The Princess's Servant

18. The Question

Holden felt his stomach sink. The food in his mouth suddenly felt dry and his fingers suddenly felt sweaty. "I mean knowing him in the general sense — knowing of him," he said.

"No..." the princess said, standing from her seat. Holden put the fork down. Her eyes— He remembered that night. His breath started to quicken and every muscle in his body urged to run. She brought her face close to his as she studied his features. "You're lying," she told him.

Holden furrowed his brow and clenched his fists. His gazed flitted off to the tile floor and felt the last of the streaking blood dry upon his neck.

"Your clothes," she said. "Your age. Your entitled attitude. Your arrival's proximity to Prince Holden's scheduled visit." The princess brought herself a little closer and Holden fought the urge to scoot back in his seat. "You must not be a random nobody from Ward." She brought her mouth right beside her ear. "You must be the prince," she said.

Holden bowed his head and gripped his pants leg tight.

"...'s servant," she finished.

His panic paused. "Huh?" He asked.

"Of course you can't actually be the prince," she said, leaning back on the table top. "You have the wrong hair color. And the prince would never have been alone like you were," she said, "And he would have used his high status to get out of his arrest."

Holden had tried that last one, but someone had prevented that conversation. And did little blonde children not turn into brunette adults in Lailoy? Holden took note of the princess's golden hair. No, he supposed they didn't.

"But you must be someone close to him," the princess said. "And my money's on 'royal scout.' A sacrificial lamb sent ahead to ensure a safe path for the prince. But you didn't return, so he canceled his visit for the time being. Am I close?"

He stared at the princess with an anger that told her to Back Off. But as a slow smile crept across her jeering lips, Holden dropped his gaze to the floor again, and a sadness washed over him. Of all the moments of all the torments she had inflicted upon him thus far, Holden couldn't recall a time he had felt more like crying than in that moment. And for the life of him, he couldn't place why.

"Poor little lost lamb," she said. "Where are your caretakers? Won't anyone come looking for you?" She asked, running a couple of fingers through Holden's ash-brown hair.

She hadn't touched his straw-like locks for more than a second when she felt her hand snatched out of them. Her eyes went wide as she looked to her fingers and looked to the man whose hand grabbed hers.

He wore a dead expression, like those of the diagrams Sybil had seen in medical texts. If there was any feeling in him at all, it was the feeling of certitude, the princess thought, though Sybil wasn't sure that was a feeling. When he spoke, the Wardian's voice sounded neither whiney nor pleading — but decided.

"I want to go home," he said, releasing her wrist. The princess allowed her hand to fall her side.

She blinked a few times and she felt the free-flowing air around his finger's impressions. A cool breeze blustered the leaves of the vines on the veranda.

"Wardian, look at me," the princess said, though her captive didn't so much as blink in response. She stepped closer to him and stood over the man. "You will never go home," she said. "You will live here for the rest of your days, and you will die here. When you die, your body will be buried beneath the palace floors so that not even the smoke of your cremation might waft its way over to Wardian skies. Do you understand?" She asked.

But Holden said nothing.

"We're done here," Sybil said. And with that, the princess clasped the wrist he'd grabbed with her other hand, and she strode off into that dark abyss of a room, leaving the young prince all alone once more.

A/N: Please remember to vote! :)