Prologue
Darkness. Complete darkness. Cold shackles chain me to the ground. Day after day, they come and attack my body and mind. They force themselves on me, and when they finish, they leave me beaten and broken. Will this torture ever end? Will no one put me out of my misery?
I am alone. Nobody cares whether I live or die. My father doesn’t know where I am, and my stepmother won’t tell him because she hates me. It was she who did this to me. But I don’t blame her. She only wanted her son to be king. No one would want me to be king now. I’m dirty, beaten, and broken.
Suddenly, the door opens and I brace myself for yet another attack.
“Your Majesty, the Crown Prince is in here!!!”
I recognize that voice: Shial, my father’s Captain of the Royal Guard.
“It’s alright now, Prince Akiko. Your father has sent me to get you.”
Shial opens my chains and wraps me in a blanket and carries me out of that room that has been my prison for the last 10 months. Shial takes me over to my father’s horse and places me in my father’s arms. Relieved to have been saved, I drift off to sleep in the strong, comforting arms of my father.
I wake up three days later in my chambers in the Royal Palace, and Shial tells me everything that happened after we got home.
My Stepmother was found to have been to one behind my kidnapping and was sentenced to death. Her son, my younger half-brother, is just an infant, so he was sent to live in a monastery.
While I did not blame my stepmother for what she did, I was still relieved that she was put to death. Maybe now, I can have some peace.
