The Last Princess

Chapter 3

"No, you're not!" I said loudly, facing him. 

"Of course I am." He said smoothly. His calm was scarier than his anger. "We have the same mother."

"But different fathers!" I retorted.

His eyes widened. I was pleased to think I'd shocked him. "How dare you?" Please. Who was he kidding? Everyone knew who his real father was.

No elf believed that Forreston was the son of Queen Ivy and my father, King Rowan Elowen. It was obvious that he was the son of my mother and an adviser of hers, Sir Branch Hawthorn. But no elf could object to my mother either. Ivy lived on a Law of our Forest. 'No elf could question the ruling  monarch'.

That rule would be abolished if I was Queen.

I never understood why any of my ancestors hadn't abolished that rule. Probably too comfortable to have your people having to bow to your every whim.

Ivy got away with too much, just because of that. The murder of seven of her daughters, and probably her husband, too. 

My father had died just after I was born. No one could prove his wife had killed him, but it was obvious. When Olive, her third daughter, was found dead (when I was only six, so I didn't remember her either), guards actually found her standing over her body. And it spread across the Forest that Queen Ivy was responsible for the deaths of three of her daughters. 

She didn't try to deny it. Then, the rest of her daughters also mysteriously were killed. Ash, Willow, Holly - and finally Juniper. 

Now only I was left.

Juniper and I had discussed this, and we could only find one thing that made sense. Queen Ivy had had eight daughters. Daughters.  

After she had had her seventh daughter, with King Rowan, she gave up on him. With Sir Branch, she finally had a son. She tried again with King Rowan, only to have yet another girl. She finished him off too.

That was only our theory.

Though it was probably true.

"I am the son of King Rowan Elowen. I am Prince Forreston Elowen." Forreston said in a controlled voice. I looked at him evenly. Now that I had started, I couldn't stop. "No, you're not."

He clenched and unclenched his hand like he wanted to strike me, but he couldn't, not with the Ceremony.

I was playing on that.

Though I knew I would be severely punished later, I continued, "And I don't need an escort. I'll go on my own."

He gritted his teeth and glared at me. He pointed his index finger in my face. "Watch out, Sister." Without looking back, he strode out of the room.

I sighed. A small victory.