The afternoon sun, gilded the dusty lane and set the world ablaze with lazy light. But the Malling sisters flew through it like two comets, their feet frantic against the hard earth. The air itself seemed to vibrate with their glee, a tangible energy that spilled from them in breathless laughter and hushed, excited shriekes.
"Faster, Eden!" Doria cried, her dark hair streaming behind her like a banner. At twenty, she was always the swiftest, her long legs eating up the ground. "If we don't tell her this instant, I shall burst!"
"I am flying!" Eden gasped, twenty-two and all flailing elbows and boundless enthusiasm. "Do you think it's true? Every last one of us?"
"The Bellman said it himself! 'By order of the Crown!' No distinctions, no exceptions!" Doria's voice was a triumphant song. The proclamation echoed in their minds, a golden invitation from the king spinning dreams from the humble threads of their ordinary lives.
They skidded to a halt before their cottage, its whitewash gleaming in the sun. Doria, ever the arrow, burst through the weathered wooden door first, her voice cascading into the quiet, sun-dappled interior. "Mother! Mother, such glorious news!"
The clatter summoned Mrs. Malling from the kitchen. She appeared in the entry hall, a thin woman with kind eyes shadowed by perpetual weariness, her hands still damp and pink from washing. "Hush, now! Such a commotion," she rasped. The scent of rosemary and baking bread followed her. "Your father is finally asleep. His head is splitting. Must you shake the very walls?"
Eden tumbled in behind, colliding with Doria's back, her cheeks flushed with triumph. "A ball, Mother! A grand ball at the royal court, and we are all invited! The King himself demands it!"
"Will you lower your voices? There is no cause to shout the King's business from the rafters," Mrs. Malling chided automatically, though a flicker of something—alarm, perhaps, or a helpless, fleeting concern—crossed her face. She sought a practical anchor, her eyes landing on a laden basket by the door, heaped with late-summer vegetables from their garden: fat carrots, earth-crusted potatoes, and verdant runner beans. "Take this to Mrs. Dyer at once. She's waiting for them for her stew. Let the house have its peace." She pressed the heavy basket into Doria's arms, attempting to gently shepherd the whirlwind of excitement back outside.
"But, Mother," Doria pleaded, the word stretching into a lament as she resisted the guiding hands, the basket a cumbersome weight against her chest. "The Grand Ball! In three weeks' time! We cannot simply ignore a royal summons!"
The fleeting worry on Mrs. Malling's face solidified into a firm, sad resolve. The mention of finery seemed to shrink the small hallway, making the clean but threadbare rug and the simply plastered walls feel all the more pronounced. "We have no currency for 'such things,' Doria," she said, her voice low and weary. "Not for silk, nor for slippers, nor for a single ribbon fit for a palace gate, let alone its ballroom. Dreams don't fill bellies." Her gaze drifted toward the staircase, where her husband lay in fitful sleep. "The household needs you here. Your father needs his quiet, and your younger brothers will be clamoring for their supper. That is the reality of our days."
"But everyone of station is invited!" Eden insisted, her own dream beginning to fray at the edges like cheap lace. "The baker's daughters, the smith's nieces… Everyone! When has the royal court ever opened its doors to all? This is our one chance to see it! To be part of something!"
"To be part of what?" Mrs. Malling's question was soft but sharp as a needle. "A room where you would feel out of place and underdressed? A spectacle for others to pity? You are not going, and that is an end to it." She turned to shoo them out, but then stopped, her eyes sweeping over the two breathless girls before her. A new, more immediate alarm dawned in her tired face. The equation was wrong. "And where, pray tell, is Elowyn?"
The question struck the sisters like a physical blow. The shared, shimmering excitement between them shattered, replaced by instant, mortified realization. The air, so recently charged with joy, turned cold and still.
Doria's arms tightened around the basket. Eden's bright flush drained away, leaving her pale.
In their headlong rush to deliver the glorious news, in their self-absorbed fantasy, they had quite forgotten their quiet younger sister.
They looked at each other, their earlier glee extinguished by a sudden, chilling wave of guilt. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant caw of a crow and the heavy truth of their neglect.
"She was… she was right behind us at the square," Eden whispered, her voice small. "By the old oak."