I nodded, letting out a breath. “It’s a big relief actually.” My face fell. “Not that I suddenly have any more options for practicing than I did before.”
Bryony straightened in her chair. “That’s one good thing about being back at the Academy soon. We’ll have more opportunities there. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”
“Hopefully you’re right.”
“I generally am,” she told me with a twinkle. “And personally, if I were you, I would stick with the ‘I’m a prodigy’ explanation. You deserve it after thinking you had no powers at all for so long.”
I laughed. “Why do I feel like you would absolutely claim to be a prodigy in my circumstances?”
“Because I’m shameless?” Bryony chuckled. “But now you’d better head back to your own rooms. We’re going to have to go to the evening meal with work site dust all over us if we don’t hurry up and get changed.”
I looked down at my gown and then guiltily at my friend’s bedspread. “I think I already got it all over half your room.”
“Never mind that.” Bryony waved away my concerns. “But this is our last meal with your family, and I don’t want to be late.”
She shooed me out the door, and I went willingly, her words having redirected my thoughts. As much as I found my mind turning more and more constantly to the Academy, I still didn’t like the idea of this being my last meal with my family.
I had hated not being able to tell them the truth of my new abilities. It put up a barrier between us, even if they didn’t know it was there. But I had still enjoyed having time with them again. Especially now that my love for my brothers wasn’t complicated by my constant need to suppress my resentment that they had both received abilities from our parents while I had not. I would miss them when I returned to the Academy.
We ate the meal in a private dining room reserved for my family. My aunt didn’t join us, and I felt guiltily glad. Aunt Lucienne loved us, I knew that, but she was always queen first and aunt second. It was the reason I couldn’t risk telling anyone in my family about my new ability. I couldn’t risk the crown of either kingdom finding out my potential as a weapon—especially a weapon against my own mother.
The summer hadn’t taken away my fear that as soon as either kingdom discovered the truth, I would be reduced to nothing more than a tool—and one too full of danger and potential to be allowed to travel freely between the kingdoms. My aunt’s crown created a barrier that wasn’t there when it was just my parents and brothers.
Her presence always affected Lucien as well. With us he could be himself, but when my aunt was around, he never forgot he was crown prince. It made sense she had taken him under her wing, molding him to be like herself. He was her heir, after all. But I had long suspected that it pained my parents to see their son so weighed down with responsibility.
They never tried to curb the time he spent with our aunt, though. They understood that being monarch was the kind of job you needed to be trained for from birth because it was a role that consumed all of you. Lucien would always have to put Ardann first, and it was better that he was raised to understand that from the beginning. But I still enjoyed the moments we got to spend just with our family, not thinking about what was to come.
I was the last to arrive, entering the room just in time to see Bryony present my mother with the sculpture, accompanied by an explanation of its history.
My mother embraced her in response. “Thank you, Bree. It’s beautiful.”
My father put his arm around my mother’s shoulders. “The symbolism is perfect. It’s a thoughtful gift, Bryony.”
Mother turned slightly, and I suspected she was surreptitiously wiping her eyes against his jacket. But when she turned back to us all, she was all smiles.
“I’ll put it here.” She placed it in the center of the table, my father removing the vase of flowers that had been standing there before she asked, anticipating her want as he so often did. “Then we can all admire it while we eat.”
We all sat down, my parents at the head and foot of the table and two of us on each side. The room would have taken a larger table, but my mother had always insisted this smaller one remain. She wanted us all to be able to talk comfortably.
Over the initial scraping of chair legs and clanking of cutlery, my younger brother, Stellan, leaned toward me. “I don’t know that I’d want a flower growing out of my hand, to be honest,” he said in an under voice.
I grinned at him. “Didn’t you hear what Father said? It’s symbolism, Stell.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying. I’m all for grasping hands across the divide, and what have you, I’d just rather not have roots through my tendons.”
“You’re going to have to learn something about romance if you ever want to convince a girl to marry you.”
“Ha!” He grinned back at me, showing all his teeth. “I think you’re forgetting I’m a prince. And the lucky kind who doesn’t ever have to be king. The girls will be falling all over themselves just as soon as I start at the Academy.”
I snorted, although his words reminded me uncomfortably of Prince Jareth. Darius had always insisted his brother felt the same way as Stellan—that he saw the throne as something to be avoided rather than coveted. I wasn’t so sure.
I took a mouthful of soup. “You’re just lucky Lucien will graduate before you start.”
We both turned to examine our older brother. If I looked like my grandmother, everyone had always said Lucien was the exact image of my father when young. And even I had to admit his bright green eyes were striking against his dark, almost black hair. Although we shared the hair color, I had sometimes envied him those eyes, although my mother always assured me the glints of gold in my own brown eyes were just as beautiful. But then, as my mother, she could hardly be viewed as having an objective opinion.
Lucien, sensing our scrutiny, looked up from his bowl and narrowed his eyes at us both. “What are you two plotting?” His voice held all the superiority of an older sibling.
“We’re just marveling at what a fine specimen you are,” I said in a tone of utmost innocence.
He choked on his mouthful of soup and had to pause to cough it back up. Once he’d recovered his breath, he gave me a baleful glare.
“Now I know you’re up to something.”
“Leave your sister alone,” Father said. “It’s her last meal with us, remember.”
I gave Lucien the prim smile I knew always left him fuming and quickly finished my own bowl. Mother looked between us and shook her head, a smile on her face that was half-amused, half-indulgent. She was probably thinking of her own brother and sister.
“Maybe we can foist him off on Bree,” Stellan said abruptly, continuing our quiet conversation at full volume. “Then the way will be clear for me.”
Bryony, sitting across from him, looked up from her soup in alarm. “If you’re talking about Lucien needing some extra energy compositions to keep on hand, then I’m more than happy to help out, but if it’s anything else you have in mind…” She shook her head so vigorously she nearly lost a hair pin from the rather haphazard arrangement on her head.