Catherine

Being a princess has its drawbacks. For example, it is absolutely impossible for me to go anywhere without the entire kingdom watching my every move. (Although I’ve got to admit that the attention is the greatest thing in the world.) I was forced to behave properly every second of the day. Even in the palace I was watched constantly by my own personal bodyguard, my uncle, Mattias, and I hated him. Another reason that being the daughter of the king wasn’t all it was hyped up to be, was the fact that I was someday going to be queen. I was an only child, something that I complained about daily, because it was up to me to rule the kingdom in a few years like my father. And I definitely was not my father.

People told me that I was most like my mother, but I couldn’t see how they could possibly think so. My mother was quiet, conservative, and I wasn’t sure if she had really ever done something exciting in life. I saw her very little during the day because she kept herself locked up inside of her personal chamber. I asked her about it once, but she refused to allude to what she did every day. I didn’t care, though, because I was too busy doing what I did best; partying. That was why I was not like the queen. My mother hardly enjoyed the monthly balls in the palace whereas they were the highlights of my life. I lived for the social aspects of my world.

However much people in the country seemed to think I was like my mother, I most resembled my father. It was a good, thing, too, because he was gorgeous. Well, as my father he wasn’t, but when Id look at portraits of him in his younger years I would have fallen in love with him in a heartbeat. And I looked like the more beautiful, definitely more feminine, better version on him. I had his amazing azure eyes, but mine sparkled like his never had, and my dark brown hair was definitely silkier and shinier and it hung down in soft curls that were the envy of the kingdom. I believed myself to be perfect and everyone else seemed to agree. Countless boys told me so at the party celebrating my eighteenth birthday.

“Miss Catherine, you look absolutely ravishing.” I didn’t even know the kid that bowed before me, but he seemed ecstatic just to be so close to me. “I could never wish for anything greater than to stand here in your beauty.”

I raised an eyebrow and gave him a smile just so he could feel satisfied. “I know.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mother glare at me so I reluctantly added, “Thank you for coming,” in a low, growling voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d made me say it that night so I was getting rather annoyed.

When there was a lull in the line of grimy males waiting to greet me, my mother leaned over to me and hissed, “Catherine, try to be more pleasurable and less idiotic! These are innocent boys that really want to wish you a happy birthday. Could you at least pretend to be happy?”

I gave her a huge fake smile then returned to my scowl, waiting for the night to end. Everyone knew that my mother secretly ran the kingdom, even though she wasn’t royal by blood, and at times like these I really didn’t want to end up like her. Or my father, for that matter, because when I looked at him he was falling asleep on his feet, unable to think of the right words to say to those that passed. So I tried to distract myself. I could see several boys in the back of the ballroom that hadn’t yet joined the procession leading up to me but each and every one of them was watching me candidly, waiting for the moment I could get away. One of them in particular caught my eye and a plan started to form in my head when he smiled at me.

He was Kilam, the leader of a gang of ruffians in the main city, and was only a few months older than I was. The rest of his group surrounded him in the back of the ballroom, all eager to gain my attention, but I was too enthralled by the captain to even give them a passing glance. Though he wasn’t noble, as most of those at the party were, he held the same dreamlike quality in his features and I positively adored him. At least, I liked him better than anyone else in the kingdom. And perhaps I enjoyed him was because he held a dangerous aura that thrilled me and made me feel like a rebel when I was with him. I was actually with him quite often, a secret that not even Mattias my bodyguard knew. I was very adept at climbing out of my window in the middle of the night and Kilam was always waiting. And it was a good thing that no one knew about us, because my mother would have killed me had she found out that I was secretly in love. Well, not in love, per se, but deeply attached to someone that wasn’t viewed as worthy to be with me. Frankly, I didn’t care.

“Happy Birthday, Miss Catherine, and might I say that you look more beautiful every year.”

I glanced at the overweight, red-faced child in front of me and grimaced before realizing that it was my cousin, Mattias’s son. “Thank you,” I hissed through tightly clenched teeth. I really hated the kid, but what could I do? He was family.

