The doors banged open at dawn, which seemed excessive. I had been awake for an hour already, staring at the ceiling of her small room and listening to the house come alive with the particular kind of chaos that preceded important things. Servants were running. The Countess Viola's voice carried from two floors up, shrill and imperious. Someone had dropped something that sounded expensive.
By the time I made it downstairs, still fastening the buttons on my second-best dress, the Countess had opinions about my best one, the grand foyer looked like someone had kicked an anthill. Servants everywhere, all of them moving with none of them looking at me.
My father stood at the center of it all, navy coat, silver embroidery, the works. He looked exactly like a count should look, which was probably the point. His hair was doing that thing where it tried to pretend he wasn't going gray at the temples. I had inherited his height but not his ability to look comfortable in formal situations.
The servant with the scroll cleared his throat. He looked very intimidating. I pressed herself against the banister and tried to look invisible, which hadn't worked since i was ten but remained my default strategy.
"By order of His Majesty, King Aldric—"
The Countess appeared at the top of the stairs, burgundy gown, posture like a knife. She descended slowly, timing her arrival to coincide with the important parts.
"—the von Artenberg family is hereby requested to present themselves at the royal palace. Count Thomas von Artenberg, Countess Maria von Artenberg, and their children, including Miss Isabella von Artenberg."
Including.
The word hung in the air like something breakable. My stomach dropped. I had assumed—well, I had assumed i'd be left here, like usual. Like the time they'd gone to the Duke of Ravenswood's hunting party just like every other family obligation that mattered.
The Countess's eyes found me immediately. Of course they did.
"Well," she said, and the single word contained multitudes of displeasure. "How unexpected."
"Unexpected" was generous. I could read her stepmother's face well enough by now. The expression currently occupying it said several things, none of them polite. Chief among them: Why her? Why now? Why must this girl be attached to everything?
"We'll need to prepare," the Countess continued, addressing the room at large and me.. not at all.
"Immediately. I won't have this family appear before His Majesty looking like—"
She didn't finish the sentence. Her gaze slid over me like she was something tracked in on someone's shoe.
"Yes, Stepmother." My voice came out low and i tried to sound calm, which felt like a small victory. My hands were shaking, so i clasped them together. It was an old trick that worked about half the time.
Edward was watching from near the drawing room door, arms crossed, face doing its usual thing where it looked like he was judging you and finding you wanting. He'd perfected that expression by the time he was fifteen. Now, at twenty-three, it was like a second skin. Black suit, silver trim, family crest. Heir apparent in every line of his body.
"Try not to embarrass us," he said. Edward was never unkind. He was just... Edward. Distant, dutiful and disappointed by my existence in that specific way that hurt more than William's active cruelty.
"I'll try." What else could i say?
William was slouched against the wall by the portrait of their grandfather, looking like he'd just rolled out of bed, which he probably had. His hair was doing that deliberate casual thing that took him longer to achieve than Eleanor's careful curls.
"Maybe they need someone to test the food for poison," he said, grinning.
"You know, the job where if you die, no one important is lost."
"William." Their father's voice was quiet, but William straightened slightly. The Count had that effect, when he bothered to use it, which wasn't often enough, in my private opinion, but I'd learned years ago that private opinions were safest kept private.
Eleanor stood near the Countess, pale blue dress, golden braid, looking like someone had painted her into the scene as "the beautiful daughter." which she was. Eleanor had gotten their mother's looks and her social graces and her ability to pretend people like Isabella simply didn't exist when it was convenient.
But just for a second, when our eyes met, Eleanor's face did something i couldnt quite understand. Almost sympathetic and almost sorry at the same time. Then the Countess shifted, and Eleanor's expression smoothed back.
They'd been friends once, in the way that children are friends before they understand why they shouldn't be. Isabella remembered playing in the gardens, making flower crowns, Eleanor laughing at something Isabella had said. That was before Eleanor understood that her mother's approval came with conditions, and one of those conditions was pretending Isabella was furniture.
"We leave within the hour," the Count announced.
"The King doesn't like to be kept waiting."
The servants scattered like startled birds. The Countess swept out, Eleanor trailing behind like a well-trained shadow. Edward followed, then William, still smirking. Then it was just my father and i , standing in the suddenly too-large foyer.
