A Portal to Suleihaerin (Princess and Potion #1)

1. The Prisoner Princess and Her Parade of Princes

The Prisoner Princess and Her Parade of Princes

SAPPHIRA

S apphira soars down the halls of Jagun Castle like a bird taking its first flight. Her heart races and feet slap the warm stones with a dull thud.

Even through her thin slippers, Sapphira can feel the heat baked into each smooth stone, sunlight streaming into the castle from every window. A week in her chamber, without the sun on her deep, brown skin was like an eternity without air in her lungs. Sapphira was suffocating.

It’s what her aunt wants. To break her. Sapphira’s aunt Agath is the queen regent until Sapphira is deemed fit to rule; and if she had it her way, Sapphira would never be fit.

That’s why Sapphira had to escape her rooms, in which even the windows and the double doors leading over a balcony above the sea were boarded up.

Sapphira hears the distant hooting of a horn and her grin grows wilder. The parade is starting. She increases her speed, kicking off of the wall as she takes a sharp turn toward the kitchens.

A scented cloud of shrimp and cayenne sting Sapphira’s eyes as servants lugging heavy pots stumble out of her way. Steam billows out from the swinging kitchen doors and spills down the hall. Servants carry food from one kitchen to the other, coming and going like ants.

“Oi. Watch where you’re going.” A burly cook cranes his neck out of the kitchen, a sack of flour hoisted over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. His beard wags as he shouts after her.

“Yowch!” A smaller, gangly man trips. Sauce splashes down the hall causing a commotion of limbs as cooks, scullions, and pantlers go sliding across the floor, flinging dough and flour everywhere.

“Stop her!” A tinny voice cries. The small maiden still clutches a brush in one hand, which she uses to point at the runaway princess. Sapphira throws a grin over her shoulder as she dodges past. Too late, she thinks smugly. The kitchen staff will be too busy with the mess I just created.

Two more maidens appear, skirting the chaos in the hall as they chase after Sapphira. She isn’t worried.

They resemble ghostly children. Young girls in long linen dresses that sweep the floor, with billowing sleeves that swallow them whole.

I’ve got to lose them quickly, Sapphira thinks.

Or else I’ll miss the parade entirely. She hears the sound of trumpets growing louder as she leaves the bright hall and transitions to a darker corner of the castle.

It’s quiet here. The walls are wooden and dull.

They close inward as if to trap her, the ceiling pointed and black.

Like the drab uniforms of the maidens’ aprons and hats, Jagun Castle is lifeless and devoid of color. It wasn’t meant for pleasure. It was built for defense against pirates . With sky-high towers, empty battlements, and fortified gateways that never see visitors.

Since the pirates were defeated, the castle has been quiet. It was only meant to be a temporary shelter for the Tuisaravere family while a new castle was built.

The lady regent tried livening the place years ago, removing everything that reminded Sapphira of her parents—gutting the rooms and burning the original furniture, adding silk curtains in the halls and new, lavish bedrooms. She didn’t get very far before she abandoned the project to live in Palais de Renard.

A palace Sapphira’s parents were building for her, before their untimely deaths.

With every change, the place became a shell of what it once was. Something unrecognizable to what it was before, when Sapphira’s parents were still alive.

Sapphira pushes those thoughts away, and with it, the heavy burden on her chest. I can't get caught, she chants to herself over and over. This is her only chance to see the parade. A celebration for her eighteenth birthday.

Staying just ahead of the maidens, whose faces are red, chests heaving as they pursue her, Sapphira bolts down a maze of halls, slides across the floor in her satin slippers and jumps great big steps built for large, brutish guards.

She passes under high, pointed archways, and turns a corner.

For the split moment she is out of sight she squeezes herself into a tiny narrow passageway.She loses the girls in the stone cave below the floor.

Take that. Sapphira huffs triumphantly, pushing back her mess of black hair that nearly brushes the floor. It falls back into her face as she peers out from her hiding place beneath the castle. She ducks back in when a chorus of tiny footsteps turn back her way.

“I’ll have to take the tunnels,” Sapphira murmurs to herself, her heart still thumping wildly from the adrenaline of the chase. Turning back to the black of the tunnel, she jumps back at sight of a looming figure. In the dark, with only pinpricks of light filtering above, looms a figure.

“What on earth,” she snaps as laughter spills through the cramped tunnel, white teeth sparkling in the dark.

