Villainess Reborn: SEASON ONE

70

Three weeks later...

"Did you see the princess anywhere?" Emma frantically asked one of the palace workers who were arranging the flowers.

"No, we haven't seen her."

Emma sighed and kept plowing through the crowd of people who were busy preparing and decorating for the upcoming Sun Festival as well as for the princess's coming of age birthday party. They were supposed to be scheduled for dancing classes after practice when the princess suddenly disappeared.

"Princess?!" Emma called, "Princess, there are a lot of things to do!"

"You are a very busy person, Miss Emma," one of the palace workers chuckled.

"The princess must have wanted to take a break from all these classes that's been going on for weeks already," another added.

Emma looked around while conversing with the two. "Yes but it's very important that she does not embarrass herself from the officials as well as the people from other kingdoms who will come to visit." The princess is here somewhere. She could feel it.

"You should give the girl a break," the palace worker said, "but I did see her pass by here earlier."

"I knew it!" Emma exclaimed, "Well, I shall excuse myself ladies because I have an appointment to chase."

Emma started running off and passed by staff who carried boxes of decorations, rolls of ribbons, and jars of flowers. The other palace workers shook their heads and laughed it off.

"Miss Emma has it hard these days," they say.

"The princess is quite difficult to handle."

Meanwhile, in one of the palace's rooms, Tatiana was hanging from a windowsill. Losing Emma was more difficult than all the escapes she's done so far. Emma just would not let go of her and had her eyes on her with every move. She just barely had a chance to escape by blending in with the palace servants and sneaking into this room.

Now her feet are dangling in midair and she doesn't know whether it's too high to jump or not. She always finds herself in the same situation, no matter what she does to avoid it. It's as if it became a habit when the first thing she thought of when escaping was to jump over the window.

Her arms were growing tired and her hands were slowly slipping off the windowsill. If she falls, then the ground's just going to be there to greet her. And if she's lucky enough, she's just going to sprain an ankle instead of breaking it.

Her feet dangled around, looking for something to step on, when a platform miraculously appeared under her sole. She tried stepping on it to make sure that it wouldn't fall off or disappear after one step. When she figured out that it wasn't going to fall off, she confidently stepped on it and the platform underneath her slowly levitated downwards.

She yelled in surprise and held on to the wall so she wouldn't fall back. She jumped to the ground when it was near enough and abruptly turned around to see what the platform was.

Bjorn stood behind her, dusting off the sand and dirt on his gloves.

"That was you?" Tatiana gasped in surprise. She looked around to see if there were other people around, but this passageway was empty. "What are you doing here?"

"I was passing by when I saw you dangling off the window. Do you love hanging that much?" he mocked.

"I—" Tatiana trailed off, "I just—uhh."

"You escaped from your servant to skip classes?" he continued.

Tatiana shut her mouth tightly and looked away. To Bjorn, she just looked guilty, and all that he said turned out to be true. He paused for a while and stared at her. They haven't seen each other that much because he was busy training and the princess was busy preparing for her coming of age party.