Epiphany

⇞ udairis ⇞

She was beautiful, even from a female's perspective or maybe there were more beautiful out there but I didn't know since I have not seen many. I don't remember my life well from before I was sold as a slave in the Kingdom of Udairis. My only family was a little boy I nursed back to health after he was half beaten to death by the soldiers.

Besides him, the only other person I knew well was the Princess of Udairis whose hair I was braiding as she tried not to fall back into sleep. Her eyes were a capturing shade of blue and grey, her hair lustrous golden blonde. Even without the essence of rose, her lips were pink.

We were stark different in status and in looks. And yet we were similar in one way. Neither of us was allowed outside the castle built only for the beautiful Princess.

The only people allowed to meet her was King, Queen, her Elder brother, and her teacher.

It wouldn't be an overstatement if I said I was her only friend.

"I should have slept more." She said yawning again causing me to stifle my own rising yawn.

"But your brother leaves for the war, you need to give the token of luck." I reminded her again and she nodded.

"He doesn't even care about me." She said sadly and I had no words to console her.

"He just returned from his training and he didn't even bother to come and greet me." She said pursing her lips in despair.

No one in the royal family cared about anyone.

Before being brought as Princess's handmaiden I worked in the kitchen with two old women with an aggressive attitude and a soldier who stood guard at the kitchen door. At the smallest of our mistake, he would use his leather made whip to hit us several times that would leave us numb and sometimes with infections on our injury.

That was the time I heard about the palace gossip, how King disliked the Queen, how Queen had several affairs and how the Prince was a dangerously sharp, ruthless man. The only rumor about the Princess was that she was beautiful and mentally ill, therefore King locked her up.

Once I came as handmaiden I realized she was only beautiful and reason to lock her up was a curse given to her by some elemental Queen due to what King of Udairis did to her Kingdom. No one talked about the curse because only King, princess and I knew about it, not even the Queen and the Prince and yet neither of them tried to get poor Princess out of her lavish prison.

The light knock on the door made my heart leap to my throat even though I knew Prince was coming.

Immediately, Princess got up and smoothen her gown adjusted her little tiara and nodded at me to open the door.

I opened the door and bowed to greet the Prince who treated me as I was invisible but then again slaves are treated like this. We were barely given any respect. I was grateful that Princess was my owner.

"Brother." She said in a small tone.

He just hmmed in response and accepted the token from her. His too tall structure made him intimidating. His hair was the same as his sister's golden blonde but his eyes were a sharp grey contrasting to his hair color. He was not handsome or as good looking as the Princess but he had a certain rough charm to him. He was an average looking man with the body of a soldier.

He always had the grim expression on his face and even though he was young, few of locks were turning grey indicating the amount of stress he carried.

"This war is crucial Ermeline and dangerous." He said in a gruff tone.

And Princess nodded slowly. Both me and princess were kept away from the ways of war and bloodshed but atleast I was aware of brutalities of the life and had marks all over me to prove it. She didn't understand the weight of the words Prince just said.