival gently interrupted her, drawing her away from the door, his eyes clouding with concern. "No, that is not Commander Alexander. It is only his body. He'd spent months on a stressful mission since you saw him last. Working under that kind of pressure can sometimes make a man leaner. And the commander's body had to make a journey. Even with the best that can be done to prepare them, when a person's remains have been lifeless for some time, there can be changes that—"

"Alexander does not have red hair!" Constance shouted, making both of her guards and the undertaker freeze. Her head was still shaking, her eyes flashing with conviction as her words spilled out. "He has black hair. Thick and black. You know that. And death would not have changed his face so completely. I don't think that's even a commander's uniform on that man in there. The undertaker here never saw the commander before, and God help whatever family the body in there rightfully belongs to, as I don't think it could be the Greenly soldier. But as surely as I breathe, Percy, it is not Alexander."

Before she'd finished, Henri and the undertaker had rushed into the room where the open coffin was, and when Henri came back to the doorway, his astonished gaze meeting his comrade's, Percival let go of the princess's arms, running into the room to get a look for himself.

Constance's trip back to the palace was a swift one. Her father was in an advisory meeting, but she was adamant in her request to see him at once.

" _What?_ " Matthias jumped up from his desk when his daughter had relayed the news to him. "Weren't they sent a portrait of the commander before he arrived there for the mission? How could they have delivered us the wrong body?"

"It is likely the body of one of our men. The uniform is Diachonian. It just isn't the commander. His portrait must have been lost."

Matthias ordered the army to find out which soldier was there at the undertaker's, and urgent word and another portrait would get to Rêeh as soon as possible. Constance went about writing to the prince of Rêeh herself, in hopes of receiving the timeliest response they might be able to obtain. Although the prince couldn't know who Staid was to her, Constance did wrestle with a qualm or two while she composed the letter in haste, petitioning this royal suitor of hers to conduct a thorough search for another man on her behalf. Yet, by the time she'd signed her name to the petition, she'd resolved that all amorous issues aside, this was a critical matter of state. The matter of state aside, what kind of lifelong friend would she be if she didn't do everything in her power to locate the commander, or at least to locate his body?

In a way, the long days that Constance was required to await an answer to her petition were more agonizing than the days she'd spent in a stupor and then in more definite grief. Her emotions were now hanging in an all but unbearable space of suspension. When she finally received a reply back from the prince of Rêeh, she opened the letter and read it in a flurry that was almost aggressive in nature, feeling herself in potential danger of blacking out as she had the day she'd heard that Staid had been killed.

With his deepest apologies on behalf of his nation, the prince of Rêeh confirmed that at Diachona's request, a search had been conducted for Commander Alexander. The prince explained that in the midst of the chaotic conditions in their land, there had indeed been a mix-up of information. The commander had not been present at the location of the reported skirmish, and the second military man who was killed there with the Greenly soldier had been a lower ranking member of the Diachonian army.

Various areas had calmed down and looting had lessened in towns when Commander Alexander arrived and traveled through them to work, leaving portions of his men behind to keep the peace as he moved on. But then he'd reached a town where the post-earthquake sanitary environment was one of the worst, and a virus he'd somehow contracted there was probably owing to it. As the nearest hospital was too full to properly treat the feverish commander, he'd been taken to be treated in a prison infirmary, where he'd been laid up in delirium when the erroneous news about the skirmish over rice in another town had broken out.

The commander had been found, still in the prison infirmary. The virus had taken its toll on him before it left him, but he was recovering. As soon as he was well enough to be put on a ship, he would be sent back to Diachona.

The letter slid out of Constance's hands, drifting down to the floor. She wanted to believe it, but she was afraid to. Was there a possibility that this report might be just as incorrect as the first one had been?

When, weeks later, the day arrived for Commander Alexander to be received back into his country at the Eubeltic docks, not all of Constance's doubts had been allayed, not even as she stood up on a hill a ways off from the docks beside her father, with some other members of the Council close by. However, once she spotted a familiar sable head in the midst of others disembarking from a ship down there, her pulse jumped, and her doubts evaporated into the wind blowing in from the sea.

She knew that protocol called for her to await the coach that would bring the honoree to the king for an official welcome, but after a beseeching squeeze on her father's arm, Matthias gave her a light, consenting push, and she took hold of the skirts of her gown, making her way down the hill on hurried feet.

She stopped herself from running all the way toward the uniformed man she'd set her sights on, who was wandering from a dock on sluggish legs with his hat under his arm, his questioning eyes darting around him. No, he was not as robust as the man Constance had parted with those months ago. He'd lost some weight, and there was something curiously somber in his expression, but when his probing blue eyes landed on Constance and halted for a second prior to his mouth breaking out into a grin and lifting his whole countenance, Constance released a spontaneous cry and went to him.

Staid had barely a chance to bow and to take his hat into his hand before Constance moved right into his arms, her hands going up to hold either side of his face. "It's you," she exulted, having to otherwise keep a fixed grasp on her composure, lest she should lose control of it.

Staid's grin slackened somewhat. "To an extent, Your Highness. I haven't felt like myself in quite a while."

Constance's thumb stroked at one of his cheeks. "Are you still ill, then? You don't look it."

"Oh, no, I am not ill. And I scrubbed and brushed extra hard this morning to make sure I wouldn't appear so. They refused to send me back until they were certain the sickness had gone. I'm just not myself, that's all."

"You will be, after you get sufficient rest. You'll see. It's so good to have you home. Was the trip back over very taxing? Does anything hurt?"

"Does anything hurt? Well. It hurts to see you here."

"What?" Confusion seeped into Constance's gaze, her hands sinking away from Staid's face. "You'd rather I hadn't come out to meet you?"

"No, no, love, that's not it. I'd rather all these people weren't around us, at present. After being laid up and hallucinating in a foreign country's prison, and coming back from what I eerily heard was pronounced my own death, am I expected to be all stiffness and formality now? To keep back from this precious and entrancing sight I might have died without seeing?"

Constance could have voiced an answer, could have chosen to physically decline him if she'd wanted to, since Staid did provide her with a few seconds before he inclined his head in, whispering, "I've missed you." The end of his comment just avoided being muffled as his lips touched hers, beginning a profoundly slow, searching kiss.

The one thing that prevented Constance from melting into Staid was the remembrance that he was fresh off of a ship and might not have his legs under him. Notwithstanding that, there was no resistance in her enthralled response to his tenderness, and she did not ease her head away until she absolutely had to breathe. "Alexander..."

Shunning stiffness and formality, his look was all warmth as she observed his face, and she gave him a hint of a smile, musing aloud, "A trio of successive dances at my gala this year weren't 'altogether proper,' but he salutes me out in public before the king and the king's subjects."

Staid's eyes briefly dropped to her mouth, but he did not come in for it again. "'Shield her with your life and flesh, son,'" he alluded, stepping back from Constance and replacing his hat beneath his arm. "Somehow, I don't think His Majesty is at all surprised by this, my lady."

