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silly.”
    “All the more reason for me to have all the time in the world for you.”
    “Uh, I’ll leave you to alone,” I said awkwardly.
    Zander looked at me with the mischievous glint in his eyes. I was starting to learn that that look always meant he was up to something. “Kiera, this is Skyler.” He directed the little girl’s attention to me. “Isn’t she pretty?”
    The girl nodded her head as she beamed up at me.
    “Wouldn’t you like for her to spend the day playing with us?”
    Again, the girl nodded her head as she beamed up at me.
    I was being played. “What about your mother?” I tried to protest one final, yet feeble, time.
    “I’ll deal with my mother. Just say yes. Come on, you may be able to deny me, but can you really deny a cute little girl?”
    Both brother and sister looked at me expectantly.
    I rolled my own. “Fine, but if your mother dismisses me from the palace, you may never see me again.”
                  The Prince I could deny, but the Princess…I was putty in her hands the moment I saw her. I was a sucker for kids.

Chapter 12
     
    “ W hat would you like to play?” I asked the Princess.
    She folded her arms in a huff. “What I want to play Mother will not allow. She says the games I like are not appropriate for a lady.”
    That piqued my curiosity. “What games do you like?”
    She stuck out her bottom lip. “Bow-and-arrow, but mom says playing with weapons isn’t proper. ”
    Zander leaned into me with a smile and whispered, “Her impression of Mother is almost as good as mine too.”
    “I’m pretty sure she has us both beat,” I told him. “You mean archery?” I asked Kiera for clarification. A wicked idea was forming in my mind.
    “Yes,” she eagerly shook her head.
    I leaned across the table conspiratorially. “Then why don’t we find some practice targets?”
    The Princess was pouting again. “We can’t. Mother will be mad with us.”
    “It can be our little secret. It’s just us girls and Zander, and he won’t tell on us, will you?” I nudged his shoulder with mine.
    He made a zipping motion with his hands across his mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
     
                  The Princess handled a bow pretty well for a nine-year-old. By the end of our practice lesson, she was hitting within the red.
                  “Would you like to try Miss Skyler before we go?” she sweetly held out her bow to me.
                  “I’m alright. You have fun.”
                  “I’d have more fun if you tried it too,” she poked her lip out. The Princess had perfected the art of pouting. 
                  “Fine,” I relented taking the bow. It had been ages since I last held one but its weight felt comfortably familiar. Before my brother died we spent hours in the fields behind our little cottage shooting at makeshift targets. I widened my stance and relaxed my shoulders just as he had shown me time and time again. I brought the bow level with my line of sight and pulled the arrow taught on its string. I leveled the bow at the target and let the arrow soar. It embedded with a thud in the dead center of it.
                  Admiration shone in Kiera’s eyes. “You are awesome Skyler. Where did you learn to do that?”
                  I shrugged as if it was no big deal. “When I was your age I had my big brother wrapped around my finger too. I begged him to teach me and he did.”
                  “Can you teach me?” she looked to me with pleading eyes.
                  I hesitated. I did not want to make a promise I would not keep. “I don’t know how long I will be at the palace Princess.”
                  Her face fell instantly flat. Then it brightened just as quickly. “Ooh, Zander, you can marry Skyler and then she will be a Princess just like me and live at the palace and she can teach me to shoot like her!” She