A Veil of Betrayal

Chapter Four.

The moonlight is the only source of light, and even at that there's poor visibility  for Layle as she stumbles outside. Granted, nobody probably thought that a servant was going to break into a storage room during the middle of the night, so there were no oil lamps or torches on the outside walls. Her only relief was that because of the ball, nobody was outside to witness what was probably going to be the reason why she would be killed. She sees a light flickering from a window, and prays that she has located the right window before scrambling over to the Gardeners hut and using her shoulder, forces the door open. She catches herself from falling from the sudden movement, and after a few seconds of looking around she spots a rusty ladder and drags it over to the window. To her dismay, it is a few inches too short to reach the window, but she might be able to pull herself up and in. She scoops up a rock, tosses it in her hand once, before shoving it into one of her pockets and beginning to climb up. About a quarter way up, one of the steps practically disintegrates under her foot, and for a split second she thought she was about to fall, but catches on to the rails in front of her quickly. The ladder shakes, but stays up. Layle exhales deeply and continues up. Finally she is able to look into the room, and sees a dimly lit room full of boxes and spare decorations. Holding her breath, she palms the rock and throws it through the window. Glass shatters and splinters fall onto her head and she curses and ducks down low, out of view of anyone who might come in. The door creaks open and Layle nearly sobs with relief when she hears the same voices from earlier grumbling to each other about what they should do before closing the door behind them. 

Layle hoists herself up, and manages to get her head and torso through the hole in the glass. She has to bite her lip to stop herself from crying out when her left leg catches in a shard and cuts a long gash down her calf. She manages to get into the room, looking around for somewhere to hide when she hears more voices outside the door and virtually throws herself behind an old brown trunk in the corner of the room. With shaking hands, she rips a part of her uniform off and ties it around the cut on her leg and after the bleeding stops, gingerly touches her scalp and picks out the glass in it. The door groans open again, and there are shuffling footsteps as the two guards carry something heavy. Layle hears them throw it on the ground, and dust rises from the impact. Layle panics as her nose begins to twitch and she tries to pinch it but-

"ACHOO!"

The guards pause, and Layle feels like she's going to be sick. "Did...Did you hear something?" The gruffer guard asks cautiously, but the other one slaps him on the back and chuckles. "I don't care. It was probably a rat. We're free, Kian, let's fucking go!" The two men leave the room and slam the door shut behind them and Layle closes her eyes and slumps against the trunk behind her. She did it. Carefully, she edges her way over to the trunk and opens it, to find about six or seven beautiful dresses. She touches them, running her fingers over the velvet and fine linen of different colours before seeing a beautiful white dress. It's silk, and has blood red gemstones on it's neckline. There's a beautiful ruffled material on the sleeves and providing a bit of modesty for her chest. She takes it out of the trunk and examines it, wondering if it's the same colour of her hair. To her delight, she finds a matching veil and circlet, to go with it. She slips out of her clothing and into the dress, marvelling in the softness. It's a bit too big for her- the Princess the guards were talking about obviously had a fuller figure than Layle, who was all ribs and long legs, underweight from her eighteen years of malnutrition, but as she spun around in the dress she didn't care. Looking at herself in the reflection in the now cracked window, her dark skin seems to glow in the dress, and for the first time in her life she felt...Pretty. In the white gown and veil, she could almost imagine what she would look like on her wedding day. But she knew that she couldn't waste anytime pretending to be royalty when she arrived in the Ballroom. 

She had a mission and she needed to complete it.