Constance, with an overflowing soul, concurred without a word as Staid gave her another bow, offering her his forearm. She gladly took it, turning with him to head to the coach at the bottom of the hill.

Seeing the princess's warmest of welcomes to the unmistakably living commander of their army, most of the councilmen on the hill were too occupied with astonishment to notice when one councilman crept away from the group. Chieftain Greenly had hoped, minutes ago, that his eyes might be misleading him, but it had not taken long for everyone witnessing it to understand that more than a gracious and relieved reunion between friends was happening down there, near the docks. Burning and mortified, the chieftain had recoiled from the scene, and it was not until the commander was driven up and emerged from his coach to be greeted by Matthias that anyone realized Greenly had gone.

~~~

News and hearsay, giggles and gasps, reiterations and embellishments about Princess Constance and Commander Alexander's demonstrative salutations at the Eubeltic shore did not take long to spread around Topaz, and ultimately beyond.

Many had not previously heard that the commander had been found still alive in Rêeh, so the accounts about him and the princess came as a double surprise. Some were even told that the commander had jumped down out of the ship and had run over to scoop the princess clean off of her feet, some were told that the commander had feigned his own death to make the internationally-desired princess grow fonder of him during his absence, and still others were told that the princess had sent spies to Rêeh to go and break the commander out of a crowded and hectic prison he'd been thrown into and had gotten lost in among looters and rioters.

Whatever the case was, the Diachonians were elated to have Commander Alexander back. It was shared that upon his getting settled in with his aunt in her new home, the woman's health started to improve. It had to be an impermanent arrangement, though, since the commander was going to marry the princess, and the aunt would duly be given her own space to live in at the palace, wouldn't she?

While numerous Diachonian citizens contributed to stories about a royal romance, the kingdom's government had to concern itself with other matters. The leader of their army had been sent home to regain all of his strength, with an interim commander filling in for him, but the situation in Rêeh was still too precarious to bring the rest of their men out from there. Constance sat listening in the next Council assembly while the elders, chieftains, and military officers discussed this with King Matthias, followed by tempestuous deliberations on the trouble with Munda. Some of the elders and military men expressed that while the pieces of Mundayne folklore the scribes and scholars were finding in the Library and the Annals were intriguing, much of it was too far-fetched or vague to base any real war plans or strategies on. A number of the chieftains, led by Greenly, conveyed their distrust that they would be able to keep King Aud talking much longer, with all of their evasive negotiation tactics, and some of the councilmen suggested that, to preserve their lives, it might be best to let Aud farm the land he wanted and to tax him for it.

King Matthias disagreed, saying that if they gave a despot like Aud a hand, he would take an arm, and once he had an arm, he'd be looking to take a neck, and a head besides. With his oceanic mass of an army behind him, he wouldn't feel required to pay anyone anything for what he took.

And Constance sat over in her audience stall, thinking that as far-fetched and unreliable the folklore on Munda might have been, and as much as Aud may've been growing tired of talking—all the while, both nations were drawing quite close to the threshold of autumn.

That night, Constance was only going to pass through the family parlor on her way to her quarters, but her father was sitting in the parlor, so she stopped. Matthias was in a chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands folded, and his head bowed. Constance did not speak, since he could have been in prayer, but then she heard him mumble, "Destiny. Am I a fool for standing against my whole Council?"

Constance, perplexed, took a step toward him. "My lord?"

Matthias's head came up as he looked to his daughter with weary eyes. "Now, when we're facing the largest enemy we've ever faced, and I've got worried advisors droning in both my ears, I don't have one agreeing voice with me on the issue. But I don't believe we should hand ourselves on over to anyone, no matter how big they are. Is that foolish?"

Constance walked over to sit in a chair opposite him, shrugging a shoulder. "I've never known you to handle your kingdom foolishly. There may be some councilmen who agree with you but are too afraid to say so yet."

Matthias lifted his elbows from his knees, sitting back in his seat. "I wouldn't blame them, as I haven't given them anything definite to agree with, at this point. 'We shouldn't give into Aud, and we don't want to fight Aud either' isn't anything to agree to."

After pondering over that, Constance smiled. "Well. When the time comes, you'll make the right choice. For you and for our people."

Matthias's brow creased before he smiled back a bit. "Ah. Yes. But, the time for this one is now." His hand went up to absently finger his beard, his smile diminishing. "In a way, we're all trying to do what's right. Not just we the councilmen, or we the Diachonians, but humankind. Even Aud is trying to do what's right in his eyes, for himself and for his posterity. He wants his sons to be rich, his kingdom to be forever, and his name to be great. Very human ambitions."

"At the expense of charity?" Constance questioned. "At the expense of general respect for people who are foreign but just as human?"

Matthias shook his head. "If someone were to ask King Aud, he would probably say that he is indeed acting out of respect. Respect for his own, for the people who matter most to him. Respect for himself. Respect for his gods. I'm not saying that he wouldn't be at all misguided in his answer, I'm only saying he's trying to do what he feels is right. Right for his idea of humanity."

Constance stirred uncomfortably in her chair as her father went on. "When I tell you that I believe you'll make the right choices, Constance, I don't mean 'right' merely according to ancient, prescribed tabulations of good deeds versus trespasses. What we may do and what we may not do can change with time and circumstance. It may be greedy or excessive to eat every scrap of food that's on our tables during times of plenty, but it may be ungrateful or wasteful _not_ to eat every scrap when times are hard. The act of eating itself is not the key in either case. The key is the working principle that lies behind the way we choose to conduct ourselves at various times. We have to learn to live according to principle, according to inward truth that does not change as times and seasons do.

"Because we are so flawed. We don't always know which way is up and which way is down. We lose our hope, we lose our way, and we need truth to guide us back again—because everyone is busy trying to do what's right, and everyone is bound to fail at it sometimes. I myself follow the one I trust to be perfect, Whose ways I acknowledge as perfect, and yet even in my following, I, in my weakness, am prone to make mistakes. And I do make them. There are days when I think of my father, and I wonder to what degree, now, I would be making him proud. I walk over across our home, I look at my wife, and I wonder if I've missed something that I should've seen, if I've not been all to her that I should've been." Matthias's eyes narrowed in reflection. "Am I as I should be to you? As I should be to my people, here and now?"

Constance sat studying her father, not knowing whether he was truly asking anything of her or not. Then, deciding that she didn't need to know, she spoke her mind. "Sir, to her, the greatest husband. To me, the greatest father. To this nation, the provider and protector Providence deemed it would need, when He gave it to you. And to Him, what only His infinite language can say of you."

Matthias's attentive eyes had relaxed, and Constance unwaveringly held them as she said, "Papa, you are who you are. And I honor you."

A silent moment passed, and Matthias's hand moved away from his beard. He sat up in his seat, his head giving a nod, his voice low. "And I you." He slowly rose to his feet, his hands coming together to steeple his fingers up against each other. "Tell me, if you're my blood, and my heart, why shouldn't you be my confidence?"

Constance opened her mouth, speechless. She watched her father come toward her, and he lowered himself, planting a kiss on her forehead, saying, "I love you, Apple." Then he straightened and kept on moving, making his way across the parlor.

Constance did not turn to look as her father left the room. Her eyes were stinging, and she placed a hand up to her mouth, an unseen weight settling upon her that meant even more than the weight of a medallion to grace her shoulder.

The next morning, Constance awoke to a bustling attendant coming over to tell her that a parcel had been sent to the palace for her. Due to the attendant's unchecked excitement, Constance got up to leave her bedroom without dressing first, her attendant having to throw a robe over her nightgown for her as she headed from her bedroom, through her sitting room, and out to her message table. The parcel there was from Munda.

Minutes afterward, Constance was seated on the floor of her sitting room, with papers spread on the carpet about her. Once she'd read every single piece, Constance leapt to her feet, calling for an attendant to help her dress.

