Chapter 1
Serena's POV
The sun finally crested the hill, its rays filtering through the far-off tree branches to reach me where I sat upon my tower’s windowsill. I stood up, stretched, my fingers just barely reaching the arched windows’ precipice, even with my whole figure spanning the height of the window. Last night I hadn’t stayed up late reading, so I got up early enough to see the sunrise this morning. I would’ve loved to have stayed up late, but my lantern wick had burnt out, so I’d have to request that Martha bring me a new one. I’d love to have one of those new gas lamps I’d read about, though. I scoffed a little at the thought. As if anyone would care or bother setting up a pipeline all the way to my room just for me to have light to read by. If I didn’t have Martha, I wouldn’t have anything to read to begin with.
I flopped down on the blue woven rug that spanned the floor of my small tower bedroom before something came to tickle my ear. I am, unfortunately, very ticklish, and I laughed and flailed at the tiny twitchy nose and whiskers that were inspecting my ear.
“Pierre, stop it, I’m waiting for my breakfast, same as you!” I heard small angry chirps withdraw from my ear as Pierre climbed down my shoulder to scamper over the floor. He came over to my face to give me that same twitchy nose, accompanied by two giant black eyes staring into mine. I picked up the little sugar flyer and rolled on my back to hold him up. He squirmed out of my hand, extended his wings, and bellyflopped right on my face. “Augh, Pierre, stop being a menace, I was having a nice morning!”
I scooped him up again, setting him on a shelf as I went to change into something day-worthy. He leaped or glided from shelf to shelf all over my small tower room, climbing all the way up to the rafters to swoop back down. My only other pleasant company in the entire castle was a flying mouse with a mind more diabolically conniving han the worst imp’s.
After I found a comfortable dress, I composed myself to sit on my bed reading, occasionally glancing at the doorway. Eventually, I crawled off and lifted back my blue rug, underneath I had drawn in chalk a mark for every hour of the day based on the sun that shone through my window. Martha should’ve come by already. I looked at the other chalk drawings there, remnants of tick marks I had once made, back when I assumed I’d be let out of this tower one day. The water that dripped through the ceilings on rainy days had all but washed it away, save for the bits that remained under the rug. I let the rug go and flopped on my bed, just before I heard a knock at the door and a key turning.
“Good morning, Martha!”
“Well, good morning, Serena, we’re up rather early, aren’t we?” The old woman came in, closing the door behind her as she set the tray on a desk to one side of the room. She spoke with a lower-class accent, but I always found it charming.
“My lantern burnt out, but but but, did you get it? Do you have it?” I had waited a whole day for this. Martha reached into her cleaning supplies bucket and moved aside a duster to pull out a stack of three wonderful, beautifully new books. “Both sequels! Oh, you’re an angel!”
I grabbed the next two books of The Prince and Street Girl trilogy. Martha had brought me the first one two days prior, and I had finished it that morning. The cruel author had left me on a cliffhanger. Martha had brought an extra novel in case I got bored, since I surely would, then left to complete the rest of her work.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” she smiled, closing and locking the door behind her. I was already a page in by then and didn’t put down the book until lunchtime to greet Martha again before resuming reading while I ate. I’d sometimes glance up to see Pierre washing himself on one of my shelves or gnawing on some seeds he’d stored under the rug. Most of the time, though, he’d glide or climb out of my tower and go on his own adventures till another mealtime rolled around.
By dinner, I was around two-thirds of the way through the second book. I have gone through so many books that most romances don’t ensnare me like this, but any fantasy these days was a worthwhile one. To be miles from my tower, having adventures, to be entirely someone else, that’s what I dreamed every day and night, when I could. Martha knocked and came in, delivering leftovers from my family’s dinner below in the dining hall. She handed the food off but didn’t leave to help in the kitchens with the rest of the staff. Martha stood facing me, her back against the door, watching me eat. I tried my best to ignore her, but the sinking feeling in my stomach was already working to ruin my appetite.
“Martha?” I asked, not nearly halfway through my food, no point in waiting.
“Milady,” she still addressed me formally despite who I was, “it’s…yer uncle, he will visit again tonight. I did’ney want to mention it afore ye ate…” she was not nervous to mention the harsher parts of my reality to me, rather the sadness was always evident on her face, tonight more than any other.
“I see,” I said, looking down at my plate, I’d have to hide the food somewhere and eat later, my appetite was gone but I didn’t want to go hungry. “Is there more?”
“Ah, I overheard ’em talkin’ round the table tonight. Yer father has decided he…well, he’s found someone ye can marry.”
The idea at first made my heart stop. Marriage meant change. A big change before my twenty first birthday. Despite everything, I quite liked my life in the tower. But not always change for the worse, perhaps…then again, whoever it was might not have books, and that was a more terrifying notion than anything.
“Who?” It was all I could breathe.
“I don’t know yet; had to leave afore I could find out.”
I took another breath; no doubt I’d know later tonight when my uncle visited. I stood up from my table desk to hug Martha. She held me tight, more distressed at my own coming trials than I was myself. It may be a bit callous to admit, but my mind had already accepted the news and was drifting back to my book. Would the prince recognize the street girl without her peasant clothes?
“Ah, yer such a brave un’ Serena. Would that all yer brothers and cousins had such stout hearts.”
I returned to the moment, giving her one tighter squeeze before she slipped back out the door and left me for the night. If any of my cousins had my love of fairytales, my uncle would’ve knocked it out of them a long time ago.
