Part IV
Today marked my first official appearance as King Alfred’s heir. The next ruler of Riven.
As a whole, the court seemed to accept me. A good sign, I’m told.
But I hear the hushed comments about the absence of the king’s daughter, the Princess Matilda.
There’s still no sign of her. Plenty assume I killed the girl, or that I ordered her death as a way to cement my own claim.
I did not. And should the princess have accepted my hand, I would have tried to make a good husband to her.
To honor her right to sit on Riven’s throne.
Perhaps I should have insisted that the princess rule in her own right and not simply as consort. But what good would that have done? The nobles would have offered the crown to another man. One more pliant and easier to bend to their will. At least I can do some good.
And yet thoughts of the missing princess haunt me in the night. Sometimes, I swear that I can sense her presence. Watching me. Judging me. I pray that it is an illusion. That the princess is alive and well and that she never returns to the palace.
If she does, I fear she might burn Riven down to satisfy her vengeance.
—Private writings of Braxos, First of the Line of White, Undated