Stolen Princess

17. Father

It takes more than half an hour for me to sneak inside the castle, make it to my room and clean up. I want to linger in the hot bath after a night spent wide awake on the ground, but I only take time to wash the paint and spider ashes out of my skin and hair before I'm pulling on a courtly gown of deep blue.

"Do you know what it's about?" I ask Isobel for probably the hundredth time as she carefully places a small pearl diadem over my ruined hair. Though since meeting the Orcs in the woods I haven't thought much of it at all.

"I told you already - I don't know!" she snaps, scowling at her work and straightening the hairpiece one more time. 

I bite the inside of my cheek, running through the punishment for crossdressing, or maybe he'll charge me with treason... then again, so long as I can get word to Talon and the rest of them can get away before they're arrested alongside me...

"There!" Isobel declares with satisfaction and I'm brought back to the topic of my hair which just feels like a silly thing to be worrying about now.

"Thank you!" I tell her, sweeping a quick peck to her cheek before dashing out of my bedroom and towards my father's private study.

My father's office reflects him almost perfectly. Everything is neat, orderly, opulent. He's a collector of sorts, always has been, and his bookshelves are lined with rare artifacts from distant lands. Some he recovered in his youth when my grandfather was still king. Others are gifts brought to him, or the products of digs he's commissioned. 

My father is a bit of a treasure hunter in that way... he likes to possess what's rare. It's the one thing I always consoled myself with... that I was one of his rare items. So surely he would keep me as long as I stayed rare and pretty. Thus my heartbreak over the burnt hair.

"Come in," his voice is familiar as he orders me through the doorway, "Close it," he adds, though he's still busily scratching at the paperwork on his desk with a golden pen. 

I make my customary bow, then carefully shut the door behind me so that we're the only two in the room. This has never happened... never once in my entire childhood did I have my father's attention all to myself. I don't exactly have it now either, I guess, as the fervid scratching of his pen across the paper is the only sound that fills the room.

"You wanted to see me?" I squeak out, my palms are damp with sweat so I throw them behind my back for something to do with them at least.

"Sit," he commands, and I flinch.

"I'm not a dog."

The words are out of my mouth before my brain even knows what my tongue has done. We both go perfectly still. I try my best not to move... maybe he'll forget I'm here that way. Then I calculate just how quickly I could make it to the Shadow Forest in this dress... 'Rids would be preferable to whatever is going to come out of my father's mouth next. I swallow as he finally looks up at me, those violet eyes like hard stone as they land on me in a cold stare.

"My dogs are better behaved," he enunciates each word, his displeasure flowing through the air of the room. I don't say anything this time, just quickly take the nearest straight-backed chair and land in it.

He's already turned back to his paperwork as if I were just an insolent puppy that needed a heavy hand. I think back to the way his face softened and his eyes looked as my younger siblings prattled on about their mindless days in the great hall only a few days ago. 

And now... in the midst of a tournament that would cost me my freedom, he couldn't spare the time to so much as glance at me. I swallowed again, this time fighting down a lump that was gathering at the back of my throat.