When she later arrived on the front stoop of Staid's aunt's house, she was initially surprised when a maid was the one to answer the door. _Oh. Yes._ Constance asked to see Commander Alexander, and Percival waited behind in the foyer while the maid led Constance back to a study, where Staid was sitting at a desk, busy with documents.

"Your Highness," he greeted her, standing to his feet with a bow as the maid curtsied and left the room. "This is pleasantly unexpected. A good morning to you."

"And a good one to you, sir," Constance replied, feeling her pulse jump as she walked over with the parcel in her hands, setting it down on the desk. "You're looking well."

"I am well, my lady, thank you. Well and raring to be released from this hiatus. I'm sure there's nothing odd about a man wanting to get back to work after he's practically come back from the dead. I would burst with impatience some days if it weren't for my having councilmen's discussion notes to read, and my being able to go out for exercise." Staid grinned. "It's as if dining is supposed to be my new vocation here. Now that my aunt is feeling better, she seems intent upon instructing the new cook to fatten me back up to my normal size in about as much time as it takes to pluck a fowl."

The corners of Constance's mouth lifted with both humor and zeal. "Well, then, my dear Commander, you shall have a chance to take a hiatus from your hiatus as soon as you can arrange an outside councilmen's meeting with the king. We can't hold this off until the next assembly." Her hand landed soundly down on top of the parcel on the desk. "Letters."

Staid's smile altered into a look of sober enthusiasm. "You've heard from your contacts?"

Seeing the unspoken response in Constance's fervent eyes, Staid reached to grab up and open the parcel.

The following day found the two of them sitting in a palace meeting room with Elder Cobalt, Chieftain Greenly, and King Matthias. Constance announced that she'd heard from Mundayne residents and imperial servants at last, and that after reading their letters, she was persuaded that King Aud, with all of his threats, was in fact putting up a front. His intention from the onset hadn't been to take any of their territory by force, but only by intimidation.

Aud was noted as saying that Matthias was a nonentity with no successor to speak of (Constance had to swallow past the potent taste of offense in her mouth as she shared that part), and that the gods would approve of Aud's appropriation of Matthias's land. However, the Mundaynes were saying of their king that he must be going insane to think of embarking upon another campaign. Over the past ten years, he'd been increasing the people's taxes in order to inflate his military, not heeding the complaints that the extra taxation was driving many of the people toward poverty.

Frustrated that their grievances were being ignored, Mundayne residents had more recently begun banding together to oppose the military taxes, refusing to pay them. Aud resorted to turning portions of the army, led by his sons, against those bands of residents, to take their taxes or property by bloody coercion, but the bodies of murdered Mundayne soldiers started showing up in the streets. Three of Aud's sons were among the dead, and the other two were simply gone. While it was rumored that the two were being kept in hiding until Aud regained control over the rising crisis, some of the imperial servants doubted that Aud, who bristled at any mention of his disappeared sons, knew of their whereabouts himself.

Hearing that the King of Munda was using his own people to combat one another, Munda's colonies began looking for ways to distance themselves from association with the reigning nation. Numerous alarmed and jaded Mundayne soldiers chose to give up their places in the military, stating that their wages weren't worth the country's infighting, and little did many other nations know yet that Munda's notorious army had dwindled in size, as well as in funds.

Seeing that his power over his subjects was slipping from his hands, Aud had promised to acquire new superior farmlands as a gift for his people, lands that would be easily procured and minimally taxed for residents who were willing to go farm them.

"King Aud is going ahead with the idea, hoping his threats will forestall any physical resistance from us, but it doesn't look like his people are behind him on it," Constance pointed out to the group of councilmen, holding up letters in her hands from the parcel in her lap. "He's looking for a way to recover the respect of his people and to rebuild his army before anyone else can find out the real condition his army is currently in. Munda is vulnerable. I believe that if Diachona stands strong now, we can stand King Aud down."

Constance looked around the group to see her contemplative father with his fingers perched against his temple, Elder Cobalt with a flabbergasted frown on his face, and Chieftain Greenly with a hint of a skeptical smirk slanting his mouth. "So, Princess," Greenly began, sitting a bit forward in his chair, "a party of affable Mundaynes just handed all of this vital information over to you, in a box?"

The letters in Constance's hands lowered somewhat. She moistened her lips. "Well, this isn't my first time hearing from these individuals. I've been in contact with them since I met them on my past visit to Munda. But when I last communicated with each of them, I told them to stop sending their letters separately. Having them held in the post and then sent in one parcel would minimize the frequency and appearance of letters going out to Diachona, in case our nations became hostile. Also, if the post was seized or lost, I wouldn't get any of it, instead of probably getting some of it and not knowing that anything was missing. A novice idea of mine, perhaps, but it worked."

"Ah. Yes. It worked," Greenly answered with a nod. "And how do you know that these decidedly superstitious Mundayne favorites of yours are brave enough to tell an enemy of theirs the truth about what's happening in their vulnerable country? And what's more, isn't it _Donpoerh_? Shouldn't these people be engrossed in their rejoicing and reveling together in bed instead of writing you letters?"

"Greenly," Elder Cobalt mumbled in disapproval, his brow furrowing at the younger councilman.

Constance lowered her letters completely, placing them back into the parcel in her lap with slow, deliberate movements. "The fact that the King of Munda has chosen to show contempt for our King Matthias, out of the blue, does not mean that the Mundayne people at large have anything against me."

"Yes, and besides," Commander Alexander spoke up, "what else would explain the way Munda strangely quieted down and their campaigns petered out before King Aud started bothering us about our land? The accounts in Her Highness's letters about the plight of Munda's soldiers lend clarity to the whole issue."

Chieftain Greenly turned his smirk on the commander. "Clarity? Right, sir, you have made it abundantly clear to us all—and to the general universe—why you might be rather partial to Her Highness's stance on things. But I would urge you to make certain you're taking an objective councilman's view of the issue, and so honor us by acting like you've been here before."

The air in the room thickened to a near solid at once, and Constance grew warm, her posture stiffening. She, the elder, and the commander sat staring at the chieftain, while King Matthias, with his fingers still perched on his temple, had his calm eyes on Commander Alexander.

The commander looked around without speaking for a moment, and then he cleared his throat. "With all respect, Chieftain," he said, an ironic smile brewing in his eyes while scarcely touching his mouth, "I am still the leader of this kingdom's army. The army that protects you, your family, your holdings, and your future. I needn't remind you that I started commanding the army and was given a seat here some time before you were invited to the Council, but since your natural birth took place some years prior to mine, we won't engage in irrelevant dialogue about who was where before whom.

"Now, I will say that ever since my appointment as commander, I've still been earning my keep, as it were, with the latest evidence of that being shown through my work in Rêeh. I did fall ill there and had to be sent back, unfortunately. But Rêeh's king and queen could tell you that peace followed me into every town I worked in, and had it not been for that wretched bout of sickness, our mission in Rêeh might very well have been more than half accomplished by now. But I trust that the soldiers I left there are continuing the overarching effort of showing Rêeh's people that even after devastation, all is not lost."

Commander Alexander sat there, his eyes fixed on Greenly until the chieftain looked away, and King Matthias lowered his fingers from his temple and spoke. "So, then, Commander. You must have a suggestion about the issue at hand."

"I do, Your Majesty." The commander moved his attention to Matthias. "Summer is ending, and King Aud has more pride than he has sensible use for it. I suggest that instead of trying to hold him off any longer or wishing that he would, somehow, just go away, we should take a more offensive approach and tell that man in blatant language if he wants to consume what doesn't belong to him, Munda's going to have to get up, come out, and fight us for it now—and if we capture Aud in battle, the Mundayne crown will then be in play, and Aud's head will be missing from the running for it."

If there was still a thickness in the room at that point, it was one of a steadily changing essence. Constance held in a breath, thinking that Elder Cobalt might question Commander Alexander on his reference to the closing of summer, but the meeting remained silent until King Matthias spoke again.

When he did speak, everyone else listened without comment until he finished.

