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Luciana sat before her mirror, eyes trained on her book, and let her mother’s words wash over her.
“Your hair is your crowning glory,” Ariana said, punctuating each word with one more stroke of the brush. One hundred strokes each side, over and under. “A princess must never let her hair go to ruin.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Luciana, and turned a page.
“If only yours would curl.” Ariana tugged two locks back, away from Luciana’s face, and twisted them around her head. “Then we would not have to resort to such… pedestrian styles.”
Quietly, Luciana thought she was the luckier for it. Ariana’s hair, teased three feet up from her head, was quite the tour-de-force, but Luciana doubted if she could pull it off. She did not think it would be comfortable, in any case; she had long grown used to the heavy weight of her hair falling down her back, and the slight pinch of the ribbon pulling it too tight.
With a sigh, Ariana tied said ribbon off and stepped back. “Well, we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got. Now!” She snatched the book from Luciana’s hands. “Make yourself presentable. We don’t want your future husband frightened off, do we?”
“No, Mother.”
With Ariana looking over her shoulder, Luciana set to her cosmetics. A dusting of powder first, to smooth the skin. Rouge, for a youthful glow. Crushed rose pigment mixed with carmine over her lips.
It was the same routine she had used since childhood. Ariana had schooled her in it with ruthless determination. “A princess must always look her best,” she would say, pressing pigment onto Luciana’s eyelids. “Only a peasant lets her cheeks grow ruddy.”
Ariana certainly didn’t. Her skin glowed with health and beauty, from the curves of her cheekbones down to the point of her chin. Luciana shared those angles, but little else of her face resembled her mother. Brown eyes instead of blue, brown hair instead of red, a nose more like a needle than a button.
Luciana didn’t remember her father, but she often imagined him in those gaps. He would have shared her dull brown coloring, her straight nose. He would have been kindhearted, soft-spoken—all the things Luciana was, and Ariana was not.
She pressed her cheeks and wondered idly what shape the bones of his face would have cut, how she would bring him to life with a brush.
“What do you think you’re doing?” cried Ariana, slapping Luciana’s hands away. “You’ll smudge the powder!”
Luciana apologized, but said nothing more. Telling the whole truth would not get her anywhere. Ariana never spoke of the late king, no matter how much Luciana asked. Years ago she had tried persuading the servants to tell her about her father, but they were just as tight-lipped as the queen.
As a girl, Luciana had entertained wild fantasies of a curse on the palace—a curse that would turn anyone who uttered the late king’s name into a snorting pig, doomed to a lifetime of mud and flies unless they were saved by true love’s kiss. Over time, though, Luciana had realized there was a much simpler explanation for Ariana’s reluctance to speak of her dead husband.
A broken heart.
It only made sense. Hearing his name would be too painful for Ariana, even to tell her daughter about him. The queen was known for her capricious nature, so ordering silence from the servants wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
And it explained why, sometimes, Ariana struggled to look at Luciana for too long.
Even now, Luciana saw it. For all the fuss she had made not minutes before, now Ariana hardly seemed to care that her daughter was dressed and ready and seconds away from meeting her future husband. She had taken up a spot in front of the mirror herself, engrossed in placing her curls and touching up her rosebud mouth.
It was the perfect explanation. Luciana believed it, well and truly. And for Ariana to be this affected, even years later, it must have been true love. There was no recovery from the death of a true love.
Still, Luciana hoped that her mother would find a new husband, to fill the hole the late king’s death had dug. She’d briefly entertained finding someone for Ariana herself, but Luciana wasn’t stupid. Forcing a romance on her domineering mother would not end well for anyone involved. Ariana would seek out love when she was ready.
It was never a question in Luciana’s mind that she would be. Who could stomach a life without love?
***
Prince Antonio was a handsome man. Handsomer even than the portrait Luciana had seen. He had a roguish air, smelled of the sea, and wore clothes that barely passed the standard of decent dress for someone of his rank. It made her stomach clench.
But Luciana already knew he was a lover of exploration, and eager to race off on daring adventures. She found it rather romantic. Absence made the heart grow fonder, everyone knew that, and she could envision a life spent sitting at her easel awaiting her husband’s return. After all, a princess did not gallivant across the seas, and Luciana had no desire to.
