Chapter 1

“Augh, Tyra, I can’t do this!”

The attendant gave a warm smile at Amara, sitting down next to her at the desk in her room. “You’ll do great.”

“No I won’t,” Amara insisted, shaking her head and running a hand through her long, wavy red hair. “I thought this would be so exciting, but…I’m nervous. What if I mess up in front of the whole Kingdom? Kara should do this, she’s—”

“Relax,” insisted Tyra, calming the girl; being Amara’s attendant since she was born, Tyra had plenty of practice with it. “You’ve got this. You’re good at speaking.”

“Not in front of everyone who lives here!” Amara protested.

“How do you know? You haven’t tried it yet,” Tyra said, glancing out the window that oversaw the Kingdom and the forests beyond. “And besides, your father has purchased a very nice dress and jewelry for the occasion.”

Amara perked up slightly. “What do they look like?”

“The dress is a pretty emerald green. Like your eyes,” Tyra replied, turning to look at Amara, who smiled at the compliment. “And a beautiful pearl necklace. You’ll look great, and everyone will love you.”

Amara frowned. “Why isn’t Kara doing the speech anyway? She’s much better at them…”

“You haven’t made a speech before. Besides, your sister has done the speech every year since turning sixteen. Your parents wanted you to have a try, plus Kara is participating in the event this year,” explained Tyra. She then gestured to the papers that had been set at the table. “I suggest you read over those, so you’ll be prepared as best you can. You have a week, Princess Amara.”

Amara nodded. “I know. Thank you, Tyra. You can go if you wish, I’ll practice the speech and we can review it together this afternoon.”

Tyra bowed her head in response before leaving Amara to glance over the speech that had been written out for her. In one week would be the annual Hunters’ Contest that was very popular in Agraud’s Kingdom. It was always a special event, but this year Amara had to make the opening speech. She got nervous just thinking about it.

She looked down at the papers. Sure, Amara was able to read from them for the speech, but according to Tyra she had to look at the audience as much as possible, so a little bit of memorization couldn’t hurt.

Amara examined the opening sentence. “Citizens of Agraud, we welcome you to the 21^st annual Hunters’ Contest.” She tried to imagine herself standing in front of the Kingdom, saying the words, but the nerves churned in her stomach as she pictured the scene happening. She’d been in front of the Kingdom numerous times, so she never quite imagined having the fear of public speaking; but apparently, she had it.

I’ll study this in the gardens, she thought. Thinking of the gardens immediately made her feel better; it was her favorite place to be, surrounded by the plants and beautiful flowers. She went there often; in fact many of the servants knew this as the place to find Amara.

She gathered up the papers and left the room, heading down the hallway to go to the gardens, which were right outside the palace. She made her way past guards and attendants alike – all who acknowledged her in a bow, curtsey or a “good morning princess” as she walked – and headed through the doors that’d take her to the garden outside.

The gardens had made a wonderful transition from the summer flowers to the autumn ones. Amara stepped out into the gardens, an arch of leaves and roses being the first thing to greet her. She then took the path, with flowers on either side of her and trees that were bountiful with apples. The morning sun sparkled through the leaves and flowers all around her, creating a very pretty scene.

 She sat down by the flowers, looking at them. Some were a pretty purple, while others were brilliant shades of orange and red. Being in the gardens, Amara could slowly feel her nerves calming. Perhaps since she had been here since she was little was why it calmed her down. It was an incredibly familiar place.

She examined the plants nearby after reading the fourth line. “Hello,” she found herself saying, and the flowers faced Amara upon hearing her voice. A smile split across her face. The plants always listened, and she found herself telling them of her situation. “The Hunting Contest is coming up. It’s one of my favorite events in the Kingdom…but I have to make the speech. How do I do that?”

Several of the flowers tilted their petals as if thinking, while a few others seemed to shrug in response. They were somewhat capable of communicating, Amara had learned. But mainly through gestures.

Maybe some flowers in far-off Kingdoms could talk. Amara longed to visit the other Kingdoms – maybe attending a meeting with her father could grant her the opportunity – but in all her life, the furthest she’d been was into the forest nearby, and even then she had to be escorted by guards so she couldn’t fully enjoy the experience.

Just then footsteps reached her ears and Amara lifted her head up slightly to see who it was: she immediately recognized the man as Spencer Lamb, one of the gardeners. He had dark skin and eyes, and was pretty much the tallest person Amara had ever met. In fact, the top of her head just barely reached his shoulder; her height being about 5’1” didn’t help.

“Oh, hello Amara—er, um, I mean, Princess Amara,” stammered Spencer.

Amara gave him a small smile. “It’s okay Spencer. You can just call me Amara.” She talked to him enough to consider him one of her friends, so she didn’t feel the title was a necessity.

“I would…rather not. Don’t want a man overhearing me not acknowledging you as a princess and jailing me up or something,” said Spencer, giving a light but nervous chuckle. “I should not really be here anyways. You know how the council and your family feel about people being alone with you.”

“You’re fine. I can just say you were here to make sure no assassins got to me,” said Amara with a slight giggle.

Spencer smiled in return. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Oh, I have to memorize a speech. For the Hunters’ Contest,” Amara said, giving a slight nod.

Spencer’s eyes grew wide. “Really? They’re letting you do that?” Amara nodded and he smiled. “Well, Princess Kara did make her speech at sixteen. I suppose it’s your turn now.”