~~~

That evening after supper with her father, Constance bid him goodnight and ambled up to the secluded quarters of the palace. She knocked on the sitting room door that was standing ajar, poking her head inside of it. "Mama?"

"Constance," she heard her name in response, and she entered the room.

Her mother was sitting in a chair close in front of the window looking out toward the meadows to the north, and Constance pulled up another chair, sitting right beside her mother, leaning over to kiss her cheek. Her mother glowed but did not smile.

The two women only watched the fading view of the meadows for a while, and then Constance breathed in deeply, coming out with, "I'm in love with Staid, Grace."

She felt when her mother turned to look at her, but she delayed before turning her own head to meet her mother's gaze. "Not that I haven't always loved him," Constance went on. "What else is a friend to do? And it's not as if we've never told each other before that we love each other.

"But I've grown. Something in me has grown. And he said he's been waiting for years for me to come of age. We're so much as we ever were, but different now." She gave a little laugh. "Papa says he thinks it won't hurt me to receive offers from other men, other nations, but I can't say that I'm up for making a string of consecutive rejections, as I know I would be. Papa wants me to have experience, but even if I don't count the prince of Rêeh, I think I've already had all of the experience I can handle, just like that."

Constance bit her lip before continuing. "I've hurt Chieftain Greenly, Mama, and I didn't mean to. He's always made his interest pretty plain, but I figured it was part of a challenge. A game. I didn't know he had any real intentions. Then he insinuated his intentions at such a difficult time. Well, maybe he's been insinuating them longer than I've been paying attention, but he came out and said how much he admires me, and surprised me with the most vivid delivery sent to my sitting room. I might have thought it romantic if I hadn't been grieving, and he said the flowers were for my grief, even though I knew they were for more than that, and he didn't know I was grieving for more than a lifelong friend.

"I didn't give enough thought to how I was going to respond, though, since I was busy thinking of Staid. When I saw him get off that ship out at the docks, I was so relieved and overjoyed that he was alive that Chieftain Greenly's presence there was so far away from my consideration. Reuniting with Staid was the most wonderful thing imaginable, but I hate the thought of its being a blow to anyone, and I wonder what it's going to be like on the Council now, going forward. Maybe if I am more considerate as I go on being myself, the chieftain will come around in time. He's a good man, I think, but he isn't for me. Staid is simply...it. And he probably always has been. I just had to grow to see it."

As her mother sat there glowing at her, Constance was about to resume speaking, but her next words came to a halt before escaping her mouth when her mother whispered, "I know."

For a second, Constance was too astounded to even blink. Grace's voice rose a degree, her glow easing, at last, into a sentient smile. "I know about you and Staid, dearest." She turned her head, looking back out of the window. "I saw you running out there, when you thought you'd lost him."

Constance glanced toward the window, stupefied, but she looked back to Grace when the woman carried on. "And however many days it was after that, I don't know, when you came in and stayed in here forever. I knew what you were doing, Constance. Waiting for your faith to give way. Sitting and waiting to lose your mind."

Grace turned her head to look into her daughter's reddening eyes, and Grace's smile ebbed. "Is that what you think I did? That I sat and waited for my mind to get up and go away?" She averted her gaze, staring past her daughter, one of her hands coming up to rest below her throat. "Do minds do that? Some human beings must, in fact, go mad. Others must just get tired. You were already raised, Constance. Such a young lady. I knew that Merry could give you much of what you would require from that point. Not in my place, but in a woman's place. I didn't want to handle my young lady tiredly. You deserved so much more than that."

Her hand stroked thoughtfully at the base of her throat. "So if I could provide you with anything, I could provide you with space. Space to become yourself, as much as you would by a given time in your life. And whenever that initial moment would come—whether it would come after your rise to the throne or before—when something or someone, or your own people, would impact you so intensely that, all shaken up, you would go find a corner somewhere to wait in, to wait for yourself to go under, and nothing would happen... I wanted you to have that time, and to have that space."

The older woman's eyes returned to the glistening brown ones watching her, and, leaving her throat, her hand reached over to cover one of her daughter's. Giving Constance's hand a squeeze, Grace let her voice drift back down into a whisper. "The space to realize, daughter, that you are not me."

Grace remained there that way, allowing Constance to witness how that present glow in her countenance did not withdraw its way off into the distance. At length, Constance bowed over, her head lowering into her mother's lap as she began to weep, as she had never wept before in all of the twenty years, the twenty acceptable years, to her credit.
~~~

The Battle

~~~

The summer's surrender to autumn did not turn out to be as seamless as winter's surrender to spring had been, earlier that year in Diachona. The turning autumn winds held a biting chill when they struck Diachonian faces in passing. After little more than a week of this weather, vendors chose to pronounce their selling season, in Topaz's open marketplace, to be over, as the winds were proving to be a hazard to the vendors' wares. Increasing rumors of war had dampened the bright spirit of the marketplace anyway, the long-existent, niggling unease about Munda coming to the fore. The news spread that Commander Alexander was ending his rest since King Matthias had decided that Diachona would take its soldiers to face the Mundaynes in battle.

