Page 71 of Crown Prince's Mate

“I wanted to wait to do the ceremony tomorrow. I wouldn’t do it without you two there,” I say, but my smile feels weaker now as I walk into the threshold of my home.

Oakly pulls off his cloak, hanging it on the wooden pegs and kicking off his boots, pushing them under the bench, while my mom and sister go into the main living area, which is an open-concept kitchen and dining room. I close the door behind me and sit a little too heavily on the wooden bench that grows from the floor, nurtured from the living wood. This home has been here for hundreds of years, a completed habitat. It is alive and seems to breathe as I run my hands over the smooth wood of the bench, take off my shoes, and place them neatly under the bench, where cubby holes were formed over decades .

The soft glow of the living area soothes me. Bioluminescent plants cast a warm glow over the space, illuminating the walls. The first thing that catches my eye is the ancestor wall. Each generation presses their hand against the wood, and over the years, the faint outline becomes more prominent, the wood growing over the years around it. My own family’s handprints are light, but our oldest ancestors’ are clear and visible. It was they who imagined this home for us, pressing their hands against the trunk that is in the center of the home before the wood had even started to form.

My mom is filling the solar kettle with water, gently humming with stored energy as she unscrews a jar of chamomile, lavender and a touch of Virelian mint. A blend to calm, because despite being back with my family, there’s an edge of tension that won’t leave.

Oakly and June are sitting on the long wooden sofa, with cushions woven from the grasses in the south, and my mom is making tea, a familiar scene. The only thing that doesn’t fit inanymore is me. I sit there for a moment longer, processing the moment. I can almost pretend that nothing has changed.

Almost.

“Well come on then, what are you waiting for?” comes Oakly’s voice.

June turns her nose up at my uniform. “You might be the big, bad Prime Minister out there. But here, you’re my sister. Come on, you gotta change,” she says, and jumps to her feet.

“Lead the way,” I say, and she rushes up the spiral staircase to the second level of our four-story home. I follow behind, down the hallway into my untouched bedroom. The few times I’ve been able to visit since joining the Administration, it’s always felt like a portal into the past. The window frames the endless forest, the deciduous leaves I used to watch shift through the seasons, back when summer was endless, when fall came slow.

June flings open my closet door. It’s a crafted piece from our carpenters, but it’s made so well it could have been born into the wood of the walls. She reaches it, ruffling through clothes, and pulls out a familiar green dress.

“Do you think it’ll still fit?” I’ve gained a few pounds, thanks to countless official dinners and the calorie-dense mush they serve in the ship cafeterias. No one’s above the standard fare in the Administration.

“It’ll fit. You’re always so obsessed about your weight,” she retorts.

“Easy for you to say!” I always tried not to be jealous of my younger sister, not even when guys I liked suddenly seemed to find me invisible when they saw her.

“Just put it on,” she says, rolling her eyes. I slip out of the gray uniform eagerly. It feels so out of place here. I slide into the green dress, and miraculously, it still fits perfectly. Memories flood back. I wore this dress the first time at the harvest festival, dancing under the planet’s twin moons which bathedthe village in orange light. I kissed my first love, laughing until I couldn’t breathe with my friends, drinking mulled wine that made my head spin when I spiraled around on the dance floor. I remember saying to June I wished that night would last forever. It feels like a lifetime ago.

“Pretty as ever,” grins June. “You’re wasted on those grim grays,” she says, glaring at my crumpled uniform on my bed like it personally offended her.

“Remember when we used to strut up and down the hallways?”

“Used to? I still do! Mom’s going crazy telling me to get a boyfriend and get my own place, but I know she’d be lost without me.”

“You, having trouble finding a boyfriend?”

She smiles. “Oh, that’s part easy. It’s just deciding which I like best that’s oh so much trouble…”

“Tea’s ready!” comes my mom’s voice from below.

Descending the spiral staircase, I’m handed my favorite gray stone mug, piping warm. When I bought it at the market my mom chided me that it didn’t match anything, but she let it slide. Oakly groans theatrically, getting to his feet to get his own mug, and once we have our tea, we all plop down on the couch, June to my left, Oakly to the right.

Mom parks in her favorite chair across from us. The scene is an echo of our family gatherings, and I can tell how meaningful it is for Mom to see all her children together. Oakly’s job as a warden must keep him out of the village for months at a time, and I’m glad June choose to stick around. It would be a silent home with my serious dad and my elegant, reserved mother.

I take my first sip, luxuriating in the familiar taste. It’s a momentary reprieve, a stolen pocket of time where we can pretend everything is as it once was.

My mom raises her eyebrows. “You know, you were the good one, Adriana. June, bless her heart, wouldn’t surprise me a moment if she was dating three guys at the same time. But you…”

“Hey. Be fair,” I answer. Oakly grimaces. He was trying to forget the Aurelian triad.

“So, what are they like?” asks June. She jumps up from the couch, pulling a seat made of a chunk of wood so she can sit across from me.

“Not as bad as I expected,” I reply, struggling to find the right way to describe them. They’re beasts. They’re protectors. Conquerors, but not without hearts. I thought their code of honor damned them to do terrible things in the pursuit of victory.

Now I see they’ll risk everything for what is right.

I have no way to express my convoluted feelings for the triad to my family. I couldn’t have explained them to my former self even a week ago.

My mom takes a long sip of her tea. She places her cup down precisely on the coffee table, which is a branch snaking up from the wooden floor with a rounded, flat surface that took seventy years to cultivate. “If my daughter is getting married to these three men, I’m going to meet them first. They are coming for dinner,” she orders.

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