The morning light was coming through the windows at an angle that made the marble floor look like it was glowing. I was focused on that instead of on my father's face, which was doing something i couldn't quite read.
"You're afraid." My father was good at that...stating things that were obvious but somehow needed saying anyway.
"Wouldn't you be?" I said as i looked up at him, then back at the floor. The marble really was very bright.
"I don't know why he wants me there. The King. I'm not, I don't have anything to offer."
"The King wouldn't have asked for you specifically if that were true."
"Maybe it's a mistake, maybe he meant Eleanor."
"It wasn't a mistake, Bella." Her father sighed, and for a moment he looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the early hour.
"His Majesty knows exactly who you are, what you are."
That was an interesting choice of words. I filed it away to worry about later.
"What I am is illegitimate."
"You're my daughter."
"Those things aren't mutually exclusive."
Her father's jaw tightened. He hated when she was blunt about her circumstances, preferred the polite fiction that if they all just didn't mention it, it wouldn't be true. But it was true, and pretending otherwise had never made the Countess any warmer or Edward any less distant or William any less cruel.
"Listen to me," her father said, and something in his voice made me actually look at him. "I know I haven't—" He stopped and started again.
"I know I should have protected you better, from Viola, from all of this but you are stronger than you know and your grandmother made sure of that."
"Grandmother taught me to grind herbs and set bones, not to navigate royal courts."
"She taught you to survive, that's more valuable than you think." He put his hand on my shoulder.
"Whatever the King wants, you can handle it. You're your mother's daughter."
I swallowed hard. "My mother died."
"Everyone dies, Bella but she lived first, despite everything the world threw at her. That's what I'm asking you to do. Live even when it's hard. "
He squeezed her shoulder once, then left, boots echoing on the marble. I stood there, watching dust motes swirl in the sunlight, trying to figure out if that conversation had made her feel better or worse.
An hour later, they were in the carriages. Two of them, because the Countess refused to travel in close quarters with more than two other people at a time. I ended up in the second carriage with Edward and William, which was exactly as uncomfortable as it sounded.
Edward spent the first thirty minutes reading correspondence. William spent it staring out the window and occasionally making comments designed to needle me. I ignored him, which made him try harder, which I continued to ignore. Old dance, i knew their steps.
"Do you think," William said, about an hour in, "that the King has heard about your little cottage hobbies? Maybe he needs a new court physician and figures a bastard's cheap labor."
"William." Edward didn't look up from his letter.
"What? I'm just speculating. Someone has to say what we're all thinking."
"No one's thinking that," Edward said, still not looking up.
"You are, though, aren't you? Wondering why Father's mistake is being paraded in front of the King?"
Edward's jaw worked. He set down his letter, folded it precisely, looked at William with an expression that could freeze water.
"Isabella is our sister, half-sister. Whatever you want to call her, she's Father's daughter, and she bears his name. You will remember that."
It wasn't quite a defense but from Edward, it was close enough to count. I kept staring at my hands, at the dirt under my fingernails that i hadn't quite managed to scrub out. Occupational hazard of spending so much time with grandmother's herbs.
William subsided into sulky silence. The carriage rattled on. The countryside passed by, all rolling hills and forests that looked like they'd been designed for a painting. I wondered what the palace would be like, if i'll have my own room or if i'd be stuck in servants' quarters. Whether the King would take one look at me and wonder why he'd bothered.
If i'd fail before i even started.
The sun was setting by the time the palace came into view, all towers and banners and windows that caught the light like flames. It looked less like a building and more like an idea someone had about power made solid.
My hands were shaking again. I clasped them together and watched the palace grow larger as they approached, trying not to think about all the ways this could go wrong.
Trying not to think about how nowhere, the estate, not her grandmother's cottage, not anywhere had ever felt like a place where she belonged.
Maybe the palace wouldn't either but at least it would be somewhere new to not-belong. That had to count for something.
The carriages rolled through the gates, and I took a breath and held it, and tried to convince myself that i was ready for whatever came next.
I knew i wasn't but i had to go anyway, that's what my mother would have done.
Apparently.