Chapter 11: The Other Escape

Ilysanne chose the stable because the horses could not offer advice.

Seravelle followed her past the feed bins without trying to lead.

Her sister took the map and opened it on an empty barrel.

"How much did you read?" Ilysanne asked.

"The heading," Seravelle replied.

"Nothing beneath it."

Ilysanne kept one hand over the folded letter.

"I meant to tell you before you left yesterday," she said.

Seravelle remembered the queen's voice across the courtyard.

She had owed her sister an answer about dinner.

She had not stayed to discover what else she owed.

"You are giving up the throne," she said quietly.

"I am asking to leave the succession," Ilysanne corrected her.

"Mother has not received it yet."

"Does she know you want to leave?" Seravelle asked.

Ilysanne looked down at the paper beneath her hand.

"She knows I am tired," she said.

"She has offered holidays, and I keep accepting them instead of saying this."

Seravelle recognized another kind of escape in that answer.

Her sister had been disappearing for weeks and always coming back to the same unwanted chair.

Seravelle leaned against a stall door and considered the difference.

"Who will do everything?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Her sister looked at her with a tired, level gaze.

"That was my question," Ilysanne replied.

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