damsel in distress

Chapter 1

There should be great importance given to the way a story begins.

If it fails to capture the interest of a fickle reader such as I, it is bound to be tossed back in the dusty dark corners of the tall shelves. Ah, who am I fooling? I shall read anything as long as it has words. There is an easy segregation of books in my library. Military tactics, foreign languages, economics, market strategies and general history chronologically arranged in the starting shelves, where they are most easily accessible to anyone who wanders in. Although I have never seen anyone wander in here with their own conviction in all seventeen years of my life.

“You should be in your bedchambers already.” Adam sighs, his granite face hardening into an even greater severity of monotony. I almost find him amusing enough to toy with, but the man is trained to focus his gaze on anything but my face.

“Oh, you're still here,” I mutter, turning to the shelves again. “You should be on the training grounds already. Sparring, wielding swords, duelling, wearing breeches and leather shoes.”

“It’s eleven at night, my lady. I have his highness’ strict orders to escort you to your bedchambers.”

My fingers pause. I spin around on the wooden stool and lean on the bookcases, cold leather pressing against the flushed skin of my back. “And whatever use is that, Sir?” I flash him a pretty smile; one that I use when a court minister asks about my impending marriage.

My brother’s kingsguard knight looks away in an instant. A tousle of black hair frames his face, tanned and calloused, hardened with sharp lines and rough hide. He is a little younger than my brother, and a tad bit shorter. Had he not been a Knight and traded his fair face for military stability as an adolescent, Adam could have easily been the most handsome man in our duchy. Although being the best of all knights has only demoted him to the rank of a baby-sitter.

He never fails to rub that fact in my face every little chance he gets. But that doesn’t mean I will let him off the hook easily.

“But I have no intention of sleeping just yet.” I clap my hands gleefully. “Perhaps you should be my reading partner. Engaging in a mundane history book works as an excellent sedative.”

Adam sucks in a sharp breath. “Go sleep, my lady.”

“Or what?” I fist my hands into the shabby fabric of my skirt and twirl it, steps lighthearted and teasing as I walk to the front sections. “Look, it’s something I always wanted to read!”

Adam’s face further falls into a display of abysmal gloom. “History of the Snowcrest Castle? Are you being serious?” He blinks at me several times, and I watch those full lips pucker into an impressive scowl.

The candle lamps flicker even though all windows are closed at this hour of midnight. Nothing irks the knights more than talking of their enemy in front of them. All of them brainwashed to lay down their lives at the mere sound of the war cry. They were never recorded in hefty books, lives lost in vain to feed the ego of their fat bellied commanders who stay back in lavish tents and drink mead while the world around them burns.

“Why not?” I trace my finger along the jagged spine of that book. “Who knows? They might be similar to us. Our little land, kingdom, marsh… or whatever you might call it, comes under the boundaries of their empire. Don’t you think it is fitting for me to learn about them?”

Of course, I am not interested in that. My fields of interest lie in meaningless rot literature; noble ladies meeting noble men and escaping in the gardens, falling in a wild, wild love and living happily ever after. Too bad those sorts of books are not available in our magnificent library. But those fantasies are not that different from the high philosophies of the well educated. Both, in the end, exist only in someone’s fantasy.