The Four Princesses of Illyria

A Novel

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Sophie

Until I was eleven, I thought we were untouchable. I was Princess Sophia Lucille Nicolav Bartlett, the youngest daughter of King Donovan Marcellus Bartlett II, supreme ruler of Illyria, the greatest kingdom in the world, and Queen Charlotte Andrea Nikolav Bartlett, born and bred a princess in Critland, a small, powerful country in the west.

My older sisters were beautiful, intelligent, ambitious. We were gifted children. Separately, we were impressive; together, we were unstoppable.

Then, disaster struck. It was the end, I thought.

Nothing could be the same ever again. We would never live in quiet harmony again—just the six of us: father, mother, Ivy, Dinah, Abby, and me. Everything would have to be different, and in my mind, that was the worst part of all.

Ivy

The messenger boy collapsed outside the castle gate just as the last of the five tolls sounded from the clock in the courtyard. The sentry might not have ever seen the boy from his position atop the rampart, had it not been for the sergeant walking the perimeter of the castle. Or rather, the young woman walking beside the sergeant.

I heard the boy before I saw him. I stopped walking. "Julian, do you hear that?" Squinting in the morning mist, I turned away from Julian as my eyes sought to match the sound with its source.

"Attempting to distract me will not do you any good."

I felt his fingertips brush mine, but I pulled away. "No, listen."

"Ivy—"

"Stop talking and listen."

"I don't hear anything."

I could hear the irritation in his voice, but there was no time to reassure him. I held up a hand, ears straining… My head snapped to the side. "It's coming from over there."

I set off before he could hold me back, cloak dragging in the long grass that grew outside the castle walls.

I could hear someone gasping for air, so out of breath that it sounded like he was ready to collapse at any moment. The footfalls were irregular; they belonged to someone who has been running so long that his legs have gone numb. Then: the cry of pain, the fall, the ragged, desperate breaths.

I dropped to my knees, mindless of the dew seeping into the trousers my mother hated and my sisters disapproved of. I turned the boy over onto his back, feeling first his ankles and then his knees to see if he had been injured.

I spoke firmly, "That's it, keep on breathing. Stop that crying, now, you haven't hurt yourself."

Beside me, Julian dropped to one knee. "Ivy. Look."

He pointed, and I saw what I had missed before, hidden beneath a layer of mud made fresh by the dew. The boy wore the Illyrian crest, and tucked inside his breeches was a thin, wooden box used by royal messengers to carry missives that had far to go.

I tried to pull him into an upright position, but he was taller than me, and too exhausted to help me. The boy's breathing rattled in his chest as he fell back to the ground.

"Julian, pull him up," I commanded.

Julian reached out, then withdrew. "He's bleeding."

"And you are frightened of bloodshed?" I snapped, frustrated. He was a soldier, the same as me; why was he being so difficult? "I'll do it myself," I said under my breath, and grasped the boy's arm to try and pull him up again. Julian stayed my hand.

"Question him from there. He will catch his breath faster lying down."

I tore a strip of cloth from my trousers and wrapped it around the wound on the messenger's arm. "It doesn't look serious."

The boy gave a choked sob and gasped something out.

"Slow down," Julian said. "Don't rush yourself."

My ministrations softened. "Take a breath and tell us what you know."

The boy closed his eyes, and tears streaked a path on his dirty face. "The king," he gasped. "I must see…"

I wound the makeshift bandage around his slender arm a final time and began to fasten it in place. "The only person you're in condition to see is the cook. What a scrawny thing you are." I frowned as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Was I going to baby the child now?

The boy's eyes flew open, and through the sobs Julian and I understood what he said the first time. "Paduans—at the northern border."

My hand jerked violently and fell from the bandage. I could feel Julian tense beside me, and my hands were unsteady as I knotted the cloth above the messenger's elbow.

"Were you followed?" Julian asked.

The boy began coughing hard.

"Were you followed?" Julian repeated, more insistently.

"No," the boy managed to say, and I released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"We have to get him inside," I said, and Julian nodded, reaching out to scoop him up.

The messenger resisted, and I took hold of his chin firmly. "Look at me." He did, and I was shaken by the fear I saw in his eyes. He was swallowing over and over, trying to force down his tears. "I will get you to the king. Trust me."

After a moment he gave a weak nod and Julian lifted him at once, striding for the hidden door he and I had used as an exit. It was then that the sentry called out to us, and I raised my hand in a traditional Illyrian greeting before identifying us.

"Come in this way," the man called, and gestured impatiently to the younger man beside him. He opened the small entrance beside the main gate and I hurried inside, followed by Julian carrying the slender messenger boy.

