of my voice but making no apology for it.
“It doesn’t look cursed.”
I could feel that his eyes had returned to me—no doubt full of far too many questions—so I kept my own turned resolutely away. He let the silence draw out, filled only with the splash and flap of the swans, who had mostly returned to foraging in the lake.
Eventually he must have realized that I didn’t intend to offer any answers because he spoke again.
“I still can’t quite believe I’ve actually found you. I’ve been looking through every village and town in the forest since winter first loosened its grip. Well, all those on our side of the border, at least. Dominic already searched those on his side last autumn.”
I stiffened at the mention of my brother, and suddenly I was the one full of questions. I managed to keep them locked inside, however, as Gabe continued to rattle on.
“There have been strange rumors from this region, and Dominic has been desperate to follow up any hint of you, however ambiguous. I would have come looking myself back in the autumn—once Jon wrote explaining the situation and asking for my help—if not for the various excuses and delays that my family invented to keep me in the capital. But after being stuck there with them all winter, I assure you I would have gone mad without an escape.”
He paused to shake his head. “So I reminded them of all the benefits to the kingdom if I was the one to find you, and rode off before they could come up with another reason to keep me there. So, really, I should be thanking you.”
He gave me a courtly inclination of his head and shoulders, his eyes inviting me to share in his humorous tone, but I had barely heard his last couple of sentences. My mind whirled with confusion. His comments about my brother had been confusing enough, but I could make no sense at all of the rest of the tale.
“Jon?” I asked. “As in, Prince Jonathan of Marin? Jon asked for your help in finding me? Whyever would he do that?” Palinar and Marin were trade partners, certainly, and there was no bad blood between us—or there had not been when I left five years ago—but we didn’t have an especially close connection either.
Once upon a time I had been friendly with Jon’s sister, Princess Lilac, but we hadn’t seen each other regularly enough to develop a close friendship. While her rank made her an acceptable enough companion for me in my father’s eyes, the duchy of Marin could not be compared to Palinar—mightiest of the kingdoms. My father had not considered anyone worthy of a close connection—no doubt the reason my brother and I had always turned to each other.
But I quickly pushed my mind away from Dominic. It would do me no good to linger on thoughts of him.
“He did it for Sophie, no doubt,” Gabe said. When I gave him a blank look, he continued. “I’m guessing Sophie spoke to Lily, and Jon would do anything Lily asked him.”
When I still looked confused, a look of disgust crossed his face. I fell back several steps. But his next words suggested the disgust wasn’t directed at me.
“Look at me, acting the utter fool! Of course you don’t know who Sophie or Lily are. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about at all.”
He shook his head, shifting his weight from foot to foot restlessly. “I keep forgetting how long you’ve been gone. So much has changed. It’s a long story, I’m afraid. But the short version is this: the High King has lifted the storms that blocked the way to the Old Kingdoms. A delegation arrived in Marin just in time to be caught up in Dominic’s Princess Tourney. One of the foreign princesses—Sophia of Arcadia—won and is now married to your brother and queen in Palinar. And Sophie has a twin sister, Lily, who has married Jon. Thus your sister-in-law is also sister-in-law to Jon.” He laughed. “And, as I said, that’s the simple version.”
“My brother…called a Princess Tourney…to choose a bride for him?” I gasped the words out, wishing I had a chair to sink into. There hadn’t been a Tourney in the kingdoms for…I didn’t know how long. And Dominic of all people had given over the choice of his bride to a competition?
Instead of a chair, I felt soft feathers pressing against me and let my hand trail down to