Princess Ember wanted to marry for love, and tonight her father meant to end that hope. Below her window, servants strung lanterns for the suitors' ball. Ember knelt on her bedroom floor. She wanted only one thing: to choose her own heart. But by Aurean tradition, her father the king could choose her betrothed for her. If she said nothing tonight, some stranger would decide the rest of her life. Ember wanted a genuine real love, she wanted a man to know that she loved the sound of rain hitting the roof, and the smell of fresh baked pastries, animals and books. A knock sounded at her door. Ember jumped. Her storybooks lay open across the rug. Her father called such books foolish, love a childish lie. She stacked them fast and pried up the loose floorboard by her bed. She dropped the books inside and pressed the board flat. "Ember?" The voice was soft. Her mother. Queen Ellie stepped in, her silver gown whispering across the floor. White streaked her dark hair, pinned up neat. She looked at the crooked board, then at her daughter's face. She said nothing about either. "Your father is nearly ready," the queen said. She sat on the bed's edge. "He has invited three kings tonight." "And he will pick one," Ember said. "Whether I want him or not." Queen Ellie smoothed a curl from Ember's cheek. "That is his right." Her voice stayed gentle, but her eyes held something heavier. Ember's chest tightened. "Did you love him? When you married?" The queen was quiet a moment. "Not at first. I learned to." She took Ember's hand. "But you are not me, child." Ember stood. She crossed to the mirror and looked at her dark blue gown, the sheer sleeves, the silver slippers laid out for the ball. She thought of the books beneath the floor, the endings she loved, where the heart chose freely. "If I stay silent tonight, I lose everything," Ember said. "He will pick, and I will bow, and that will be that." "Yes," her mother said simply. Ember turned. "Then I won't stay silent." Queen Ellie rose slowly. Worry crossed her face. “I know you want someone to know you truly and you deserve that.” "I just want something real" Ember's hands shook, but her voice did not. "I will not marry a man I do not love. I will tell him so tonight, in front of them all." The queen studied her daughter for a long moment. Then she stepped close and fixed a loose pin in Ember's hair, half up, half down, the way Ember liked it. "Then say it well," she whispered. "He will not forgive it easily." A horn sounded below. The first carriage had arrived. Ember pressed her slippers on and walked to the door, her decision made. She would face her father in the great hall, and after tonight, nothing between them would be the same.