The pond was a mirror, holding the sky captive in its still, dark water. Below the surface, a family of silver fish darted, a shimmering knot of life moving as one. A warm hand settled on my shoulder, and the scent of rosewater and sunshine my mother's scent wrapped around me. I turned around to look, and he warm sky-blue eyes welcomed me as her hazel hair danced with the wind. Her milky white skin seemed to glow.
"Don't they look happy together?" Mother whispered, her voice a soft melody against the quiet forest. "Just like you, me, your father, and Cedric. A perfect, happy whole."
I turned a wide, unguarded smile up to her. "Yes! Can I follow the lake? I want to see where it ends!"
Her smile was gentle but firm. "Not now, my sweet Sylvie. We must wait for your brother and father. They will be here soon." Her eyes, the color of rich earth, scanned the tree line before lighting up. "Look, by the old oak! I think I saw a rabbit. Why don't you go see?"
A rabbit! My quest was chosen. I nodded, my own worries forgotten.
"I'll wait here for the Royal Courage," Mother said, her voice warm as she smoothed my hair. "The guards are still preparing our picnic."
I had barely taken three steps toward the great oak when a sound ripped through the peace a strangled shout from Arman, my mother's personal guard. It was close, too close.
"Sylvie! To me, now!" my mother commanded, her voice no longer a melody but a blade.
I spun and ran back, my little heart a frantic drum in my chest. As I neared her, another sound froze the blood in my veins. A low, guttural growl, rumbling from the shadows behind her. Arman's sword hissed as he drew it, his body shifting into a protective stance.
From the gloom, a creature emerged. It was all matted grey fur and hungry, yellow eyes. A wolf. And then another. And another. A silent, spreading ring of death.
"Sylvie, run to the oak! Climb! Now! Don't look down!"
My body went rigid with a fear so pure it turned my bones to stone. I couldn't move.
"RUN!" The sheer terror in her scream unlocked my legs.
I fled. The world blurred. I felt her hands, strong and desperate, shove me toward the tree. "Grab that branch! Now!" she urged, her voice tight.
I obeyed, my small hands scraping against the rough bark. I hauled myself up.
"Don't look down, Sylvie! Just climb! Keep climbing!"
I did. I scrambled higher, branches clawing at my dress. Then, a scream tore from below me a sound of such agony it stole the air from my lungs. My body froze again, limbs locking.
"Mother?" I whimpered.
Her voice came back, strained but ferociously clear. "Mother loves you! Just don't look down! Promise me!"
A sob hitched in my throat. I nodded, though she couldn't see. I forced my trembling body to move, climbing to the highest branch that would hold me.
Another scream, this one ending in a wet, horrifying gurgle.
Close your eyes, Sylvie.
I didn't listen. I looked down.
The scene below was a nightmare. The largest wolf had my mother's blue cloak in its teeth, dragging her. Others pulled at her skirts, the fabric tearing with a sound like a scream. Her eyes, wide and impossibly bright, found mine in the high branches. Her lips moved, shaping silent words I would never hear. Growls filled my ears.
I squeezed my eyes shut, the image seared onto the back of my eyelids. I pressed my face into the rough bark, shaking.
An eternity later, the thunder of hooves shook the ground. My father's voice, a roar of pure anguish, shattered the forest's grim silence.
"Elysia! SYLVIE!"
A tiny, broken sound escaped my lips. "Father…"
The thunder of hooves became a storm as my father, King Beron, and his guards exploded into the clearing. The world was a blur of shouting men, the sharp ring of steel, and the snarling yelps of the wolves as they were driven back.
But it was all background noise to the silence at the center of it all.
My father dismounted before his horse had even stopped, his face a mask of frantic, desperate hope. "Elysia! ELYSIA!"
He didn't see me. His eyes, wide with terror, were locked on the torn ground, the discarded blue cloak, the still form in the center of it all.
I scrambled down, my limbs numb and clumsy. I fell the last few feet, my knees scraping on the roots, but I barely felt it. "Father!" I cried, my voice a thin, reedy thing. "Father, the wolves Mother "
I ran to him, my small arms reaching for the solid safety of him, needing to be held, to be told it was a nightmare.
He didn't see me.
As I lunged for his legs, he moved. A rough, powerful shove sent me flying backward. I landed hard on the damp earth, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. It wasn't a malicious shove; it was the blind, frantic motion of a man clearing an obstacle from his path to the only thing that mattered.
He fell to his knees beside my mother, gathering her broken body into his arms. A sound tore from his throat not a sob, but a raw, animal groan of a soul being ripped in two. He rocked her, his broad shoulders shaking, his face buried in her blood-streaked hair.
