Reign or Shine Read online

  I wouldn’t have minded a float like that, but princesses were supposed to get captured and be held hostage by dragons, not befriend them. In fact, the idea that anyone, even a knight, could ride or be on good terms with a dragon was absurd. Maybe Lanovan or his parents were trying to send some sort of political message.

  I sighed, swishing a fly away from my face. The little bugs were getting annoying—they kept buzzing by my eyes, blocking my vision. One landed on my sleeve, but as I was about to swat it away, I froze. What kind of fly had black and yellow stripes? Uh-oh.

  When another bee landed on one of the flowers in my dress, I swiped at it without thinking.

  “OW!”

  Sliding down my perch in the tree, I hit the base of the float with a dull thud. For a few seconds, the bees were distracted and landed on the fake flowers of the apple trees. But before long, they buzzed away, disappointed in the lack of nectar, and came to annoy me again.

  Scowling, I gritted my teeth as the poison from the sting pounded through my veins, making my hand throb and burn. Worse, I could do nothing to stop other bees from swarming me. It would only be a matter of time until I was stung again, unless I got rid of them somehow. I scanned my surroundings for helpful items. My only tools were what was on the float: fake trees, fake grass, and fake flowers. Nothing useful for anything except float-making.

  On the bright side, there wasn’t a stinger stuck in my finger.

  “OW!” The situation was getting ridiculous. I strode to the front of my woodland habitat, where two white horses from our castle’s stable, Hail and Blizzard, pulled the float. I didn’t recognize the driver, but there was no time to waste on a formal introduction.

  “I need to get off the float,” I told him. “Please pull up, just for a second, and I’ll jump down.”

  “Yes, Your Highness. Of course.” The driver nodded, keeping his eyes on the line of floats ahead.

  A bee landed on his neck.

  “Um, don’t—” I tried to warn him, but it was too late. He slapped at his neck, and then jolted to attention as the little beast stung him.

  “Ah, ah!” Jerking his head, he dropped the reins. “Tell me, Your Highness, what was it that just bit me? Did you see?”

  “It was a bee. I’m sorry. They’re all around me because I’m in this dress made of flowers. That’s why I need to get off.” I grit my teeth as I spoke, not because I was angry, but because the venom stung worse with every passing second.

  “A bee. . . a bee! I’m ’llergic to bees, ya know, Your ’ighness.” His words slurred together. His hand slumped away from his neck, revealing a red swollen patch, already far bigger than the bee itself and growing larger by the second.

  “Do you have an antidote?”

  I prayed that he did. I knew one existed, but if it wasn’t administered quickly, the man could die.

  He patted his pockets with a trembling hand. For a second, he looked confused. The bump on his neck was now the size of a plum. The sucking sound of his breathing told me that his windpipe was closing.

  “M’ wife. M’ wife’s got the anniedote.”

  Before I interpreted what he way saying, he lurched sideways, rolling off the driver’s seat to the ground. The drop was taller than I was.

  “Sir! Are you okay?” Dumb question—of course he wasn’t okay, he was suffocating.

  He didn’t answer, but picked himself up and careened back toward where the parade originated.

  “Help him!” I shouted to no one in particular. Then I climbed into the driver’s seat and sat there, stumped. Where had the reins gone? I didn’t know how to drive a team, but I knew I needed reins. And fast, because the horses were headed off course toward some crisp, dewy grass. I leaned forward, looking at the path below. Yep, there were the reins, trailing uselessly on the ground.

  I brushed at a tickling on my arm unconsciously and yelped when I received another sting. I took a deep breath. No need to panic. The pain from the stings was just making my mind fuzzy. I couldn’t stop the horses or steer them, but I could jump off the side of the float and let someone else worry about stopping it. Someone would surely step up and take hold of the horses once they realized the float had no driver and its resident royal had bailed.

  I stood, clambering back over the driver’s seat. The audience was shouting, “Oh!” “Look out!” “Get out of the way!” and “There’s no driver!” No one felt the need to grab the horses’ harness and stop them, though.

