Chapter Three
“Princess? Your Highness?”
My eyes fluttered open. Light immediately assaulted them, and I snapped my lids shut.
Everything hurt. From the pads of my aching feet to the top of my throbbing scalp. Even my jaw hurt as though all of my teeth had fallen out, then regrown anew in one night. What was wrong with me? What happened?
“Where... am I?”
“Don’t be silly.” A light giggle tickled my ear followed by the whoosh of curtains. I flipped over as more light pounded my eyes, burrowing my face into something soft and sweet-smelling. “Rise and shine, Princess. You don’t usually sleep in this late. Are you well?”
“Why are you calling me that?” I grunted. My head was a mess of pain. If someone told me a spike had been driven through it, I’d say they were lying. This pain was from three spikes. “Just call me... by my name. All the traditions and rules about names... are silly.”
“Oh.” The person’s shuffling feet paused for a beat. “I... That is very kind of you, Princess, but it wouldn’t be appropriate. I feel it best I address you by your station.”
“Station? What are you talking about? And close those curtains.” Why were Shadi and the others being so silly? Who wanted the sun in their face after a night of drinking rich wines? “My head is killing me. I didn’t think I had too much wine. The palace stuff must be stronger.”
“Wine? But I only brought you one glass with your meal last night,” whoever they were replied. “Have you been imbibing in secret? Oh, Your Eminence, the king would not like that.”
“The king? Why would he care about the likes of me?”
“Princess, are you sure you’re feeling all right?
” A cool hand came between me and the pillow.
“Hmm. A touch warm. How about I prepare you a rosewater bath? I’ll cancel your tutors for the morning, and prepare you tea on the terrace.
A cool bath and a little fresh air, I’m sure you’ll feel much better, Your Majesty. ”
“Rosewater? Tutors? Tea on the terrace? What in the name of Meya are you talking about?”
I sat up, and blinked. Large, owlish brown eyes blinked back at me.
“Who are you?”
The stranger laughed, wrinkling her button nose. She looked to be about my age, but that would be where our similarities stopped. She was taller, broader, and wore a plain but expensive tunic, pants, and linen boots. Palace staff.
Girls like her who could get jobs working in the castle were raised nowhere near the Galley. She was likely the daughter of a nobleman, who received the highest-paid work women without magic could get.
Fiona. My mind impossibly supplied the name. How? I did not know the woman.
“That’s very funny, Princess. I forget what a lively sense of humor you have. Now come with me.” She took my hands, ignoring my sputtered questions.
I was in a room that was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. These floors knew my feet. The bed remembered my frame better than any lover, and yet, I’d never been here before.
“If you’re not unwell, you can’t be late to meet with the tutors. King Salman was most insistent.”
“Tutors for what?” My stomach turned. “Tutors to teach me to be a war wife? Will they show me how to—to service the faeriken? That’s hideous! Who would think of such a thing?”
She gaped at me. “Mother Meya, no,” she cried. “Of course not. They’re your usual tutors. Language, history, etiquette, and geography.”
“What usual tutors?” I clutched my head, wincing. “You’re not making sense.”
“Your Eminence, you truly don’t look well. I’ve never seen you so pale.” She took my hand again. “Let’s put this whole conversation of tutors to bed. You’re not meeting with them today. You need your rest. It won’t do for a bride to look sickly on her wedding day.”
My head snapped up.
“You are here because I am not marrying King Alisdair. You are.”
“No.”
I ripped away from her, running to an unknown door with steps that were too sure. Bursting inside, I found myself in a wardrobe. What I was looking for stood on the opposite end of a room full of magnificent clothes and shoes. I skidded to a stop in front of the mirror... and screamed.
“No. No, no, no!”
It all came back to me. Every horrible, awful second of it. Trapped, gagged, crawling, begging... and a selfish royal with her besotted lover, offering me up to die in her place. The selfish royal gazing back at me.
It worked. Their evil, twisted curse worked. A mass of red, silky locks covered half my torso. Full, plump lips were dry from just waking up. Lily-pad eyes swam in milky, red-stained ponds, and my too-pale skin bleached whiter than a sheet. This was not me.
“Princess?” Fiona ran inside after me. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Don’t call me that!” I snapped, making her jump. “I’m— My name is— My name is—”
I choked, eyes bulging. My name wouldn’t sound. Each attempt to say it, and it was stolen right off my tongue.