When he did return, he’d spin fantastic tales of the lands he’d encountered, creatures he’d seen, exotic foods and people that Luciana could only imagine. And she would paint them all, inspiration flowing from her brush until the colors danced across the canvas so vividly you believed you could step right through and into the scene.
And maybe, someday, he would decide that he wanted to see the world through her eyes instead of his own, and settle in beside her.
It was a comfortable fantasy. She had turned it over and over many times in the past months. Imagining how Antonio would react upon seeing her, hoping for that spark of longing in his eyes to ignite when she walked down the stairs.
And ignite, it did.
But not for her.
***
“Don’t even joke about that!”
Luciana knew the look that would be on her mother’s face: wide blue eyes, her painted lips in that perfect O of shock, not a teased hair out of place. The image of respectable alarm, as befit a queen whose only daughter had just said she wasn’t sure she should marry her betrothed prince.
But Luciana wasn’t sure, anymore.
“Did you see the way he looked at the island girl?” Luciana said, turning back to Ariana.
Her mother did not look impressed. “With disdain? Contempt? Scorn?”
“No.” Luciana frowned. How could Ariana not see it? “With love, Mother. I’ve always dreamed of marrying someone I loved.” After a moment, she added, “And who loves me.”
Ariana let out a bark of laughter. “I certainly didn’t love your father when I married him. ”
Luciana was too stunned to reply. There had to be some mistake. Surely she had heard wrong.
But as Ariana went on, Luciana was forced to accept, with a sinking feeling, that she had not. “Love is for peasants, dear, which we are obviously not. Who needs the inconvenience of a bleeding heart?”
Ariana opened her arms. “Let Mama tell you what you need: a crown. Find a man with that, and happiness is guaranteed.”
Somehow, Luciana found her voice. “But, Mother, that…that can’t be right.”
“Did you say something?”
Ariana’s voice was sharp, dangerous. Luciana swallowed back what she was about to say—You loved Father so much that you forbade everyone from talking about him. But she had to get her point across. “All the books and poems say that it’s love that brings joy. Not gold or rings or riches, love.” She couldn’t help a wistful, pleading smile. “It’s the jewel beyond compare.”
It was not the right thing to say. “A princess should not read so many books,” snapped Ariana, making Luciana flinch. “Filling her head with thoughts.”
Before she could reply, Ariana dismissed Luciana with a flick of her fingers. “Now go do something to make yourself prettier.”
The conversation was over. Luciana had lost, a battle she didn’t even know she was fighting.
She sat at her mirror. Her hair felt heavier than normal. Untie the ribbon, untwist the long brown locks. One hundred strokes, each side, over and under.
What did it mean? Was her mother telling the truth? She couldn’t be—but she had to be, because Ariana lying to Luciana would be unthinkable.
Remove a necklace, replace her earrings. Purple or blue? A diamond or an emerald? Gloves, or rings?
If Ariana hadn’t loved Luciana’s father, why the silence? Why the secrecy? Surely she couldn’t have hated the man so much as to bar all mention of his name lest it darken her halls.
Round cheeks, pointed chin, straight nose, brown eyes. Rouge on her cheeks and carmine on her lips. She painted until all the gaps were filled.
When she was done, she did not recognize the face in the mirror.
***
The island girl, Ro, did not fit into royal life, but Luciana soon realized that neither did Antonio. She watched them leave her behind—as if she had ever been along for the journey in the first place.
She bore no ill will towards Ro, even tried to help her. But with Ariana breathing down her back, always a glance away from disparaging the very idea of Ro’s presence, it was hard to do anything at all. So Luciana waited, and buried herself in her books, and wished for a paintbrush.
“At least I have you, Pearl,” she murmured, stroking one hand down the cat’s silky back while the other turned a page of Cinderella. “You’ll stay with me.”
Pearl purred and rubbed her head against Luciana’s arm. She immediately followed this up by stretching, yawning, and leaping off the bed to terrorize Ariana’s rats. The entire effect was somewhat of a mixed message.
With a sigh, Luciana closed her book and leaned her head against the pillows, staring up at the canopied ceiling as if it held the answers.
Answers to what, she wasn’t sure. Ariana’s revelation? What to do about her engagement to Antonio?
Well, that one was a non-starter. Luciana would marry him. They were betrothed, after all. Surely they could grow to love each other?
