The Bravest Princess Read online

  “Who was that?” Emilio asked Annie as the woman hustled her daughter from the room.

  “I think that was one of the flower girls,” said Annie. After pushing the largest blackened bits to one side of her bowl, she tasted the less-burned porridge and decided that it wasn’t too terrible. She glanced down the length of the table before asking Emilio, “Where are the rest of the princes?”

  “Your Prince Liam is out talking with the guards, and Beldegard is getting dressed. The others are in their rooms still,” said Emilio.

  Annie had been hoping to see Beldegard’s brother, Maitland, at breakfast. He had told her that he wanted to win Snow White’s hand, so he’d probably want to hear about the message she had sent. Annie was wondering if she should send him a message of her own, but then Liam walked in and she forgot all about it. She smiled as he took a seat beside her.

  “Your father has decided that the tower is the best place to keep Granny Bentbone for now,” said Liam. “He was a little hesitant at first because the tower lies in Dorinocco, but I assured him that it would be all right. My father feels guilty that Mother caused so much trouble when she tried to take over your kingdom, so he’s willing to help in whatever way he can. Anyway, your father sent guards ahead to get the tower ready. Tomorrow morning I’m going to accompany the men who are taking Granny Bentbone. I’ll go see my father and explain everything after we have the old witch locked away.”

  Annie glanced up when two girls in matching pale green gowns sat down at the table. Although Annie and Liam had been formally introduced to Beldegard’s sisters at supper the night before, the girls acted as if they didn’t know anyone. They started a whispered conversation, but within a few minutes their voices rose and Annie couldn’t help but hear them.

  “I still can’t believe how rude those guards were to us,” said the girl named Willa. “They should have let us go wherever we wanted. I think we should report them to Father. He would never let guards talk to us that way at home.”

  Liam leaned forward so he could see past the other people at the table. “Pardon me for interrupting, but where did you want to go?” he asked the girls.

  “The North Tower,” replied the twin named Tyne, whose braid was already coming undone.

  “We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Willa added, sounding defensive.

  Liam sat back and turned to Annie. “The entrance to the dungeon is in the North Tower. Granny Bentbone must still be trying to call the children to her.”

  “Then she has to leave the castle as soon as possible,” Annie replied. “We should tell Beldegard’s father about Granny Bentbone. Maybe he can keep his daughters from trying to reach her.” She looked up when one of her mother’s ladies-in-waiting appeared at the end of the table. “Yes, Lady Clare?”

  The middle-aged woman curtsied. “Queen Karolina requires your presence in her chamber.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Annie told her. Lady Clare had already begun to walk away when Annie stood and said to Liam, “At least I got a little time to myself.”

  Liam laughed. “I’m surprised you got away this long.”

  “So am I,” said Annie, straightening her shoulders as if she were heading into battle.

  When Annie reached her mother’s chamber, she found Gwendolyn in tears and her mother scolding one of the ladies-in-waiting. “Thank goodness you’re here, Annabelle!” the queen exclaimed. “I told Lady Cecily to hold on to Gwendolyn’s necklace for one minute, but she’s somehow managed to lose it. Tell me,” she said, turning back to Cecily, “what did you do with the necklace?”

  “I don’t remember, Your Highness,” the girl replied with a nervous tremor to her voice. “I had it in my hand, and then it was gone! Maybe someone used magic to take it!”

  “I doubt that,” said Annie as she joined them. “Why don’t you try retracing your steps?”

  When the queen nodded, the lady-in-waiting let her gaze wander around the room. “Well, I was standing over here when you told me to hold it, Your Highness,” she said, crossing to a table. “Then I watched Princess Gwendolyn try on the other necklaces. And then you told me to fetch the brush, so I walked past the bed like this and … oh, I know! I set the necklace down here and … look, I found it!” Cecily held up a necklace of sparkling diamonds with a triumphant flourish.

  “Good! Try to be more careful next time,” said the queen. “I don’t know what we would have—”

  “Mother!” Gwendolyn cried, a look of horror in her eyes. “Did you see the wreath for my hair? This rose is all wrong!”

