The cold air wrapped around my neck, squeezing it and pinching my lungs. A shiver shot through me. Why did I go out in my night gown? It was done now though, and I couldn’t risk being caught by turning back now. At least this way, I could claim sleep walking.
I got to the note, this time it was shoved into a notch in the stone work of the great barrier which kept me here. I pulled it with a huge yank, how did this person shove it in so far? I yanked it and yanked it until eventually it ripped out, taking a piece of the stone with it. It landed just off my toes. My stomach filled with the birds of autumn, how would I explain the broken stone? Something more caught my eye. I couldn’t quite picture what it was though. I lent closer, peeping my eye through the hole I had created.
“This could all be yours princess.”
I looked around the garden, but there was nobody there. I looked out through the peephole again and I saw him. I couldn’t describe his features; it was as if they had all combined into one. His eyes especially, they were green, blue and brown all at once. I felt my jaw draw heavy as it dropped. He was beautiful, but I couldn’t tell his age. He seemed to be caught between mid forties, and mid twenties. I couldn’t understand it. It was almost like he was... enigmatic, inscrutable and completely unfathomable.
“Pardon?”
“You only have one chance princess”
I frowned through the hole as the man turned away from me and began walking, slowly becoming a mere shadow in the darkness. I looked at the ripped parchment still in my hand.
“Unus casus, unam metam. Libero.”
I mentally dragged myself back to Latin classes, trying to remember what Monsieur Devori attempted to teach a stubborn twelve year old me. Uno meant one. And libero... how could I ever forget that. Each and every time I heard it, no matter what language, it always resonated in my bones. I yearned for it, pleaded for it, yet never had it. Freedom! The message was clear now. I was finally going to get that chance to have it. All logic and common sense emigrated my being. It didn’t matter that I did not know who this was, or how I was to obtain my ultimate desire for the previous eighteen years of my existence on this strange and marvellous world. All that mattered was the chance. All that I wanted was sovereignty. And perhaps I was finally going to get it.
I knew there would be another note.... I knew it would contain my final ticket to freedom.
YOU ARE READING
A White as Red as Blood (PG 13) (Completed)
RomanceBeing a princess is the worst thing one could inflict on a girl, that's what Mary-Ann thinks anyway. And she should know! She's a princess herself, and the worst kind too! The kind in Shakespearean literature who are locked into their lives with no...
