Their Hidden Princess novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: Commencement

"Yes," I said.

My father closed his eyes in relief.

"But not the chapel."

His face fell. Then he waited, which he'd never done once in my whole childhood.

I looked past him, down the wall walk, to where the black cliff dropped into the lake.

"Up there," I said. "Under the moon. Where I dreamed it. You can walk me up the path."

He followed my eyes.

"It's a steep path," he said.

"You'll have had all winter to practice."

He laughed for the first time since the chapel floor.

The winter went quickly after that.

Varrick was tried in front of the whole court in Moorhaven. The army watched him hang. My father went down for it and came back looking ten years younger.

I learned to sleep through a whole night.

I passed my sword exam in the spring. Roan refereed it, and said "Again" after every point, until the master told him to stop.

Commencement came on a hot day at the start of summer, with the lake bright as a plate.

The second years stood in rows in the yard in their best shirts and ties.

Lysander took the healing prize. He went up for it in a coat with his blackened signet on his hand. He said it was the best thing he'd ever brewed.

Roan took the sword. Nobody was surprised, least of all Roan.

Then the master of the forge stood up with a sheet of paper.

"The armorers' prize," he read. "Maudie Tibbett."

Maudie stood frozen in the second row.

Then the two Ingleby boys who'd once carried her pack picked her up between them and carried her to the front.

Her prize piece lay on the table.

A sword, plain and perfect, with iron on the outside and a line of silver let into the blade.

"For whoever needs to stay herself," the master read off her card.

I had to look at the sky for a minute.

The prize was a purse, and the purse was enough.

That afternoon the two pack lords came to her together.

"There's an old smithy at the ford," the Dunstan lord said. "Empty for five years."

"The new farms will want ploughs," the Ingleby lord said. "A great many ploughs."

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