Donna looked at her—really looked. At the dirt under her nails, the strength in her shoulders, the way she watched the bridge with the same steady pride a parent watches a child take its first step. Kaelen didn’t need fixing. She needed a partner.
They worked for three days. Donna rappelled down the cliff face to inspect the jammed counterweight, shouting instructions up to Kaelen’s team. She slept on a bed of rope coils and woke to the smell of pine smoke and boiled coffee. She broke a fingernail down to the quick and didn’t care. princess donna
“What did you expect?”
Donna looked at him. She saw the sadness in his eyes, but she also saw the way he hadn’t noticed the stable boy struggling with a loose horseshoe or the cook fanning a smoky oven flue. Prince Aldric didn’t want a fixer. He wanted a nurse. Donna looked at her—really looked
Kaelen wiped her hands on her trousers and looked at Donna. “You’re not what I expected,” she said. She needed a partner
Word of Princess Donna’s talent spread, but not in the way she hoped. Prince Aldric of Thornwood, a solemn young man with a polished sword and an emptier smile, heard the story and misinterpreted it entirely. He saw a princess who cared —cared about a flickering candle, cared about a broken gear. He decided she would care for his crumbling, melancholy castle, his sullen court, and his own wounded heart.
Kaelen was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “Stay.”
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