  “It looks fine to me,” said Annie.

  “No, no! It’s a shade lighter than the others. They all have to be exactly the same!”

  “Gwendolyn is right,” said the queen. “I don’t know how many times I told the woman who arranged the flowers that the wreath has to be perfect!”

  “Give it to me,” Annie said. “I’ll take care of it.” Relieved that she had an excuse to leave the room, Annie took the wreath and returned to the great hall. She went straight to Marie and explained the problem.

  “Oh dear,” said the maid. “I see what she means. I don’t know how that got past me. I’ll fix it right away.”

  In just a few minutes, Annie was on her way back upstairs with the wreath. She was only partway down the corridor when she heard raised voices. Peeking into the room, she saw her sister seated on a bench, breathing in short, quick gasps, a look of panic on her face. Her ladies-in-waiting fluttered around her, while Queen Karolina’s ladies clustered around the queen, who was telling everyone to stay calm.

  “What’s wrong now?” Annie asked as she handed the wreath to a lady-in-waiting.

  “Marietta and her mother are missing. Marietta is one of my flower girls,” Gwendolyn cried.

  “Does she have flaxen hair and blue-gray eyes?” said Annie, thinking of the little girl at breakfast.

  Gwendolyn nodded. “That sounds about right.”

  “I’ll look for her,” said Annie. While the ladies-in-waiting tried to calm Gwendolyn, Annie left the room and hurried down the corridor. Certain that the castle steward would know which rooms were assigned to which guests, she went to the man’s office. He wasn’t there, so she sent a passing footman to find him.

  Nearly twenty minutes passed before the steward appeared, red-faced and apologetic. “I’m so sorry you had to wait, Your Highness!” he gushed, wiping the sweat from his brow with a silk cloth. “I’ve been running around all morning.”

  “I understand,” Annie reassured him. “I’m looking for Marietta and her mother. Marietta is a flower girl in my sister’s wedding. Do you know which room they’re in?”

  “I do indeed,” said the steward. “Marietta is Lady Bentley’s daughter. Would you like me to send for them?”

  Annie shook her head. “I think the girl might be unwell. I’ll go there myself if you’ll tell me where to find them.”

  “I’ll have someone escort you,” he said, opening the door. He summoned another footman and gave him instructions.

  “This way, Your Highness,” the footman said, leading the way down the corridor and through the great hall. It took only a few minutes to find the right room. When she learned that the girl had a simple stomachache, Annie sent a maid for ginger tea and told Lady Bentley to get her daughter to the queen’s chamber as soon as she was able to. Worried that Gwendolyn might still be panicking, Annie hurried back to her.

  “I found your flower girl,” Annie told her sister. “She should be here soon.”

  “Then she’d better hurry. We have to start down to the great hall in just a few minutes,” said Gwendolyn. Running her hand across her sleeve, she smiled up at Annie. “Don’t you just love the color of my gown? I think it matches my eyes perfectly!”

  “Blue for purity!” exclaimed Lady Clare. “That’s what all brides wear! Now, Your Highness,” she said, approaching Annie with a handful of flowers, “I’m glad you’re here. All the princess’s attendants are wearing flowers in t
heir hair. Hold still while I put these in. Oh dear, your hair is a tangled mess. Lady Patrice, bring me that brush.”

  The youngest lady-in-waiting looked sullen when she brought the brush. No one seemed to notice but Annie.

  In just minutes, Lady Clare’s deft hands had Annie’s normally tousled hair brushed until it shone and had fastened flowers among her curls. “You have unusually thick hair. Too bad it isn’t a prettier color. Even so, this should do. There, you look very nice,” the lady-in-waiting announced. “Come to the mirror and see for yourself.”

  Guiding Annie to the back of the room, Lady Clare turned her so that she was facing the large gilt-framed mirror on the wall. “That looks better,” the woman told her. They both smiled at Annie’s reflection. She might not be as beautiful as her sister, or even as beautiful as the ladies-in-waiting, but she did look pretty.