I sighed, wrapped up my food, the apple on my plate would be brown when I returned to it later at night, but I certainly didn’t feel like eating now. I checked under my rug for the hour; it was near sunset, I’d have a few hours before they showed up. I returned to reading, sitting on my windowsill, having to stop every few pages to breathe, quell my anxiety, and refocus on my blessed distraction.
Eventually, I gave up, pulling out a book I always kept in my tower, a psalm book. It was more comforting to hum rather than sing the words. As I focused, my mind became still as an empty house, my thoughts drifting aimlessly like dust in the sunlight.
“Seeing you still up here never gets old. If I were you, I’d have jumped from that window years ago.”
I nearly jumped from fright. Martha’s knocks were always a pleasant forewarning, but they didn’t have such courtesy.
“Hello, Alexandre.”
My huge cousin held up his lantern in the doorway, the sun having been down for a few hours now.
“Dad wants to talk.”
Hearing Alexandre call my monster of an uncle dad always felt like such an insult to the word. With my cousins and brothers, I always wanted to say something smart to them, but most of the time it’d go over their heads, and they’d still be offended by it. Their offense at my existence alone caused enough pain. I slid off the windowsill, placing my psalm book back upon the desk, and walked out of my room. I hated leaving my room. I hated it because the only time I ever left was if I was headed for pain.
As soon as my cousin grabbed my arm to drag me down the stairs, I began to let my mind drift into another world. In my book, the prince had not in fact recognized the girl now masquerading as a foreign duchess. The problem was she couldn’t maintain a consistent accent, and since the prince traveled, she had a hard time coming up with a believable city of origin which would have such inconsistent speech patterns.
My mind had been far away, making me miss the part where my arms were chained above my head, since we were now in the room directly below my own in the tower. I had also missed who was there, so I checked. I could see both my brothers, Raphael and Henri, eyeing me from the wall like the goons they were. My uncle’s sons, Alexandre and Gabriel, and from another uncle, Theo and Timeo, the young twins who still managed to possess a stomach for these nights. More came than usual, often it would only be two others, though I had plenty more cousins than these to spare. I also had many more interesting things to think about.
Before I left off, the prince’s evil brother was very near finding out the identity of the street girl masquerading as a duchess to enter the ball. And she was only there because she needed to find the secret passages which might be used to let in enemies of the state, the same people who had murdered her father!
“You should be glad to know I finally have a use for you.” My uncle had arrived. Ever composed, ever spiteful, ever starving for blood. Tonight, starving for mine. They call my family the Royal Hunters. It’s not an exaggeration, we are a family of hunters, and my uncle is the most vicious one there is. It’s a sting of insult rather than a point of pride for me. “A role so much more important than any your brothers or cousins could perform. Be proud, my dear.”
I sank gladly into my usual dead silence on these nights. Nights like this were usually for venting anger, not gloating. But hey, I’ll take gloating over beating, though both are a punishment to endure. I had to temper a smirk at my own snarkiness. I was thinking too much.
“You know what you are.”
The first strike was always the worst, this one was no exception. My muscles tightened in shock from the sudden crack of the whip upon my back. I gritted my teeth and waited. That was probably Alexandre dealing the blows as he usually did.
“Say it.” Why bother? You’re the one who wants to hear it say it yourself.
“You’re a curse. You’re the worst curse this family has ever had to endure, and this family has lived through many curses.” My uncle’s voice echoed through the room, the same tired speech I had heard a hundred times before.
I let my muscles give in to the tension and let them react to the pain as they needed. I found a piece of straw on the stone floor and focused on it. Green and yellow straw. I wonder if the prince feels as miserable about his own brother as I do about mine.
The tension in my head relaxed, and I was back where I belonged. I belonged somewhere else, I belonged in my books. I wonder what it would be like to have loved and lost a father as the street girl had, rather than never having known one at all. She sought revenge for what had been done to her family, and the old woman had warned her, revenge never ends. It’s true, otherwise I would not be where I am now. Huh, books have told me more truths than any person ever has.
“The last woman alive, and you’ll be dead in three years, what a useless investment.”
Crack!
My complete silence remained, as it always did these days. It also continued to unsettle my cousins how silent I could be on these nights. If I didn’t have a story to ponder, I know I’d be wailing and crying as I used to, but now, the beatings were more tedious than anything. They made it harder to read. The girl’s favorite food is stew. I wish I could share some with her. I imagined the taste of it, warming me and filling me with comfort and company.
“A curse, yes, but a blessing in disguise to your family. I just had to make your father see it.”
Crack!
I wish the street girl were more interested in the prince during these ball chapters. He was certainly interested in her.
“You’re a rare beauty of a girl, and beauty like that can draw any man into irresistible temptation.” My uncle had grabbed my face to force me to look in his eyes, the whip still intermittently wailing on my back. I hardly even registered it, my mind a thousand worlds away. They weren’t friends right now since she was so insistent on his distance. Or maybe it was romantic denial.
“Any man, or dragon. You’re going to help me destroy our family’s most ancient enemy and satisfy our familial needs once and for all.”
It would be so romantic if the prince made stew for the street girl.
“You’ll be the greatest dragon slayer in history, killing dragons long after you’re dead. You’re going to marry the dragon king, sire him an heir, and pass your curse on to his bloodline.”
But he’s a prince, so he probably wouldn’t know how to make - I blinked as my consciousness resurfaced - what? I was going to what?