“Yeah, but I’m nervous. What if I mess up?” Amara fretted.

He walked closer to her and knelt down, right next to her on the ground. “Princess Amara, if there’s one thing you’re good at, it’s talking,” he said somewhat teasingly. “You’ll do great.”

“Not in front of a whole Kingdom,” retorted Amara. “There’ll be so many…”

“Well on the bright side, Agraud is the smallest Kingdom. If you lived in Saluth, Foreviel or anywhere else…that’d be a different story. Plus, everyone in this Kingdom loves you. They won’t hold anything against you if you mess up.” Spencer then gave a slight grimace. “They can’t anyway, I mean, that’s probably against some law…”

Amara gave a slight laugh. “Well…thanks, Spencer.”

Spencer then stood up. “Sure, any time. I got to tend to the flowers now, however. Not doing my job is also probably against some law…”

“You’re overthinking it Amara. It’s honestly not that big a deal.”

Amara had gone to see Kara at lunchtime. She had brought bread and pottage for the both of them, knowing Kara was busy down at the archery range. She was taking a break from her lessons – their father was training her to rule the Kingdom as Queen – and during Kara’s breaks, Amara knew that her sister practiced the bow-and-arrow out in the yard by the palace, not too far from the gardens.

“I’m still nervous,” insisted Amara, watching as Kara put an arrow into the nock of the bow and pulled back to aim at the target. “I mean, it’s the whole Kingdom.”

“Oh, please. If they say anything bad about you the council would have their heads,” muttered Kara, releasing the arrow, which missed the target. Amara heard her sister curse under her breath as she went to retrieve it.

Nearby, Amara could hear the clashing of swords and yelling of the soldiers, who were practicing their fighting. She looked over to see them all sparring, with the Captain Darren Fletcher observing them nearby, talking to a messenger that was standing next to him, a paper in their hand. Darren had one hand on the sword on his belt – Amara knew he often did this out of habit – and with the other hand he tried to get his messy brown hair out of his face.

No one from the army was currently using the archery range, so Kara had seized the opportunity to use it. A few weeks ago Kara had announced to the family that she was going to participate in the Hunters’ Contest; so not only would Kara be the first Queen to be the main ruler of the Kingdom, she was also the first woman to enter the Hunters’ Contest. Amara was very proud of her sister, especially knowing that she couldn’t be brave enough to try and do those things herself.

As she watched her sister practice, Amara noticed Kara seemed to be working herself too hard; although Kara insisted the words of the citizens complaining about a woman being in the contest didn’t bother her, Amara knew her older sibling well enough to see when she was stressed. Every sentence and remark seemed to gnaw at Kara, which she channeled into an ambition to do better and to prove the people wrong. If Kara would relax, she’d probably do better at this, thought Amara.

She decided to tell her sister so. “Maybe you should calm down a bit. You seem…stressed.”

As Kara came back with the arrow, she laughed at Amara’s words. “Me? Stressed? I don’t get stressed. How do I seem stressed?”

“You’re not relaxing when you shoot. You’re doing it too quickly,” said Amara.

“Yeah? And you’re some kind of archery expert?” muttered Kara, putting the arrow in the nock again.

“She’s not,” said a new voice, “but Princess Amara is right.”

Both girls looked up to see Darren had come over. “Shouldn’t you be watching the soldiers?” asked Kara, looking at the target rather than Darren.

He gave a slight chuckle, glancing over his shoulder at the soldiers behind him. “They get boring after a while. A lot of the new recruits need more work to do.” He looked back to Kara, who was still refusing to look back at him. “When shooting, you have to relax and take your time. You seem tense, and I’ve been watching; you shoot too fast.”

Finally Kara looked at him, but only threw him a glare. “I didn’t exactly invite you over here to criticize me, Darren.”

“No, but I wanted to help you. I am hoping you win the contest, after all,” he said with a smile. Amara took a bite of bread as she watched the conversation continue. Darren walked up to Kara, pairing up his arms with hers in attempts to show her how to line the arrow up with the target. “Try to—”

Kara shrugged him off. “I don’t need help. And I especially don’t need everyone watching me.”

“Amara’s been here,” Darren pointed out.

“She’s my sister. I barely know you.”

“And to think we were friends. Fine, I’ll leave you alone. Shoot well.” Darren then nodded and left to go back to the soldiers.

After a few seconds of silence, Amara spoke up. “You acted like you hated him.”

Kara sighed. “I don’t hate him, Amara. I just don’t want people touching me.”

“Oh.” Amara then took another bite of bread. “I think he’s cute.”

“Fine, he kind of is. I still can’t have people interrupting my archery practice though. Except you. You’re fine.”

“Oh. Well thank you,” said Amara. She then glanced at Kara’s lunch. “You’ve barely touched your food.”

“I’m busy, Amara, although the meal is much appreciated.” She then released the arrow, which flew right at the target onto one of the outer rims painted on it.

“Do you have…any advice about the speech?” Amara asked, recalling one of the reasons she had come out to visit her sister in the first place.

“Memorize the lines and don’t mess up. It’s all on you,” Kara said, pulling the arrow out of the target. 

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Author's Note:
So that's chapter one (finally)! Soon I should have a characters page up. It'll only have the main characters though (because there's a lot of minors). 
Any favorite characters so far?