  I prepared to jump. It was a long way down for someone in a dress and bare feet on a moving parade float. I told myself I probably wouldn’t get hurt—any more hurt than I already was, anyway. The buzzing from the insects prompted me to hurry. Six fuzzy legs crawled up the back of my neck.

  One of the horses suddenly snorted, then shrieked in surprise. I looked back and saw both horses lay their ears back and prance around. A bee had stung one of them, and the other was nervous about what was bothering his friend.

  I knew horses. Parade horses didn’t spook easily, but all horses usually responded to pain the same way.

  I braced myself against the only thing available: a fake tree. But when the horses took off, the tree toppled over, and me with it. I tumbled across the float, desperately trying to grab something before I fell off the back, but everything I grasped was falling too. Crashing to the sand, I rolled to a stop at the ocean’s edge. I looked up and watched helplessly as the two horses careened through the parade, jostling floats and making the other horses restless, or in the worst cases, rear and buck frantically. Finally, they swerved too sharply, and the float tipped over onto the beach. A curious wave drifted forward, and then drew back out to sea with lots of new tree-shaped trash to play with. Luckily, it left poor Blizzard and Hail, who were having a hard enough time as it was.

  The previously cheering crowd began to murmur excitedly, gossiping, and all the royals in view turned to glare at the person who dared wreck Coralla’s birthday parade. Gulping, I glanced back toward my parents’ float. Their murderous stares matched those of the others and then some. My mother’s white-as-snow cheeks were stained pink with mortification, and I could see the storms brewing in my father’s eyes from across the beach. I was in for it.

  Chapter 2. An Experience

  Since my room was too far away to send me to, my parents banished me to the carriage. I strode there, bare feet burning on the sand, and whipped off the flower dress before entering. I didn’t care who saw me in my undergarments—I was not going to wear that object of torment any longer.

  Shut in the dark stuffiness of the carriage, I clenched my jaw, trying to master the pain of five beestings. The burning of the red puffy spots had dimmed to a dull ache, but the constant discomfort made my stomach queasy. I still felt phantom creepy crawlies making their way up my back and neck. The loud buzzing of insects feasting on the flower nectar in the discarded dress just outside didn’t help either.

  Before lecturing me, my parents had a servant bring me the green dress I had arrived in. Slipping it over my head, I tied all the sashes and ribbons without assistance. Learning how to lace myself backward without looking a mirror was something I’d mastered at age seven. I would never have been able to sneak out of my room at night otherwise.

  Once dressed, there was nothing left to do but sit, twiddling my swollen thumbs, and brace myself for the lecture. My mother sat next to me, and my father opposite. Between her vast dress and his broad shoulders, I felt puny.

  SnowWhite started the tirade, already in tears. What on earth had I been doing? She and my father had been watching the entire time, mortified, as I ripped apart my shoes and threw them off the float. Then I had engaged in even more destructive behavior as I climbed the faux trees and caused them to bend at unnatural angles. Shameless! As if that foolish behavior were not enough, I had to shove the driver onto the ground, causing him to sprain a wrist! Sometimes princesses had to participate in activities they did not wish to so that they remained in good standing in society. It was
time I understood that.

  I was relieved to hear that the driver hadn’t suffocated from his allergic reaction, at least. Otherwise, she would have accused me of murdering him.

  “Mother, I promise I didn’t sh—”

  My father interrupted me to say that I should not interrupt my mother when she was speaking with me. It was useless to point out that she wasn’t speaking with me, she was speaking at me, so I scowled and stayed quiet. Being quiet was something I knew I couldn’t do for long, though.

  My father continued where my mother left off. My selfish, immature behavior had to stop. In less than two years, I would have my inauguration ball, when I would begin courting. The year after that, he and my mother expected me to be married. However, a hooligan dressed in finery would acquire no suitors. Something had to change immediately. He was tired of waiting for me to become mature and stop disgracing the family.

  Their words hurt worse than my beestings. It felt like they were trying to squash me into a tiny bowl too small for a goldfish. No swimming, no jumping, no nibbling allowed—I had to float in stasis, a perfect, live ornament, until they wearied of me or I died.

  The parade had been halted for twenty minutes while horses were calmed down and floats repaired, but it wasn’t a catastrophe. Why should I be disgraced when I was only trying to protect myself? If that was what repulsed suitors, I didn’t want anything to do with them, either.