I lay where I had fallen, the world tilting on its axis. The physical sting on my skin was nothing. The true wound was the shove. The utter erasure.
Then, my brother was there. Cedric, only twelve, his face pale and streaked with tears. He didn't run to our father. He ran to me. His arms wrapped around me, pulling my face into his tunic. He smelled of horses and the castle, the familiar scent a tiny anchor in the churning sea of horror.
"Don't look, Sylvie," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Don't look."
But I had already seen. I had seen my mother's final, silent words. I had seen my father's world end, and with it, my own.
A scream was trapped in my throat, strangled by the snarl of wolves and the echo of my mother's final, desperate shout.
"Don't look down, Sylvie!"
I jolted upright in bed, my chest heaving. The phantom scent of blood and rosewater faded, replaced by the stale air of my chambers. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. Ten years. A decade had passed, but the memory was a ghost that clung to the shadows of my room, its cold fingers finding me in my sleep.
My nightgown was plastered to my skin with cold sweat. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to push back the images. The matted grey fur. The yellow eyes. The rough bark of the oak tree. And the shove the brutal, blind shove from my father that had hurt more than any beast's claw.
A soft knock came at the door. "Princess Sylvie?" The voice was gentle, seasoned with age and care. Ffion.
Before I could answer, the door creaked open. My mother's dearest friend, the woman who had become my sole tether to a past that felt like a dream, entered. Her wise eyes, the color of weathered bark, took in my state in a single glance the heaving chest, the wild hair, the lingering terror.
"The dream again," she said, not a question but a quiet statement of shared grief. She crossed the room and drew back the heavy velvet curtains.
Morning light, harsh and unforgiving, streamed into the chamber. It was not the soft, dappled light of the forest, but the clear, demanding light of reality.
The steam from the washbasin did little to cleanse the lingering dread from my skin. I scrubbed until my flesh was pink, as if I could wash away the memory of the forest floor. I combed my long hair and waited for it to dry as I looked into the mirror that showed my similarities to my mother. I had her hair colour, but not her eyes; my eyes were emerald green, just like my father's. I had her pink lips and rosy cheeks. I looked just like her, yet so different.
Ffion helped me into a simple, pale blue day dress, her movements efficient but her touch lingering, a silent communication of solidarity.
"There," she said, gently twisting my hair into a placid style befitting the "understanding" princess. "You look…"
"Like a ghost?" I finished for her, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
"Like your mother," she corrected softly, and the words were both a comfort and a fresh wound.
A sharp rap at the door broke the moment. A young maid, one of Lady Liora's, curtsied hastily without meeting my eyes. "Your presence is requested in the Grand Dining Hall, Princess. The King, the Lady, and Crown Prince Cedric await you for breakfast."
My stomach, already a knot of anxiety, tightened further. Breakfast in the Grand Dining Hall was for state occasions and reprimands. Not for a quiet morning after a bad dream.
"Thank you," I said, my voice barely a whisper.
The maid scurried away. As I stood, Ffion adjusted the sleeve of my dress, her voice dropping to a hushed, urgent tone.
"Sylvie, listen to me. Keep your head, but keep your wits about you. The kingdom… it is not well."
I turned to her. "What do you mean?"
"Whispers from the border. Our allies are silent. Our livestock falls sick in the fields, and our grain stores are thinner than the King will ever admit. We are vulnerable." Her eyes, so often a pool of calm, were sharp with warning. "Beron is desperate. And a desperate king is a dangerous man."
A cold that had nothing to do with my nightmare seeped into me. War? Famine? It explained the tightened rations, the grim faces of the guards, my father's blacker-than-usual moods.
"Why tell me this now?" I asked, my heart thudding dully.
Ffion's gaze was full of a painful, unspoken pity. "Because when a kingdom is in crisis, its princesses are its most valuable currency, and you're the only princess this one has. Now go, and don't forget your mother's necklace." She fastened the delicate silver chain around my neck the one she had managed to save before my mother was buried.
She squeezed my hand, a fleeting gesture of strength, then stepped back into her role as servant. I was left alone, the Princess Sylvie, dressed in blue, my hair perfectly tame, with the terrifying knowledge that my father was desperate, and I was about to be appraised.
Taking a shuddering breath, I walked out of my room. As I stepped into the corridor, everyone's eyes seemed to be on me. The maids whispered; I couldn't make out the words, but their furtive glances were a language of their own. Each step toward the Grand Dining Hall felt like a march toward my own auction block. Ffion had given me the context of the storm, but she had carefully, deliberately, withheld the lightning bolt that was meant to strike me down.