The Secret of the Seven Princesses

Sanctum Chapter 1

Organized chaos reigned throughout the dining room. With seven growing princesses, such pandemonium was not irregular. Indeed, many of the servants had come to expect that each meal would be a challenge. Unfortunately, not everyone was so accepting of that fact.

King Gustave exasperatedly regarded his daughters under thick red eyebrows. Would they never learn to truly act like ladies, like princesses? Each of the princesses were contributing in some way to the dining room bedlam through a disrespectful lack of table manners; food seemed to fly even from those who weren't actively throwing it, many felt the need to shout across the table to be heard, and none of them seemed to care about using the proper utensils for the main course. If their mother had been alive...but he stopped this painful train of thought.

The spread before the royal family was typical of any dinner at the manor. The table groaned underneath plentiful dishes of roast beef, honeyed ham, boiled potatoes, candied yams, Yorkshire pudding, shepherd's pie, and numerous other delicacies. At the beginning of the meal, the feast had been arranged with as much care as a painter lends to his art. But as the meal progressed, the table began to resemble a pig's trough. Surprisingly, all seven princesses had remained relatively unscathed from the various array of the feast.

Gustave did not expect that to last much longer.

As a chicken wing randomly flew across the table, the king sighed heavily, rolled his eyes and looked to his eldest daughter for reassurance. Eralie, at the very least, knew how to behave with some decorum. She sat to his immediate right of the table, demurely nibbling at her potatoes.

At twenty-two, she was the picture of her mother, with long black hair and a slender frame. Her eyes—though blue instead of brown—held the same dreamy look that told of a wandering mind. Named for the Muse of Love, Eralie emulated her namesake through her romantic tendencies and daydreams. For any normal person, a chickpea flying past her face would have pulled her out of her reveries. But not Eralie. She remained oblivious to the commotion around her.

This blissful ignorance was not shared by Gustave's second eldest daughter, twenty-one-year-old Cliodne. From her place to Gustave's left, she had pushed her plate away as if she no longer had an appetite. Plopping her elbows unceremoniously on the table, she impatiently buried her face in her hands. Her corkscrew curls spilled over her ears like a tawny waterfall, and her hazel eyes glared daggers at her sister Callia through her fingers.

Seemingly innocent, the third princess refused to lift her green eyes from the book she was reading. Gustave had grown tired of telling her not to bring a book to the table, and had long ago decided to quit wasting his breath. Indeed, he had to fight awe as he observed her methodical motions; not once did she look up from the page she was reading, and yet Callia still ate her dinner steadily and without incident. Every so often, a piece of food would fly her way. When it did, the nineteen-year-old would simply fling her own spoonful of victuals with startling accuracy, never once lifting her wavy brown head to look up.

A dollop of shepherd's pie landed near Gustave's wine goblet, causing him to turn a quelling glance to Thaleia, his fourth daughter. The seventeen-year-old's gray eyes sparkled mischievously before dropping in feigned shame. Her dark auburn hair, which had been brushed and shining at the start of dinner, was now mussed in its standard ponytail. If he had to guess, the king would have ventured that most of the mess tonight and in previous nights had been made by his incorrigible tomboy. Even if he didn't wish to voice it aloud, Gustave would wager that besides Callia, Thaleia was the only other girl to hit her target most of the time.