In the midst of the unease, letters of assurance signed by King Matthias and Princess Constance were taken out and reread a number of times in the hearing of citizens in town meetings and church services in Topaz and across the country. So, while the talk of war led to its share of rational fears, the idea of overall or outright panic didn't have an adequate chance to become popular at any time ahead of the designated day for the fight against Munda.

When that day arrived, King Matthias, a group of his guards, and Elder Cobalt rode out of the capital and toward the kingdom's southern border with Commander Alexander and a host of Diachona's army troops, doing without the number of their soldiers who were still absent from the country, out across the Eubeltic Sea. How Diachona would fare in combat with only a fraction of the men who would have otherwise been with them was left up to the people's speculation.

On a different note, what the majority of Diachona's citizenry did not have the opportunity to think or talk about beforehand was that when their army headed out of Topaz, Princess Constance was among the company of horsemen from the palace, riding alongside her father. She was not wearing all of the same symbolic battle attire that Matthias was dressed in, but underneath her cloak and over the sturdy material of her dress, she did have on a breastplate identical to her father's but fashioned for her form, their family's coat of arms inscribed on its front. Citizens who had come out to watch the army depart were stunned to see a particular flash of bronze tresses and red skirts dashing by on horseback along with the king's men.

As it turned out, when the Diachonian scouts that had been sent out ahead came back with details from their survey, the army did not have to ride out as far as it thought it would. King Aud had accepted Diachona's challenge to come out for the claim of territory, but the agreement had been for the armies to meet on neutral, fairly barren ground, outside of Diachona's southern boundary.

"So. They are already on our land," Commander Alexander observed when the Diachonians arrived to find the Mundayne army waiting for them farther north than they were supposed to be, just as the scouts had reported. "Looks like a directive from Munda's throne, to scorn us."

Diachona's troops aligned themselves out on the windy field, and Matthias, Alexander, Cobalt, and Constance convened on a low hill to appraise both armies, Matthias's guards waiting close by on their horses.

"The Almighty knows I had my doubts about provoking a fight," Elder Cobalt admitted, looking southward, "but really, what is this? What could Aud be thinking? Why would he bring so small a number of soldiers out here to battle? They're barely more than we are and have hardly any cavalry."

"'Bring' his soldiers? It might be more like 'send,'" Alexander commented, peering through the short telescope in his hands. "Unless he is mixed into one of their lines, clad as a common soldier, it doesn't look like any king came along with them." He removed the telescope from his eye, handing it off to Matthias to take a look.

"Maybe the man is indeed going insane, back at home," Matthias mused as he inspected the Mundayne ranks.

Alexander shook his head. "Pity if he is. But I'll wager that no matter what's going on in his head, if these are all the men he sent, it's because these were all he could afford to pay for this scheme. Elder Cobalt, let's deliver the terms." The commander and the elder turned their horses and rode down to meet with two Mundayne officers out in the empty center of the battlefield.

After the terms had been served, Elder Cobalt rode back alone to the hill, but as the Diachonian soldiers heeded Alexander's signal and unsheathed their swords, there appeared to be some confusion among the Mundayne army. The din that began from their side of the battlefield did not resemble the sound of a war cry.

"It doesn't appear that they're taking up their arms," Matthias told Constance and Cobalt, again looking through the telescope. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say those chaps were over there arguing."

Constance scanned over the Mundayne lines, listening to their noise as she put her thoughts forward. "They came here at their king's command, but perhaps now they're splitting over the report of the terms. Or perhaps they're not unanimous on a decision about whether to actually fight or not because King Aud may've already committed a blaring offense against what's sacred by sending them in the first place." Matthias lowered the telescope, his head snapping over to look at Constance, and she turned her own head to meet his gaze. "It probably hasn't rained in Munda yet."

The brisk revolving of ideas through Matthias's head was almost audible. "Ah." His head moved slowly up and down. "If that is the case, it may have something to do with what the commander said yesterday could turn out to be his one main order to the army today. It sounded offhand when I heard him mention it, but maybe he was serious."

"One order?" Elder Cobalt pondered aloud. "What order would that be?"

"The order to run."

"To run? Commander Alexander wouldn't have our men run away from a fight. Especially not when enticing the enemy to come see us here was his suggestion."

Constance looked to the battlefield, only having to reason for a second before her face illumined with the kind of insight that attachment alone could yield. "No. The commander wasn't talking about running 'away,' Elder Cobalt."

Watching Alexander out ahead of his army down there, calling out some instruction to them that Constance couldn't hear, she knew that he was as cognizant of it as she was: the Mundayne men opposite them hadn't wanted to come here. The odds were that many of them were only trying to hang on to some measure of security in the middle of a martial trade that was crumbling around them, with a king at the back of their necks who'd shown himself capable of using his subjects for his benefit, to their detriment.

In voicing what sense the accounts in Constance's letters about the condition of Munda's army made, Alexander had won over King Matthias's agreement to call Munda out to the field. In proposing the blatant challenge to King Aud, Alexander had very likely succeeded in getting an imperious ruler, who'd shown himself to be devout about his beliefs in the past, to violate his own perimeter of ancient tradition. And here before them was a mass of men who'd been compliant to get the wages they needed from the oppressive hand above them, but Constance understood, in that moment, that Alexander had no intention of punishing them all for it, or pulling them further out of their consciences about it.

Cobalt was ready to put another question forth, but he didn't have time to before, at Alexander's lead, a sudden roar came up from the Diachonian army, causing the horses on the field and on the hill to stir and grunt with alertness, tossing their manes and tails. The Diachonian army's ensuing, boisterous chants of " _You must—leave us! You must—leave us!_ " served to drown the Mundayne fracas out.

Matthias and Constance both prodded their horses to the edge of the hill as their army's chants became increasingly synchronized. It was now plain to see, without the help of a telescope, that the Mundayne lines were breaking apart, and when Commander Alexander lifted his sword and pointed ahead with one long shout, the Mundayne army started running southward almost before the Diachonians did.

Diachona's horsemen stayed put, continuing to chant while the foot soldiers took off with their brandished swords, yelling toward the fleeing Mundaynes. Watching the deafening chase move farther across the landscape, Constance laughed, not caring that none of the soldiers would be able to hear her screaming, "Yes! _Run,_ Diachona! Run Munda away from its misery!"

When the Mundayne army and the Diachonian foot soldiers pursuing them were several minutes away, Diachona's soldiers on horseback took off behind them, at a pace fast enough to go propel the chase forward, but slow enough to keep from trampling down anyone on foot.

"This is ridiculous!" Constance laughed to her father. "What will we even be able to write about this for the Annals? A good chunk of our men still overseas, and none of our firearms used. Just a throng of our soldiers out here, hollering, flaunting friendly swords, and running like wildfire. Can this even be legitimately called a battle?"

Staring after the path of horsemen, Matthias gave a single nod of contained satisfaction. "We'll call it whatever we want."

Constance looked after the horsemen as well, wishing she could fly down to the field to catch up with the chase, but on this occasion, she resigned to protocol without any real objection, staying put on the hill with her father and Elder Cobalt, being content with her respect for her commander and his choice.

