The breeze greets Fifi as a long-lost friend, wrapping around her as she sneaks into the courtyard nearest the room where her family is dining, closing the door noiselessly behind her. She cannot help but smile simply because she is outside. This courtyard isn’t one she typically frequents because it is so close to the parts of Adelhyod where King Ansgar spends the most time, but for Fifi that’s an added bonus; she’ll have new things to see as she explores this unfamiliar space. And I can pretend Minna’s Quest for Favor doesn’t exist, if only for a little while.

A few puffy clouds chase each other across the blue dome of the sky. Fifi watches them as she wanders the cobblestone paths, until her attention is captured by an enormous rhododendron, its branches bowing under the weight of its plentiful fuchsia blossoms.

“Beautiful,” she murmurs, stroking a petal of one magnificent flower. Without realizing it, she starts to hum along with the birds singing cheerfully in the trees around the courtyard. Their joy is infectious, and though Fifi has always preferred visual art to music, her humming is as pleasant as the birdsong.

After the rhododendron, Fifi spots a pond in a corner of the courtyard, complete with a fountain and overhanging weeping willows. As she approaches the pond, her smile broadens; colorful fish swim in the sparkling clear water, and a quaint stone bench affords her the perfect place to watch them. Is life in that pond any better than life trapped in my father’s palace? she wonders. The birds, at least, are free to come and go as they please. And yet they choose to come and let us share in their songs.

Guilt pierces her abdomen; not all the birds are free. Algot is in his gilded cage, back in the rooms she shares with Minna. I hope Lise remembers to give him a treat for me. Maybe I should go check on him…. But as much as she loves her pet raven, she cannot bear the thought of going back into the palace before she must. On a normal day, she might spend all afternoon in a courtyard, sketching and daydreaming and evading the maids and courtiers sent to retrieve her. But will I ever be able to do that again? Once the Quest for Favor is over, we’ll have Minna’s wedding to plan for, and then…once she’s gone…

A frog croaks loudly on the bench next to Fifi, making her jump and startling nearby birds into cacophonous protests. They fly a short distance away, settling in a stand of decorative trees on the opposite side of the courtyard. Fifi giggles a bit at herself and the frog, who glares at her with imperial haughtiness.

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness,” she addresses the frog in her most proper princess voice. It may be only a frog, but Prince Casimiro is exactly that arrogant, she muses, remembering a story she read years ago about a prince who was transformed into a frog, only to be changed back to his human self by a kiss from a very accommodating—and foolish—princess. Is it possible that one of the competitors has magic and cast such a spell? That Duke of Punthar has the right look for it, anyway. But it’s not likely. Great-grandfather’s witch burnings drove true magic users into hiding long ago. And even if one of Minna’s suitors has magic and used it that way, it’ll be a long time before there’s any princess here foolish and desperate enough to kiss a froggy Casimiro back into himself. He’d be better off as a frog.

The courtyard birds stir again, protesting raucously as they rise as one from a clump of lilac bushes several paces from Fifi’s perch, drawing her notice. The lilacs continue rustling even after the birds have left them, though the breeze has died out.

“Hello?” she calls, suddenly alert, on edge. The frog leaps back into the pond, splashing Fifi’s dress, but she hardly notices. There’s no menagerie here. As far as I know, no one ever uses this courtyard, except the Royal Gardeners, Fifi worries, rising to her feet.

A young man with a low ponytail emerges from the lilacs, tense and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. A lute hangs by a strap from one of his shoulders.

“I’m terribly sorry to have startled you, Your Highness,” he says with a bow. “I didn’t expect to see anyone else, least of all you, out here. I’ll just be going—”

“You don’t have to,” Fifi interrupts, offering him a slight smile. That’s the crest of Lyrnola he’s wearing. He’s the one who acted like he’d never been to court before, the one I didn’t recognize as even vaguely familiar. “It’s horridly stuffy in there.”

“Yes.” His eyes dart nervously around the courtyard, and his posture is tense and uncertain.

“You might as well enjoy the reprieve while you can. Unless…. If you came out here to practice, before the music round, I can find somewhere else to—”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“No, I…just came out for some fresh air.”

“Nervous?”

He laughs a little. “Not really. I’m just not…used to being…here.” He gestures to the stone walls around them with their stained glass windows overlooking the courtyard, boxing them in. Fifi smiles again, pleased to see him relax a bit and to find that they have something in common.

“I thought I hadn’t seen you at court before. Can I ask your name? Or shall I wait until they announce you this afternoon?”

“They’ll call me Lord Nicolaas in there, but I go by Kai, mostly. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Princess Josefi—”

“Just Fifi, please. Welcome to Adelhyod, Kai.”

