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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.
