Rebel Princess

Chapter One

I watch from the deck of airship Titan as the palace shrinks away the higher we get in the sky. My subjects wave enthusiastically from the grounds, their sun beat faces and too thin bodies making me feel sick to my stomach. I have grown up with too much while my people are starving.

My parents watch worriedly, their eyes glued to the biggest, strongest airship in the kingdom. It is their pride and joy. The only reason it is in Merrow, the capital city, is to take me to Prince Caspian's palace in the northern mountains.

I groan at the thought of him. We met last year when my dad invited him to Merrow for a month, and he is so uptight and proper. Caspian is three years older than me. He would be nineteen now. I dread seeing him in a few hours.

I step away from the railing, the wind getting stronger. It is strong enough now to blow me down. My full blue green skirt billows out around me and I curse, the wind carrying my words away. 

I hate these dresses. They are so impractical, not like the pants and shirts I wear at home when I ride my horse or practice archery. I hate the way they tangle around my legs when I try to sprint or the way the wind moves them. like now.

I pull open the door to the rest of the airship and step out of the wind. The howling stops as I close the door and I sigh before walking down the hall to nowhere in particular. This airship belongs in the thick of war on the southern border, not to shuttle around the crown princess.

Soldiers mill around me, they smile and bow every time they pass me. They are required to show me the upmost respect, no matter what and I hate it. I'm an ordinary human being, just like them.

At the end of the hall, where the soldiers were coming from, is the bridge. The sounds of machines echo from the door, as well as the sounds of men talking loudly. I push open the door and walk in, surprising all the soldiers inside.

"Hello, princess. Wonderful flying weather we have, don't we?" The captain, an old man with thin white hair peeking out of his cap, says. I spend the rest of the trip talking to him until the ship lands effortlessly on a landing pad not unlike the one at home. I sigh wearily. When I get home from being here for a year, I'll only have a few years left of freedom before we are to get married.

I walk back down the corridor quickly, nervousness filling my body. The few times we called went bad, I stormed off a few times and wound up asking my parents to call off the whole engagement. They said no passionately, lecturing me for hours about it being my duty as the crown princess to put up with him and unite our kingdoms.

Two soldiers stand at attention at the door I walked through just a few hours ago. They bow to me before opening the door for me to step through. I walk out onto the deck, my muscles aching from the effort of making my movements graceful and elegant. A fake smile is plastered on my face, for the sake of the news cameras. They expect a princess, so a princess they'll get.

A gangplank is lowered from the deck by several soldiers with a loud clank. The king and queen walk up to it with a man I don't recognize beside them. The king looks stately as ever and the queen elegantly dressed in a green silk dress that makes her eyes shine. The man beside them is dressed just as finely as the king, but with a beard. It takes me a moment to realize that he is Caspian.

The fact that he had a beard threw me off a little. Monarchy stopped having beards a long time ago, they saw it as a sign that they couldn't take care of themselves, more or less a nation.

Caspian leaves his parents and walks up the gangplank to meet me. He has the same intelligent green eyes as his mother and his father's dark hair and olive skin. He is taller than me, over six feet.

He walks up to me and bows respectfully. I curtsy like I was taught, flourishing my skirts just like a princess should. He smiles at me softly and I feel a peculiar fluttering sensation in my stomach.

"Hello, princess Tessa. It is so good to see you again." Caspian says, wrapping his arms around me for a hug. I've never been a big fan of human contact, but I guess I'll just have to get used to it. His beard tickles my face when he kisses my cheek in the customary greeting and I try to hide my shiver.

Caspian drops his arms and stands beside me. He grabs my hand gently and now I can really see how tall he is. My head barely comes up to his shoulder. The cameras below us go crazy, videoing like their lives depend on it. They want to be the first to broadcast this moment across the kingdom.

"It's nice to see you too, Caspian." I whisper to him. "You've changed." When I saw him last year, he was small and scrawny and so proper. I can still hear him telling me that it wasn't proper for a girl to wear pants in public, to ride horses like the men, to shoot a bow. Once I got so mad I yelled at him to loosen up before storming off to my room and locking the door.

"So have you. I half thought that your parents would have to pump you full of drugs to get you here." He says, smiling down at me. I laugh lightly at his joke and he seems pleased to make me laugh.

"Don't worry. They said you had changed, so I had to see it for myself." I reply and Caspian nods before turning back to the crowd. He's nicer than he was last year.

"Have I?" He asks, leading me toward the ramp and down it. It quivers with our footsteps and I look down, fear filling me. It's a long way down and I'm scared of heights. I gulp.

"You're still scared of heights?" He asks, worry in his eyes. Its sweet that he cares, even though I know its just for show.

"Yeah. Still have a hard time with it." I say through gritted teeth. I've had a problem with heights ever since a few years ago when I fell twenty feet down a cliff. I landed, battered and bruised, on a pile of hay at a farm. The farmers didn't know what to do, they had heard of my antics climbing mountains, exploring caves, running wild. They called my parents and got a large reward for finding and keeping me safe.

"Come on, you can do it. What happened to the Tessa that was never afraid, never ran away from a challenge." Caspian smirks down at me and I feel anger burning in my chest. No one taunts me, never.

"Nothing happened to her, just some growing up." I say angrily before pulling my hand out of his grasp and hiking up my skirt. I stomp down the ramp, leaving Caspian in my wake.

What I am doing is stupid, but I don't care. He shouldn't of said anything. A thought pops into my head and almost makes me stop. Caspian did it on purpose to distract me. He knew that my pride would distract me from my fear.

I'm not even angry when I step off the ramp onto a large concrete landing pad. The high heels I wear clip softly on it as I walk over to the king and queen and curtsy. The queen has a large smile on her face, the king looks angry, like he is already fed up with me. I smile at myself. Not even here an hour and the king is already fed up.

"King Matthew, Queen Penelope. It is so wonderful to see you again." I lie through a smile. The only one I'm happy to see is the queen. She and I are old friends. Last year, Penelope told me she was just like me, a rebellious princess who wanted nothing more than to forget the whole arranged marriage thing and live wild. She met the prince she was destined to marry, Matthew, and something happened to make her calm down.

"I see you are up to your antics again, Tessa." Matthew says disapprovingly and I shoot him a look. Caspian comes up behind me, out of breath. He looks winded from rushing behind me, but there is a small smile on his face. I need to talk to him later about this.

"I'll never really outgrow them, your majesty." I reply dryly. He shoots me a look before gesturing to a black limo with tinted windows behind us. The royal crest, a raven in flight with a letter n for the Northern Kingdoms in the center, is emblazoned on the door of the limo.

"Well, I hope you will behave yourself at supper tonight." Penelope says as a soldier opens the door and we climb into the car, heading to the castle.

"I will, your highness. I will." I smile.