Sage in the Sea

Secrets

"You are not focused today," Miss. Dolloway stated as I stared at the different color splotches that had been delivered to the house. The queen wanted me to choose the flower colors that I believed would best match the maroon and gold of the wedding.

I looked up at her before back down at the different pinks, blues, and tans. "I just do not want to choose the wrong colors. My wedding is going to have every eye of the kingdom on it."

"That is not what has you unfocused," she replied as she sat down on the couch next to me. "Tell me what it is."

I shook my head and sat back on the couch. As much as I wanted to tell her, I knew that I couldn't. If the king were to find out that Piers had shared confidential information with me, then we would both be punished. I could not put Piers into that position. He could lie, but the truth would emerge in the end.

"I cannot tell you."

"Yes, you can. You open your mouth, form the words, and say them aloud," she replied as she crossed her ankles. "I shall not tell a soul."

I put my head in my hands. "I was trusted to keep it a secret."

"Secrets shall be the death of us all," Miss. Dolloway murmured. "Then you need to speak with the person who shared the secret with you. I need you to focus on the tasks at hand, not on secrets that do not concern you becoming the princess." I could feel her eyes on me when I did not reply. "Unless they do concern you becoming the princess. Who did the secret come from?"

I shook my head. "I cannot share that information, either."

"You must learn how to cope with this, then," Miss. Dolloway said. "Now you are inexperienced, but once you are the princess, you will need to know how to deal with keeping secrets. Most of what you do shall be involved in will be confidential."

"This is a secret that I would love to shout to the mountains, but to protect myself and this person, I cannot," I told her as I lifted my head.

"Have you spoken to the prince? He is your future husband and someone that you should be able to turn to in such times," she replied. "I understand that he may have inflicted punishment on you during your first day, but if the reports come from one of the king's eyes, then he must enforce the punishments. He is a kind person, Adelaide. You can put your trust in him."

I stacked up the color splotches. None of it made any sense to me. How could you see how it was going to work without it all being put together?

Perhaps that was why Piers and his father did not see why the proposed law was so terrible. It would not affect them, other than for Piers to lose his wife to be. Piers saw it as being a better alternative to the facility; his father saw it as an improvement of a system already in place.

I didn't know how to change Piers's mind. How could I change something that he already supported, at least to a small degree? I did not believe that Piers' intentions were bad, as the kings were. Piers truly believed that it was better than the system in place. He was blind to see that it was as inhumane as the system in place.

"Adelaide?" Miss. Dolloway asked softly, placing a hand over mine. I looked up, swallowing the lump in my throat. "You need to talk to someone, dear. I can see in your eyes that this is not something you are capable of handling on your own now, nor should you."

I nodded, picking up the color swatches and holding them to my chest as I stood up. "I will," I told her before I turned and walked out of the room, wiping angrily at my eyes.

I climbed the stairs and turned right, walking towards Piers' office. As a guard turned the corner at the end of the hall, I knocked lightly on the door even though I knew that Piers was in a meeting in the library. To my surprise, the door opened and I found myself looking into the eyes of a blonde man.