The Luna Trials by Marissa Gilbert

The voice startled her. Savannah wondered for a second how on Earth she did not notice that she had a spectator. The man who was chuckling at her was sitting under a huge oak tree, hidden behind the rose bushes when she arrived. This was the sole reason she did not see him in the first place.

Anyway, it was her mistake. And from what it looked like; she couldn’t afford any mistakes at the moment. She had to think about everything first.

She heard him standing up and turned on her heels to see who it was. A sigh of relief escaped her. Before her stood a tall man dressed in not the cleanest set of clothes she had seen.  His jeans were filthy with dirt, and his gray grandad shirt had probably seen better days. He had a beard which gave him a bit of a dangerous vibe, but she could tell that he was one of the northerners who belonged to the castle. Probably just one of the workers, which was a good thing for her. He would hardly know who she was, and she could get away with it.

“Just… trimming,” Savvy stretched a smile onto her lips and avoided looking at the destroyed bush. She just hoped that the guy wasn’t the gardener who was responsible for taking care of those. But he probably was exactly that – the gardener, otherwise why would he have that earthy forest scent with a hint of pine in it. Not that she had a better look at him, he was very handsome and had all those muscles that probably came from physical labour. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s just that I am having a very bad day.”

“You are not from here,” the guy looked her up and down with some kind of interest evident in his eyes. “Although there are a lot of new people here today,” he muttered under his breath. He probably wasn’t happy that all those people were walking around in his garden now, ruining it.

“Are you surprised?” the girl raised her brow questioningly. “It looks like your king wants a show.”

His head snapped in her direction and he sucked in a deep breath.

“As far as I heard, it’s voluntary. No one is forced to take part.” The man shrugged and that little gesture annoyed her more than anything else today.

“Voluntary?” she chuckled loudly, throwing her head back.

This was ridiculous. Were all northerners like that? “Because it’s every woman’s desire to run after a man like a little circus dog, performing tasks and tricks along with many others just like her in the pathetic hope that maybe… MAYBE he would be kind enough to choose her! Yeah, THAT’S every woman’s desire! We CHOOSE that!”

are you again?” the gardener asked. “Did you come with one of

came with one of the political victims.” There. She said it. “Honestly, I don’t even understand how king Kai will be able to look into his future wife’s face, knowing that he made her go through all this. That his future queen was used as

see,” a smirk stretched over his bearded face. “You came with

wasn’t even a lie. She didn’t come with the princess. She was the

angry,” the stranger went on with some kind of amusement on his face. “The western princess who is used to getting everything she

she decides to stay and take part in that nonsense of competition, she will wipe the floor with anyone who’d be stupid enough to compete against her. The question is whether she would still like to get

the whole thing and now she knew she had to go back to her companions and start strategizing. She had to make a decision whether to meet the king, slap his

she heard a loud

ancient tradition of the North. This is something sacred to us and the future Luna of the North will be respectful of that. If your princess

she only could. “I studied the history of the North and know for a fact that even if there was such a tradition years ago, it hasn’t been done once in the past two centuries. If you did not respect your own tradition for so

off in the direction where she left her friends. The faster they could talk,

He was her childhood friend and one of the very few people she

Savvy nodded reassuringly. “We have a decision to make. And we need to make it quick. I need to know where the

sheet from her red leather folder and handed it to her. She was always efficient like

read about it a long time ago in one of our books about the North. But it was barely

already memorised everything. This was one of the things they were always quiet about – Savannah had a photographic memory. It was enough for her to see something once and she wasn’t able to forget it afterwards. The castle’s plan was now imprinted