The Princess's Servant

36. The Split

Bonus chapter this week to celebrate 10,000 reads!!

"He had just conquered the Lapliots, our neighbors to the East. And as legend goes, he'd sampled there some imported wine. Lailoyan wine," Nara said.

"He visited us some weeks later. You went with him. And I was on a little vacation to the southern country to meet potential suitors. And while I was away, your father had a little chat with my mother. And she promised you the hand of her heir."

"Right," Holden interrupted. "My father wanted to invade Lailoy, but he struck a deal to join our families instead."

Nara cut him a suspicious glance. "'Joining' is one word you could use. 'Consuming' is another."

The prince matched her skeptical gaze. "What do you mean, 'consume?'" He asked.

"My mother believed that the marriage would bring our families together in harmony and in power. But that's not what your father had had in mind. He stipulated in the agreement that our heir would be made to live in the Wardian palace, under Wardian law."

Holden shook his head in frustration. "Okay, so Sybil would have to move," he said. "To a bigger, nicer palace. I feel so sorry for her. What a plight," he spat.

Nara dipped her chin a little. She met the prince's eyes from the corner of her own. "Women aren't citizens under Wardian law," she said. "They belong to their husbands."

Holden felt his stomach lurch at the sharp turn in conversation. "Well— I mean—" He shifted in his ropes. "In the legal sense, sure. But no one really sees it like that," he told her. "I certainly wouldn't have."

The hunter let out a sigh and faced the midday forest. "But you could have, if you'd wanted to," she said. "You would have held all the power."

Holden thought on that for a moment. Him? Having power over Sybil? It was certainly a tempting — if unimaginable — thought. But he wouldn't have abused it, he told himself. He wasn't like those other Wardian husbands. He would have been good to her. Kind, even. Given her exactly what she'd asked for; given her privacy. And in time, maybe... She would have come to love him. Or maybe not, and that choice would have been hers. If she hadn't enslaved him and beat him and forced him into whatever fairytale-level ridiculous situation he was currently in, he told himself. And none of that had been his fault, but hers.

But another thought arose in his mind. "If you were still with the royal family at the time, then I must have been engaged to you," he said. "Sybil would have been out of the picture entirely."

A sad smile crossed Nara's lips. "Aye," she said. "It's true. When your father came and promised you the 'heir,' that heir was me. And that's exactly what they told me when I came back from my little expedition.

"'We've promised your hand to the prince of a great kingdom,' my father had told him.

"'He's very powerful,' my mother had said. But when I heard who you were and what you were, I flew into a rage.

"'I will not marry a man who keeps me like a dog,' I told them. 'You must undo this agreement at once.' But my mother and father refused. They said 'This is the duty of the heir,' and 'This is your duty to your kingdom.' I told them that if this is what it meant to be their princess, then I was out.

"I don't think they believed me at first, but moons passed and I stubbornly refused to return from the wilderness. And so they had to move on, and they soon began grooming Sybil for the position," Nara told Holden.

Holden battered his eyelashes. "So she had to have known about the arrangement," he said. "If she truly was raised to fulfill it."

The princess breathed out and studied the living ground of the forest floor. "Well, after seeing my reaction, the king and queen wanted to keep her as in the dark as long as possible. A good mother would have seen my reaction and learned not to force a marriage on another child. But my mother wasn't a good mother — she was a good queen. The lesson she learned was to give Sybil a favorable impression of Ward until she could send her on a permanent 'trip' when the time was right. It might have worked, too. If I hadn't interfered," Nara said.

"I stopped by her room on my way out of the palace."

'Sybil,' I'd whispered. She was child then. Barely five. She stirred in her bed. 'Mother and father have promised the heir to a wicked man, so I'm leaving,' I told her. 'But when I'm gone, they'll expect you to marry him. You have to forfeit the crown,'"

"So you're the reason she hates me!" Holden interjected. "You told her she'd have to marry someone wicked, when that someone was me!"

"Well... Not exactly..." Nara brought her knees close to her bound chest. "Once the words were out, Sybil rolled over in her bed. I can still see her tiny form curled up in those sheets. I expected her to react with some panic or even some anger at mother and father, or at me. But she didn't so much open her eyes. 'Sister, you're so silly,' she muttered, a huge smile across her face. 'I know you'd never leave.'

"And then I did the worst thing I've ever done. I closed the door. And Sybil, in her sorrow, blocked the memory of that night from of her mind. Or perhaps she had never been awake enough to let the memory form. Either way, she didn't learn of the engagement ever, to my knowledge. She was how I left her: in the dark."

Holden allowed to a brief silence to take in air. "Are you serious?!" Holden yelled, and all the bandits shushed him.

A/N: Thank you all again so much for 10k! Please remember to vote as it is the single best thing that helps out this novel (and comment if you feel compelled as I absolutely love hearing from y'all!!)