1416940146(FY) by Cameron Dokey Read Free Book Online Page A

taking Aurore outside the palace is such a good idea after all. The world is a very big place.
    There are many . . . unknowns."
    "Mais oui,, bien sur," my father answered, as he calmly picked up the knife and began to carve. "Of course there are unknowns. And the sooner Aurore begins to meet them, the sooner they will cease to be unknown. That is the point. Besides
    ..."
    He paused and set the knife down. I all but felt my ears prick up, the way the palace dogs' do when they hear an unfamiliar sound.
    Something
    important
    is
    coming,
    I
    thought.
    Something Papa has been thinking over for a very long time.
    "For many years now we have let the spells spoken over Aurore in her cradle tell us who she is. Now the time has come for her to tell us who she is, as well. For we must never forget that, even if the worst happens and she sleeps for a hundred 35

    years, Aurore is a princess. She is royal, with a claim to the throne."
    "But you have an heir," I said without thinking. "You have Oswald."
    "That is so," my father replied, turning his eyes upon my cousin. "And I have been content to have him be so. But tonight you have done a thing Oswald has never done. You have shown a desire to know all those you might rule one day, not just those who are noble-born. More than that, you have told me this is a thing you must do. That it was for this that you were born. In this you have spoken like my true heir, for this is how I have felt, also."
    By now the air in the room felt so thick, I was surprised I could still see through it. Across the table from me, Oswald clutched his fork so tightly his knuckles were white as mother-of-pearl buttons.
    "You don't want me," he said, his voice tight. "You never have.
    You want Aurore."
    "It is not a matter of what I want," my father answered. "It is a matter of what is best for the kingdom, best for all.
    Therefore..." He took a breath, and I knew in that moment we had come to the heart of what he wished to say. A thing that, since my christening day, he had been holding in his mind.
    "Tomorrow, before Aurore and I set out, I will have you and your heirs proclaimed Aurore's stewards, Oswald. She will be my heir from tomorrow forth. It is Aurore who must succeed me, even if it takes a hundred years. Tonight, she has shown this must be so."
    I heard Maman's swift intake of breath even as I felt my jaw drop open. It was a sign of her complete surprise that I managed to get it closed again before she could remind me that a lady never shows she has been taken unawares.
    "For heaven's sake!" Oswald exclaimed. "All this simply because she wants to go outside the palace walls? She'll probably take two steps and fall into a mud puddle. Think what you are doing, Uncle!"
    "What makes you think I have not?" my father replied. "If I had let my heart rule my head in this, I would have proclaimed Aurore as my heir the very day that she was born. But I did not.
    I waited—to see who you both would become. You have been 36

    content to see only what is before you. Aurore is not. That is all I need to know."
    Papas words were making my head spin, and not just because this was about the longest speech I'd ever heard him utter all at once. He was saying he thought I was worthy to be his successor. Even more, that he wanted me to succeed him, a possibility that had never occurred to me before.
    And in that moment, I realized there was a thing inside me I had never thought to notice, probably because it had been there all along. And it was, greater even than my desire to see the world, the desire to be worthy of my father's faith and trust.
    "All those years," Oswald whispered, and now the devastation was plain in his voice. "All those times you asked me to go with you when you left the palace, but I said no. You never urged me to change my mind. Not once."
    "But surely you can see that I could not," my father said. "You had to wish to go for yourself, as Aurore does. Because it was what you wanted, not I."
    "You