I needed to get away, and get away soon. I sent a frantic look toward Kilam, who chuckled and started heading toward me, and then I started to fan my face with my hand. I didn’t usually have to resort to acting an illness but I was desperate. The line of well-wishers was getting longer by the minute and it was already nearly midnight. I started to gasp for air which made my mother glance over at me. In the next second I collapsed, as if fainting, and several women nearest to where I stood screamed. Luckily Kilam had reached me already and he caught me before I hit the hard marble beneath my feet.

“Catherine!” my mother gasped, grabbing my father’s arm in terror. The king hardly reacted; instead, he beckoned to Mattias even though my uncle was already on his way over.

Kilam skillfully bent his face over mine, pretending to check if I was breathing, and as he did so his lips brushed mine. I had to do my best not to smile. “She should be fine,” he said loudly, pulling away. He hoisted me into his arms and stood up straight. “I think she just needs fresh air.” Without even consulting the king or his wife he proceeded to walk swiftly toward the large double doors.

“Mattias, follow him!”

I almost groaned when I heard my mother’s command, but I could do nothing to stop her. Kilam was ready, though, and he quickened his pace, knowing that it would be harder for Mattias to get through the crowd than it would for us. They parted to make room for Kilam to pass through easily then gathered together to watch us leave before Mattias could get through. Then the instant we were out in the wide hallway, Kilam set me on my feet and we took off running toward the front doors of the palace and toward our freedom. We were almost there when Mattias had gotten out of the ballroom.

“Catherine!” he growled angrily as he chased after us. “I’m going to kill you for this!”

I stopped and turned with a mocking grin on my face and I laughed. “Mattias, you know perfectly well the penalty for harming a member of the royal family. Go right ahead!” I would have continued to taunt him but Kilam grabbed my hand and pulled me into the darkness outside.

There was one place that only we knew about, a place that Kilam and I often went to be alone and hidden. The garden was full of shrubs and giant rosebushes that lined hundreds of hedges, and if one went into the belly of everything it was impossible to be seen from anywhere on the grounds. Id tested it hundreds of times before I felt safe enough to go there with Kilam and so I knew that we couldn’t get caught.

“Catherine, you’re an awful princess.” Kilam pulled me down to the ground with him and laughed darkly.

“Exactly,” I replied. I grabbed his face then kissed him passionately, glad to have an excuse to stop thinking. When I finished I realized that Kilam was flabbergasted by my enthusiasm. “What?”

He licked his lips and grinned widely. “I didn’t expect you to be so willing.”

I narrowed one eye. “Really?” I kissed him again to show him. “You have no idea.”

“Bad day?”

I paused in my next kiss to glare at him but I didn’t reply. I was too busy with his mouth.

“Catherine?” Kilam gently pushed me away and I was afraid that I was going too fast, but he was smiling. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did,” was my reply, and I moved in for another round of kisses.

But Kilam took me by the waist and pushed me up so I was on my knees and he sat up with a chuckle. “I want to ask you a serious question.” He put his hands on either side of my face so I couldn’t try to kiss him again and it made me sigh.

“Fine. What is it?” I glanced away from his face when I heard several shouts on the other end of the garden but I knew they wouldn’t be able to find us so I wasn’t worried.

“I want to marry you.”

I froze. I was not prepared for this. Spending nights with him and escaping a boring line of disgusting half-men with him was one thing but… “Marry?” The word slipped my tongue before I could think of better response and I almost slapped myself because of it.

“Well, yes!” I could clearly see Kilam’s confusion and he bit his lip for some strange reason. “Catherine, I’m in love with you!”

I felt my face turn to stone as he said the words that I hoped never to hear. Love meant binding, eternal ties, and I was not one to commit myself to one thing forever. My head spun as his voice floated through my thoughts as if in a dream and I could hardly breathe anymore, like Id forgotten how. Marry? Was he out of his mind? He was supposed to know me, know what I was like! Why was he being so stupid? I tried to remain calm and I mostly succeeded by telling myself that maybe he was just overcome by my presence and so he wasn’t thinking straight. And I wasn’t ready for marriage… I had already started to set my eyes on a couple of the other boys in Kilams gang and so I would have been finished with the leader soon anyway. Maybe I needed a break from this one person, somewhat of a distraction, perhaps. Yes, I needed a change in relationships.