She said this would happen. I would not be able to voice things the real Princess Emiana didn’t know. There was a reason the high and lofty heir didn’t bother to ask my name.
“You are Princess Emiana,” her companion said slowly. “You’re not feeling well today, but that’s understandable. You’re under a lot of pressure. Come with me and I’ll—”
I bolted past her, leaving the shouting attendant in the overstuffed closet.
Grabbing the door handle, it gave way as easily as it did the night before.
Everything was coming back to me, including how they didn’t bother to lock the door.
So absolute was Kaelan’s ability to control me. I never stood a chance.
I ran out—feet so small and foreign slapping the cool stone. I couldn’t voice what she didn’t know, but my mind still belonged to me. My memories were intact. How long until that was no longer the case, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I’d better act fast.
“Princess? Princess!”
Very fast. The unknown attendant was chasing me, and moving much faster than this soft and pampered body.
I skidded into the back stairwell and flew down the steps. The other women weren’t in the little rooms they called sleeping quarters. That left one place they could be.
“Princess, please come back,” Fiona called. She was gaining on me fast. “Whatever is wrong, I’ll help you.”
I threw open the doors to the former storeroom. Over a dozen heads swung to me.
“Help me,” I screamed, making four women in my vicinity jump. “I’m not— I’m not—” My mouth refused to utter the rest of the sentence, confessing that I’m not the princess. “I won’t marry the king! I won’t marry the king!”
The words came out and kept coming. A truth that was real for both me and the princess.
“You have to help me,” I cried, throwing myself on a wide-eyed Shadi. “I can’t marry the king. I can’t marry him.”
Hands seized me, dragging me off the confused woman. Guards lifted me off the ground and on their shoulders, weathering my kicks and punches.
“Get off! Get off me! I won’t marry the king!”
“Please, calm yourself, Princess,” Fiona cried. “New-wife jitters are normal. You’ll feel better after you’ve had some rest.”
Sense seized my tongue. “Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia!” I screamed as they carried me to the door. “Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia!”
“Wait,” a small voice spoke up. “Why does she speak of Olene and her children?”
Hope soared in my chest.
“Just a minute.” Eara, my old friend from the Galley, pushed through the bodies—following after me. “Princess? Princess, do you want to speak to Olene?”
I could’ve cried. I always liked Eara with her kind smile and a joke always on her lips. She then became my most favorite person in this world. “Yes,” I screamed. “Olene. Olene!”
“She isn’t here,” Eara said, “but I can fetch—”
“How dare you!” One of the guards holding my legs snapped around and shoved Eara, sending her flying into Shadi. “You will not address the princess, nor will you leave this room. All of you, face the wall. Now,” he shouted when they didn’t move.
They all turned away from him—from me.
“The princess is ill,” snapped the guard. “She knows not what she’s saying, and you will repeat nothing of what you’ve seen or heard.”
My captors carried me out into the halls—my cries and pleas falling on uncaring ears.
“None of you leaves until the ceremony is over.” The guard stormed out, slamming and locking the door on my only hope.
“Don’t worry, Princess.” Fiona patted my flailing ankle. “I have the perfect thing to calm your nerves and help you sleep. King Salman said to give this to you in case your jitters overtook you. He is as wise as he is kind.”
“Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia!” I screamed to all and anyone who’d hear me. “Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia!”
Away they took me—carrying me back to a gilded cage where a delicate bird always sings their pleas, and no one lets them out.
“PRINCESS EMIANA?”
The door opened, turning my head from the window.
Fiona pushed inside and waved in the trail of servants behind her. I couldn’t keep track of all the things they carried in on pillows and carts. Makeup, shoes, necklaces, bracelets, gowns, hairpins, tiaras. The parade of finery was endless, and my eyes crossed trying to follow it all.
Wincing, I turned away, facing the window and the endless garden beyond it.
I’d been this way for the last few hours, days, weeks? Impossible to know. A fog descended on my mind minutes after the guards dragged me away from the war wives and force-fed me a calming tea that Fiona brewed.
In the brief moments I could string together two thoughts, I understood exactly why Emiana hated her father.
Memories of a life not mine floated through my head the longer I sat at the window, unable to summon the will to run away. Most of them memories of a man who cared not a whit about his wife, and even less for his only child.
Raised by nannies and attendants. Requests to see and speak with her father were put through a dozen staff and advisors, only for those staff and advisors to relay the message that he was busy and didn’t have the time.