Sofia
SOFIA
AGE 13
The day the prince saw the village girl for the first time, he didn’t fall in love with her. Because although her eyes were the color of the sky and her hair shone like honey, she was covered in mud and dressed in rags. He barely glanced at her even as she brought him water to slake his thirst from his walk and offered him bread. And when he left the village an hour later, he didn’t think of her again. At least not until much later.
-The Raven Prince by Emilio Laurn
S ofia ran into Gabriel the first time quite literally. She’d been running late for work, having taken the long way from the slums to the chief commander’s manor. There had been a raid going on at one of the houses a block from her own. It seemed that someone had been using forbidden magic to heal the locals under the king’s nose. paused at the end of the street long enough to see a woman she vaguely recognized being dragged from her home, already in cuffs, blood leaking from a wound on her head. The soldiers carried out the boy she’d been trying to heal next. They wrapped him in a blanket to avoid touching him, but the blue tint of his skin made it clear he had scalepox and he wouldn’t last for much longer.
The king in all his wisdom had proclaimed there was no cure for the horrendous disease because it was a punishment to those disloyal to the crown. While Dragonborn healers claimed they could cure the disease, such magic was forbidden as treason against the crown.
The moment they dragged out a second woman, turned away. Her face had been streaked with tears, and she was screaming into the street that they would kill her son. didn’t want to see the rest. The two women would be sent to the farms and the boy left to rot in the prison until the scalepox took him.
Even still, she had to walk three blocks out of her way before turning back to avoid passing by the prison wagon. When she came running into the chief commander’s courtyard, she was focused on her toes, sore in her too-small shoes, and the sharp pain in her chest from running too fast. Her mother had said she had weak lungs. All she knew is that if she ran too fast, it felt like she was breathing in a shard of ice.
So she was distracted and breathing heavily and she smacked directly into the boy, falling on her behind with a growl of annoyance.
“Watch where you’re going!” she snapped, looking up at him. She coughed, ruining any attempt to look intimidating.
His hair was a shade of black that challenged the night sky and his eyes were a warm honey brown. They were opened wide as he looked down at her before he finally blinked.
“I was just standing here.”
She gave a short huff of annoyance, but couldn’t argue the fact. Ignoring his proffered hand, she pushed herself up and brushed off her clothes as best she could.
He was smiling at her, the corner of his cheek dimpling in a way that made her stomach flutter uncomfortably.
“I’m Gabriel,” he said, smoothly moving his arm back to his side as if he’d expected her to snub him. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
narrowed her eyes, but gave him her name. Before she could make her way around him, he gave a small bow.
“I can’t wait to see you again, .”
He sauntered away, leaving her to stare after him, wondering why the way he’d said her name had made her stomach flutter.
* * *
“ Suarez,” Gabriel spoke her name in the same honeyed tone the next week. She’d just come out of the manor after a ten hour shift in the chief commander’s office and she didn’t quite register the words until he was standing in front of her.
“How do you know my name?”
“I’ve been asking about you.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know about the beautiful girl that barreled me over last week.”
Her face tinged pink without her permission and she tried to push past him before he noticed.
“I’ll see you tomorrow!” he called out as she walked away. She tried to ignore him, but she couldn’t resist one glimpse back.
The next morning, as she waved her token at the inner gate guard and stepped into the gaslit streets of the royal quarter, Gabriel came loping out of the last dawn shadows, falling into step beside her.
She refused to look at him, eyes focused on his shoes as she tried to understand how he knew when and where to wait for her. Only one idea came to mind.
I’m going to kill Mina .
“I hear you work for the chief commander directly.”
’s head snapped up and he flinched from her glare.
“Whoa!” he said, as if soothing an angry donkey.
“What’s it to you?”
“I was trying to make conversation.”
“Oh,” she said, chastened by what may have been hurt in his eyes. But he quickly wiped it away with that stupid smile and dimple. Her stomach did the fluttery thing again. had asked Mina about him after they’d first met and, sure enough, he was the stableboy that the entire younger generation in the manor was swooning over. And she could see why. Even when he wasn’t smiling, his lips were soft and pink and difficult not to stare at.
He made a sound in the back of his throat and realized she’d been caught doing just that. She looked away, but not before she saw that damned dimple flash.
“Where were you working before the manor?” she asked, wanting to steer the conversation before he had the chance.
“I was down in the drowned quarter with the fishermen. I handled the donkeys used for shipments, but my boss was arrested last blink on treason. Turns out he was sneaking some of his supply off to the rebels this entire time.” He gave a shrug that made it clear he didn’t want to seem taken aback by all this, but she could also see a twinge of something like fear or anger in his eyes. “No one wanted to hire me after that, but the chief commander gave me a chance. He saw how I handled the animals during the raid and thought I’d do well with his horses.”
She nodded. The king’s men were never subtle in their raids and it often led to innocent bystanders being killed or arrested in the chaos. She could only imagine how the wild animals would react.
She asked him about handling the horses. Except for the few times she’d seen the chief commander’s in passing, she had never been up close to a horse. There were only a few dozen in the entire city of Suvi, gifted from their neighbors on the other side of the sea a couple cycles ago. Apparently, they rode them everywhere there, but here they were only used as transportation by the king’s employees between the different parts of Suvi. She couldn’t imagine they’d be of much use in the thick rainforests of Wueco beyond the wall.
He explained the similarities between them and donkeys and why one would use one over the other. Which only made wonder why anyone would use a horse in the city.
By the time they made it to the manor and Gabriel waved goodbye at the kitchen door, had forgotten she was supposed to hate him. Three weeks after that, he kissed her for the first time. Not at the kitchen door, but pressed up against the stables in the evening shadows where the rest of the household couldn’t see them.
She’d walked home that night, tasting him on her lips and smiling.