She thought of the awkward, stilted small talk, and the way he smiled at Ro leaping through the trees with the little white monkey. She remembered the agony on his face when Ro ran out of the room right after King Peter had announced the engagement.
She thought of angry blue eyes and pursed lips, and her heart beat slower even without the accompanying scolding.
Luciana pressed her hands to her eyes. There was nothing she could do. Ariana had already proved she wouldn’t listen, and the king and queen would do anything to keep Antonio home and away from Ro. The only person Luciana could hope to find even some sympathy in was Antonio himself, but he barely looked at her long enough to hold a few lines of polite conversation.
And anyway, it wasn’t the sort of thing one talked about. A princess did not discuss with her fiancé how much she disliked their engagement.
The realization crept over her with the same slow surety of watercolor dripping down the canvas.
“I don’t want to marry him,” Luciana whispered.
Then, louder, “I don’t want to marry him!”
“Of course you do,” came Ariana’s voice from the doorway. Luciana nearly jumped out of her skin. Somehow, her mother did not look angry, merely annoyed and disappointed. “Now get up before those pillows snarl your hair. You have a ball to dress for.”
Her hair was as silky as ever.
“Yes, Mother,” Luciana said. She left the book behind.
***
She tried. One dance with Antonio, perfect and rehearsed.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said, cordial and desperate. “What do you like?”
“Well,” replied Luciana, optimistic, “I love opera.”
Antonio’s face fell. The dance moved on.
“Do you like to ride?” he asked, hoping. “Or hike?”
“Not exactly,” replied Luciana, polite and defeated.
When it was over, they tried to separate, but Ariana pushed them back together. “The whole room was looking at you two!” she crooned. “Such a perfect couple.”
“Their eyes must have been for your beautiful daughter,” said Antonio. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Ariana watched him go. Without looking at Luciana, she said, “Stop slouching.”
Luciana obeyed.
“Ungrateful brat,” muttered Ariana, and Luciana wasn’t sure who she was talking about. “Show yourself off, dear. Someone in this room will appreciate my work.”
With that, she took herself off, stalking across the dance floor with a flounce of skirts and curls. Luciana watched her crash into another guest and berate them for the insult.
“‘My work?’” she murmured, looking down at herself. Ariana had barely put thought into Luciana’s appearance for the evening. A few extra jewels and nothing more to embellish her daughter’s everyday gown.
A hush fell over the hall. Luciana’s gaze drifted up.
Ro stood atop the steps, wearing a gown of sea-blue, with peacock feathers fanning from her waist. Her hair was swirled atop her head like vines, leaving her neck bare. She looked terrified. She looked beautiful.
Antonio looked thunderstruck.
Luciana did not stay to see them dance. No one noticed her slip outside. No one was paying any attention to her.
Alone, in the humid night air, Luciana twisted her hair in her hands and wondered what to do.
Antonio and Ro were in love. Any idiot could see that. Luciana would even go so far as to say the kingdom was witnessing true love. The thought of forcing them apart made her sick to her stomach.
Ariana would tell her to stop being so sentimental. Ro was a nobody, worse than peasantry, a savage who had lived in isolation among wild animals and no people for who knew how long. She didn’t deserve a prince like Antonio. He would come to his senses eventually, and rue the day he threw Luciana over in favor of this island girl.
But nothing Luciana had seen supported that. Ro was a lovely girl, if wild. Luciana thought of how she had swung through the trees and felt her stomach clench. A princess could never do such a thing. Antonio wanted someone who could.
Ro would make Antonio happy in a way that Luciana couldn’t. Her fantasy, waiting at home for Antonio to return, now seemed drab and naive. How could Luciana bear being alone for so long, when her husband would not even speak affectionately to her upon his rare returns?
She had come no closer to an answer by the time she returned to her room. Nor when Ariana burst through the door, stuffed with the announcement that the wedding would now be in only two days.
“I can’t.”
The words escaped before Luciana could stop them. Ariana turned a look on her sharp enough to kill.
Luciana deflated. “I just mean, it’s so soon. Won’t everything be unfinished?”
With a laugh, Ariana said, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that, dear. Now, go get ready for bed—you’ll need your beauty rest!”
One hundred strokes, each side, over and under. Luciana’s hand moved without her mind commanding it.
