The Serpent’s Orchid

Voices pricked my ears from below – house staff shouting to each other as they buzzed around the palace grounds – preparing for the day’s events. Trucks carrying food, decorations, and extra seating ambled down the drive, their tires crunching gravel as they went. By the gates, someone was fussing over a flower delivery. I couldn’t make out their words but I could hear the tension in their raised voices. Even the hallway that lay beyond my bedroom door was bustling with people – maidservants barking orders to their lessers and the tell-tale stomp of steel-toed boots on marble — guards making their patrols of the building.

I wondered if they, too, felt the enormity of the day weighing on their shoulders as I wiped clammy hands across the fabric of my dress. I flipped to the next notecard, my eyes hungrily scanning the lines of my speech for what could have easily been the hundredth time that morning, hoping to somehow absorb every word.

Just when I was about to turn to the next card, they were snatched from my hands. I looked up in surprise and found Celia – my lady’s maid– standing before me with her arms crossed, my speech held precariously between her fingers.

“That’s enough,” she snapped. “If you go over this speech one more time, you’re either going to drive yourself insane or get up on that stage and sound like a robot.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I replied, making an attempt to swipe my notes from her hand. She was too quick for me, though, and jerked them away, holding them up high out of my reach.

I watched in disbelief as she marched her way across the room to the waste bin and promptly tore my hard work to shreds. I gasped in horror as the pieces of cardstock fluttered to their grave, my heart sinking to my stomach. Weeks worth of effort destroyed, just like that. Without those notes, there was no chance in hell I’d remember even a quarter of that speech once all those eyes were fixed on me. My nerves would surely render my memory useless.

I narrowed my eyes at her, channeling all my indignation in that glare. “I will never forgive you for that.”

She only laughed and waved a hand in dismissal, stooping down to collect the stray pieces from the floor to subject them, too, to their waste bin demise. “Sure you will. You always do,” she said, grinning smugly as she made her way back to me.

Defeated, I slumped back in my chair at the dressing table and released a low groan as I buried my face in my hands. My skull throbbed relentlessly behind my eyes, likely due to the recent nights I’d lied awake dreading this graduation ceremony and everything that was to come after.

“In fact,” Celia continued, crouching in front of me to pry my hands from my eyes, “you’re going to thank me.”

I highly doubted that.

“Your people want to hear you speak from your heart, not rattle off some script you memorized.”

I huffed. Of course she was right, but I wouldn’t admit it.

I stared into her petite face, her porcelain skin dappled with freckles. Her plain servants' clothing always seemed so out of place compared to her elegant features. I often thought that between the two of us, she was better fit to be a princess. Confident, eloquent, and maddeningly persuasive — all the traits I lacked. Only four years older than me, yet she seemed remarkably wise. It’s one of the reasons I’d clung to her ever since her work here began, at a time when I so desperately needed guidance from a female companion who wasn’t fictional…or my mother.

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head, “I’m not good with words the way you are. I should’ve asked you to write my speech.”

Celia clicked her tongue at me, appalled at the suggestion. “Nonsense,” she tutted, resuming her place behind my chair to begin pinning my hair again. “You are the Princess Elodie of Aurelia. You are more than capable of giving a little speech.” She gave an extra tug on my hair, as if to emphasize her words. “Besides, let's not pretend like you’re a stranger to the spotlight.”

I couldn’t argue with that. The spotlight had followed me my entire life. If it wasn’t when I was being paraded around with my family to fancy galas and stiff dinners with noblemen, it was in the hallways at school.

For the first few years of my educational career, I’d been privately tutored at home, studying royal etiquette alongside my arithmetic. Eventually, though, in an attempt to garner favor from the disgruntled commoners, my older brother and I were sent to attend school with their children.

It will help bridge the gap between them and us, I recalled my father saying when he was trying to convince my mother of the idea. And what better way for our children to learn how to serve their people than spending time alongside them.

My brother thrived in their midst. He’d befriended half the school in weeks. I, on the other hand, struggled to find my place.

Anything beyond the comfort of the palace walls felt foreign and I crumpled under their curious stares. After a while, there seemed to be a silent agreement: I didn’t engage and they only spoke to me when necessary. Any free time I spent in the library —which wasn’t nearly as magnificent as the one here at the palace — but it provided me a safe haven. Of course, once Ander came along, everything changed. But there were many lonely years before that. At least after today, I would never have to go back.