  Suddenly Lady Clare gasped. She was looking at her own image and seeing for the first time what she would have looked like if magic hadn’t made her beautiful. Her normally shapely nose and lips were thin, and her vivid blue eyes had become pale and set close together. “Oh my!” she exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth. Casting a horrified glance at Annie, she backed away, saying, “We should probably go now.”

  Annie was used to this reaction, having seen it for most of her life. Since the day the fairy Moonbeam gave Annie her only magical christening gift, no other magic could touch the little princess. Unfortunately, this fairy-given gift did more than make her impervious to magic. It also reduced the magical gifts of anyone who came near her and removed their magic temporarily if Annie actually touched them. Because all the other members of her family were gifted with beauty, charm, and the talents deemed necessary for royalty, they had learned to keep their distance from Annie. In fact, anyone with any magic had stayed as far from her as possible until the day she broke Gwendolyn’s curse and earned the gratitude of everyone in the kingdom.

  “I need to talk to Annie,” Gwendolyn called from across the room. Gesturing for most of her ladies-in-waiting to stand by the queen, the bride waited impatiently while Annie approached. Gwendolyn spoke in a lowered voice that Annie was sure everyone could still hear. “I’ve decided that I want you to lead my wedding procession into the great hall. You’ve done so much for me that I think you deserve the honor.”

  “That’s very nice of you, but I thought Lady Cecily—”

  “Lady Cecily is my oldest lady-in-waiting, so she’s my maid of honor. She’ll walk in right before my flower girls, who will strew petals in my path,” Gwendolyn explained.

  Annie nodded. “So you want me to walk in first and stand by the wall?”

  “Exactly!” said Gwendolyn.

  “And as far from the rest of us as possible,” Cecily said in a loud whisper.

  Annie’s fingers curled into fists as she fought not to say what she was thinking, but when she saw the smug look on the faces of the ladies-in-waiting, she couldn’t help blurting out, “This doesn’t have anything to do with honor. You don’t want me near you so you’ll stay beautiful.” Narrowing her eyes, she studied Gwendolyn’s face and saw that her sister’s beauty had begun to fade even though they were still yards apart.

  “I wouldn’t put it like that, exactly,” said Gwendolyn.

  “Who’s going to walk behind Annie?” someone asked.

  “Patrice will, of course,” said Cecily.

  “Why me?” cried Patrice.

  “Because you’re the youngest lady-in-waiting,” Cecily told her.

  “It’s time to proceed to the great hall, ladies!” announced the queen.

  “I’ll see you down there,” Annie said, her cheeks flaming as she left the room.

  Even as she hurried along the corridor, she could hear Patrice cry, “This isn’t fair! I want to look beautiful, too!”

  “It’s not worth getting mad about,” Annie muttered to herself. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure she shouldn’t have been surprised. A bride would want to look her best on her wedding day, especially when she had the reputation of being the most beautiful princess in all the kingdoms. Even so, Annie couldn’t help but feel hurt after all she’d done for Gwendolyn. And she’d thought they were starting to get along so well!

  Chapter 3

  The corridors were nearly deserted, so it didn’t take Annie long to reach the great hall. The musicians were already playing, though stragglers were still going in. Stepping to the side to let people pass, Annie felt something snag the toe of her shoe. She bent down to look, and someone bumped into her, knocking the flowers from one side of Annie’s hair. Before she could pick them up, they were trampled into the herbs on the floor.

  The other members of the wedding party had begun to gather in the corridor, forming a line by a different door. Gwendolyn waved to her from the back of the line, then frowned and pointed to Annie’s hair.

  “Here,” Annie said to a passing footman as she handed him the broken flowers. “Please ask Marie for replacements. I need them right away.”

  The ladies-in-waiting glowered at Annie as she passed them on her way to the front of the line. Lady Patrice hung back, scowling as if daring Annie to come closer.

