The Crown by Kierra Cass EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Authors: Kierra Cass
- Publish Date: May 3, 2016
- Language: English
- Genre:Teen & Young Adult Royalty Fairy Tales & Folklore eBooks
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Pages:250
- Price: Free
“I’M SORRY,” I SAID, BRACING myself for the inevitable backlash. When my
Selection started, I’d pictured it ending this way—with dozens of my suitors
leaving at a time, many of them unprepared for their moment in the spotlight
to be over. But after the last few weeks, after learning how kind, how smart,
how generous so many of them were, I found the mass elimination almost
heartbreaking.
They’d been fair with me, and now I had to be very unfair to them. The
live announcement would make the elimination official, and they all had to
wait until then.
“I know it’s abrupt, but given my mother’s precarious condition, my father
has asked me to take on more responsibilities, and I feel the only way to
manage that is to scale down this competition.”
“How is the queen?” Hale asked, swallowing hard.
I sighed. “She looks … she looks pretty bad.”
Dad had been hesitant to let me visit her, but I had finally worn him down.
I understood his reluctance the instant I saw her, asleep, the metronome of
her heartbeat keeping time on the monitor. She’d just come out of surgery,
where the doctors had to harvest a vein from her leg to replace the one in her
chest that had been worked to death.
One of the doctors said they had lost her for a minute but managed to get
her back. I sat beside her, holding her hand. Silly as it sounded, I had
slouched in my chair, certain that would make her come to and correct my
posture. It didn’t.
“She’s alive though. And my father … he’s …”
Raoul placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Your
Highness. We all understand.”
I let my eyes flit across the space, my gaze settling on each of my suitors
for a breath as I committed their faces to memory.
“For the record, I was terrified of you,” I confessed. There were a few
chuckles around the room. “Thank you so much for taking this chance, and
for being so gracious with me.”
A guard entered, clearing his throat to announce his presence. “I’m sorry,
my lady. It’s nearly time for the broadcast. The crew wanted to check, um”—
he made a fumbling gesture with his hand—“hair and stuff.”
I nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be ready in a moment.”
After he left, I turned my attention back to the boys. “I hope you’ll forgive
me for this group good-bye. I wish you all the best of luck in the future.”
There was a chorus of murmured good-byes as I left. Once I was outside
the doors of the Men’s Parlor, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for
what was coming. You are Eadlyn Schreave and no one—literally, no one—is
as powerful as you.
The palace was eerily quiet without Mom and her ladies scuttling around
and Ahren’s laughter filling the halls. Nothing makes you quite so aware of a
person’s presence as the loss of it.
I held myself tall as I made my way down to the studio.
“Your Highness,” several people greeted me as I came through the
doorway, curtsying and moving out of my way, all the while avoiding
looking directly in my eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was out of sympathy or if they
already knew.
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