“This is different,” I said, fiddling with the gold adornments on my wrist. “Sure, I make appearances with my family but at those I’m just a pretty face and a sparkly dress. The talking? That’s always left to my parents and Declan.” I’d rather it stay that way, too. “No one’s interested in what the second-in-line to the throne has to say.”

Celia snorted at that and her reflection grinned at me through the mirror. “Well if you ask me, you’re the most interesting of them all.” She sounded so sure of it, I almost believed her.

I smiled back gratefully, though it didn’t quite reach my eyes. I’d like to believe that was true but all I could picture was my father at a podium, his shoulders relaxed as an entranced crowd hung on his every word. Sometimes he seemed more comfortable in those moments than in the quiet ones with our family. I could never understand it, much less emulate it.

“Here,” Celia said, speaking around the pin tucked between her teeth, “Hold this in place while I run downstairs and grab a few more pins.” She grabbed my hand and guided it to a spot in the back of my head. “Don’t let go,” she instructed and gave me a pointed look as she moved toward the door.

“Well you better hurry,” I called to her, “or my arm’s going to fall off.”

“Oh, I’ve heard enough whining from you today, princess,” she hurled over her shoulder, but I could hear the smirk in her voice.

My shoulders shook with laughter for the first time that morning, for the first time in days. For a moment, I wasn’t thinking about speeches or ceremonies or how my life felt as if it were slipping through my fingers. I only felt light and the spring breeze upon my face.

But when the door clicked shut and Celia’s footsteps faded down the hallway, I couldn’t fight the overwhelming urge and practically dove for the waste bin. With frantic fingers, I scooped up the pieces of card stock and made a futile attempt to piece them back together. But there were too many scraps and I couldn’t connect my once-neat letters into anything coherent.

With a frustrated cry, I threw the remnants to the air, falling back against the wooden frame of my bed. The satin bedclothes were cool against my skin as I sat in a puddle of blue silk and paper, the wind from my open window sending the debris skittering helplessly across the floor.

I watched them blow around and realized that’s how I felt, too. Helpless. Maybe it wasn’t really the speech or the destroyed notes that were bothering me after all. Perhaps it was the finality of it and what it symbolized — the loss of any semblance of control.

My eyes roved the bedroom of my childhood. The stuffed animals I’d once dragged with me everywhere sat atop a high shelf, some missing eyes and ears, collecting dust. My mother used to scold me when I’d try to carry them along to public engagements. She said it was inappropriate. No one wanted a one-eyed bunny in attendance at a formal dinner party. But Father always let me bring them.

On the far side of the room stood the intricately-carved mahogany armoire, like a sentinel keeping watch over the space. I thought of all the gowns it had homed over the years. Various sizes, colors, fabrics — changing with the trends and as I grew.

A stack of books rested on the chest at the foot of my bed, their spines torn and faded with age. I would’ve given anything to curl up with one — to lose myself in another world. The longing was so intense I could even feel the pages between my fingers.

Pieces of me littered every surface of this room. I had merely weeks left until it would no longer belong to me. I wouldn’t even celebrate my nineteenth birthday before I would be joined to a man not of my choosing, likely one I barely knew.

We’d start our own home or if we did choose to remain at the palace, we’d likely be moved to our own wing of the building. I had a sinking feeling, though, that I wouldn’t be given much of a choice at all.

The very thought of it pained me. I leaned my head back against the bed and shut my eyes, a wave of nausea flooding me. My nails dug deep into the woolen rug beneath me as I fought back the bile that rose in my throat.

It was finally beginning to pass when the door rattled. I startled at the sound, immediately pulling myself together and braced for the scolding Celia would surely give me once she realized I’d ignored her request. “I’m sorry, you took forever–”

But no one was there.

I tilted my head, confused. Rising, I went to open the door but something caught my eye. There, lying on the floor, was a cream envelope. I frowned and retrieved it, turning it over in my hands to see who it was from, but there was no postage or writing. Just a plain, unsullied envelope sealed with a smattering of ruddy wax. Imprinted in the wax was the face of a lion, its jaws unhinged in a silent roar, and two mighty wings protruded from behind it. I’d never seen a seal like that before. It certainly wasn’t from our court.

Bewildered, I peeked my head into the hallway, hoping I could catch the courier before they got too far. I looked both directions in search of someone who seemed out of place or as if they might be retreating but all I found were a couple guards milling about and maidservants dashing between rooms