  Defiance of my life’s fate lit my anger, and injustice fueled the flames. I let my burning rage get the better of me.

  “I didn’t shove the driver! Why won’t you let me explain what happened? Do you think I go around asking myself, ‘Huh, how should I disgrace the family name today?’ Things happen. Like today, when I was swarmed by bees. Honestly, the dressmakers must have been drunk when they—”

  My father interrupted me again. That was enough, he scolded me. Why had I not informed them of the bees before?

  “Maybe because you were too busy speaking with me to hear what I had to say.”

  My father’s eyes became dangerous, stormy slits.

  I had better curb my sarcastic tongue, he instructed, or I would find it cut out of my mouth.

  Not washed with soap, but cut out. Punishments escalated quickly with monarchs for parents.

  At SnowWhite’s prompting, I showed them the swollen spots on my arm, neck, ankle, and shoulder. The fifth sting was in a place I didn’t normally display to the public, so I didn’t mention it. My father called out the window for a servant to fetch a cup of ice.

  SnowWhite sighed. Once the ice came, she said, we would leave.

  “Fine.” I wasn’t afraid of embarrassment, but I was tired of being around so many people.

  No, my father clarified, I did not understand. He and my mother would be leaving. It would be some time before they could show their faces in good society again. I would remain behind to apologize in person to Princess Coralla. The carriage would return for me later in the evening.

  I stomped out of the carriage. “Good luck making me apologize when you aren’t even here,” I snarled, and then slammed the door.

  My father opened the door to come after me and have the last word, but I ran. He would have had to run as well to catch up, and that he would never do—it would be unseemly.

  Fuming, I ducked around a stone wall and pressed myself against it until the carriage wheels rolled away and I stopped feeling steam coming out my ears. Then I stalked toward the magnificent garden party Coralla was hosting in her family’s royal gardens. Without the threat of my parents’ condescending eyes watching me, maybe I could relax.

  Tea lights hung from the palm trees, and under an expansive sand-colored canopy, several long tables held little heart-shaped hors d’oeuvres, dozens of cookies, mouth-watering fudge, and a ten-layer cake. Frothy soups and fresh crunchy-looking salads waited enticingly at another table, and seafood samplers were at the next. The kings, queens, princes, princesses, lords, and ladies from the various kingdoms of Clystopia milled around, socializing and sipping punch or wine.

  Breathing in the sweet smell of food, I headed over to grab something to eat. Nothing cheered me up like stuffing my face. I grabbed dessert first since no one was there to stop me. I could always try some soup or something later if I was still hungry.

  Munching on a melty brownie and holding a glass of ice to my neck to sooth one of my stings, I wandered among the guests to blend in, but didn’t try to find someone I knew. I wanted to eat, not talk. Besides, everyone I knew either didn’t like me or thought I was strange but tried unsuccessfully to hide their opinion by being polite. I didn’t mind, because that was the way I felt about them, too. We weren’t compatible.

  “Hello, Chris! Tell me what you think of my new dress! It’s a custom Leather Diamonds, made expressly for this occasion.”

  I dragged my feet across the sand to my cousins. StarSilver twirled before me, her long blonde hair spiraling outward to smack me in the face. Her dress was too frilly and pink. But all I mumbled was “It’s quite nice.”

  “But mine is better, is it not, cousin?” SunGold said, striking a pose. StarSilver’s fraternal twin was the taller and curvier of the two, with golden hair instead of platinum.

  Her dress wasn’t pink, at least. But the orange hue contrasted poorly with her skin tone, which was the same shade as the inside of an almond. It made her look sickly.

  “The silks it was made from were imported from across the sea in Anduralon,” she bragged.

  I could have told her that Anduralon didn’t exist and whatever dressmaker she employed had scammed her, but I just shrugged my shoulders. “That one’s nice too.”

  Neither of them seemed to hear me. “Oh my, look at that prince!”

  StarSilver nudged her sister and tilted her head in the direction of a boy about our age, who was sipping punch.

  “Oooooh, I see him! That is Arcturus, correct?”