The older sentry had come down the steps from the rampart to the courtyard, but stopped short when he saw the mud-covered, coughing, wheezing, shaking boy. "Father preserve us…"

"Where is King Donovan?" I asked.

The man's eyes were fixed on the boy in Julian's arms. "I—I ain't seen him yet this morning—he didn't go out for his usual ride—"

I turned on the younger sentry. "You—do you know where the king is?"

He shook his head hard. "No, he hasn't been out in this area yet today."

I whirled around, trying to catch a glimpse of the clock that stood tall in the courtyard. "The throne room," I said, and before the bewildered and frightened sentries could deduce anything further about the situation, we had set off in a run for the castle's central room.

We splattered mud on tapestries as we streaked past, and I left a smear of dirt on the wall as I grasped it to swing myself around a corner. Cloaks billowed out behind us, and footsteps pounded black muck onto the ancient stone and long rugs of the corridors. One of the throne room's doors was wide open; the other was only ajar. I shoved it open and Julian hurried ahead of me, bearing the boy in his arms.

King Donovan Marcellus Bartlett II lifted his head at the commotion. Several of the advisors gathered around him gasped, though I suspected that one of them only did so because these throne room intruders were walking mud repositories.

I spoke without preface. "We encountered him near the large oak at the south entrance. He bears the messenger's box with the Illyrian crest. The Paduans are invading in the north."

The king stepped down from the raised platform where he stood with his advisors, his dark eyes serious. "Are you certain?"

I shook my head. "No, but that is all he was able to say. We believed it was enough to bring him directly to you."

The advisor called Wardinsky spoke up. "He should be removed from the castle at once, sire. If what he says is true, his presence is a threat."

"He said was not followed," Julian said. "And we scanned the area, but it is not yet light and the boy does not have his wits about him."

"I do, I do," the boy cried out. "Let me stand, I beg you—I must see the king!"

Donovan nodded, and Julian lowered the boy cautiously to the ground. He stood with unsteady legs, and I stepped closer to him to support his weight from one side.

"I am he. Deliver your message."

The boy collapsed before Julian or I could stop him, laying his hands over the king's feet. "Your majesty," he said, his voice shaking. "The Paduans have crossed into our northern border taken the stronghold at the Raymdan River. It happened too fast for us to stop them. I rode—" Here he coughed, and Julian tried to help him to his feet, but the boy waved his help away.

"I rode for four days as fast as I could, but my horse soon tired and I took the rest of the journey on foot. I came as swiftly as my feet would carry me, but sire, I fear that they have come farther south, to the capital, to burn our villages just as they burnt the towns along the Raymdan."

One of the advisors stumbled backward to sit. I stole a sideways glance at his wrinkled face and felt a flash of pity for the man; his sister lived in one of those towns.

"Look at me, boy," Donovan said.

The boy raised his dirty, tear-stained face. "I failed you, majesty," he groaned. "Forgive me."

Donovan lifted him up and clapped him on the shoulder. "You have served Illyria with more determination than I have seen in many years, young man. You have no cause to feel shame."

"Thank you, sire," the boy murmured, looking overcome as he handed the thin box to the king, palms raised.

Donovan gestured to one of the advisors. "Take him to the infirmary." He looked back to the boy. "You look ready to collapse. Please take a few hours' rest and then you may return if that is what you wish."

The boy gave a nod and followed the advisor from the throne room.

Silence pressed heavily on us. The silence extended until I heard a single drop fall from my cloak and land on the floor. I glanced at Julian, who stood much straighter and wore a much more serious expression here in the throne room than he had when we met for our walk earlier that morning. He didn't look at me.

"Ivy, please see to your appearance."

I looked away from Julian and met the dark eyes of the king. "My place is here."

"Not after what happened this morning," he answered, and I knew he wasn't just referring to the bad tidings borne by the messenger.

"Father—"

"You may return when you are presentable." His tone brooked no argument.

My face flushed with anger and embarrassment, and I stared defiantly at Julian, waiting for him to request that I stay. I could help—he knew I could help. But no, he was straight-faced, his hands behind his back, standing at respectful attention in the presence of his king. Coward.

Disgusted, I turned on my heel. My dark braid, heavy with dew, struck Julian in the chest as I strode from the room. I heard their tense voices resume talk as I exited, Julian's voice answering my father's questions in a crisp, respectful tone.

Ignoring the order to clean myself up—I assumed it was mostly in reference to the trousers my mother so desperately disapproved of—I ran to the east wing of the castle to find my mother and wake my younger sisters. This would not be a morning soon forgotten in Illyria.