On the morning Princess Ravenna turned eighteen, a servant knocked to say her father wanted her, and Ravenna already knew what the summons meant. She pulled the blanket over her face. She hated mornings, but she hated this more. Her father had begun to speak of suitors. Ravenna wanted no arranged match. She wanted what her parents once had: a real love, and a life spent riding and exploring beyond the castle walls. Her mother had died ten years ago. The stories of their adventures together were all Ravenna had left, and she meant to earn adventures of her own. She dressed in her royal gown and laced her brown boots to the knee. Her black hair fell in curls she did not bother to tame. She walked the long hall to the great room where her father waited. King Charles stood by the tall windows in his fur-lined cloak, one gloved hand resting on his sword hilt. Gray streaked his black hair now. He turned when she entered, and his hard face softened the way it only did for her. "Ravenna," he said. "A carriage comes to Moonlake Castle in a week. Their king sends his son to meet you." Ravenna kept her hands still. "You've already agreed." "I've agreed to a visit. Nothing more." He watched her carefully. "You look at me the way your mother did when she was cornered." "Then you know what I'll say." Ravenna stepped closer. "You didn't meet Mother through a carriage and a contract. You met her on a road, both of you far from home. You've told me a hundred times." The king was quiet. Rain streaked the glass behind him. "I want what you had," Ravenna said. "Not a stranger chosen for his crown." "Love was easy for me to find," he said slowly. "It was harder to keep. I lost her too soon." He looked at his daughter's face. "Then let me choose," Ravenna said. "Let me meet him without a promise hanging over it. If there's nothing real, you don't force it." King Charles was silent a long moment. Then he nodded once. "The visit stands," he said. "But no betrothal is signed until you say the word. You have my hand on it." He held out his gloved hand, and she took it. Ravenna felt the weight lift, then settle differently. She had won her freedom to choose. But the prince still came in a week, and now her father expected an answer she did not have. She thought of the stables, of the road beyond the gates, of the wide country she had never crossed. If a real love waited somewhere out there, no carriage would carry it to her door. She would have to go and find it herself. If her father could get lucky enough to find a noble woman on the road perhaps the same could be said for Ravenna.