Born to Rule (14 page)

“Yes, the bird. We must free the weeb so it might become a knight,” Alicia said.

The three princesses stitched until the moon climbed high in the sky and the soft spring air turned to summer and then to autumn. The rustle of crisp leaves could be heard outside the turret window.

At last Alicia poked her needle in for the very last stitch of the bird. A shimmer seemed to glow from within the tapestry. The bird they had just finished began to lengthen into a human form, and its cage became shining armor. At that moment the shutters flew open, and on the autumn breeze red and golden leaves tumbled into the turret room. They swirled about as if caught in a gale and then, just as Princess Kyranala had stepped from the ashes and flames of the fire, a knight stepped from the leaves. He wore golden armor, and on his shoulders were turquoise flowers.

He knelt in front of the ghost princess. “I am here, dear one.”

The princess opened her mouth to speak, but she could not. Tears began to stream down her face, leaving silver paths on her cheeks.

The knight then turned to the three princesses. “I am forever in your debt, Princesses,” he said. “And my dear Princess Gundersnap?”

“Ja?”
Gundersnap looked slightly alarmed.

“I even forgive you for shaking me like a saltshaker.”

Gundersnap put her hands to her face, which was turning quite red. They all began to giggle.

“No harm done, my dear. No harm done,” Sir Roland said in a deep, kind voice.

For as thrilled as Alicia was when her songbird had finally sung that evening, this indeed was even more thrilling. It wasn’t the fact that the bird had finally sung and the Purples had won the Color Wars. Those desires of hers all seemed so small and so selfish by comparison to what had just happened—a knight and his lady had been reunited. Now they were two spirits put to rest, inseparable.

“For eternity,” Sir Roland said as he embraced his princess.

“For eternity,” Princess Kyranala replied.

And then, as quickly as each had appeared, they now dissolved into the mist of the early morning.

That was the last the three princesses of the South Turret saw of the Princess Kyranala and her knight, Sir Roland. The princesses went back the following evening to look at the tapestry, hoping that perhaps there might be some hint about where the lovers had gone. But there was none. Alicia touched the stitching lightly. “I guess the tapestry is finished. The story told.” She sighed.

But Princess Gundersnap was looking at another part of the tapestry. She squinted hard. What was she seeing? Was it a horse? No, not exactly. A unicorn? But unicorns weren’t real. Unicorns were just made-up creatures from fairy tales. Fairy tales weren’t practical.

As a practical girl and daughter of one of the most powerful rulers on earth, Gundersnap had had it drummed into her since birth that certain things were silly, such as reading fairy tales. Unicorns would definitely come under that heading. Unicorns weren’t practical in the least. No, a princess needed a fine pony, or a great warhorse like Thunder Monster, her mother’s charger. Gundersnap squinted harder. This tapestry was far from finished, she suddenly realized. But unicorns? Impossible.

Still…

About the Author

Kathryn Lasky
is the Newbery Honor–winning and national bestselling author of more than one hundred books for children and adults. She has created picture books: PORKENSTEIN, SUGARING TIME, and LUNCH BUNNIES; novels: BLOOD SECRET, THE BONE WARS, BEYOND THE BURNING TIME, and A VOICE OF HER OWN; and the bestselling series Guardians of Ga’Hoole. When she’s not writing, she and her husband, Christopher Knight, enjoy sailing the world aboard a boat named
Alice.

Kathryn Lasky lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can visit her online at www.kathrynlasky.com.

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Credits

Cover art © 2006 by Amy Saidens

Cover design by Sasha Illingworth

Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Amy Saidens

Copyright

CAMP PRINCESS 1: BORN TO RULE. Text copyright © 2006 by Kathryn Lasky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196282-0

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