  “I believe so. It is difficult to tell in this light. But he has gotten much cuter since the party at Towers back in the spring, has he not?”

  “Yes, he has a really fine nose.”

  “You know who else has a fine nose?”

  “Who?”

  “Laomi’s brother, Lanovan. Is he here tonight? I saw him riding a dragon float in the parade.”

  “No. I do not suppose you know the reason?”

  “What happened?”

  “He gave up his entire birthright to his sister!”

  “You cannot be serious! What a scandal!”

  “I hardly believed it either at first, but it is true. Laomi mentioned it to Ashella, who told Coralla, who I just spoke with five minutes ago. What she said was . . .”

  While they were distracted with fine noses and scandals, I managed to sneak away—well, almost.

  “Chrisithia! Might I have a word?”

  Raising my eyebrows, I slowly turned on my heels to see the original reason I hadn’t wanted to come to the party marching over, looking as mad as the bees that had stung me. I sighed. Why certain people insisted on using my full name when they had witnessed my violent reaction before, I would never know.

  “Don’t call me Chrisithia,” I said.

  “I will call you what I like,” Princess Coralla snapped. A sneer contorted what would have been a pretty face, with tanned skin, sea-glass eyes, and rose-petal lips. Her dress was so froofy that she was in danger of disappearing in it. Though we were close to the same age and our kingdoms were at peace, I couldn’t remember a time when we hadn’t despised each other.

  “This is my party, in my kingdom, and I cannot believe how you have insulted me with your shameless behavior.”

  I stiffened.

  “I graciously invited you, even though you have managed to ruin every other event I have ever held, and this is how you repay me? I stubbed my toe when the parade float had to jolt to a stop to let your runaway horses by. You made me look like an incompetent child in front of my entire kingdom, and that is something I will not forgive
easily.”

  My jaw clenched. I didn’t appreciate the lecture from a spoiled teenage princess. “Oh, go rub some sand on it.”

  She huffed. “How dare you! You are my guest, still here only because I have not requested that the guards remove you. In fact, I am not sure why I let you remain, when you bring nothing desirable to any social event. You know your personality is the reason no one likes you, right?”

  Sparks lit in my eyes.

  “And look at yourself! Your dress is far too casual for a formal party such as this. Your sense of style is nonexistent.”

  Criticizing what I wore? Really? The sparks caught, burning up the kindling of my patience.

  “Your mother is an inspiring example for you to follow, and yet you never have. My parents and I both agree that it is of no fault of theirs that you are . . . the way you are. All the blame lies with you. You have the potential for great beauty, but you’re always playing in the dirt like a commoner.”

  SnowWhite, a great example? That girl had something stuck in her eyes. The kindling was engulfed, and the flames devoured all that was left. I twitched, trying to contain my emotions.

  “And now the incidents today. How selfish can you possibly be? You ruined my birthday, and for what? Spite? I have never done anything to deserve the humiliation you forced me to endure today.”

  My endurance reached its limit. “Hold my brownie,” I said to a passing waiter.

  “Never, ever again, Chrisithia, will I—”

  WHAM!

  The red that had been building behind my vision exploded. I lost the inner battle with my control and decked her.

  “Now your birthday is ruined.” I smirked at her lying on the ground, watery-eyed and shocked. I enjoyed the sight for five delicious seconds. Then, lifting my skirts, I stepped over her splayed figure.

  Retrieving my dessert from the gaping waiter, I crammed it into my mouth and strode off. I was too angry to feel pain anymore, so I tossed my cup of ice to the side. Pulling myself up a secluded tree, I eased onto the garden wall. The party was dull, and I wanted to remove myself from the situation before I did anything else that would be deemed improper. I pictured myself lighting the tablecloth on fire with one of the lanterns, or bumping the cake onto someone standing beneath. I might even somehow manage to break a wine barrel and make a drunken slip-and-slide on the sandy walkway. That would never do. I’d just walk around and explore for a bit by myself until someone came to find me. I’d likely be banished from the kingdom once Corolla blubbered to her parents. King Alaric and Queen Aquanetta doted on their daughter. I had to cool my temper before I could handle another lecture.