Pennyroyal Academy Read Online Free

them from foregone wars, and a previously unknown part of the world opened up before the girl’s eyes.
    The kingdom, Marburg he had called it, was alive. Ragged-clothed peasants crisscrossed bustling streets. Merchants shouted prices and counteroffers. Mothers chased filthy children who chased even filthier pigs. Woodsmen hauled giant logs. Stoic guardsmen in glinting silver armor stood watch, their spears piercing high into the air. Music poured from unseen windows. And the smells! Burning wood and freshly cut grass and mud and flowers and roasted duck. White plaster structures latticed by dark brown timbers jutted up on either side of the high street, and thatched-roofed cottages squatted down near the mud.
    Everywhere she looked, the girl was keenly aware she was missing a dozen other things.
    â€œLook at them!” she cried. “They’re just like me!”
    They came upon a circle of peasants happily clapping along to an elderly fiddler’s song. Three small girls danced in the center with carefree smiles and bare feet. Something about the innocent joy in their faces drew her attention more than anything else she had seen thus far. The fiddler kept a bulging eye on the girls as they giggled and spun one another around. Faster and faster he played, luring them into an impossible game, and soon their feet tangled and they ended up in the dirt, tears of laughter in their eyes.
    â€œWait,” said the girl, twisting to watch as they rode past. “Couldn’t we stay? Just for a bit?”
    â€œWe’re late. Stay if you like, but you’ll miss your chance to become a princess.”
    She watched the girls as long as she could, until finally they disappeared from view. Their happiness was so pure, it made her wistful, and also a bit melancholy.
I was never that carefree.
    Remington reined the horse down an alley past yet another timber-framed cottage, and almost immediately the joyous hustle and bustle of the high street was gone. The sharp pungency of rotting things made her bury her nose in Remington’s doublet as the horse clopped through brackish puddles. The farther down the twisting alley they went, the more clearly she could hear something up ahead. An ominous murmuring sound.
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œThat, my dear, is about to be the strangest day of your life.” Remington clicked his tongue and the horse cantered up a slight grade in the dirt. Finally, they emerged back into the sunlight.
    Across a vast courtyard of cobbled stone there stood an imposing palace of polished black slate and mortar. Castle Marburg. It loomed nobly over a temporary marquee held aloft by three massive timbers. To the side, a line of carriage coaches waited, each hitched to a team of horses. And the sound the girl heard was the combined voice of hundreds of excited girls milling beneath the marquee.
    She went numb, unconsciously clutching Remington just a bit more tightly. The girls were all of her same age, each wearing an elegant dress of such a variety of colors the girl had never seen. All different, yet somehow essentially the same.
They’re just like me,
she thought.
Only nothing like me at all.
    As Remington’s horse crossed the courtyard, she began to notice that they had been noticed. Faces turned to them with unusual expressions. Delight upon seeing Remington, then befuddlement when their eyes landed on her. The din of voices softened. She heard whispers of his name—“Remington”—circulating through the crowd.
    His mud-spattered boots hit the stone with a soft thud. “Mind your dismount. Fall on your face before these girls and they’ll never let you forget it.” Alone on the horse’s back, she realized that nearly every eye in the courtyard was focused squarely on her, and she began to go pale. She took his callused hand and slid to the ground. “First test, beautifully passed.”
    She tried to hide herself behind him, but after