Ryünda

Chapter 1: Stowaway

Stowaway

My name is Princess Cassandra, and I'm up to my ears with fury right at the moment. My father had issued the proclamation that the three free countries would be uniting forces and marching to crush the Sira at long last. I had gone to him to ask if I could join him in the fighting, but he had turned me down without a second thought.

"You are the heir to the Soldre throne," he had said, "and my only child. Should I be killed in the coming war, I will need you to step up and take my place with your mother here to guide you. I will not hear any more of this nonsense." he had waved his hand, "Leave me so I may think on what we will do in the coming battles."

I had stormed out of his private hall and through the halls of the palace, servants and maids leaping out of the way so as not to receive my fury in full. I climbed the outer tower of the south wall and slammed the door shut of my room. I paced for three hours trying to find a way out of my problem, but nothing would come to mind. As the Sun set and the hour was called out by the watch, I fell into my bed, still unable to come up with a plan of action. I took some deep breaths, hoping that I could think of something before the army set out in the morning.

"Wait." I said to myself, "That's it! I'll stow away in the ranks of the main army where father will never find out I'm there!"

I leaped out of bed and sat down at my vanity to one side of my bed. I pulled out my sharpest pair of scissors and cut my long, blond hair to chin length, the same style worn by the knights of my realm for almost a century. I took off my nightshirt and changed into a shirt and breaches. It was then I noticed a problem with my idea, my breast band only contained my obvious features by a small degree. Anyone with eyes could tell at a glance I wasn't a boy in the army. I thought about what I could do to fix the problem, and then I remembered my mother's old corset. If it could be used to pull in a girl's waist, why couldn't something similar be used to hold down my chest? I pulled out my own corset and started to cut and sew until I had roughly what I wanted. It wouldn't win any fashion contests, but I hoped it would do the job. I fit it under my shirt and used the frame of the door to tighten the strings. As I pulled it tighter and tighter, the more it hurt to flatten my chest. By the time I had them as flat as I could get them, I was in so much pain that I couldn't even stand up. I tried to move in some way to get the pain to go away, but it only flared higher every time I moved. I knew this wasn't going to work if I couldn't get the pain to go away, and then I remembered when my mother had trouble with growing pains when she was younger, she had a mage spell her pain into nothing until she finished growing.

I grabbed a cane and pushed myself into a standing position, forcing myself not to black out as my vision blurred. I hobbled through the halls and found my way to where the mage quarters where. Most palace residents had no business going there without good reason, so most didn't bother to remember where it was. I, however, had a more personal reason to know where it was. I had inherited the gift of magic from my mother's side of the family, though I had never told anyone about it. I had been sneaking into the mage workshop for years so I could practice my spells and castings without being found out. My gift had blossomed, though I was still far from a powerful mage. At most I could perform three spells before my internal reserves were used up, but I wasn't going to get help from the mages, lest my father find out about it. I followed my mental map until I found myself standing in front of the mages' workshop. The first obstacle I had to get past was the front door. It was rigged with alarm spells and hidden traps that could incinerate anyone who tried to break in. It had taken me almost two months to install a hidden backdoor in the protective spells that would recognize my voice. It would allow me to bypass the alarms and traps, while still keeping them intact for their true purpose.

I spoke a short sentence so the door could detect my voice, and without a sound, the door opened and allowed me to enter. As I combed through the many books of spells that had been recovered, I remembered that mages could detect spells being cast if they were close enough or if the spells were strong enough. The pain in my chest told me to hurry up, but I knew I had to work slow and carefully so I wouldn't wake up the mages in the dorms next door.

I found the spell I needed, and began the incantation slowly and quietly so not too much power would be let loose at once. I focused the healing energy into my left hand, as my right kept my place on the page. As I moved my now-glowing hand to my chest, I felt the pain lessen, and I took my first true breath in almost an hour. I kept the spell going, instilling time limits and strength boundaries so nothing would go amiss later because the spell wore off too soon.

As I finished the final line, the glow of my hand seeped into my chest, and the pain vanished entirely. I put the tome back very carefully and exited the room, hiding my back door spell once again behind the stronger defense spells. Once I made it back to my room, I looked in my mirror and checked my work. I still looked like a string bean with a broad chest, but at least I looked enough like a boy to pass for one in armor.

I went back out my door and made my way through the semi-dark halls and out through the stables. I followed the road until I found myself at the door to the armory. I crept past the sleeping guard and found some armor that would fit my slight but long frame. Now that I had my chest bound flat, the armor fit me like a glove and the only problem was choosing what to use. Given I didn't have a shield as a knight, I didn't go for the full plate armor that they chose. Instead I pulled some half-plate off of its peg and pulled it on instead. It had a chest and back plate for my torso, and a helmet with a half-face visor. This way I could still see and breathe without a problem, but no one would be able to see my face in full. I chose a small buckler with a metal prose as my shield, and grabbed my personal sword from the rack. It was smaller than almost every other sword in the armory, but it was so sharp I had once used it to cut my hair and it also had perfect balance. I belted my sword to my waist and slung the shield over my shoulders. I then snuck back out the door and past the sleeping guard, and into the main army camp.

It was a good thing the quartermaster was so busy with the preparations for departure, or I would have been found out almost immediately. Needless to say I was not as skilled with a sword as I would have liked, and my fear that someone would recognize me shattered my concentration. Regardless, he was so busy I could have shouted out I was a girl to the entire army and he wouldn't have noticed. Before long the army was ready to move out and I fell into line next to a grizzled veteran with multiple scars on his arms and face. I kept my eyes forward and tried to keep in place as we marched down the road, but after the first five miles my feet felt like they had melted into puddles at the bottoms of my boots and my thighs felt about as hard as a bag of feathers.

As I stumbled for the third time the veteran grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. "You've got to keep on your feet or you won't last the night." he said with a gruff baritone, "I can help you up if you need it, but you'll need to keep up if you don't want to be sent back." He looked back forward and I set my jaw for the rest of the day.

By the time we stopped for a rest, my teeth ached because I had been clenching my jaw so much. I sat down and pulled off my boots so I could rub my numb feet. No one else was at the fire, so I knew no one was going to recognize me, but I kept my helmet on so someone walking by wouldn't spot me. I tried to get some blood flowing back into my feet, but it was a lost cause. I resigned to remember to get the army better footwear when I became queen, but for now I had to put up with sore feet.

The next three days were even worse than the first, and by the time we met up with the armies from Darco and Helios, I was almost willing to take off my helmet and have father send me back. Only when I learned that the border with Coldren was only half a day's march away did I change my mind. We set up camp for the night and I tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately with the excitement of battle coming the next day, no one would be quiet enough for anyone else to fall asleep. I fitfully tossed and turned in my cot, but was finally able to pass out from sheer exhaustion.