Me and Val sprint into the castle and Cy follows behinds us. I accidentally shove past a maid with a tray full of plates that she luckily didn’t drop.

"Sorry!" I turn around and call out.

"Hurry up!" Val grabs my hand and continues to run. Cy simply giggles.

We rush into my bedroom and my maid Davina looks up at us, surprised.

"Sorry, D," I pant out, tired out from running. "We were out in the garden and then me and-"

"No time to apologise." Valencia hands me a white linen dress, "Hurry up and wear this."

I take it.

"She has this dress," Davina pulls up a pink corset dress.

"She doesn’t have the time to get fitted into a dress like that." Val nudged me to start getting dressed.

I start to undress out of my wet clothes while Cy sits on my bed fiddling with some of my rings.

Davina sighs, "Fine." She notices my drenched clothes. "What happened?"

I point at Cyrus.

"Hey!" he frowns. "You started it!"

"It was an accident!"

I suck the water out of my hair. A great day to have water weaving abilities.

I get dressed and fix my hair.

Good enough.

The door knocks and Val opens it. "What?"

Yep. That’s Ade.

"Hey, Shining!" I put my heels on.

"You’re late, Princess."

"I know, I know," I rush out of the room as I still attempt to strap my heels on. Damn heels.

Once they’re properly on, I sprint.

"Princess! You’re going to fall!" he runs after me.

I am a princess who’s kingdom has gone to war twice in the time I have been alive. He thinks I don’t know how to run in heels?

I finally end up at the meeting room. I try my best to catch my breath, try make it out I didn’t just run a marathon to get here.

Ade adjusts my off the shoulder sleeve and nods. "You read- Okay she’s already heading in."

I open the door and walk in.

Okay, by the way they’re all looking at me right now, I definitely look less presentable than I had hoped.

Eiran sighs softly and pinches the bridge of his nose.

I smile awkwardly, "Sorry I am late. I ran into a..situation." Me, Cyrus and Valencia getting into a mini water fight was the situation.

"This," an older man looks me up and down. "Is who were were waiting for?"

Rude.

"She isn’t exactly what I was imagining when I thought about your wife, the future queen of Numix and Katharos…" he continues. "She looks like a mess more than anything," he snorts.

Oh he has a lot of audacity. Just as I’m about to open my mouth, Eiran speaks up. "Talk about my wife like that again, I’ll burn your mouth off."

The room stills.

I see Ade hide a smirk from the corner of my eye.

Eiran getures for me to sit down besides him and so I do.

He nods. "Now, let’s talk strategies."

(Probably will put this in WOF. Anastasia is 19 and was forced to marry Eiran because of the war and their fathers wanted to form an alliance.)