The Fake Princess

16- Last Night at the Temple

I had finished my tailoring session at Madame Cholina's Boutique, the new boutique that takes months to prepare a dress and she personally works for the royal family. She went off about how I am her prized customer, excited to design a dress for the Saintess. I nodded, no longer bothering to correct people. They ignored my corrections and continued to call me the Saintess. No change would occur anyways, so I might as well get used to it.

I was walking towards the central where the big fountain was to find a carriage. The Temple's carriage should still be parked, waiting for me to go back. I was able to blend in well with the hood covering my face. Since it was getting cooler, winter just around the corner, a lot of people had coverings on.

"Asteria." A hand touches my back and I smell the familiar soap. I look up and raise my hood a little bit to see Ronin standing over me. He has his own cloak on, which is similar to mine. All priests have a robe like ours.

"Ronin, what're you doing here?" I ask with a big smile. He looks down at me. He has a hood on and so no one can recognize him, except those shorter than him.

"I came to buy a couple new books. How was your fitting?" He asks me, guiding me towards the right direction with his hand on my back. We walk to the area where carriages are being held. I talk to him about how the attendants were nice to me and how they offered me sweets. I excitedly brought out a small pouch that they gave me.

"I have some treats for us." I open the little pouch with sweet cookies. He quickly raises his arm, covering me with his cloak and twirling me around. Suddenly the crowd parts and we see that a crazed carriage runs down the street, not caring if it hurts people. People thankfully ran out of the way, but shouts and grumbles of anger were exchanged with each other.

"That driver is crazy!" I exclaim. "Thanks. We should eat these before we get to the Temple." I look down and grab a cookie for him.

"Hide them for now. Let's get in, someone is watching." Ronin instructs me.

I look to where he is staring at. I see a cloaked man with a hood over his face. He stares directly at us. I can't tell who he is underneath the hood, but the full body staring right at us unnerves me. Instantly Ronin raises his arm, covering me with his hood and leads me to our Temple's carriage. I quickly get in, unnerved by the random stranger.

Ronin doesn't follow me in, he instead talks to the driver and then gets in. I relax immediately, throwing off the hood since the windows are covered with a curtain. I take out the pouch and hand him some cookies to start with. He eats them, both of us have a sweet tooth because the Temple forbids sweets and unnecessary foods.

"How was the orphanage?" Ronin asks me in-between bites. I smile at him.

"You should come with me next time. The kids like you." I chirp and then take a bite. The sweet crumble delights me and I close my eyes to savor it.

"Sure." He responds and I hum. We settle on nice conversation and then I notice that the noise outside has disappeared. We have left the city and now we're in the countryside. I prefer the quiet. The duchy is close to the capital, so the noise always seems to trail in closed windows.

Ronin and I have gotten very close since we started school together. Since we see each other everyday, I guess it was inevitable. We are a lot like siblings, we treat each other better than our own siblings treat us.

We make it to the Temple and by then we finished the cookies. Today is our free day and there's still a couple of hours we can have to ourselves. Even though it's late in the evening, we can go to the orchard, our place that no one bothers in. I'm sure they know where we hide. Hiding from duties and responsibilities, hiding from meetings and corrupted officials who only want to use us.