That day, the Diachonians chased the Mundaynes across the border and well out onto neutral ground, Commander Alexander's men not letting up until he signaled that it was enough. He and his army stood watching the Mundaynes in flight for a time, and Diachona's subsequent, victorious chants of " _Diakŏnia! Diakŏnia!_ " acted as both the pronouncement of the battle's end and as a nudge to the retreating army's backs.

It would be some days before the Diachonians would learn that King Aud, who had in fact stayed behind in Munda to avoid being captured in battle, had been startled out of his sleep by a large, terrified mob of Mundayne men, the morning after he'd sent his army out to Diachona. The mob, bearing crude weapons and burning torches, were shouting out pleas for clemency, toward the sky and then toward the ground. The gods had not poured down their blessing of the season yet, as Aud had assured the people would happen in time; the country would therefore be cursed unless it was purged of the rash offender who had elected to send soldiers to combat without being blessed.

Aud had quit his palace for a while as a precaution, not knowing that he might be so quickly tracked down in his remote compound miles away until it was ransacked by the mob. Aud's guards, along with his two remaining sons—who'd been confined in the compound for months—emerged to try to protect the king but were killed along with him beneath the harried mob's weapons in a sacrifice of reparation. Minutes later, the men from the mob hastened outside and wailed toward heaven while the compound burned, and then they retired from the depressing scene, lugging their weapons with them, heading off for their homes in exhaustion.

The rumbling bawl of blazing flames licking at the doomed walls of a compound was an immaterial sound only by the time it reached Constance. She was sitting before a neglected dessert at the supper table with her father and Staid in Topaz's palace, on the evening they received the gruesome report of the slaughtering of Munda's king. Staid reached over to take Constance's hand, and she looked at him, knowing he must have detected her concern. When the declarations of Diachona's triumph over Munda had gone out after the battle, the news had been tinged with uncertainty for the three at this table, as it was not yet known if the Mundayne soldiers the commander had sent back to their country had been accepted there with a pardon for not taking part in any fighting, or if they'd had to face the same penalty as the king who'd sent them.

Matthias, who also hadn't touched his dessert, sat there at the head of the table with the opened letter about Aud in his hand. It appeared that Matthias was on the verge of coming up with something to lighten the pall that had settled over their meal. But whatever he might have said was never spoken, as an unanticipated sight at the doors of the dining room arrested his attention.

Holding on to the assisting arm of an attendant of hers, Queen Grace entered the dining room, with a shawl wrapped around her evening dress. She looked curiously around at the room's walls, not at any of the three astonished people who rose to their feet when she came in. She seemed not to hear the greetings of "Your Majesty" and "Mama" that were directed toward her, but when Matthias murmured, "Gracie," her gaze immediately went to her husband.

"My lord," she replied, a flush coloring her cheeks. She released her attendant's arm, stepping forward. "I asked about you and was told that you'd be having supper. It's been ages since I've been in here. I hardly recognize anything here, except you." Her eyes searched around her again, landing over on Staid and Constance. Grace smiled. "And my daughter, of course. And, goodness, is this Staid Alexander? My, my. A good evening to you both."

Staid and Constance seemed immobile as they returned Grace's greeting, but Matthias had dropped his letter and was already walking around the table toward his wife while the attendant behind her curtsied to Her Majesty's back and withdrew from the room.

Grace glanced down at the table. "Oh, you all are having dessert? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be late."

"It's perfectly all right," Matthias told her, coming and taking her hands into his. "We would have waited for you if I'd known you were on your way. Are you hungry? We'll have Merry bring you something. What would you like?"

"What would I like? I don't know. What did you have? No need for anyone to make something different, for me. I really didn't mean to interrupt."

"Nonsense. Never an interruption that has thrilled me more."

It was soon made apparent that Matthias had forgotten about the two standing at the table, and Staid, tugging at Constance's hand, evidently felt no need to make the king remember their presence. Constance was still stunned, but she gave into Staid's tug, allowing him to lead her away from the table.

"I'm sorry, my lord," Grace apologized. "I...I suppose you and I need to talk. I'm so sorry, for so much."

"No confessions now, Gracie, please."

The last thing Constance saw before she and Staid left the room was her father engulfing her mother in an intimate embrace that sent the woman's shawl slipping off of her shoulders and down to the floor behind her.

Staid walked Constance through a lamp-lit hallway, stopping at a window, and the two of them stood watching what they could see of the windy night, outdoors.

"It's been some years since I've seen her," Staid reflected. "But you know that."

"It's been some years since she's had supper with us, or any meal" was Constance's staggered answer.

Staid gave a low chuckle. "It might be a few years more, then. Except His Majesty actually gives her a chance to eat, in there."

In spite of herself, Constance felt a bit of embarrassment. "Alexander..."

Staid pressed at her hand, drawing her closer to him. "What? I can't imagine how I'd feel, seeing you come looking for me for the first time after a long separation." His eyes were perusing her face, and his free hand lifted, coming to rest alongside her neck. "Unless, needless to say, it would be something like one of us practically coming back from the dead."

Constance would've shaken her head, but Staid's hand smoothed its way from her neck to her cheek. "You know," he said, "we'll have to go back to Nonpareil together, one of these days."

"Will we?" Constance mildly asked, grateful for this moment away from the dark mood that had seemed ready to take over what was left of the night, once that letter had been opened. Moreover, she could get back to thinking about her mother later. "Why do you say so?"

"Because. Ever since our last evening there, I've felt I was cheated out of the chance to hold you, out beside that pond." Staid released Constance's hand so that he could put his arm around her, his head tipping down against hers. "And we'll have to find that field again to let those tykes know that the leader of the country's army can run faster than he lets on. Else they'll grow up telling inaccurate tales about me to everyone. But that reason's a given."

"Is it? It doesn't sound like you'll need me there for that part."

"Hey. Sure I will. I wouldn't want to run without you. We can just split winning the races, half and half."

Constance's soft chortle was broken off by Staid's face turning and his mouth seeking out hers. As she indulged her desire to slide her arm up around his neck and to relax into him as she hadn't been able to do out at the Eubeltic shore, she wondered how she could've thought before that her learning to care for him this way had been mistimed.

