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dresses that showed off their white shoulders and blue eyes. Instead, they were trapped in a pink palace whose walls sweated, with no husbands in sight. My other sisters would be marriageable soon, if they were not already, and I too would come of age before long. Whom would I marry? A footman, a stableman? The dreadful Burle? But I was a princess, not a servant!
    For the next few days I was in a funk, confused and irritable. I’d spent my life envying my sisters, but now I was beginning to see that they were just as trapped in their lives as I was in mine. They were more comfortable, it is true, but they were prisoners nonetheless. What would become of us? Would we live out our lives in this palace, alone and unloved? Would we grow old here, our joints aching until our knees would no longer bend, childless and bereft? I had never thought much about a husband or family, but now that I suddenly realized I might not have them, they were becoming very important to me.
    My mood was so bad that when Cook chastised me for inattention to the soup, I threw the ladle at her, spattering pea puree up the walls. Cook was furious, but she couldn’t punish me as she would another maid, so shebanished me from the kitchen’s warmth and dryness and sent me over the land bridge to search for fallen nuts for a tart. It was an early fall morning, and on the lake surface leaves floated, their reds and oranges reflected in the leaves still hanging on the tree branches above. The air was crisp and clean, and I breathed deeply as I crossed the bridge, glad to be away from the palace.
    At the edge of the woods I stopped and looked back—and saw something most unusual. My sisters were coming out of the palace for their afternoon stroll, and I watched them walk across the bridge, their bright cloaks billowing around them. They ambled slowly along the lakeshore, stopping now and then to pick up a bright leaf or blow the fluff from a dandelion as Nurse herded them like a flock of sheep. Then I saw their heads tilt up as one, and I looked into the distance to see what had caught their interest. I made out riders on horseback—three, four, no, five of them, riding slowly out of the forest on the far side of the bridge. They wore soldiers’ uniforms, the sky blue and black of the men who patrolled the Western Reaches that ran through my father’s kingdom and the neighboring kingdom of Blaire. I watched them approach, their leader a bearded soldier with auburn hair under his military cap who sat tall and straight in the saddle. I could see from the stripes on his sleeve that he was a captain. At first thesoldiers did not seem to see the princesses, and then the captain pulled up sharply at the same time that Nurse noticed the riders.
    â€œPrincesses!” I heard Nurse’s voice clearly through the cool air. “Come along—we must get back!” Scurrying like a sheepdog, she gathered my sisters together, protecting them and moving them back the way they had come. But Aurelia stayed where she was, her face raised in the brilliant fall sunlight. I saw her look straight at the auburn-haired captain, and he looked back at her. From my vantage point, I could not see their expressions, but I felt the stillness between them, and I raised my hand to my mouth to stifle a gasp. The captain bowed his head to Aurelia, and she dipped ever so slightly in a curtsy before Nurse descended on her.
    â€œPrincess Aurelia!” she scolded. “Do not curtsy to a soldier!”
    Aurelia turned, and I could see the flush of embarrassment rising on her cheeks as she allowed Nurse to lead her back to join the others. I stood at the woods’ edge, confused and transfixed by what I had witnessed, and the captain too held his mount still, watching as my sisters scurried back to the bridge. I could hear the other soldiers laughing and joking, but he just sat unmoving as the girls disappeared inside the palace. Then he turned his horse