**THE PRINCESS SERIES is part of the GOLDEN UNIVERSE, and considered a sequel to THE GOLDEN QUEEN/A BRAZEN LOVE**
♦YOU MUST HAVE READ THE GOLDEN UNIVERSE NOVELS AND THE BRAZEN NOVELS TO READ THIS SERIES!♦
Cordelia, the Princess of Totresia, has alw...
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♪ Little girls always grow older Your story is a long way from over ♪ {FLETCHER—Princess} EXPLICIT warning for the song
In its late October glow, the canary yellow hued castle almost didn't appear so threatening. Its appealing vine-covered window frames didn't showcase the vipers that once crawled behind its walls. Or the spiders that crept under its creaky floor-boards. Its alluring but faded grassy surroundings didn't divulge the plots that flowed from its roots and spiraled up to its slate-colored roofs like veins awash with poisoned blood. For a few moments, the Torrinni Castle appeared as a safe, sweet-scented, happiness-infused dwelling. A place where any royal would have loved to grow up, and any noble would have loved to attend court.
But Princess Cordelia of Totresia wouldn't be fooled. Not when she knew the truth beneath the faulty charm and the lies still spewing behind the glimmering facade. Not when she'd received her fill of the drama and fled it all, close to two years ago, and hoped to never return.
Yet there she was, standing before the stone steps, bracing to breathe in the toxic, overbearing air of Torrinni Court.
She sighed as she tried not to glare at the massive wooden entrance doors, behind which awaited the golden, gleaming entryway. It was apparently, renovated, but she hadn't been around to see it. The building seemed to scowl at her like a lioness waiting for its ever unsuspecting prey to come closer. And though her body willed her to turn tail, to retreat and cower in the bushes to evade the claws, her brain moved her forward.
I have no choice... the King summoned, and I must obey.
Cordelia retreated from Torrinni Castle in early eighteen-hundred, at her mother's desperate summons. She was frail, ill, stuck in bed with a horrific cough and a few broken bones. She'd written to her only daughter in agony, hoping for her help in nursing her back into shape. And though Cordelia was concerned for her mother's health, she couldn't deny that any occasion to leave court was welcome—for her own health.
At first, King Antoine had begged her to let his best physicians take care of their ill mother instead. He'd almost been compassionate, when pleading with her to not go to the Torrinni Palace, hours away from the court he'd wanted her to mingle in. Cordelia wondered if he'd believed her, at the time, when she came to him with a formal petition during regular hours. She'd garbed in her finest silks, pouted her lips, and clasped her hands to urge him to let her attend to the ailing Dowager-turned-Duchess Clémentine.
After all, why would he—or anyone else, for that matter—believe that Cordelia would want to spend time with Clémentine, sick or not? The woman, though pardoned by her family members, orchestrated most of the schemes that brought on all the current issues in Totresia. She'd hidden true identities, conspired with enemies, organized unwanted marriages, enabled assassinations, and harbored unnecessary hatred towards the wrong people. Though allowed to roam wherever she pleased, she rarely came to court anymore. Not because she was banished from it, but because many younger nobles there regarded her with disdain, despite Antoine and Marguerite's warnings to treat her with respect.
