PRINCES AND PEASANTS

👑: chapter one

It's nearing dark when the crown prince finds me hunched over on the sidewalk, clutching my sister's sopping jacket tighter around my shoulders. The rain mats my already filthy hair, and I would have gone unseen if his carriage had not veered a little too close to the left. Right into a torrent of water en route to the gutter.

The cold shock of the spray doesn't faze me, but the fact that the gilded carriage stops just a few metres down the street does. A door is slammed open. A shoe, made of finest leather, steps out. And then a figure, dressed in black and white, their edges slightly blurred through the rain, as if they had been drawn in ink and then smudged, ever-so-carefully.

He approaches. I look down at my sodden clothes, and then back up into the carefully apathetic eyes of Prince Rowan, beloved heir to the throne, number 2 on the Dream Magazine's most eligible bachelor's list.

Or was it The Psychic's?

I can't quite remember. But I do know what he looks like – the faces of every member of the royal family have been ruthlessly, forcefully marked onto my mind. Their perfectly made-up faces are plastered over every newspaper Eliza scrounges up to use as privy paper.

I don't care much for the gossip that the wealthy indulge in. Not when we can barely afford the rent on our little basement without going hungry four days out of seven. Not when I'm sixteen and Eliza's nineteen and we're on the verge of starving to death.

What I do have to say is that the Crown Prince looks decidedly less remarkable with his crisp white collared shirt splattered with mud and rain and the stench of the rich.

Someone kneels in front of me. Their knee stops a millimetre away from the sweating road. "Are you alright?"

No, I think, unimpressed. My sister already works seventeen hours each day trying to feed and clothe the two of us on mouldy bread and old curtains. I've likely developed hypothermia in the past 45 minutes I've been sitting here. Do you think I'm alright?

Yet instead a polite 'yes, Your Highness," comes out of my mouth, and I lower my eyes, picking at the frayed hem of my shirt. It'd been my father's, and it hangs just below my knees. My trousers had been pieced together out of Eliza's old dress. They aren't pretty, but at least I'm not stark-naked in the winter chill.

Why are you here? I want to ask. Don't you know this is the road to the slums?

The prince fixes a disbelieving look on me, his eyes dark and piercing. They're so like Eliza's, honed to catch onto even the slightest movement. I avert my gaze to where my fingers tremble in my lap, tinged blue from cold.

"Why are you out here in the rain? It is nearly eight o'clock. The sky is beginning to darken."

Prince Rowan's voice is crisp and cold and so, so royal. It makes me feel sick, just a little bit, wondering just how I got myself into this mess.

I shrug. "My sister went to buy some vegetables over there." I point at a derelict shop down the street, the soft, sputtering glow of a gasoline lamp barely visible through the misty downpour.  It has, in fact, been thirty minutes since Eliza left me sitting on the curb, but the queues are often long, and I'm not particularly concerned for her safety. My sister can handle herself.

Rowan hesitates, and then extends a hand to me. "Shall we go look for her? It is the least I can do."

My mouth gapes open, and I glance at the offered hand. Eliza has always made a point to tell me to stay exactly where she leaves me unless my life is in immediate danger.

Does hypothermia count? I ask her, silently.

But the image I have of her in my mind does not answer, and nobody will if I don't find her soon.