“A princess does not renege on her promises,” she whispered to herself. “This is for the best.”
She tried not to listen to the part of her mind asking, For whom?
***
Pearl lapped at her bowl. Ariana’s rats skittered contentedly around their cage. Every other animal in the kingdom slept.
Luciana didn’t want to think about why her rooms, and only her rooms, were different.
Instead, she thought about the Dragon Queen.
She had a name, but Luciana preferred the fantastical moniker that had spread with her legend. Of all the northern royals, the Dragon Queen was the least deserving of a clunky, ill-fitted name like Rapunzel.
Her kingdom bordered the sea, like Apollonia, but the wind that came off it was cool. No sharp fronds or glaring sunbeams, just ocean-carved cliffs and tumbled stones. Luciana had seen paintings of her palace and envied it.
But it wasn’t just the location, it was the queen herself. She was a painter, too, the most talented painter in the world. Legend said her paintings really did allow you to step through to the other side, for she had been raised by a witch. A witch who locked her away in a tower until her prince came to rescue her.
Or until she had flown on dragonback to rescue him. Luciana had heard both. Either way, it was as romantic a love story as she had ever heard.
The Dragon Queen had never been alone, even locked away, Luciana thought. She had her dragon, and she had her paints, and she had her magic. But she didn’t have her parents, didn’t know who they were until a chance venture sent her on a journey to discover the truth. For she had been born royalty, was a princess by birthright, and the witch had stolen her away in some convoluted lover’s revenge against the Dragon Queen’s father.
This, too, Luciana found romantic. Not in a lovey-dovey way, but the drama of it all captivated her. It spoke to her, gripped her tight and held her up like stays.
The idea of being raised by a woman who claimed to love you, but was only using you for her own ends. That your real parents were out there, somewhere, loving you, waiting for you to return to them and claim the life that you were destined for. That your art could free you from the lonely tower whose windows looked out on a world you would never see for yourself.
Luciana did not have magic. There was no curse on her palace, however much her younger self had wanted there to be.
She had painted it, once: the witch, casting her spell over the kingdom. Her witch was not the long-lined, knife-nosed figure from the Dragon Queen’s past, but a figure of round limbs and sharp edges. A small nose, but pointed; a round face, with a narrow chin; plump hands with long, narrow fingernails. Clad in robes of sweeping red and gold, she raised those hands above a pen full of squealing pigs, garbed in torn finery.
Luciana had been quite proud of that painting.
Ariana had taken one look and let out a shriek so loud it sent Pearl yowling out of the room like an angry feather-duster.
“A princess does not think of such things!” Ariana had admonished her once recovered from her swoon. She had paid no heed to Luciana’s protests that she wasn’t afraid of witches, and didn’t see why she only ever got to draw plants and vases and pillars and not people. Instead, she had rifled through Luciana’s library and tossed aside a stack of her favorite fairytale books to be burned.
Ariana was just looking out for her. Luciana knew that. She had still cried for days, clutching the stuffed tiger that the pageboy had snuck her.
Luciana had never tried painting anything like it again. She read and read and saw the stories swirling in her mind’s eye, the same way she saw the world divided into pigments and brushstrokes, but she forced them all down. She feared losing her art more than she wanted to paint those worlds.
The bravery of the Dragon Queen, painting even when the witch forbade it, made her feel small. But Luciana already was a princess. There was no point in thinking about how she might paint her way to freedom, if she were locked in a tower.
Because she wasn’t. Ariana loved her, and she was her mother. Luciana was not being used.
Princesses did not discover they were secretly something else. Why would they want to?
Pearl lapped at her bowl.
***
“Your wedding gown will be the talk of the kingdom!”
It was the same cut as her everyday gown. Luciana wondered if Ariana had just sent her normal dress to be bleached. Her hair ribbon certainly looked it, as if it couldn’t decide between plum purple and pale pink.
She almost considered taking it off entirely. Let her hair fall freely, ignoring all sense of propriety and decorum for a princess marrying a prince to ally their kingdoms. While every animal still slept, except hers and her mother’s, and the girl the prince loved had been exiled for it.
Is my dress really what’s important right now? Luciana thought.
All she said was, “Yes, Mother.”
Ariana, satisfied, took this as an invitation to admonish. “Now remember, dear, no food on your wedding day—not one bite.”