Even if he had not come back from Rêeh, if their first time communicating such affection to each other would have been their last, it had to be better for one to love, and to know that one was loved likewise, than to have never known or been able to express that truth at all.

~~~

On an afternoon at the end of the next week, Constance was summoned to meet with her father in the family library. She approached the desk he where he sat with his papers and a quill, and he took her off guard when he spoke without delay, not looking up from his writing. "Constance, the mission overseas has made a positive turn, and we have to make a trip to Munda. Posthaste."

Constance turned over the book she had in her hands. "Sir?"

Matthias peeked up at her but didn't stop writing. "Rêeh. The mission isn't over, but it's caught some momentum. We should be able to bring our troops home from there before the onset of winter. And Munda. We need to make a trip to Munda."

"'We' who?" Constance questioned, trying to keep the mischief out of her tone. "You and Mama?"

Matthias's quill came to a stop. He quizzically brought his head up. "What?"

Constance's brows climbed with all the innocence she could feign. "Now, now, Papa darling, need I remind you that we, as Diachonians, do not celebrate _Donpoerh_?" She brought her voice down somewhat, not able to help the smidge of authentic awkwardness that crept into it. "With the way that you and Mama have been shut up in your chambers so much ever since the night she came down to supper, the servants are beginning to talk."

"Ah!" Matthias let out a hearty guffaw. "Have no fear, and tell them all to stop worrying. No great siring happening here, and she and I don't plan on surprising the nation with anything. Your mother and I have just been, um—" Matthias cut himself off, waving his quill in the air. "Having some discussions. And such. As you can see, I've therefore fallen a little behind with my menial snippets of business, and I'm in a hurry. But the important thing is that according to the latest information, the Mundayne soldiers that we chased out of here were not harmed when they went back home, and I'm going to need you and Commander Alexander with me in Munda when I make my move."

Constance was all seriousness now, relief flooding her at the news about the soldiers. "Your move, my lord?"

Matthias went back to writing for a minute before he put his pen down and looked up, telling his daughter, "We're going to see to the fulfilling of the terms we delivered at the battle. The Mundayne people are in need of a king. Commander Alexander undoubtedly won their favor when he liberated their army from the burden of even having to defend themselves against us on the field. You've had their favor since the year you went to visit them, and you likely have the most in-depth knowledge of their ways and the greatest empathy toward them as a people than anyone else in my kingdom. I'm calling a short Council assembly, where you'll be formally entitled as my Junior with the first Diachonian councilwoman's seat granted to you, regardless of the fact that I'm still alive. Then we're heading off to Munda."

The rush that her father was in did not give Constance time to stop and dwell on how overwhelmed she was by his entitlement announcement. He continued. "So that there will be no later confusion in Munda about exactly who he is, I would like the commander to have one trip there in his current military position before he is relieved of it and the officer who served in the interim is given the position of commander permanently."

Constance's book nearly dropped from her fingers. "Relieved of his position?" she asked. "Do you not think the commander fit enough to go on? I know he doesn't look quite the same, as far as his build goes, and though he didn't do any actual fighting in that last battle, he's strong and healthy, sir. He's yet getting stronger."

Matthias shook his head with a bit of a sigh. "I know, I know. Come now, Princess, think with me. Staid Alexander is an admirable leader and military man. His predecessor was right in bequeathing that position to him. But he won't have need of it much longer. I know good and well that the commander aims to wed my daughter."

Constance had to take a step forward and carefully set her book down on her father's desk, to keep her fingers from fumbling with it. "He's said as much to you?"

"As much to me? He said as much to everybody, down at the Eubeltic docks. What with that very public demonstration of yours and his, it's a wonder to me that you would feel at all abashed about my being shut up in my chambers with your mother for days, in private."

"Papa," Constance almost broke into his words, one side of her mouth inching upward for but a second. "That's different."

"Not incredibly. It all comes from the same place." Matthias folded his hands together on top of the desk. "The man is set on you, and after knowing you all these years, he's not going to let you get away to anyone else. It'll only be a matter of time before he and I have another dialogue about you."

"With your being so sure of it," Constance began, tilting her head, "what about all of the experience and other offers you think would be good for me?"

Matthias started twiddling his thumbs. "Chieftain Greenly made you an offer, didn't he?"

Constance had not been ready for that direct question from her father, but she managed to reply. "No. Not in any definite terms. I think he would have, but I suppose he didn't have a chance to before Staid reappeared from Rêeh."

"I see. I thought an offer might have accompanied the multitude of flowers he sent here for you. Quite frankly, I thought the chieftain was going to ask for your hand as soon as he joined the Council, before you came of age."

"Oh?" Constance wasn't sure how she liked the sound of that. "How come you never mentioned it to me?"

"Should I have?" Matthias asked. When his daughter came up with no answer for that, he went on with, "I know it might not be the most comfortable situation in the world, sitting on the Council with him, but these things happen in life. How you each are going to navigate it will be up to you both.

"And, yes, I don't think having more offers would hurt you. Most of the country doesn't know it, but the other prince who came for your royal junior ceremony has long been engaged elsewhere. Still, I know for certain that more notables would soon be following the prince of Rêeh out of the woodwork to make a try for the princess of Diachona, particularly after our newest victory. But since the commander has made his claim on you, and has made it openly, it's different."

Matthias's thumbs went still, his voice lowering. "Your mother is not the same woman I married over thirty years ago, and I'm not the same man she married. We're not even as we were at the time when we lost your brother, before your mother...drifted away. To be honest, a part of her is still, well, relatively adrift, as I'm sure you can tell. Providence willing, if that part of her wants to come back home, I can ensure that she'll know she's more than welcome.

"But, even on some days when it's been the hardest to believe it, I've known that in there somewhere lives her love for me. And I love her. That's a constant, no matter what else changes." Matthias picked his pen back up, but his attention didn't move from Constance. "So, then, if you and your young man truly love each other, that's what is of primary consequence. We ought not to stand in the way of it. I hope I made it clear to him that that would be my stance, when I told him a number of things pertaining to the two of you before he took you to Nonpareil." The quill was now fluttering in a circular motion between Matthias's preoccupied fingers. "Now, we'll all discuss this together, of course, but there is one detail I'd like to ask you about personally, before any planning gets too far underway."

Constance put a hand up to her heart, as if in an attempt to slow the abundance of emotion flowing all through her. She cleared her throat, speaking as calmly as she could. "What is that, Papa?"

The fluttering of Matthias's pen paused as his eyes inquisitively narrowed. "How would you, as a woman, feel about having dual residences, internationally?"
~~~

