The Academy gates loomed ahead, their towering iron bars a symbol of the life that had been both a prison and a sanctuary. It had been ten years since I first walked through them, a wide-eyed orphan with nothing but a name and a destiny too grand for someone like me. I remember the day as clearly as if it were yesterday—rain pouring down, soaking through my woolen dress as I clutched the small, battered suitcase I’d carried from the orphanage. I didn’t know then how long I would stay. I didn’t know that this place would become my home, my future.
They told us we were chosen. Each one of us girls, from all over Europe, brought to The Royal Academy for a singular purpose: to be trained, molded, and perfected. We would become princesses—each of us destined for a throne we had never seen, for a king we had never met. Our tutors taught us everything from diplomacy to the elegance of dance, from the laws of ancient kingdoms to the intricacies of court etiquette. We learned to bow, to smile, to stay silent, to speak with precision. But none of it was real. Not yet.
At sixteen, everything changed. That was the year I was chosen—chosen by a future king whose name had been whispered in my ear only once and was never spoken aloud again. From then, my training was different. Tailored. I was taught the history of a kingdom I would one day call home, its customs, its languages. Every moment of my life became preparation for the day I would step into a role too big to imagine.
Now, here I stand, on the eve of my 18th birthday, staring at the moon through my window. Tomorrow, I will receive my envelope—the one that will tell me who has chosen me, where I will go, and what my future holds. For so long, I have lived under the weight of expectations, molded into someone I’m not even sure I recognize anymore.
Tomorrow, I will learn who I am meant to be. Tomorrow, my future will be sealed.
But tonight? Tonight, I am simply Bernadette—an orphan girl standing at the edge of a life she is not sure she wants.
YOU ARE READING
The Royal Academy
Chick-LitAt The Royal Academy, orphan girls are transformed into future princesses, their every step a preparation for a life of grace and duty. Bernadette has spent years perfecting the art of royal decorum, on their 16th birthday, the stakes are raised. Ch...