Luciana didn’t remember Ariana saying anything about this before. “Why not?”
“Why, it’s bad luck!” she replied with a scoff. “Besides, a princess should not stuff her face at her own wedding. It would make a horrible impression on her new husband.”
Another unknown battle, another loss. Luciana ducked her head. “Yes, Mother.”
“Very good.”
With an excuse about confirming the music would not be played too fast, Ariana left her daughter alone.
Luciana stared at herself.
A miserable, lonely girl, dressed up like a bride, in a mask of rouge and carmine, stared back.
What am I doing? Luciana found herself thinking. She plucked at the skirts of her gown. Why am I here?
The answer was, of course, that Ariana wanted her to be. Ariana wanted the alliance with Peter’s kingdom. Ariana wanted the prestige and wealth that would come from marrying her daughter off to the prince of Apollonia. Ariana wanted the best for herself and her daughter.
Ariana had never asked what that daughter wanted.
Then again, Luciana had not indicated that she did want anything, until three days ago. She had just waited and nodded and smiled, demure and obedient as always. The perfect princess.
Her hands turned to fists in her skirt.
The animals slept. Pearl did not. Antonio was in love with Ro. Luciana did not love him. Ariana had not loved the late king. Ariana had married him anyway. Ariana had chosen the same fate for Luciana.
Ariana did not care about what Luciana wanted.
Luciana thought of Ro swinging through the trees, of Antonio’s sea-stained shirt, and her stomach clenched. Not with disgust, not with outrage, but with envy. They had a kind of freedom Luciana had never dared to dream of. To not care what anyone thought, to do as you pleased when you pleased. To be able to pursue what and who you loved, without an overbearing mother ready with a sharp look and a snapped fan at the slightest indiscretion.
A princess does not.
A princess should not.
A princess must not.
Rebelliously, Luciana thought that there was not much of a point in being something that didn’t let you do anything.
The question was, what did Luciana want to do?
The answer came softly, dabbing the drips from the canvas.
It wasn’t fair for her to ask.
Antonio had let Ro go, and was ready to commit to marrying Luciana for the good of their kingdoms. How could Luciana, who had far less reason to retreat, leave him alone with that sacrifice?
Her hands fell open to her sides. The veil itched on her neck. White did not suit her.
She wondered, briefly, what her father would have said. But it was not a train of thought that she could follow any longer. If he and Ariana had not loved each other, what did Luciana know about him? How could she look to the dust of a fantasy to tell her what to do?
She was a princess, and a princess did not shirk her duty. That was the reality Luciana was in. That was all that could drive her. Not her desires, not her dreams.
Pearl nudged the mirror. Light rippled across its surface. Luciana disappeared.
***
Her heart sat leaden in her chest through the ceremony. Even the abrupt arrival of Ro’s animals, heralded by a great trumpeting from the elephant, only stirred Luciana enough to follow the crowd as they hurried to see what the commotion was all about.
She listened through Ro’s explanation. Poison, the island girl said, a sleep-inducing herb sprinkled into the food of all the animals in the kingdom.
Except Pearl and Mother’s rats, thought Luciana.
There was poison in the wedding feast, too, where it was spread across banquet tables in the greenhouse.
“Who would do such a thing?” demanded King Peter.
A bird fluttered to Ro’s shoulder, chirped in her ear.
Chin high, Ro made her accusation.
“Ariana.”
It did not come as the shock it should have. Luciana listened, silently, as Ariana made her defense. She wanted it to be a mistake.
“If you didn’t do it, then you shouldn’t have a problem trying some of the cake,” said Ro.
Ariana laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous! We haven’t even had dinner.”
“Please,” said Antonio, offering her a plate. “Have a bite.”
Ariana’s hair had begun to frizz from the humidity. Luciana saw sweat glisten on the back of her neck.
“How do I know you didn’t poison the cake yourself?” demanded Ariana. “To frame me?”
“She didn’t, Mother.”
All eyes turned to Luciana. She hadn’t decided to speak, so much as the words had overflowed. She did not dam them back now. “You told me not to eat anything. Why would you say that unless…”
Luciana wet her lips. “Unless you poisoned it.”
Ariana stared at her. There was no betrayal in her face. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open, as if she did not fully understand what had happened. It was the sort of look Luciana would give Pearl when she knocked a cup of brushwater onto a half-finished canvas.