The End of the Following Summer

~~~

An untold number of Diachonian residents never settled on whether their notions that Princess Constance might wear a red gown to her wedding ceremony had been sufficiently grounded or not. But many of them heard later that after her face had been unveiled, it had taken the assistance of two bridesmaids to hold the length of the train of the princess's brilliant, white gown while she and her militarily uniformed groom kneeled together at the steps of the altar in the brimming sanctuary of Topaz's foremost cathedral.

When the officiating bishop had finished his prayers and exhortations, the King of Diachona and Sovereign Regnant of Munda, Matthias, in his ceremonial robes and state crown, stepped forward as a pair of sanctuary attendants approached the altar, carrying two cushions holding gleaming headdresses. Proclaiming the wedded man and woman's proven capacity for mercy, compassion, wisdom, and valor on behalf of peoples domestic and abroad, King Matthias pronounced Commander Exemplar Alexander and His Majesty's Junior, Princess Constance, the High Governors of Munda, placing one governor's coronet on Alexander's sable head, and one on Constance's veiled one.

The governors stood and were presented to their jubilant audience. As Constance placed her hand in her husband's gloved one to walk back down the aisle with him, she looked up to the sanctuary's east balcony, waving a kiss up to her mother, who was seated there with her own state crown on her head. The queen stood, glowing, nodding, and sending a wave back to her daughter, and the bride and groom started on their exit out of the sanctuary, the resounding toll of the bells in the cathedral's tower beginning to echo through the building.

Alexander and Constance would be paraded through the crowds of cheering citizens in the garlanded, music-filled streets of Topaz before being driven to the palace for the wedding celebration. Afterward, they would retire to the private wing of the palace that had been designated and arranged as their Diachonian residence.

Early the next morning, after the sounds of bells, music, and cheering had faded away, Constance, dressed in a new traveling suit, stood outside on the palace's south balcony, staring out at the capital city that had yet to wake up. She and Alexander would be getting an immediate start on their wedding tour, pausing for a few days in Nonpareil before they would head out of the country to honeymoon in more exotic climes.

Constance's eyes roved over the capital's roofs and trees. She wanted to be positive that she'd branded this view into her memory. There was no telling yet precisely when she and Alexander would be returning here from their prepared residence in Munda, where they would be settling after the wedding tour. Constance knew that Topaz would not be her only home again until, hopefully a good many years hence, Matthias would pass on. A new governor or governors would be appointed over Munda, and Constance would be crowned the Queen of Diachona.

She also knew that, from the night before and until some unknown day in the future, countless people here and abroad would be waiting for Governor Alexander and Princess Constance to bring forth one who would serve as their legacy and the future of kingdoms. Yet, Constance wasn't anxious about that. If Providence could remove and set up kings, then He could equally see to it that what nations needed from her would come by way of her, however that way manifested. And she would do her uttermost so that, after it all, it might be said that in the era of her reign, she had done well by the souls entrusted to her charge.

Without turning around, Constance recognized whose footsteps were approaching behind her. She did not move before something green was held out in front of her, and she looked downward at the fresh sprig of laurel there between Alexander's fingers. She released a girlish laugh, not asking when or where he had gone out to pick it for her, and Alexander reached up to slip the laurel into his wife's hair above her ear. He then leaned in to plant an inviting kiss on her temple.

"Shall we go, love?" he asked her.

Constance, too moved to speak, nodded her answer, turning from her treasured view of the capital to accept Alexander's arm, and he led her off of the balcony, back into the palace.
~~~

Many thanks to you for reading _The Movement of Crowns_. If you like writing reviews, please consider leaving one for this book wherever you purchased a copy or on  Goodreads.

And don't miss the _Crowns_ sequel,  
 The Movement of Rings.

***

There are a few ways you can stay updated on Nadine's books. Find them  here!

~~~

_Nadine. A French name, meaning, "hope."_  
With her lifelong passion for life-enriching fiction, Nadine C. Keels enjoys reading and writing everything from short stories to novels. Her fiction works include _Love Unfeigned_ and _The Movement of Crowns Series_ , and select pieces of her lyrical poetry can be found on her spoken word album, _Hope. Lyricized._ As the founder of Prismatic Prospects, her communication company, Nadine has served as editor for a number of titles, and through her writing, from her books to her blog posts, she aims to help spark hope, inspiration, and genius in as many as she is privileged to reach.

www.prismaticprospects.wordpress.com
~~~

An Excerpt from _The Movement of Rings_ ,  
sequel to _The Movement of Crowns_  
~~~

"Naona!" a startled, aggravated scream pierced through the early morning peace of the four-storied maidservants' house, ricocheting against the chamber and corridor walls and being answered by the vibrant laugh of a fleeing offender. A few of the women in the house, aroused prematurely from their sleep, got up and poked their drowsy heads out of their bedroom doorways to see black tresses, a white nightgown, and bare feet flashing by, the accompanying laughter escaping farther through a third floor hallway and disappearing down a stairwell.

Seconds later, those bare feet dashed through a side door and outside, taking off through the dewy grass of one of the gardens gracing the grounds of the sprawling estate, leaving behind more women awakening to a spreading commotion. Mischievous giggles rode the air on the way across the garden and over to the apothecary's quarters, where the slender fingers of a tawny hand did not knock before pressing down the front door latch, pushing the door wide open.

"It worked!"

The short, balding man puttering about his quarters' kitchen paused from his breakfast preparations and turned to look, with a minimal measure of surprise, at the triumphant young woman standing across the way in his sitting room entrance, letting in the chill morning air. "What worked?" he asked her.

"The spices. I had only to sprinkle a pinch under Fauri's nose, and she shook and sneezed right awake! What a potent mixture. She might still be sneezing, if she has not yet had the sense to stop yelling for me and to go douse her face."

The man issued a groan. "Bah—Naona! For the sake of the stars! Why must you use my mixtures to torment your friends so?"

"And why must you always gripe about it?" Naona laughed. "You knew precisely what I would do when you gave the spices to me."

"Of course I knew what you would do, but again, why must you? Toenails being turned green, bowls of reeking liquids hidden behind curtains and smelling up rooms, itch-inducing herbs being flicked upon the backs of unsuspecting necks, and now sneezing people out of their sleep! You are past full grown. Have not you gotten on in years to continue such pranks?"

"I have just reached my twenty-third year, hardly an old—"

"Bah!" the apothecary interrupted. "And look at you. Barging into my quarters first thing in the morn in your nightclothes and unshod feet! Are you trying to get me killed, nise?"

"Nothing of the sort," Naona answered, stepping inside the sitting room and closing the front door behind her. "Everyone is too preoccupied with the war up north to have any useless thought of killing you. Besides, I never injure anyone or cause permanent damage, and nobody cares about my making harmless visits to a little old man."

"I am not a little old man, thank you, and these visits are in no way harmless," the apothecary argued, wiping his hands on the smock covering his tunic and trousers and puttering his way out of the kitchen toward Naona. "Not when you constantly use my remedies to wreak your havoc. I am trying to teach you to be a healer, and yet you are only becoming more of a pain in the empire's backside. Our master has never kept a tight enough rein on you."

"Reins are for horses." Naona leaned down to plant a smacking kiss on the hairless crown of the man's head as he approached her. "And a good morning to you too, pilo."

"It was, before you crashed in upon it like a reckless hawk. And this mop of yours, flying about." He waved fussy fingers around Naona's head before he took her hand. "Do something with it, will you? I ought not to see your hair unbound, you beautiful thing. I am not your man. Here, come and sit for tea and an egg," he bid her, tugging her toward the kitchen.

"Two eggs, please," Naona requested, stumbling at the apothecary's haste, her free hand going up to her hair. "But you will have to excuse my head. I did not bring anything for it."

"I trust that you have brought room to put something in it though, no? I have a mixture to teach you after we eat. It is for pallid fever."

While the unlikely but enduring pair of them sat and chatted over breakfast, Naona giving the apothecary a teasing wink over her steaming teacup, the man shook his head, thinking as he often did that this maidservant favorite of their master's, King Aud of Munda, was much too appealing for her own good.

~~~

Continue the Movement of Crowns series with a copy of  The Movement of Rings.
