The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen Page A

few physical setbacks, you have seeds of the personality I might expect for Prince Jaron. If we can weed out your bad manners and defiant nature, I suspect you could convince the nobles that you are him.”
    “If you weed those out, then there’s nothing left of me,” I said. “You’d strip those away and find I’m as boring as Tobias or predictable as Roden. Why don’t you take their physical similarities to the prince and give them a personality?”
    It was a rhetorical question. I didn’t actually think either of them could adopt a personality.
    “Prince Jaron was a fighter,” Conner said. “You’ve done nothing but fight since we met.”
    “And if you try to use me for this fraud, then I’ll continue fighting,” I said. “You don’t want a prince, you want a puppet. You’ve taken on this plan in secret. Why? Maybe you can’t sit on the throne, but you plan to rule from behind it. Put Roden on the throne. He’ll happily let you guide his arms and feed him with the words he should say next. I won’t!”
    “Lower your voice,” Conner said. “I have no intention of ruling. Of course, at the end of two weeks, none of you will know enough about ruling to take that on alone. I will be there, to guide you as an adviser, to protect you, and to guard our secret. When you are ready to rule alone, I will serve in any capacity you choose for me.” Conner held out a hand to me. “I’m offering to make you the sun of Carthya, brighter than the moon and stars combined. And you will take the throne, knowing that you have pulled your country back from the brink of war. How can you refuse this opportunity, Sage?”
    “Carthya’s not my country,” I said, reaching for the doors to leave. “Frankly, I hope Avenia destroys it.”

M ott was waiting alone on the other side of the doors. Obviously, he knew what would be discussed in there and had chased the other servants away.
    I stopped when I saw him, cringing a bit as I waited for him to clunk me over the head or commit some other act to force me back into Conner’s dining room. There was no cowardice in my nervousness. His hits came without mercy.
    But he only nodded at me. “You clean up well, for an orphan.”
    “I had help.”
    “Where were you going?”
    I scratched an itch on my face. “Didn’t really think that through yet. Somewhere I can be alone.”
    Mott apparently had no inclinations to leave me alone. He put an arm on my shoulder and steered me down the hallway. “Come with me.”
    We walked outside to a courtyard in the rear of Farthenwood lined with torches that flickered in the breeze. On one wall were several swords. Each was different. One had a longer blade, another was thinner, another was jagged on one side. The tangs varied, from swords with a simple metal grip to ones wrapped in leather or crowned in jewels. One might appeal to a lifelong warrior, another to a mercenary. I suspected that one of these was supposed to appeal to a prince.
    “Choose one,” he said.
    “How do I know the one that’s right for me?”
    “It’s the one that calls to you,” Mott said.
    I reached for one with a medium-size blade with a wide fuller grooved down the length. The hilt was wrapped in dark brown leather, and a circle of deep red rubies was set into the pommel. Almost as soon as I grabbed it, the sword fell from my grasp and landed on the ground.
    Mott darted forward and retrieved it, like I’d committed some sort of sin by dropping the sword.
    “This is obviously too heavy for you,” he said. “Choose another one.”
    “It was heavier than it looked, but it’s fine now,” I said, lifting it with both hands. “I chose it because it called to me.”
    “Why?”
    I smiled. “It has rubies on it. I could sell those for a lot of money.”
    “Try it and I’ll use this same sword to run you through as punishment. Have you ever held a sword before?”
    “Sure.” I’d once held the sword of the Archduke of Montegrist after sneaking into