Didi watched her own legs carry her down the royal stairs, as though they belonged to a stranger. Her mother's fingers slid from her wrist at the top step, slack and threaded with thin, glittering gold.
"Forgive me, darling," the Queen whispered, tears on her gloved hands, "I cannot even hold you."
'Turn around. Sit down. Do anything at all but this.'
Every noble in the box knelt with trembling lips, every one of them begging the same silent plea. Below the rail the sand shone dark with rain, ninety thousand citizens rising to their feet around it.
"Princess," Ruvan's voice said gently, rolling out of a hundred thousand mouths, "I have always been so proud of you."
"Get out of my head, Ruvan," she gasped, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached.
"Do you remember the winter you cut your palm on the practice ice," the voice asked fondly, "I carried you home through the snow, all nine miles."
