Freedom comes at a price and a young Earthal princess must live the life of somebody else, even if it means facing evil threats and impossible odds.
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As someone who craves freedom, Princess Clarabelle cannot just stand by and let her life be take...
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FATE HAD a way to weave plot twists in everyone else’s lives.
Clara’s dead eyes registered the happy faces, her mind whirring cogs inside her head to find the reason for their joy. Her limbs remained stuck on the ground. Her hands were crippled on her sides. A long static sound rang in her ears, causing temporary lightheadedness. She wanted to hurt herself, to punch her still-frozen legs. All Clara wanted was to run away.
With trembling hands, she reached for her chest. The suffocating sensation of having the air knocked out of her lungs arose.
Everyone at the long table noticed Clara’s sudden heavy breathing. She took in all their worried looks but instead, all she ever felt were hatred rolling in like violent sea waves crashing into huge rocks.
With the surge of what little energy left, Clara gathered the strength to go, running away from the people she spent her entire life with—people who had been her anchor all these years—yet, they were the same people who stole her life away.
Clara had all the fortune she had. She was born with a golden spoon in her mouth, yet something as priceless as freedom was so hard to possess. How much more would be left to her upon hearing this grave news?
So, she ran without thinking, pushing aside their voices.
Through the ballroom, past the splendidly dressed couples and the orchestra, whirring from one pastel-yellow room into another decorated all in deep chartreuse. She ran past gasping ladies and grunting gentlemen, over hardwood floors and thick, opulent rugs until the lights grew dimmer and the partygoers thinned out, and last she found the mullioned doors that led outside. She thrust them open, gasping in her corset to draw the fresh air of freedom into her lungs.
Tiny droplets found their way out of her tired, silver eyes. And later, they were a steady stream of pain and bitterness.
She couldn’t count how many times she stumbled on the ground—a soft, damp grass served as her cushion in every fall—and desperately got back up.
For a moment, Clara pulled herself together. Oh, she hated the sound of her hiccup and the heart-rending motion of her chest, rising and falling
Scrubbing her eyes to fend away the tears, Clara took quick notice of her surroundings and was surprised to have realized she had made it this far, finding herself in the hedge maze at the farthest side of the castle. It was eerily dark and quiet with little to no light cast. She looked up only to see the stars and moon.
Clara remembered that at the center of this maze was a butterfly haven, fluttering around the bronze fountain that spurted sparkling cerulean water. It was the main attraction of the labyrinth to those who would manage to find their way to it. Clara was ten years old when she got lost here one time. Something beckoned her to come here. A voice had been whispering in her ears, calling out her name, and this was where her feet took her. Everyone panicked. They thought she was taken somewhere outside the castle walls. But then they found the princess wandering alone and lost in the hedges of the maze. Because of the heart attack she caused, she was forbidden to roam here ever again.
