Book 3: Brand New

Candace

I wake early the next morning, and the world feels a little less like a yawning maw of disaster than it has recently. It’s not that hard to sit up in bed, and when I see the faint line of sunlight poking through the tent flap, I basically smile. Today, I don’t care what people think about Princess Candace. I’m starting a brand new life as just Candace, someone who dances. Nobody even has opinions about her yet.

Just Candace is going to the revitalization ritual to support her loved ones, I decide. I slide out of bed and start pawing through my trunk for something to wear. All the dresses are plain, simple, not meant to draw attention so much as hold it once it’s caught. Dresses that let me fade into the background unless I want to be seen.

On this brand-new day, I don’t like any of them. I wish I had some options like Estrella does, or like Ingrid kept in the back of her closet while Mother and Father still held the throne. For months, I’v