***~O~***

Kai smiles in spite of himself. He never dreamed, when his father forced him to come to Adelhyod to compete in Princess Wilhelmina’s Quest for Favor, that he would exchange more than formal pleasantries with anyone in the Royal Family, let alone find that he has anything in common with any of them.

“Thank you…Fifi,” he answers the princess. The nickname suits her, he decides as he notices the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She must spend a fair bit of time outside, not just as an occasional escape from formal functions.

“You’ve chosen a good talent,” Fifi tells him. “Minna—my sister—loves music of all kinds.”

“Yes, I…My father insisted I do something musical, for that very reason.”

“What would you have chosen to do, without your father’s interference?”

“Oh, it’s not…” What a question. Why is she asking? Why does she still want to talk to me? Just answer her! “I enjoy the lute, and singing, well enough. It’s not that I would have chosen another talent, just that…. I mean no offense to your sister, of course—she’s just as lovely as everyone always said—but I—”

“You didn’t want to compete at all,” Fifi guesses.

How did she know?! “Please don’t tell anyone. Especially not the king. I’ll never hear the end of it if I’m sent home before I’ve even had a chance to compete. I came so that my father might stop badgering me to marry some wealthy or high-ranking woman or other, even just for a few days, and I’ve got to make it look like I’ve actually tried.” The words burst from him like water from a breached dam. Kai knows it’s not the sort of thing he should admit aloud, especially not in a courtyard of the Royal Palace, but there’s just something about Fifi that makes him feel like honesty might work in his favor.

“Your secret is safe with me. And if it’s any consolation, even if you’re the most incredible musician Minna’s ever heard…. It’s nothing against you, of course, but our father has made it very clear that he has a particular royal alliance he wishes her to make with her choice of a husband.”

Kai laughs in disbelief before he can stop himself. “Then why bother having a Quest for Favor at all? What’s the point of going through all this if he means to choose for her anyway?”

“Mother insisted. The Quest for Favor is tradition, after all. And Minna still has freedom to choose…which prince, anyway. And from what we’ve seen so far, that’s no small blessing.”

Kai coughs repeatedly to avoid snickering. So it’s Syazonia King Ansgar wants an alliance with, then. If he were in Princess Wilhelmina’s shoes, he would have already eliminated at least two Syazonian princes from the competition, but despite Fifi’s engaging manners and the fact that her eye twitched when she mentioned tradition, he doesn’t feel like he can say that aloud, not here, not now.

“Are you all right?” Fifi asks, taking another step towards him.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Kai answers. Good of her to be concerned, even though I was faking it. “And before you ask, I assure you, I’ll say nothing of this to any of the…competitors inside.”

“I appreciate that very much. I’m sure it’ll cause a frightful row if the wrong people catch wind of the truth.”

“Aye. But they won’t, at least, not from me.”

“You’d have more chances to spill the beans than I would. I’m not meant to have a chance to speak with any of you myself, at least, not before the Ball.”

Fifi seems a bit put out by this admission, and as she glances around their courtyard refuge, Kai can’t help but wonder why. She’s not much younger than her sister. Like as not her own Quest for Favor will be sooner rather than later.

“How many of the suitors your sister doesn’t choose do you s’pose will come back to compete for you?” he blurts out, reddening at his own brazenness.

Fifi shrugs and looks away from him. “It doesn’t matter.”

Bones, now I’ve gone and offended her. Kai shifts uncomfortably. I don’t know how to fix it. I just wanted to know—

“His Majesty the King will likely have specific instructions for my choice, as he has for Minna,” Fifi adds softly.

Kai wants to make a joke about pushy fathers, but as he opens his mouth to speak, a trumpet sounds somewhere in the palace.

“Well, that’s the end of our reprieve,” Fifi sighs. “Shall I tell Minna you’re a horrid lout and beg her to send you home tonight? Or would it be better for you if you stay?”

“Tell her nothing at all, and let her judge me by my performance. Isn’t that how this is meant to go?” Kai replies with forced cheer. Why should she want to help me?

“As you wish!” And with a giggle and a half-curtsey, Fifi takes her leave in a swirl of pink silk, leaving Kai staring after her next to the lilacs.

“I suppose I’d better go back, too,” he mutters. He hadn’t cared at all about the performance before meeting Fifi, but now that he’s acquainted with a member of his audience, nerves bubble up inside him.

“Better go,” a raven agrees from a nearby tree, making Kai jump.

“Beg pardon?”

The raven squawks—is it laughing at me?—and flies away. Sigurd warned me they all have personalities, he reminds himself. Without waiting for any other animals to reveal their thoughts, he steels his nerves and forces himself to go back to the Great Hall of Adelhyod and prepare for his performance.