Free A Royal Birthday by Eilis O'Neal Page A

friend.
    “It’s beautiful. What girl would hate a gift like this?” his mother asked with a little shake of her head.
    She would
, Kiernan thought glumly as he pictured Nalia’s expression when he placed the statue in front of her at her birthday feast that evening. Even now he could see her lips press together for an instant as she compared the statue’s face with her own. No matter how often he told her otherwise, Nalia was utterly convinced that she wasn’t as graceful and pretty as a princess ought to be.
    She definitely would
.
    An hour later, Kiernan left his family’s quarters with a scowl etched onto his usually smiling face. No amount of arguing had dissuaded his parents from their scheme, and he had been forced to give in once they had threatened to send him back to Rithia for the entire summer if he refused. Because as much as he hatedthe idea of giving Nalia the statue, he hated even more the idea of being away from her for months.
    And that, he thought with a sigh as he walked—he refused to think of it as sulked—down the palace corridor, was the biggest problem. Not that his friend would hate the gift, but that his parents’ intent in making him give it lay dangerously close to a secret he had managed to keep to himself for over a year now. And not only might it give that secret away, but it would give it away in entirely the wrong context.
    What he needed was a second gift, a foil to the stone girl. A gift that she would truly like and one that would show how utterly stupid he knew the blasted statue was. He had been planning to give her a newly copied version of her favorite collection of Farvaseean stories—she had read the old one until the spine was more pieces than whole—but now that didn’t seem like enough. He needed something better, bigger, something that would nullify any unhappiness the statue caused her.
    But what?
    He needed to go somewhere where he could think, and that place certainly wasn’t inside the palace. The sprawling castle bustled with activity as everyone from the servants to the highest nobles prepared for Nalia’s birthday feast. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face as he dodged a lady’s maid rushing down the corridor, her arms so full of frothy lace and shiny silk that he could hardly see her face above the fabric. More than to think, he wanted someone to talk to about the problem. And, of course, the person who he immediately wanted to run to for advice was the one person he couldn’t ask about his dilemma.
    A high, breathy voice some distance behind him interrupted his thoughts. “Kiernan?”
    Kiernan’s spine stiffened as he recognized the voice, but he forged on down the corridor, pretending that he hadn’t heard his name called.
    With so many people around, the ruse would probably have worked on anyone else. Anyone else would have shrugged, thinking that she must not have called loudly enough and that it would be too much trouble to wade through the throng of people in the hall to go after him. But not Celine Andovia. Kiernan cringed as he heard her cry out his name again.
    The truth, he thought ruefully as he looked around in desperation for somewhere to hide, was that he deserved the trouble she was putting him through. After all, he had kissed Celine in the gardens during the ball to honor the ambassador from the Varanth Islands. But he had thought she’d been at court long enough to realize that he was—as Nalia always said—a terrible, incorrigible flirt, and that his kisses were just meant as fun, not a sign of impending lifelong devotion. Celine, unfortunately, seemed to see them as the latter, and since that night she had been determined to make him hers. And since he
had
been the one to kiss her, he had been trying to push her away gently.
    Too gently, apparently, because a quick glance behind him as he rounded a corner showed her hurrying after him. Perhaps it was time to be frank with her, though in as nice a way as