3
Owen
Aric bundled the little princess into his arms as she beat weak fists against his chest and cried with all the force of a new widow. What on earth had we all done wrong?
She was like a little confection, all her silk flounces and light brown curls like whips of cream around the sweet berry of flesh. I'd missed her younger sister's choosing while in the army, and I'd tried not to be too optimistic about my chances with Princess Bryony, but she'd called my name in her sharp and clear voice in the dining hall and here I was, exactly where I'd dreamed of landing one day. Being one of the Chosen wasn't just an honor, it was a life of destined luxury, something I'd imagined but never pictured clearly until arriving this morning in the capital.
Except now…
I had no idea what was happening.
"Shhhh," Aric soothed, gathering the young woman up and settling himself comfortably against the high pile of pillows in her massive throne of a bed. Princess Bryony only wept louder for all his soothing, but she clung to him, fingers fisted in his shirt as he stroked her back and her hair.
"I don't understand," the Mennary prince murmured, looking to his ambassador, who shook his equally perplexed head.
Cosmo, who I'd made easy conversation with in the waiting rooms, climbed onto the mattress as well, reaching his hand out to rest it over the top of her foot. She didn't pull away, although with the great heaping sobs and hiccups she was making against Aric's chest, she probably didn't have it in her to do much else.
"I'm…I'm broken," she cracked out, words muffled against Aric's shirt.
He rolled his eyes, but his hands made steady and soothing passes over the top of her head and down her back.
"You're nothing of the kind, princess," he said.
Princess Bryony pulled away from him then, eyes and cheeks shining with tears, a flush staining her skin. "I don't—I'm not—I don't…"
"You don't have the Hunger," Cosmo whispered.
She froze then, eyes as wide as a doe's, and her hands clenched in her lap, trembling until I thought she might slap him. Then she released a great sigh and her knees bundled up to her chest, hands covering her face.
"No, I don't."
The prince stumbled away from the bed, a hand covering his face, and I shot him and the pretty boy, Wendell Pope, a glare of warning before going to join the others on the bed.
"That doesn't make you broken," I said. I didn't really understand the Hunger. In my personal experience, if a girl liked a lad, she was plenty hungry for him, royalty or not. Usually, she got more than one look and a few numbers to decide if that was the case.
"It makes me unfit to rule," Bryony moaned, lifting her face from her hands to glance at me. She shifted, her dress making a pretty, liquid sound as she moved. She was, by far, the softest thing or person I'd ever touched in my entire life, and if it weren't for the clear memory of her own panic as she pulled away, I would've reached for her again.
"I've put this off for years, and my grandmother, she…she knows I'm not right. In the morning, they'll take my sheets and they'll see I've failed." Bryony wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her knuckle, sniffling until Cosmo drew out a paint marked handkerchief from his pocket.
She smiled at him, a wobbly and sweet little look, and brushed her thumb across one blue smudge, before raising it to her nose.
"If you knew you didn't have the Hunger, why on earth have the ceremony in the first place?" Thao asked, his voice rising.
"Keep your voice down," Wendell murmured to him, catching him by the elbow and drawing him over to the bed. "Your Highness, we can fake the sheets easily enough."
Cosmo snorted and shrugged. "That's true. But sooner or later, the men in the next room will expect to be needed." We paused as the princess shuddered. Aric was watching her. He had been ever since she'd entered the dining hall this evening.
I'd heard of Aric Martin, owner of the Wing and Rook tavern and rumored magician and thief. I'd expected him to pay more attention to the riches that surrounded us than the princess herself, but he watched her like a hawk that had found its next prey. It wasn't sexual, like the other men, or even a sort of basic admiration, like the way Cosmo's eyes traveled over her. It was calculation.
"What happens when the queen discovers the first in line is lacking the Hunger?" Aric asked.
"The crown will go to my sister, Camellia," Bryony said softly, brow furrowing. "She has her Chosen already and can barely be sated by them as it is. She'll take more soon, no doubt, but Grandmother insisted I go first."
"What will happen to you?" I asked, my arm finding its way around her shoulders, sighing as she leaned willingly into my chest.
"I don't know. It isn't… I want to serve my people. Grandmother said that there being two daughters with the Hunger while my mother was still on the throne would bring Kimmery into a new golden age. Women of the queen's line have so few children, and for there to be two daughters was supposed to be a blessing to Kimmery. And now I've let them all down."
Aric scoffed and slid off the bed, boots hitting the floor and heading for one of the balconies. Good riddance. I didn't know enough about the man, and I'd thought he'd been prepared to force the nervous princess into sex earlier. He hadn't though, I reminded myself. I had to credit him that. He wasn't very kind to the young woman, but he wasn't a monster.
Aric paused in one of the open doorways and threw over his shoulder, "The last thing this kingdom needs is another woman on her back, princess."
And then he ducked out of sight. Princess Bryony stared after him, sitting upright and frowning.
"What does he mean?" she whispered, turning to look at the rest of us. "The Hunger is the force for prosperity in Kimmery."
Quiet answered the princess's declaration, and her gaze darted between us until Prince Thao cleared his throat.
"Certainly to be Chosen for your—the Hunger's use is a great honor," he said slowly and carefully. "But Kimmery's wealth is largely to do with your exports from the northern territory…"
The princess shifted away from me, kneeling to face us with her shoulders back and her chin high. I forced my eyes above the subtle curves of her breasts and then swallowed when I found her elegant throat equally fascinating.
"You believe the Hunger is…less responsible?" Bryony asked.
"Excuse me for the impertinence, Your Highness, but many find the Hunger to be a…a charming superstition," Wendell said, bowing lowly as if it might soften the words. "And a great honor to be Chosen, of course."
I looked to Cosmo, who was leaning back on his palms, watching the princess study us each in turn before gazing out after Aric on the balcony.
"Do you prefer women?" Cosmo asked. Bryony shook her head, and he pushed. "Are you certain?"
"I…I do have desires," she said, and my hands fisted against my thighs at the sight of her blush. "I enjoy reading and I…I daydream for the characters, the heroes. I fantasize," she said, with that perfectly proud tilt to her chin she used when she was embarrassed and refusing to admit as much. "It's just that you're all…strangers." Her nose wrinkled, and she shrugged. "Reasonably, I see that you are handsome, and I know that I should—"