King | j.b

XXIV

An eery silence lingered through the halls of the castle. No one but Ed had spoken to Ariana since everyone found out about the affair. Loneliness tugged at her sides with a vicious pull. She had no one. All of her friends were living happily back in the village. She wondered what they were up to now; if they still thought about her. And her parents. Her parents and her brother.

Servants day was nearing. She couldn't believe it. Had it already been almost a year? It certainly did not feel like it. She had remembered a conversation she had with a friend of her's back in the village.

"God, I hope I don't end up there," her friend had said. She was talking about the castle of course. "I'd do anything to stay away from that sick man. Those poor servants. How do they handle his temperament?  I wonder. One year in there feels like a decade."

One year. A year of sorrows, of happiness. It was all so real to her. Yet, she wondered. Would the king free her from her service? Or would she just remain to him a servant?

She sighed as she sat upright from her bed. The other servants were scurrying around the room, getting ready for the day's work. Everyone seemed to be avoiding eye contact with her. She felt like she was invisible. They pretended like she was not there at all. Her heart dropped solemnly.

She stretched her hands up over her head and yawned. Twisting her body, she cracked her back. Although she knew everyone in the room had heard, not one person looked up to even acknowledge her presence.

She stood straight on the cold, flat floor and bent down to open her trunk. Her hands found the iron latch and flipped it open, resting the lid on the wall with a thud. Her eyes roamed over the dull clothing and her hands snatched for a fresh pair of servant clothes.

It wasn't until then that she noticed a slip of paper sticking out from a fold in one of her blouses. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked at the paper with curiosity. She didn't remember any paper being there before.

She looked around at the decreasing number of servants in the room. She decided to wait until everyone was gone before taking it out.

At first, her clothes were cold as she slipped them over her head. But then that coldness turned into a brimming warmness. A welcoming warmness. A warmness that told her everything was going to be alright.

She slipped on her skirt since the weather was warm today. It buckled tightly around her waist and rose two inches above her knee. Standing in front of the mirror, she admired her silky hair as she brushed through it with a comb; its waves like the waves in the ocean.

One final look around the room told Ariana that everyone had left. Finally.

Her feet padded along the floor and stopped in front of her open trunk. Her knees made contact with the floor and her hands reached inside for the paper. With a swift motion, it slid out of its spot. In her hands was a clean-cut piece of paper with the initials JB at the top in gold. It didn't take her long to guess who it was from.

On the paper in neat cursive were written a time and four words:

6:00 - Follow the rose petals

Ariana stared at the paper blankly. Her hands seemed to shake as she held it for some foreign reason. It was from the king. Just the thought of him made fireworks burst in her stomach.

But she did not understand what she was reading. Follow the rose petals. Where? When? Why? What did he mean? Frustration hit her. Her head exploded with thoughts and questions.

6:00. Rose petals.

What did it mean? Ariana didn't know why excitement started to build in her stomach. Although she longed to understand the meaning behind Justin's words, she did not have time to think. What she needed to do was get to work, even though that was the last thing she wanted.