On the morning she turned eighteen, Princess Clara wanted nothing to do with being a princess. She had woken with the sun, which she hated. She had pulled the blankets over her face and begged for one more hour of sleep. It did not come. So she rose, dressed in her pale green gown and matching slippers, and climbed to the top of the castle wall. Clara had been a proper princess her whole life. She had curtsied, smiled, and sat through long dinners with her father, the king. She knew every hall and stair in the castle. She knew every rule. What she did not know was herself. On her birthday, she wanted one thing the castle had never given her: an adventure of her own choosing. So she walked the wall alone at dawn, looking for something new. Wind pulled at her black hair. Below her, the courtyard was empty. Beyond the gate, hills rolled toward a place she had only heard of in stories. She leaned on the cold stone and searched the horizon, hunting for any sign of a life larger than the one behind her. Footsteps rang on the steps. Gemma appeared, her red braid neat, her skirt gathered in one fist so she would not trip. Gemma was Clara's handmaiden and her only true friend. She stopped, breathing hard, and put both hands on her hips. "You are supposed to be at breakfast," Gemma said. "The whole court is waiting. It is your birthday. You cannot vanish." "I was not vanishing," Clara said. "I was looking." "For what?" Clara pointed past the gate. "For anything that is mine." Gemma's face softened. She came to the wall and stood beside Clara. She did not scold her again. Instead she looked where Clara looked. "Your father sent me to find you," she said. "He has news. He would not tell me what. But he would not stop pacing." Clara turned from the horizon. Her father did not pace. He gave orders and sat still while others obeyed. Something had changed inside those walls while she stared outside them. "News," Clara repeated. "On my birthday." "He said it could not wait," Gemma said. "He said today you are old enough to hear it." Clara had wanted adventure to come from outside the gate. She had not thought it might already be waiting in her father's hall. She took Gemma's hand and started down the steps, her slippers quick on the stone. "Then let us not keep the king waiting," Clara said. She reached the courtyard with her heart pounding. Whatever her father meant to say, she would not be the same princess after she heard it. The wall, the empty hills, the ordinary morning — all of it belonged to the girl she had been an hour ago. She crossed the yard toward the great doors and did not look back.

Clara pushed through the great doors and found her father waiting. King Charles did not sit. He stood by the tall window, one gloved hand on his sword hilt, the fur of his cloak dark against the light. He was not a man who fidgeted. Today he turned the moment she entered, quick and eager, and that alone made her stop on the threshold. "There you are," he said. "Sit. I have news that cannot wait a day longer." Clara did not sit. "What is it?" Her father smiled. He crossed to a small table and lifted a folded letter sealed with pale blue wax. "A prince rides here from another kingdom," he said. "He comes as a suitor. His people speak well of him.“ The words landed like a door swinging shut. Clara felt the walls draw close. A suitor. Chosen for her, sent for her, arriving whether she wished it or not. She had climbed the wall that morning to escape a life other people planned. Now her father planned the largest part of all. "You decided this," she said. "You picked a man I have never met." "I decided he could visit," her father said. "Nothing more." "It does not feel like nothing." Her voice shook. "I want a love like yours and Mother’s before she passed away." King Charles set the letter down. He took Clara’s hands in his, and he spoke plainly “I want that for you too, but you are a princess and you have duties.” Clara's heart pounded. "Fine I want to meet him as I choose," she said. "Not as a bride already promised." She waited for anger. It did not come. "I loved your mother because she chose me," he said quietly. "I would not steal that from you. The prince comes as a guest, nothing more. Refuse him, and no one will force you. You have my word." Clara let out the breath she had held. The corner she had felt herself pushed into opened into something wider. She was not trapped. She was invited to test a stranger, and free to turn him away. "Then let him come," she said. "I will decide for myself." Her father squeezed her hand and released it.