Chapter 6
With red eyes swollen from crying, I walked down into the courtyard behind the castle. Servants passed by me and greeted me, but I paid them no mind. I needed to get this rage out of me. This anger.
I crossed through the flower garden filled with hundreds of different kinds of blooms. My hand drifted over the soft petals while fire burned in my stomach. Finally, I stepped onto the meadow at the far end of which stood the archery targets.
I beckoned one of the workers over with my fingers.
“Yes, Princess,” he asked, head lowered.
“My bow,” I said simply, waving him away. He nodded and disappeared from my sight.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back.
I took a deep breath of the fresh air kissed with the scent of flowers. Yet somehow, I could smell the sea. I could hear it too. The waves striking the stone wall, the cold water brushing against my skin… splashing against us…
My skin prickled and warmth pooled in my stomach.
“Princess, here you are,” the servant interrupted my thoughts.
I snapped my gaze toward him and quickly took the bow and the quiver full of arrows.
I slung them over my back and adjusted the bow in my hands.
My fingers trembled as I drew the first arrow.
The sharp string cut against my chin. I inhaled deeply, and my heart began to pound.
In my head, I heard the clash of metal. The strike of swords. I felt dust rising.
I released the arrow.
Missed.
I missed completely.
I clenched my teeth and drew again. The arrow whistled and struck the edge of the target.
The servant beside me stood watching it all, wisely silent.
“Bring me another bow, this one is useless,” I said angrily, shoving it toward him. It hit his chest, and he stumbled back. He drew in a sharp, painful breath but left without a word.
I dropped the quiver from my back and the arrows scattered across the grass.
“I’m sure you won’t be the one picking those up.” A woman’s voice sounded behind me.
My sister’s beautiful face appeared before me. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and she looked at me with what seemed like anger and disappointment.
“How long have you been standing there?” I asked.
“Long enough to see everything,” she said, stepping closer.
I merely raised my brows and smiled faintly.
“I’m not always this bad,” I gestured toward the target.
“I’m just in a worse mood today.” I laughed, but that only seemed to anger her more.
She took a few more steps and now stood right in front of me. I furrowed my brows and stepped back.
“Princess. Princess, your bow,” the servant said from the side. He handed it to me and bent down to collect the arrows.
“Stand up,” Meera said. He rose and looked at her, utterly confused. “Please leave us alone.” And he obeyed her words with just a bow and scurried away.
“Sister, is there a problem—”
“Problem?” she hissed. “The problem is that you’re behaving like a spoiled brat, sister.” She emphasized the word sister strangely, as though spitting it out. I took another small step back.
“What is wro—”
“Silence.” She cut me off again, and I swallowed.
“How are you not ashamed, Isolde?” she asked quietly.
“You shed tears and bully servants here because you have to fulfill one, one damn duty.”
She raised a finger in the air and leaned into my face.
“One duty. And you don’t even have to marry or bear children. No. You have to let a knight walk behind you, and oh, that is such a great problem.”
Her face twisted with fury. A vein stood out on her forehead. Corian, who had been standing behind her the entire time, took a few steps closer.
“I just think it isn’t right for someone to follow me because of a stupid tradition—”
“Isolde!” she barked my name. I clenched my teeth shut.
“Our sister is married to a man twice her age and must bear his children. Our brother, your beloved Sando, spends hours every day studying and learning about the kingdom. What do you have to do? Learn how to dance and let one damn knight walk behind us, and you create such a commotion over it.
How are you not ashamed, I ask you?”
I felt tears forming in my eyes, and my cheeks burned, but I kept looking at her.
I let the bow fall from my hand and clenched my fists.
“Every day you have the right to leave the court, to do whatever you want, and it’s still not enough. You pretend to be a commoner, yet you carry gold with you and throw it around. What princesses can do that? Not ladies. Not peasants. Princesses?”
Now the tears ran down my face and I wiped them away with my hand. Shame burned in my chest and neck and cheeks.
“We have one cruel brother. Do we need a spoiled brat as well?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to answer, to defend myself or say anything at all, but she simply turned and walked past her knight. For a moment, I watched her hair flutter in the wind, then my tearful eyes shifted to Corian. He looked at me briefly, just for a moment, and nodded at me. Then he followed her.
All of it, even the moment earlier when I had shoved the bow into the servant’s chest, made my cheeks burn hotter. I dropped to my knees and began gathering the arrows. Tears fell from my eyes and tapped against the grass before I finally stood.
The truth burned through me, raw and humiliating.
I drew the bow and released the arrow.
Straight into the center.