After I got some control, I stammered into his chest, “I-I’m not b-being very p-p-princess-like.”

True did not respond.

Baldrick did.

“As far as I can see, you’re exhibiting traits that suggest you’ll be the finest princess this land has ever known.”

I peeked out from True’s chest and noted Baldrick’s expression shared he meant those words.

And as such, it made me continue weeping.

Prince True

The Doors, South Center of the Great Thicket Forest

WODELL

“She’s comely.”

“That she is,” True murmured to Baldrick with a smile aimed across the clearing to where Farah sat with three female gnomes shifting about her, working at weaving late-season forest blooms in her hair, the four of them amicably chatting.

“She feels deeply,” Baldrick went on.

“This she does,” True agreed.

“For you.”

He looked to Baldrick.

“I thought she’d walk right into a tree, so intent was she in watching you with your people,” Baldrick noted.

True had noted the same.

He had also noted the look on her face, as if he was some fantastical being beyond gnomes or pixies or fairies.

Beyond anything she’d seen.

He had never had anyone gaze at him like that, and he was a prince, for the gods’ sakes.

It gave him the most extraordinary feeling.

A feeling a hard kiss on the mouth with his men and two hundred gnomes in attendance meant he could not take said kiss where it needed to go to do that feeling justice.

“I cannot tell you, True, how happy I was to see you move over our roots with that woman at your side,” Baldrick declared.

“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” True agreed, his attention drifting back to Farah. “She’ll make an excellent queen.”

“She’ll make an excellent wife.”

True again turned to Baldrick.

“I will tell you something I have desired to tell you for many years, my prince,” Baldrick continued. “With an amendment, for before, I wished to say you should seek this. But now, you have found it. Therefore, allow it to happen. Allow someone, finally, to look after you. You will never stop worrying about every soldier, their wives, their children. Every shepherd and head of sheep in their flock. Every pixie that grazes the surface of the Dellish rivers with their wings. This all too much to bear without someone at the end of the day to take some of the weight.”

“Farah has borne enough weight,” True returned.

Baldrick tipped his head sharply in Farah’s direction. “That one could hold a mountain high, and would, if she felt it would make it easier for you to pass through.”

True stared at the male.