When she fled, Luciana did not follow.
After all, a princess did not run.
***
Sitting on a bench outside the greenhouse, waiting for news of Ro and Antonio’s daring chase to return, Luciana couldn’t stop shivering.
That Ariana would conspire to raise herself through marrying off her daughter, and engineer an animal sickness to get rid of the only competition, Luciana could understand well enough. Capricious, yes. But Ariana had tried to poison everyone—to kill every single person who attended that wedding.
Ariana would have torn the crown from Luciana’s head as soon as she sat on the throne. How long would it have taken her to engineer an accident for her daughter, too? How long could Luciana have lasted, ruling as her mother’s puppet over a kingdom of corpses?
“Princess?”
Luciana’s head jerked up to find one of the palace guards standing before her.
“Your mother has been apprehended,” he said. “She will be jailed, and tried for treason.”
“She’ll be found guilty,” said Luciana numbly.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
That got her attention. “What?”
The guard frowned. “Apparently, her parents conspired to assassinate the good king and queen some twenty years ago. They were caught, of course, and stripped of their titles. King Peter sent them to a pig farm at the border.”
A pig farm. A curse that would turn anyone who spoke the dead king’s name to swine. A shriek at a painting of a witch, dressed like her, over a domain of pigs.
Luciana would have laughed if she weren’t so tired, and if it weren’t unthinkable for a princess to laugh at such a thing.
“Thank you,” she managed. Then, “You may go.”
When she was alone again, Luciana sank back into the greenery. Blankly, she stared at the sky. Even now her mind thought about how to mix the perfect color to capture it.
She would like to paint this place, she thought. Antonio and Ro especially, and that peacock that followed Ro everywhere. She would have time enough in the next few weeks before their wedding.
For there would be a wedding. Of that, and little else, Luciana was certain. No more talk of duty and responsibility. Antonio and Ro were meant to be together, and Luciana would not be an obstacle. Theirs was a love story for the ages.
Even more when the truth of Ro’s heritage, the lost daughter of Queen Marissa of Palladia, was revealed. Luciana watched mother and daughter reunite, and smiled above the hollow in her chest.
Of course Ro got a fairytale ending. She deserved it. Luciana could envision the legends that would grow—the Elephant Queen in the south, adventurous and daring, to offset the creativity and valor of the Dragon Queen in the north.
If only Luciana could be as sure of her own path.
She would not see her mother again. She would not stay to see her tried, or beg for answers, or ask if Ariana had ever cared about more than her own revenge. Luciana knew those answers, from countless books and fairytales. It left her with a strange lightness of feeling, for how lonely it was.
The only mystery that remained was that of her father, but Luciana somehow did not feel particularly inclined to solve it anymore. Maybe Ariana really had simply hated him enough to forbid any mention of his name. Maybe he wasn’t the late king. Maybe Luciana wasn’t even Ariana’s real daughter.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Her father was dead, her mother was in jail, and all Luciana had was herself.
Maybe that was all she needed.
***
The day before the wedding, Luciana went to talk with Antonio.
They hadn’t really spoken since their own interrupted nuptials, apart from a short exchange where Luciana gave him her blessing to marry Ro. Luciana didn’t know exactly what she wanted to say, but knew that something had to be said.
She managed to corner him on the cliffs behind the palace. He was trying to skip rocks; though, if the stone-littered beach was any indication, he was not having a very lucky time of it.
“My father finally released you?” Antonio said, after the typical greetings were exchanged.
Luciana sighed. King Peter had spent the last few days pulling her into talks of her home kingdom, of alliances and trade relations and words like “annexation.” He kept calling her “Queen Luciana,” too, which made her squirm.
“Yes, I suppose. I tried to make it clear I have no head for politics.”
“I’ve been having that argument with him for years.” Antonio flicked a stone at the water. It rolled to a stop on the sand about two feet from the surf’s edge.
“What with my mother being…well.” Luciana tilted her head into the breeze. “I am her only heir, but…”
She trailed off. She wasn’t sure how to say what she wanted to say. That her mother’s legacy wasn’t something she had any interest in upholding? That she had never known most of the goings-on in her own kingdom because her mother kept her so sheltered? That there were councillors and advisors who all had a better sense of rulership than she did, whose only fault was that they weren’t blooded royalty?
