Page 99 of The Dandelion Princess
“Did Oskar want her to bail?” I ask.
Noah shakes his head. “No. He loves her.” He says it like it’s an emotion one shouldn’t encourage. “They’re falling over each other to make the greater sacrifice.”
“He’s just going to let her make it?”
Noah takes a tennis ball out of his pocket and chucks it. His dog waits and waits until he gives a brief command, then bounds onto the lawn.
“There’s no ‘let’ with the women in my family.” Noah retrieves the ball and sends it sailing away again.
“What about Ella?”
“What does Ella have to do with anything?” When I don’t answer, Noah continues. “Do you have any updates? You must have talked some sense into her. She’s been pretty decent, even if she’s mad that it’s Freja who gets to leave.”
My skin electrifies with the memory of holding Ella in my arms, crying her eyes out, but determined to understand her twin. Barely giving herself permission to be upset about something that is going to affect her life in ways she can’t even guess at. Deciding to stay, to make her peace, and to put down her weapons.
I’m so proud of her, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to punch Noah more. “We talked a little.”
My crown prince throws the ball again, lobbing it in the direction of the grace and favor cottages. “She’ll get over it. Ella can’t hold a grudge.”
I ball my hand into a fist.Stultes es, if he knew about her plan to unseat Torbald... “Would it kill you to take care of her for once?”
“Take care? She’s not exactly a delicate flower,” he laughs. “She can wrestle any of us to the ground—and she cheats.”
I know she cheats. She bit my shoulder once when I was holding one of her school notebooks just out of reach. What was she afraid I was going to see? Girlish scribbles? But she also worries over everyone’s happiness in a way I wish just one member of her family would worry over hers.
I suppose this is what you get when you hold your own against the most powerful monarch in the North Sea Confederation. People forget you need taking care of.
“She’ll forgive Freja, you know,” Noah says. He must see hostility in the set of my jaw. “Not because we force her to, butbecause no matter how many threats she makes, Ella’s heart is as soft as butter. If anyone she loves is hurt, she’ll go to war.”
My hand unclenches.
“What is your mother going to do with Freja?” I ask.
“She’ll make a big opening demand from Torbald—something like keeping the HRH, even though that’s already a lost cause. Then she’ll follow up with a more reasonable concession like having Freja still attend key royal functions. She might get to wear a tiara and sash, but she would have to sit at the bottom of the banquet tables with the unwashed masses.”
“That’s long term. What’s Her Majesty’s plan for the short term?”
“The pregnancy helps.” Poor little Hiorulf or Annika, already hard at work in the royal mines. Noah’s smile is cynical. “We’re going to have to shift the public’s attention.”
“How?” I already know how. I’ve been playing this game almost as long as Noah has.
“You know the playbook. We need to find someone suitable for Ella and me.”
He’s not being callous, merely clear-eyed. This is how the monarchy has gripped Sondmark in an unbroken line for 800 years. There is enough of it in my blood to understand.
But the idea of Ella being served up on national television as a blushing bride in a dress dazzling enough to hide Freja’s legal troubles… My hand clenches again.
“I’m on the list,” I say, my voice hoarse with tension.
“It wasn’t a threat.” Noah slaps me on the back. “I wouldn’t let them do that to you.”
It’s not too late to push his teeth in. “When is it your turn for marriage?”
“I’m ready now.”
I grunt, and the cool night air ruffles my hair. “So what’s stopping you?”
The hound comes bounding back with the tennis ball in his mouth. Noah works it out of his jaw and lobs it again. “Nothing, when I figure out how to get what I want.”
