The insults began softly, laced beneath the surface of tight-lipped smiles and falsely polite corrections.
“Oh dear, I suppose we can’t expect everyone to have learned the alphabet by your age.”
“Try not to wrinkle your brow so much when you’re concentrating, it makes you look more confused than you already are.”
“Well, I suppose His Highness must see something in you, though what that is escapes me entirely.”
At first, River bit her tongue, tried to focus on the way the fork should be held, the precise curvature of a court nod, the correct order in which to greet the royal family. But the more she tried, the more she stumbled, and every mistake was met with a sigh, a cluck of the tongue, a carefully aimed word that hit her like the crack of a whip.
“Honestly, your posture is dreadful