“I don’t want to take her place,” she ended up saying.
“That sounds reasonable to me.”
“Does it?”
Antonio chuckled. “You’re an artist. You love poetry and opera and watercolor. Doesn’t seem to me like you’d take well to being queen.”
“I have to be,” said Luciana. “I am a princess, and a princess doesn’t turn away from duty.”
Antonio studied her, one hand on his hip, the other tapping his leg. Then, crouching to pick up another stone, he said, “Did anyone tell you that I nearly backed out of our engagement?”
The stone splashed, managing two jumps before sinking. Luciana gaped at Antonio. “You what?”
“The night of the ball,” Antonio began, “your mother convinced my father to move up the wedding date, and I refused. I couldn’t bear the thought of turning away from Ro.”
“But then…Why did you change your mind?”
“It was the price of getting her out of prison,” explained Antonio, one shoulder slipping up into a shrug. “But that’s not why I brought it up.”
He tossed another stone. “I didn’t just refuse to marry you. I abdicated. I decided being king wasn’t worth a life without love.”
The soft roar of the ocean echoed in Luciana’s ears. She heard herself ask, “Do you still think so?”
“Yes.” Antonio’s gaze grew distant, soft, and Luciana knew he was thinking about Ro. “I have a duty to my kingdom, but I have a duty to myself as well. There’s not much point in being a prince if it keeps you from what you love.”
The world rocked at Luciana’s feet. She watched Antonio launch another rock and saw the image blossom in her mind’s eye. The line of tension from his foot to his wrist, the snap of his hair, the sun bright over his shoulder.
She wanted to paint it.
“You’re right,” Luciana said. “There’s not much point at all.”
***
Luciana got to work as soon as she returned.
It was much easier than she thought it would be. Absent Ariana, the palace staff were far more forthcoming with her, servants and officials alike. She gathered the councillors, spoke to each in turn, and in those four hours learned more about her kingdom than she had picked up through eighteen years as its princess.
At the end, she announced her decision: she would not take her mother’s place as queen. Instead, she would establish a regent, to rule the kingdom in her stead.
Her choice was one of the councillors, gray-haired but not yet old. He had worked for the late king and only managed to keep his position under Ariana by the skin of his teeth. Luciana had always liked him, and it was clear he knew the kingdom better than anyone else.
He offered, when she chose him, to tell her about the late king. “I made sure to keep his portraits safely stored,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a chore to bring them back.”
But Luciana just shook her head and thanked him, and told him to burn Ariana’s.
So only a few weeks after her return, with her regent sworn in and her mother’s shadow lifting from the palace halls, Luciana prepared to depart once again.
She packed what she thought she would need. Clothes, provisions, enough gold and silver to get by. But most importantly, her paints and brushes, and her easel, propped up against her more standard saddlebags. Pearl meowed at her from atop one of them, as if to tell her to get on with it.
Luciana stared at herself in the mirror. Her gown lay discarded on her bed, as did the petticoats and hoops that went with it. She wore riding clothes instead, unfamiliar and unflattering: rough brown breeches, linen shirt, a doublet that fit well enough for something the pageboy had outgrown two years before. No slippers and stockings, but boots that hugged her feet and gave her an extra two inches of height. Not a hint of jewelry.
She wasn’t used to it, and wasn’t sure if she liked it yet. She certainly did not look like herself, not the self that she had grown to know. This reflection looked loose, almost sloppy, with a light glimmering in its eyes and cheeks reddened only with the flush of excitement for a new beginning.
Only one more thing remained.
“Your hair is your crowning glory,” said Ariana’s voice in her head. A mantra, drilled into her for as long as Luciana could remember. “ A princess must never let her hair go to ruin. ”
The scissors flashed.
As Luciana watched the locks fall one by one to the floor, she felt years of obedience fall away with them.
When she was done, she did not see a princess. She saw a painter, itinerant and untried, set to journey for the kingdom of the Dragon Queen where artisans of all types found their calling.
But it was her, more than the gowns and jewels had ever been. This person, who stood still uncertain in her boots, with an artist’s tools and easel slung over her back—this was Luciana.
Straight nose and pointed chin. No one’s daughter, no one’s pawn.
Luciana smiled.
It was time, at last, for her story to begin.