The Princess's Servant

7. The Plan

The second Prince of Ward had had a happy childhood. He'd passed most his days in the garden with his mother, climbing up trees and knawing on the ripe fruits that hung from their branches. His mother — the queen — had lived among the Wild Folk before his father had discovered her, and as such, she knew all the forest's secrets. Which fruits to eat, which to avoid, what roots could heal you, and which would poison you. He'd heard servants toss the word "witch" around when they thought no one was listening, but the prince knew that his mother was something far more graceful and more powerful than a witch. She was like those spirits he had heard about in stories — the ones that appeared human, but were ultimately something far greater.

The prince's older brother, Thomas, had been taken up by his father and had occupied most of his time. Whenever the young prince would ask to see the king, he'd most often be told that he didn't have time for a second son, and to scuttle along with his peasant mother. But the prince had not envied of his older brother. While he swung from branches and rolled in the dirt, the heir was forced to stay inside and practice strange languages. He would see him in the library window, sitting at one of those great desks and shooting angry glances at the free prince between phrases. Though the young prince could hardly read, he received far more valuable lessons from in the wilderness. How to sneak, how to hunt. How to capture, how to care. He was happy to be second if second meant freedom. 

And his life was filled with much happiness and joy until the day of the feast. On that day, his mother had died, tragically and suddenly, in an attempt to protect her son from a worser fate. He was fourteen years of age when the tragedy occured, but no age could have prepared him for her death. The prince vowed then and there that he would treat his future wife — the Princess and heir of Lailoy — as a queen, even if she were to remain a princess all her life.

The prince spent his adolescence scribbling away at love letters and peach-sweet promises of devotion and fidelity. He imagined his wedding would be like those of the fairytales, and that their love would have a happy ending. The prince even promised his future bride that when they married, he would commission a large palace to all her specifications and they could summer there whenever they pleased. He imagined the bride lounging in a hammock in his garden. How he couldn't wait for those days to arrive. 

And so it came to the new moon before their wedding. He had decided to venture into her kingdom — which he had visited but once before — and taste the fruits of her land and meet his bride-to-be. He sent word of his arrival ahead of him by letter to the queen, and he saddled his horse. And so began the day-long journey to that mythic kingdom that had raised his future wife.

When he arrived, he found the village a more run-down place than he'd expected, but that was no matter. With his wisdom and his father's resources, the prince had no doubt he could breathe life back into the place. With cares aside, he began his revelries.

The prince wondered where he had gone wrong that night, exactly. Perhaps it was in continuing his pleasure past dusk — he should have been satisfied with his feasts for the day. Perhaps it had been in concerning himself with the actions of others, as the princess had proposed. But no, he thought, he had not been wrong in intervening where he saw misdoing. Maybe it had been in how he'd tossed his hand, that maybe the dice could have landed differently if he had curved his throw? But no, he thought again. That may have landed him in just as much trouble. There was simply no way to know what his mistake had been.

"You said you'd do whatever I wanted," the princess told the prince. She'd changed from her robin egg's gown into an equally ornate dress of a paler color. This one, however, was not speckled with blood, so Holden supposed it was an improvement.

'Whatever she wanted.' Yes, perhaps that's where he'd gone wrong. But the prince hadn't promised her that. "We promised we would give each other whatever the other one wanted," he corrected.