Even before I’d composed my face the words were already streaming from my lips and I tried not to look directly into Kilams eyes for fear of remembering what had turned my thoughts to him in the first place. “Kilam, I can’t marry you. Yes, you’re eligible, but so is everyone else in this stupid country. I haven’t explored enough to know if you’re really the one for me, but you’ll definitely be high on my list. I’d advise you to come back a little later, after I’ve wandered around a bit.”

I expected him to understand and move on, but I was very wrong.

“Explore? Wander around?” Kilam’s face slowly turned red as his anger soared higher and he pulled himself to his feet, taking me with him. He towered over me, fuming with such fury that it actually frightened me. “Are you completely crazy? You could search the entire kingdom and never find anyone as perfect as me! You know, I knew you were an idiot but I didn’t know it was this bad. Youd better find someone with some intelligence or this country will collapse the instant you become queen!”

As he growled I saw Mattias running toward us with three palace guards and it actually made me happy. I was furious, having been insulted by a simple commoner, and I wasn’t going to let him get away. “Kilam,” I said, letting acid penetrate each and every word I spoke, “you’ve got about ten seconds to beg for mercy before you’re hauled away forever. I never did like you, did you know that? You were just a distraction, a way for me to unwind. And you just went too far this time. Maybe next time you’ll try for someone that is actually within your league. Maybe a wallowing pig or something just as dirty.”

Kilams hand rose up to strike me but the instant it began to descend toward me an arrow pierced the flesh of his palm and he cried out in agony. Only a second later the guards arrived and nearly tackled him to the ground, one of them throwing his now empty bow to the side to aid in the capture. I smiled down at the fool and stroked his cheek with my finger while the soldiers bound his arms behind his back without even removing the arrow from his hand.

“I warned you,” I whispered icily. Then I felt a hand clap down on my shoulder and I looked up with a scowl to find Mattias by my side. “Took you long enough,” I muttered in reply to his anger.

“Care to explain?”

The bodyguard was so infuriated that he didn’t seem to realize that I had just deliberately caused the boy Id run away with to be arrested. If I hadn’t known that I was never going to have any freedom again, I would have laughed at my success. But I had just thrown myself into the worst imprisonment imaginable.

---

The honeybee kept flying right into my mirror. With each impact a tiny popping noise filled the room and the bug fell to the floor before getting right back up and doing the same thing over and over again. It was actually very entertaining. It would die soon, when it was in so much pain that it couldn’t continue, but while it still flew I watched it.

I sort of felt like that bee. Not because I kept running into invisible obstacles or because with each thing I did wrong I was slowly killing myself, but because I was being watched. Mattias never left my doorway. There were always guards below my window. And my mother had decided that it was time to get to know me.

Day after day, hour after hour, she attempted to teach me the skills that she had acquired living as a noble. Not that I even tried to learn, but she was determined to knock some propriety into me. It wasn’t working.

I felt like I was slowly losing all capability to think, being locked in my room the entire day except for meals, and even then I was imprisoned. But with so little excitement to quench my insatiable thirst for the social life I used to possess, I was about to go mad. I was quite literally pulling my hair out of its roots with each passing second. I never knew that one person, a mother, even, could drive me insane after just a few weeks. I was even surprised that I lasted that long. I didn’t care for sewing or embroidering, or even learning how to write. I could write, but I absolutely refused to, because as I spent more time locked up with my mother, I realized that that was all she did. She was always writing! I didn’t know that anyone could focus on one thing for so long, and she had been doing it since she was a child. Ugh, I was exhausted just thinking about it.

“Die, die, die, die…” For some reason I kept uttering the word over and over again as I watched that honeybee kill itself. “Die…” I needed air. Yes, fresh air. I moved to the window and threw it open, and I tried not to glance down at the soldiers below because I knew they would be looking at me. I took a deep breath and suddenly my mind was working again. There had to be a solution to my problem, I just needed to think about it hard enough to find it. Then the bee flew over my head and out into the open sky, and I realized what I needed to do to escape the doldrums of the palace. I just needed to open a window…

“Mother!” When I pulled the door open Mattias jumped to his feet and tried to stop me, but I pushed past him and started striding down the hall to my mothers chamber. “Mother!” I almost screamed at the top of my lungs so I could know that she heard me and I only had to wait a minute before she burst out of her room and into the hall where I stood. “I need to talk to you.”

