The Bravest Princess Read Free

with them, but Annie didn’t care.
    Annie smiled at Marie, the maid who was in charge of the flowers. Marie knew everything there was to know about flowers and picked fresh blooms every day from the queen’s garden. Queen Karolina’s fairy godmother had created the garden when Karolina married King Halbert, making sure that the new queen had fresh flowers all year long. As Annie passed by, Marie was telling three footmen where to place several baskets of flowers while she whipped together bouquets using blossoms from water-filled buckets.
    Annie looked around as she walked down the aisle between the rows of benches that filled the center of the hall. The tables, which normally stood in two long rows, had been pushed against the wall behind the columns that supported the balcony, where the musicians would be playing. Colorful banners fluttered from the ceiling, garlands of flowers were draped over the balcony railing, and great copper bowls sat on the tables, their blossoms spilling down the sides like froth from over filled tankards. The scent of the flowers mingled with the fresh beeswax candles in the wall sconces and the sweet-smelling herbs covering the floors, making the entire hall smell like summer.
    Two tables had been left at the opposite end of the hall from the dais for the use of anyone wanting breakfast. Annie spotted Prince Emilio, one of the princes she had met while looking for Gwendolyn’s true love. Annie joined him, and a moment later, a harried-lookingkitchen helper came to the table carrying a pot of porridge. Setting a bowl in front of Annie, the girl began to ladle out a serving. Annie glanced at the porridge, which was laced with burned bits scraped from the bottom of the pot.
    â€œIs there anything else to eat?” she asked the girl.
    â€œI’m sorry, Your Highness,” said the girl, dropping another scoop of porridge in the bowl with an audible
plop,
“but that’s all there is this morning. The cooks all have their hands full fixing the wedding feast.”
    â€œI can’t eat that slop,” said Prince Digby, who had been Gwendolyn’s only suitor before the curse took hold. “It looks like something a cat—”
    â€œDon’t you dare finish that sentence,” Annie told him. “Some of us are actually going to eat it.”
    Digby smirked and opened his mouth to continue when a little girl seated at the end of the other table turned to her mother and said, “Momma, I don’t feel so good.”
    â€œWho was that?” Emilio asked Annie as the woman hustled her daughter from the room.
    â€œI think that was one of the flower girls,” said Annie. After pushing the largest blackened bits to one side of her bowl, she tasted the less-burned porridge and decided that it wasn’t too terrible. She glanced down the length of the table before asking Emilio, “Where are the rest of the princes?”
    â€œYour Prince Liam is out talking with the guards,and Beldegard is getting dressed. The others are in their rooms still,” said Emilio.
    Annie had been hoping to see Beldegard’s brother, Maitland, at breakfast. He had told her that he wanted to win Snow White’s hand, so he’d probably want to hear about the message she had sent. Annie was wondering if she should send him a message of her own, but then Liam walked in and she forgot all about it. She smiled as he took a seat beside her.
    â€œYour father has decided that the tower is the best place to keep Granny Bentbone for now,” said Liam. “He was a little hesitant at first because the tower lies in Dorinocco, but I assured him that it would be all right. My father feels guilty that Mother caused so much trouble when she tried to take over your kingdom, so he’s willing to help in whatever way he can. Anyway, your father sent guards ahead to get the tower ready. Tomorrow morning I’m going to accompany the men who are taking Granny