The Golden Princess (Return to the Four Kingdoms, #4)

by Melanie Cellier

“Rescuing you from your ‘fun’, I think you mean,” I said dryly, and they both laughed. “So have you both been enjoying being eighteen? All that freedom you always longed for!” “Actually.” Xavier frowned. “It’s all turned out to be a big scam. We’ve been meaning to talk to someone about it, but no one seems willing to take responsibility.”

LOL

“All those years,” Xander began. “All our long, weary youth,” Xavier continued. “We believed in the mirage of freedom once we turned eighteen. But it turns out that now we’re of age, there are all these responsibilities and expectations. It’s not free, at all!”

LOL again.

“You stole his gang from under his nose?” Rek sounded awed. “I just climbed onto the wagon and drove away,” I said. “It wasn’t much.” “Just climbed on and drove away—with thirty-eight thieves in jars.” Rek shook his head, a laugh in his voice.

Love Zaria.

I had thought it childish to cling to my past, but my naïveté had been thinking you needed to move on from losing the people you loved and who had loved you. Those people formed you as a person—you didn’t grow past them, you built up from the foundations they’d given you. I didn’t need to leave Karema to grow into my full potential. I could do that by honoring my father’s legacy and becoming the kind of person he had showed me how to be—the kind of person who gave their life in loving service to others.