She clutched at Isaac’s arm, suddenly terrified of losing him. The stranger turned and looked at her, and she felt, somehow, his attention arrest on her. She tried to withdraw, hide behind Isaac, but her feet wouldn’t move.
And then the stranger turned away, and she gasped in a breath. After another moment of conversation, Derek walked over to them, looking even more stern than usual, and drew a deep breath himself. “That was a messenger from Kent.” He glanced at Summer. “They think Summer is their long missing princess.”
Isaac’s breath hitched, wondering what this stranger wanted with his beloved Summer, and if it were to be someone sent on behalf of Sir Kit, then he’d hurt and maim them too. No-one else would ever hurt her again.
“I…w-what?” he stammered out after a long pause, bewilderment and intrigue flashing across his face, eyes darting between Summer and Derek. “But Summer isn’t a princess.”
She had no words. Shock stopped her tongue, her everything. She’d always known her family wasn’t her birth family — they’d told her so, she didn’t look like them. But lots of families in the village took in orphaned children; it wasn’t strange. But now there was this person saying, I know your birth family and you are much more than you believed you were.
It couldn’t be true.
Derek was responding to Isaac. “A Kentish knight was there when you fought Sir Kit.” He glanced at Summer again. “You apparently have a twin. That’s how he recognised you.
“Your family wants you to come home.”