“You should be getting ready for your birthday celebration, shouldn’t you, Princess Sapphira?

” a deep, teasing voice drawls. Sapphira glares up at her best friend, Dorian, as he steps into a stream of light that spills from cracks in the floor above.

“Tsk, tsk. It isn’t nice sending those little maidens chasing after your shadow. ”

“Dorian,” she says, sickly sweet. She crosses her arms across her chest and leans against the cool stone, hidden in the shadows. “Decorated knight, and asshole. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the parade?”

Dorian leans across the narrow path, blocking the main light at the opposite end of the tunnel. It’s suffocating. These tunnels weren’t meant for someone his size, and with the two of them standing so close, she feels caged.

“You should be outside with your unit,” Sapphira says, shifting her weight to toes as she tries to squeeze past him. “Not harassing young girls.”

“Aren’t I lucky? You aren’t a girl anymore.” Dorian’s grin widens. He blocks Sapphira’s path, trapping her between him and the wall. She can feel the damp, cold pooling into her thin nightgown at the base of her spine. “Happy birthday, Saff.”

Sapphira can’t help the smile that crosses her lips.

As if she could forget her birthday. The castle is in an uproar, the usually quiet, melancholy place readying itself for guests.

Excitement fills the halls for the first time in years.

That’s the reason she was able to slip away while so many guards were distracted.

They’re focused outside, on the arriving royals from the other six kingdoms of the Whispering Isles.

The lady regent will be pissed when she finds out Sapphira escaped her rooms, but it’s worth the pain she’ll endure later.

She wants to watch the parade that welcomes the arriving rulers.

She needs to watch it. As a young girl, Sapphira loved watching the parades.

Her father would hoist her high up on his shoulders as they watched from the highest point of the castle and waved down at the procession from an arched window.

Then, Sapphira would wiggle out of his arms with a playful giggle and race down the steps, stumbling on her two small feet until she reached the large steps out front.

She’d zig-zag through the legs of guards and watch the horses stomp by and carriages with gilded wheels roll past, the breeze stirring up the scent of early spring and ruffle chiffon curtains to reveal the painted faces inside.

There hasn’t been a parade since her parents’ funeral.

Dorian’s voice draws Sapphira from the past. “Fein took me out of the parade,” he says. “He wants me at his side today.”

Sapphira squeals, slapping Dorian’s chest “You should have led with that. That’s amazing, Doe, the old man is finally acknowledging your work!” She can’t contain her excitement at her friends’ good news. “That means you’ll be ready to take his place as Captain of the Guard soon.”

“Sapp—”

“My best friend, Captain of the Guard. It has a nice ring to it.” She throws punches into the air.

“Soon, you’ll be able to head your own missions, and you’ll be beating the boys off with a stick.

No one can resist a man in uniform. Well…

except me. Now, a woman in uniform,” she muses, rubbing her chin. “That would be nice.”

“Sapp!” Dorian laughs, cutting off her rambling. He rolls his eyes, a fond smile on his lips. It’s not the reaction she was expecting, he doesn’t look as excited as he should be. He’s been training for this for years. There should be more jumping.

Instead, Dorian’s eyes trail up to the stone above, dust and pebbles streaming down as people pass overhead. Damn. The parade, she remembers. When Sapphira goes to pass Dorian again, so does he, not letting her pass. Her smile falters.

The knight says, “You should really head back to your room, Saff. Today is an important day, not just for you, but the whole of the Whispering Isles. Guests are coming from every Kingdom to see you come of age and try to win your favor.”

Sapphira laughs, trying to bring the mood back up. “You know I don’t care about that, Doe.” He matches her step again. They’re dropped back into the darkness as they leave the pocket of sunshine and Sapphira can feel every inch of the narrow tunnel close in on her.

“I can’t go back,” she says, a bit desperate. “I need to see it first. Those front gates haven’t opened since my parents died, and I’m going to watch it happen. You can’t stop me.”

Dorian is silent as he slips his sword from the sheath at his belt. If Sapphira wasn’t so well trained, she might have missed the low sound of drawing metal and the glint of light that reflects off the end of his blade.

Sapphira curses, then reaches under her nightgown for the twin short swords she keeps strapped to her thighs. She didn’t get a chance to change from her nightclothes when she snuck out of her room, but she never goes anywhere without her swords.

“If you’re going to pass me,” Dorian says, “you’ll have to fight for it.”

“So that’s how it is.”