This surprised her, because she had difficulty getting me to answer a question of hers let alone start up a conversation on my own. So it came to no surprise that she nodded and said, “Go ahead. What is it?”

“I’ve realized what Im doing wrong.” The words were disgusting, because I was doing absolutely nothing wrong, but I had to say them in order for her to believe me.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to apologize to the people.” I would convince her to take me out into the city and there I would escape. I could easily get someone to help me because the main city was littered with those that had waited in line to compliment me on my birthday and they would do anything to make me happy.

“A-apologize?” She was stunned and she looked at her brother for confirmation, but Mattias shrugged, perplexed.

“Will you take me into the city?” I took a deep breath and added, “I know you do not trust me, so that is why I am asking you to come with me. I just need to personally tell the peasCpeople that I was not doing good.” I had almost said ‘peasants’ and I was glad that I had stopped myself. My mother was all about equality and giving the commoners that label was considered the worst insult imaginable. Personally, I thought it fit them perfectly.

“Uh, I’d love to, Catherine. We can go tomorrow afternoon. The markets are too busy today and it could be dangerous.”

“No, that’s why we need to go today! Everyone will be there so more people will hear my confession.”

Mattias didn’t believe me as readily as my mother, I could tell, but he came up with an excuse that sounded less suspicious. “Lanna, not today. It’s too risky.”

What did he know? He was just a bodyguard… “Please, Mother? I need to do this!” I actually bent onto one knee and started to beg, something I had told myself that I would never do, but if it meant escape… I was willing to do anything to get away from the confines of this rock fortress.

---

Word had spread throughout the city that I was making an appearance so there were even more people than I had originally thought. That was good. It would be easier to get lost in the crowd. I had purposefully worn a soft brown gown that I had even though I hated it, because I was taking no chances. This was the only time I had and I had set up every precaution possible. I had even asked for a certain driver of our carriage because I knew that with a little gold he could be persuaded to remain silent. People lined the streets as we passed and stared at me. I didn’t mind. After all, it had been weeks since anyone had seen me outside of the palace.

When I stepped out followed by my mother, everyone bowed on one knee and I couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to be admired again. However, I did notice that one person did not bow down. Instead, he leaned against a post with a glare on his handsome brow, letting his bandaged hand rest just within my sight. It had been more than a month, and yet Kilam still hadn’t recovered. Id been told that he had been released within a week, so why was he so angry with me? I grinned smugly at him before realizing that I was supposed to be changed and I let my countenance fall.

That was when the chaos began.

Right as I was about to open my mouth and speak, I felt a sharp burst of air fly past my cheek and our driver cried out before tumbling from the carriage to the ground. I stared at his still body until Mattias used his boot to turn the man over onto his back to reveal an arrow protruding from his chest. A woman screamed, and then three more arrows struck the wood of the carriage and a fourth glanced off Mattiass metal armor. My uncle practically grabbed my mother and shoved her back into the carriage, but before he could reach me I felt a strong arm grab me from behind and a cold knife slid beneath my throat as arrows continued to rain down upon the street. People were screaming, running, but I held completely still in terror.

“Hello, little princess.” My captor’s breath was hot in my ear and it smelled like something rotten.

I couldn’t react. Mattias was peering through the window of the carriage with a look of utter horror on his face and I could see that he was afraid that if he did anything the knife at my neck would be used to slit my throat. I, myself, had no idea what to do, so I simply started to sob. Was I really going to die? I didn’t even know what was happening or who was holding me hostage like this, so I wept.

“Oh, don’t worry, princess, we won’t kill you just yet.” His voice sounded like something scraping against rough rock and it made me shiver. “We’ve got a little proposal for you.”

“Soldiers are on their way.” A different voice pierced through the clamor of the people in the streets although it was not loud, and had I been able to I would have turned my head to see the owner of such a voice. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have been so afraid if this voice had been growling in my ear, but it completely confused me. It was clear and cool, soft enough to be gentle but strong enough to have a hint of power. It was nothing like a voice that I would connect to an assassin.

“We need to go somewhere else. Get the horses.” The man with a voice of gravel started to drag me away and I was powerless to resist, my small figure not even close to his huge body.

Where were they taking me? Who were they? What was happening? I continued to cry as I lost sight of my mother and Mattias in the carriage. Was this the last time I would see them again?