Page 6 of To Wake a Kingdom

After poking around in cupboards and wooden boxes, I found bread and butter and jam, a bottle of wine, thick links of salami, and hunks of crumbly white cheese. I was used to feasts served on fine plates with even finer silver. Delicate bites and nibbles, like a princess was meant to eat.

Picking up a piece of bread, I tore into it with my teeth, following it with a sizeable chunk of cheese and stuffed it all in. My mouth slightly open, crumbs sprayed out while I chewed with vigor, savoring the saltiness. Savoring the freedom from polite manners. No one but Kianna was here to scrutinize me, but I was making her nervous. She watched me as if I were an animal testing the bars of its cage.

“Eat.” I pointed to the food. “And stop looking at me like that.”

With a nod, Kianna slipped onto a stool across from me and nibbled on a corner of cheese, her gaze flitting about the room like a fly trapped in a jar. I poured the wine, filling my glass to the top and taking a large, slurpy gulp.

A line of concern formed between Kianna’s perfectly arched brows.

Done with the food, I stood, taking the bottle of wine with me in one hand. In the other, I held my father’s sword, dragging it behind me as I stalked upstairs. My bedroom sat at the back of the castle, overlooking Lake Ravalyn.

A huge bed sat in the center, draped in dark blue velvet and adorned with silver embroidery. The stone floor was covered in thick blue rugs. I kicked off my dirty slippers, feeling the fibers squishing beneath my feet. My black hair was plastered to my forehead and cheeks, and blood and dirt streaked the backs of my brown hands. A glimpse in the mirror revealed more of both on my face.

Inside the bathing chamber, I stared at the empty marble tub. I wanted a bath, but this wasn’t something I’d ever done for myself, either. Nothing happened when I turned the polished silver taps. Whatever water once ran through the castle’s plumbing had long since dried. With no one to bring me hot water, my hands balled up, frustrated at how incapable I was.

“Kianna!” I called over my shoulder. “Kianna! Come here!”

A few moments later, the Fae came running, her steps tiny and delicate.“What is it, Your Highness?”

“Can you make me a hot bath?” I didn’t understand the full capabilities of her magic, but surely it had some use beyond curses that didn’t work.

Kianna nodded, waving a hand over the tub. It slowly filled with soapy water, steam curling off the surface.

I stripped out of my dress and stepped into the water. Sinking down into the tub, I closed my eyes and rested my head on the edge of the basin.

“Enjoy, Your Highness,” Kianna whispered before leaving.

Guilt burned in my chest. She was the only one I had right now, and I’d have to plow through the years of resentment I had built up around me. Though she was to blame for messing up this damn curse, I’d been too short with her today.

After all, it wasn’t her fault she’d needed to cast it in the first place.

Chapter Three

Mybirthwasheraldedacross our small kingdom to fanfare and fireworks.

Unable to bear children, my mother had pined for me for years. Desperate with longing, she had sought the aid of every witch, sorcerer, Fae, mage, or purveyor of magic she could scoop from the land. Carted to Ravalyn, they came from kingdoms that dwelled in the furthest reaches of the continent. From across the widest and most ferocious seas. From every shadowed corner where rumors whispered of gifts that could bequeath a child to a woman who desired one above all else.

She guzzled tonics and potions and slumbered with crystals and stones, potent with spells, beneath her pillow. She ate cheese strained through lamb intestines, drank wine brewed from the rarest of fruits, and even stuffed herbs into her teeth every night, hoping to conceive. But none of it yielded her heart’s yearning.

It wasn’t until my mother was walking through the woods one day that a Fae—resplendent and shimmering—appeared before her. My mother’s face was stained with tears, and the Fae asked what troubled her. My mother then regaled her with the whole of her woeful tale. How she had tried everything to conceive, and nothing had worked. How she had prayed to every deity in the heavens, but her pleas had gone unanswered.

The Fae clasped my mother’s hands in her own. “I will grant you the child you seek. Return home. Soon, you will bear a daughter of surpassing beauty, grace, and light.”

My mother was hopeful about the Fae’s claim but had suffered through countless disappointments already. If so many others had failed, how could this Fae be the one to finally grant her wish?

Nevertheless, my mother did as the Fae had asked and, much to my parents’ delight, she fell pregnant. Nine months later, I was born, fists clenched and wailing, to a world that had been waiting for me for a very long time.

Word went out across Ravalyn and to our neighbors. Thousands came to the unveiling days after my birth, including thirteen Fae bearing gifts for a princess. One by one, they presented me with virtues befitting my role as the heir to the kingdom.

Elegance. Poise. Chastity. Fastidiousness. Patience. Gentleness. Modesty. Humility. Grace. Refinement. Cheerfulness.

After the eleventh Fae had imparted her gift, the twelfth stepped forward and threw back her hood. My mother recognized the Fae who had promised her a child. No longer gentle and kind, she stood forged into a ruthless nightmare. The benevolence of her promise was now twisted and shaped into a dagger pointed straight at my mother’s heart.

“I gave you this child. And on her twenty-first birthday, you will return her to me to spend the rest of her days in my service.Yoursuffering will be my greatest reward.”

And then Mare disappeared in a haze of fog, much to everyone’s shock. A ripple of chatter ran through those in attendance, confusion stirring the air. My mother nearly fainted, my father holding on to her tightly.

But there had still been one Fae left to grant her favor, and it had been Kianna. She stepped forward and then, with a wave of her hand, marked me forever. “On the day before your twenty-first birthday, you shall fall into an eternal sleep, so that my sister may never enslave you or claim you as her own.”

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