Page 115 of The False Prince (Ascendance 1)

Conner took a deep breath, and then said, “I will choose my prince in two days’ time, then we will leave immediately for Drylliad.”

Tobias, Roden, and I looked at one another. There was surprisingly little enthusiasm from any of us, and Conner noticed.

“I might have expected some excitement,” he said.

“What will become of the two boys who aren’t chosen?” I asked.

Conner paused, then he said, “I haven’t decided that yet.”

Everyone in the room knew that was a lie.

The night passed without incident. If Tobias and Roden knew I’d snuck out during the night, neither of them mentioned it the next morning. After breakfast, Mott entered the room and said Conner had new plans for us that day.

He carried something in his arms, which he unwrapped and set on an easel in front of us. It was a painting of a boy standing beside a tall hedge in a springtime garden. He had light brown hair with darker streaks underneath, a mischievous smile, and a hint of trouble in his bright green eyes. None of us had his innocence, his naïveté.

“Is that Jaron?” Roden asked.

“The last known picture of him,” Mott said. “Painted more than five years ago, when the prince was nine years old.”

I couldn’t help but stare, comparing myself to every detail of the painting. Roden and Tobias were studying it as carefully, no doubt doing the same thing. Each of us had features that looked similar to the prince’s, but Roden groaned in disgust. “Sage looks more like him than Tobias and I. Conner led me to believe just the opposite.”

“Do you see a resemblance?” Mott asked me.

I shrugged. “My face is longer, and my hair is the wrong color. If anyone compares me to that picture, the regents won’t believe I’m him.”

This brought on even louder complaints from Roden, as well as a few objections from Tobias, that none of us was enough like the picture to be convincing.

Mott shushed us, then continued, “Conner’s plan this morning is for each of you to undergo whatever transformation you can to look like the prince. Your hair will be cut to match his — Sage, we have a hair dye that may work for you. You will each be measured and clothes will be prepared for the one Conner chooses. By the time one of you is chosen tomorrow morning, he will look like the prince.”

While Roden and Tobias got their hair cut, Errol led me outside to work the dye through my hair.

“It will look like I’ve used hair dye,” I said. “And what about when my hair grows back into its color again?”

“Master Conner believes you can use less and less dye each time,” Errol said. “Within a year, it will appear as if your hair has naturally changed color.”

“He thinks of everything,” I said without any hint of admiration.

I had no mirror to see myself once the dye was washed out sometime later, but Errol smiled when he looked at me and seemed pleased. “It’s amazing how that one thing has brought your appearance so much closer to the prince’s. I’m certain Conner will choose you. Most of us servants believe that.”

Which would have been comforting if we hadn’t passed Conner in his office with Roden as we walked back in. Roden was kneeling before Conner at his desk. His hair was styled just as Jaron’s had been and he looked very nice. If there were inconsistencies between his look and Jaron’s, they could easily be explained by the changes in a face over time.

“I am exceptionally impressed,” Conner was saying to him. “You have surprised me, Roden, and pleased me. Tobias, any similarities between you and the prince have vanished. Do not consider your chances of being chosen tomorrow to be good.”

est of the day was taken up with lessons. So much information was being pushed into our heads that it’s a wonder none of them exploded. Tobias was eventually sent back to our room as punishment for sleeping during the lesson, and he was clearly relieved to be going. That gave a burst of energy to Roden, who saw it as his chance to be the star student. After all, I wasn’t much more interested than Tobias had been.

Tobias stopped me in the hall as we were being escorted to dinner with Conner that evening. “You remember your promise to me, right? You’ll make sure I live through this?”

“That’s still my promise,” I said.

Tobias exhaled a sigh of relief. “Then let me help you become the prince. What do you need?”

“I want nothing from you, Tobias. Just loyalty, if I’m chosen.”

Tobias lowered his voice further. “I wasn’t going to kill you the other night. I never had any intention of doing that. The knife was sharper than I thought. What I thought was only a surface wound —”

“It will heal.”

“I think Mott suspects the truth. Maybe Conner too.”