The invitation to the marriage ball came just after my twentieth birthday, in the fall, as the maples were beginning to catch fire, over a year after the last dark plague death in the kingdom. The king sent a human messenger again, carrying heavy tea-with-milk colored envelopes. He came in the morning, just after the silver breakfast dishes had been set on the sideboard. Our fields and orchards were producing as they had before the epidemic. From the look on the messenger’s face as he sat down at the table after handing me the invitation, there was still a food shortage in the capital, even in the palace. I had put my powers to good use.
I read the invitation as I drank my second cup of tea: Their Majesties, in celebration of the majority of Crown Prince Aidan, request the presence of Cal
