To break his family's curse, Faolan mac Domnall seeks to marry the beautiful Saoirse, princess of Mide. Spirited and outspoken, the wild Saoirse wants nothing more than to escape the life that's been decided for her. Determined to outmaneuver a twis...
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Princesses were not pushed out of mirrors.
Queens might politely ask them to leave banquets when they shattered a vase by accident. Kings might request them to leave private war-room meetings. But Saoirse could not remember a time she had been forcefully removed from a room.
Though Saoirse knew she repeated it a dozen times, the words continued to tumble. It did not help that Faolan was wordless and broody. She did not enjoy silence, and so she filled it.
"It's just so rude!" she finally shrieked, hoping to draw her horse boy into some semblance of conversation.
As he saddled Apple, he looked at her. His dark hair was messy from the constant distressed hand running through it. His eyes were framed under brows still drawn in unhappy contemplation. Faolan had worn the expression ever since the mirror had sealed behind them.
"But why did she push us out?"
The answer did not arrive until over a week later. Without a way into Otherworld and with a horse boy devoid of laughter, Saoirse no longer found she wanted to ride to Fir Tulach. In those days back at the castle, nursing an uncomfortable belly of guilt, the princess kept herself busy by following her father through his duties.
High King Aed had not scolded her for the many days of disappearing acts—though he gave her a look of unveiled disappointment that set her on the defensive. Saoirse claimed her rides took her across the countryside. Her escorts were just too slow to keep up with her. It wasn't as if she meant to ride ahead. The day slipped away from her. On and on, she lied.
It helped, of course, that her escorts never found her at the mac Domnall cottage. They trudged after her, but Saoirse was inches and leagues away. Covered in shadows and dust, the mirror was perfectly inconspicuous in a corner of the musty stable.
Despite her blatant dishonesty, her father only smiled and asked that she spend more time learning how to serve her future kingdom. With the path to Otherworld out of reach, the princess obliged. Instead of the comfortable gowns she had taken to wearing, Saoirse tied herself into her finest clothes and adorned herself with manners.
Perhaps it was that she had taken a reprieve from court, but Saoirse found she missed it. She missed the gossip and the grumbling, the flirting and the fighting. She missed the intrigue and politics. And yet there was something new blooming within the world of her father's council meetings.
Where she once stared out of the open window, head filled with dreams, she now found herself listening intently to each advisor. Once the meetings ended, their dilemmas continued to sprout in her head like stubborn daisies. On that strange day in Siofra's cottage, Saoirse had meant what she said: rulers had a responsibility to their people. It was odd, it took saying the words out loud to make them real.
"Saoirse," the High King Aed called, voice heavy with exhaustion. The men scattered around the scrubbed-oak table had taken to arguing in raised voices. "How might you solve this issue?"