  Annie waited, nervously looking around for Marie to bring the flowers. Even after the music for the procession started, she dawdled as long as she could. When she finally felt someone tucking flowers into her hair, she would have turned around to thank Marie, but everyone was looking her way. Facing forward with her head held high, she started down the aisle. She was partway to the dais when she glanced back to make sure that Patrice was following her and saw that the lady-in-waiting had let a large gap form between them. Wearing a strained smile, Annie continued walking. When she reached the point where she had to turn, she headed toward the side of the hall, walking far enough from the others that she was standing just past one of the pillars.

  Annie couldn’t see very much from where she stood other than the flower-covered tables to her left, the pillar beside her, and the backs of some of the attendants. Focused on trying to hear what everyone was saying, she didn’t notice the smell at first. When she did, she crinkled her nose and looked around. It was an odd smell, sickly sweet and bitter at the same time. Then the odor changed, smelling as if something was burning.

  Fire in a castle was always a danger, with all the fireplaces, torches, candles, and people packed so closely together. The candles near her weren’t lit and wouldn’t be until later in the day, when the sunlight was no longer streaming through the high windows. It was warm out, so the fireplaces in the great hall weren’t lit, either. When she turned her head, the smell seemed to be equally strong in every direction. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the highly polished copper bowls on a nearby table. Although her reflection wasn’t too clear, she could just make out the shape of her face, the color of the flowers in her hair, and smoke rising from one of the flowers.

  “What th—” Annie exclaimed. Bending down, she batted at the flower, knocking it to the ground. It continued to smoke, making the herbs on the floor curl and turn brown around it. Afraid it would start a real fire, Annie yanked the flowers out of the copper bowl and emptied the water onto the smoking blossom. Even when it was lying in a puddle of water, the flower continued to smoke.

  Annie turned to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone was singing now and still looking toward the bride and groom. It was up to her to take care of this, and if water wouldn’t put it out, she had to find something that would. Using the bowl to scoop up the flower and the herbs turning brown around it, she hurried from the hall down the cleared space between the pillars and the tables.

  She was hoping to find something she could use in the kitchen, so she headed down the corridor at a run. Bursting into the room, she caught the busy cooks’ attention by shouting, “I need help!”

  “You sure do!” cried one of the kitchen helpers. “Your head is on fire!”

  “Quick! Get a bucket of water!” shouted
a cook.

  “It’s not my head, it’s the flower in this bowl,” Annie said, holding up the bowl to show them.

  “Maybe so, but it’s your head, too!” yelled a kitchen helper as she dumped a bucket of cold water on Annie.

  “Stop!” Annie cried as the scullery maid came running with another bucket. Everyone in the kitchen gathered around her, arguing about what to use if water wouldn’t put the fire out.

  Annie reached up and was about to touch her head when the cook in charge of the kitchen knocked her hand away. “Don’t touch it or you’ll burn your hand. Sit down and let me look at this,” the cook ordered her, shoving her onto a bench. “There’s something in your hair, and it’s still burning, even as wet as it is. Get me a knife. I’m going to have to cut this hair out before it spreads to the rest.”

  “Please hurry!” Annie exclaimed. She could feel the heat of the fire now, which made it all seem more real. The cook hacked away at her hair, dropping the pieces into the copper bowl, where the flower was still burning.

  “Careful,” said one of the other cooks. “You don’t want to touch that green stuff. That’s what’s burning, isn’t it?”

  “What’s going on here?” Liam bellowed from the doorway.

  He turned pale when he saw the cooks gathered around Annie and that one of them was sawing away at her head with a butcher’s knife. Taking two steps, he bounded over a broad table and was about to tackle the cook when Annie yelled, “Don’t! They’re helping me. There was something on a flower someone stuck in my hair. It burned the flower and started burning my hair.”

  “We’re cutting off the hair that’s smoking,” said the cook, who was still chopping away. “It’s odd—there aren’t any flames, but it burns as if there were. There, that should do it.” Dropping a final chunk of hair into the bowl, she handed the bowl to Liam. “Smells foul, doesn’t it?”

  “How much did you have to take off?” Annie asked, running her hand over her head.