Abi glanced over at her best friend, riding easily on her Companion, Dylia, and grimaced. “I am never getting pregnant.” Personally, she was not a big fan of marriage right now either, but it didn’t do to ever say that out loud. As one of her father’s agents in and around the Court, she reckoned that for every one happy marriage there were a dozen that ranged from “distantly friendly” to “armed truce.” While the King and Queen and Mama and Papa were definitely in happy marriages, with few exceptions, the rest of the courtiers were not exactly an advertisement for matrimony.

Princess Katiana, known as “Kat,” or now, “Herald Trainee Kat,” answered her with a wry smile. Kat didn’t seem at all bothered by the rain. Then again, Kat didn’t seem at all bothered by much anymore, now that she’d been Chosen. Of all of the Royal siblings, she was the most even-tempered, and she didn’t look like either of her parents. In fact, Abi would have said, if she’d been asked, that if the Palace portraits were accurate, she looked like an exact copy of her great-grandmother: medium brown hair the color of autumn leaves, dark eyes, oval face. Kat’s expression was generally cheerful though, and the old Queen’s had been sad and sober, at least in the painting.

One advantage of being a Princess rather than just a regular Trainee was that Kat’s uniforms had been custom-made for her, so maybe her cloak was a bit more waterproof than the one Abi had purloined from the storage room. Actually, now that Abi thought about it, Kat’s cloak not only was probably quite waterproof, but she knew for a fact it had a woolen lining, something Abi’s lacked. No wonder Kat looked unfazed by the rain.

So unfair . . .

Abi wasn’t a Herald Trainee, but Rolan, her mama’s Companion, had offered to carry her on this errand because the weather was so bad, and she wasn’t going to turn that down. So she’d dressed in gray and swiped a Trainee cloak from the spares, figuring in weather like this no one was going to look too hard and realize one of the Trainees—wasn’t. That might have been a bad miscalculation. I probably should have asked to borrow Trey’s cloak instead. He certainly isn’t going anywhere outside today. The last she’d seen of Trey, he’d been firmly ensconced in front of the fire in the Royal Suite, deep in a history lesson, and not about to be shaken out of it by anything less important than dinner.

My own fault for trying to pose as a Trainee without thinking things through.