I'm No Cinderella

Chapter 10

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Surviving The Year

    A servant came to collect the alphas' clothing the next day, taking several trips in and out of the large closet. Each time he emerged with a tall, neatly folded stack and I was convinced that it had to have been the last of it. Then he would return for more.

    I spent a week cooped up in that bedchamber– I had decided during that time that bedroom was too ordinary a word to describe it. I passed my days reading the many books on his shelves, but found them more frustrating than informative. I hadn't been to school since my father died, making reading his collection a very ambitious challenge. It was made worth it on the second day, when I drew back the red curtains to find a windowsill wide enough to sit on.

    The view from the window was spectacular.

From up high in the castle, the entire valley could be seen. Below me, the expanse of the castle grounds stretched out, and I hungrily drank in the view. There was a grove of trees lining the majority of the wall, and jutting up before it was a massive structure, marble spires reaching up to the sky. A sizable flower garden grew beside the strange white building, and many smaller structures were scattered throughout.

    Past the walls, to the right, lay the capital city in all its glory. Shops and fancy houses lined the blocks as people– or, perhaps they were monsters– took to the streets in droves, bustling about happily. Sweeping out as far as the eye could see, and surrounding all visible landmarks, was a forest. I could just barely make out the winding silver thread of a river, weaving through the trees. Behind it all, the walls of the valley rose up on the horizon, a lake glittering in the afternoon light at its base.

I spent the majority of my days sitting on that windowsill, book in hand. When my head would begin to pound from staring at the pages, I would turn my attention back to the view. The village I grew up in was just beyond the mountains. I wondered often about my family, if they were going about their lives as before, or if they were mourning me as many other families had before them. Gone, but not dead. Alive, but never to be heard from again.

I knew I shouldn't allow myself to dwell on such thoughts, but my mood seemed to darken more and more each passing day. I wasn't entirely sure I could survive a year of this, not if I wanted to return as myself, anyway.

Every morning, Eden would come bustling in with a tray of food in hand and offer to help me dress, and each time I turned her down. She grew bolder by the day, though bold for her mostly involved not cowering in fear at my every breath. She encouraged me to leave the room and stretch my legs– with caution, of course. But the sight of that middle doorway looming across the room filled me with a deep apprehension. What would I find wandering the halls of the alpha's castle?

Likely nothing good.

But by the eighth morning, I could take no more of the monotony, and decided to risk it. At least if I died exploring the castle, I wouldn't die bored. I still wasn't entirely convinced that the alpha wouldn't grow tired of me, regardless of our deal and have me done away with. I had struggled for survival for too many long years to go out in such an anticlimactic way, cooped up in a single room for days.

Edens eyes widened when I accepted her offer, but she got to work without a word. I awkwardly allowed her to help me into a beautiful peach colored day dress and sat still in front of the mirror as she brushed and styled my hair in an elegant braid down my back. When she reached for a jewelry box, I stopped her.