**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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♪ I'm afraid of all I am My mind feels like a foreign land ♪ {Duncan Laurence ft. FLETCHER—Arcade}
Cordelia wasn't sure how many hours—or days—had passed before the carriage slowed down. Sharing the space with two others, she suffocated, desperate for air—to be away from Razin's glares, and from Helen's too-warm, too-reassuring touch.
And she hated to feel the need to be away from Helen, as she seemed to be the only thing tethering her to reality, allowing her to retain a semblance of consciousness, a semi-sense of calm. Helen's hand in hers—during the entire trip to the mystery woman's lair—was a source of comfort, but a constant reminder of tension, of questions left unanswered.
What, if anything, had brought these two women so close, and yet so bashful. So friendly, and yet so wary of one another when they were alone?
Helen knew, she knew, she remembered. Cordelia, wrack her mind as she might—even during the lengthy hours of their carriage ride, with nothing to do but ruminate—had no inkling why she and Helen often felt so familiar with one another, and still so estranged.
She didn't have time to make any conclusions, as at long last, the vehicle's horses slowed to a trot, and then skidded to a halt. The sound of footsteps bustling about on a pebbled ground below prompted Razin to snort, awakening from his nap. Helen yanked her hand from Cordelia's, cheeks flushing as she averted her gaze to her lap.
Was she worried someone might catch them with their hands clasped and assume something?
How? Even I have no clue what is going on between us. A stranger would have no means to figure it out.
The door wrenched open, and a footman placed a set of stairs beneath the carriage as he beckoned them out. "Hurry," he breathed, in accented English. "The Lady does not appreciate slowness."
Helen moved past Cordelia, brushing her skirts over Cordelia's shoes, and alighted first. She hesitated at the bottom of the steps, fixed on the sights in front of her. Razin motioned for Cordelia to go next, offering his hand to help her stabilize.
Once down the carriage stairs, Cordelia, like Helen, paused. Before her was a large, mossy stone covered manor of several stories in height, with faded metallic-framed windows almost as tall as Razin, and grubby shrubs along the ground floor, sprinkled with withering peach and purple roses. Peering left and right, Cordelia sighted the lavish surroundings of high pines. A forest, likely filled with creatures that would end up on the dinner table later that day.
The carriage took off, and Cordelia spun to see behind her to view fields of colorful crops, orchards of apple and cherries and grapes, and more pines and thick branched trees surrounding the estate. They'd come down a bush-lined pathway, big enough to fit two wide vehicles, at the end of which was a high iron fence that shined in the slowly setting sun. So it was late afternoon, she realized. Her notion of time had been warped since the moment the prison guards had knocked her and her companions out.
