*Maddy*
I expected the blows to my body, the rough knuckles raking over my skin until bruises bloomed yellow and purple on my arms and stomach. I expected the bitter words in a language I didn’t understand, and the tight grip on my wrists as I was dragged through wet snow back into the house I’d just escaped.
I wasted so much time. I couldn’t help but beat myself up over it. Had I not run into Princess Ella, I’d be on a train right now traveling far, far away.
Cool night air was replaced by dry, fiery heat, and then it all went black.
For a moment, at least.
I wake to someone shouting, and suddenly, I’m lifted and thrown against the wall, my head banging against the weathered floorboards with a violent smack. Stars fill my vision before faces blur into view. Reginald is standing over me, the toe of his boot pressing into my chin.
“How the fuck did she get out?” he sneers to a large man standing beside him.
“The kitchen window, I think.”
I wince as Reginald’s boot clips me hard, breaking the skin. I smell the copper tang of blood as the two men continue to speak in bitter, angry tones above me.
But soon their voices shift to the language of Crescent Falls. I can’t make out much of what they’re saying, but one thing is clear. Ella’s name echoes through the room, and Reginald’s face shifts from a look of furious disgust to sudden awe. He looks down at me, a cruel smile twisting over his thin, rat-like features. “Clever little bitch,” he grins, then snaps his fingers with a crack. I’m lifted upward and hauled over the shoulder of one of his men, my body trembling against the pain from the beating.
I’m dropped unceremoniously on the floor in my room, still wearing the thick, several sizes too large wool jacket and my secret sneakers.
My head pounds as the door is slammed and locked shut. Trapped again, I crawl to the door and press my ear to it, waiting. If anyone comes near, I’ll hop up and fight for my life.
I don’t blame the princess for what happened. She was kind to me and talked to me like an old friend. I hadn’t had that kind of attention from anyone in years.
She’d asked what I thought about her brother, the king. The look in her eyes had been somewhat pleading as she did so.
I don’t understand why. It doesn’t even matter what I think. I couldn’t tell her that I’d danced with him at a ball three years ago and haven’t gone a day without thinking about what his touch felt like on my skin since then.
He is a different man now. Hardened by something mysterious and just out of reach. Something in his eyes has gone cold. He has the look of a man twice his eyes shining back from those reclusive orbs of his. Something is gone, I realize, and it’s that something that drew me to him in the first place. Now, it’s gone.
Nothing matters anyway. I lay my head against the floor and close my eyes, slipping easily into sleep. Probably because I have a horrible concussion, but whatever. A deep, dead sleep is better than lingering in my current reality.
I wake in a strange room, moonlight pouring through tall, angular windows. There’s a blonde woman standing in the corner of the room, her arms crossed over her chest as she stares out the window.
A whine whispers through the air, and she turns, her eyes hooded with emotion as she walks toward a cradle. She picks up a small bundle, her tired eyes lighting and creasing at the edges with a pained, but loving, gaze.
I jump out of my skin when a man passes through me, his body misty and distorted before coming into clear view.
“I’ve made arraignments for the child,” he says with a hint of sadness. The woman meets his eyes and clutches the bundle a little tighter.
“Do we have to?”
“The baby isn’t ours.” He walks to her side and moves the blankets wrapping what I see is a new born baby aside.
“She’s named after you,” the woman says so quietly I almost miss it. “She wanted us to keep her child safe.”
I realize I’m dreaming when the room starts to fade. My stomach drops as images begin flashing through my mind like I’m turning the pages of a picture book. My mother is clipping roses. My father is struggling through the front door after returning from a long trip with a wooden rocking horse in his hands as I, just a tiny girl with pigtails and a lace trimmed dress, rush toward him with open arms.
I see my mother with her golden hair pulled back from her face as she sets a plate of warm cookies on the table in the kitchen, her brown eyes locking on mine as she nods, and I take one.
My father and I are standing in the garden while my mom sits on a bench in front of us, the wind picking up her suddenly thin, lackluster curls.
“Mommy is sick, my darling,” he says to me as he tucks me into bed, brushing a lock of my hair behind my ear. “I’ll be tucking you in for a while.”
“But not forever,” I say in a childlike voice.
A funeral in winter flashes before me, the glossy black coffin a sharp contrast to the silvery white landscape of a cemetery. And me, ten years old, dressed in black as I lay a rose on the casket with tears blurring my eyes.
Suddenly, my world is turned on its axis, and the dream fades to something new, something colorful and loud as voices drift and a sweet, string melody fills my ears.
“And do you know my brother, or are you crashing his party?” Princess Ella turns to a man dressed in black. Her tight red dress hugs every curve, and the little crystals along her waist pick up the light of the chandelier.
The man’s eyes, so dark they’re nearly obsidian, don’t leave her face as he says, “I know of him, if that matters.”
Ella shakes her head as a smile drifts over painted lips. “So, you are crashing the party.”
“My mother knew your family, Princess Ella. I received an invitation like the rest.”
“Pity,” she teases. “And here I thought you were up to some kind of mischief.”
“You like mischief?”
“I live for it.” Her eyes shine like blue crystals in the light above their heads. Only then do his eyes wander, taking her in like he wants to memorize her.
“Dance with me,” he rasps, but she grins like a cat and shakes her head.
“I don’t dance with strangers who haven’t even told me their names.”
“It’s Ryatt,” he says, stepping closer.
“Riot?” she laughs, an obvious heat in her voice as he smirks and shakes his head slowly. “Is your name any indication of your personality, then?”
“Close.”
She playfully narrows her eyes. “Ryatt what?”
“Dance with me, and I’ll tell you.”
She suddenly turns, her attention caught by her brother passing in a dance with a young, unfamiliar woman. She sighs, turning back to her companion, but he’s… he’s no longer there.
I can feel Ella's confusion as she looks around, her shoulders slumping. She takes a flute of champagne from a passing waiter as her beautiful smile turns to a frown.
I follow her through the crowd but stop in my tracks as Elodie passes through me. She taps Ella on the shoulder and Ella turns, her beautiful face suddenly twisted in a scowl. My step-sister says something, and Ella replies curtly, the words hazy and unintelligible.
This party… I remember it. This is Isaac’s twenty-first birthday party, and I’m somewhere in the crowd, trying to blend in instead of stand out.
“What’s your name?”
I turn to find the crowd is parting to allow Isaac the space he needs to dance with a young woman dressed in gray, a thick sheet of wine-red hair trailing out behind her as he holds her close.
It’s me. Me, three years ago. Me, with stars in my eyes as I look up at him, my cheeks burning because I can’t understand what he’s saying.
He asked my name. I couldn’t answer him.
Maddy. My name is Maddy. Madeline Bardot.
Suddenly, the dream is swept into darkness and I’m falling, and falling, and falling until I land in a field that stretches for miles. Smoke and flames fill my vision as I blink into the dreary, dead landscape in horror. Bodies litter the ground, but I can’t scream. I can’t run. I’m frozen in place surrounded by death.
Two men approach each other slowly, their faces obscured by the smoke. One is dressed in black, a fearsome mask covering his face.
“Where is she?” Isaac’s voice rips through the cracking embers. “Where is my wife?”
My body suddenly convulses, and my eyes fly open as water is dumped over my head. Sunlight pours into my room, and Glenda is standing over me, looking down at me with marked concern on her face.
“Get her up and bathed. She looks like shit. You have an hour to turn her into… something other than this!” Reginald steps back with an empty, frost covered bucket in his hands. His beady eyes are cold as he looks at me with disgust.
Glenda hurries me to my feet. I blink into the sunlight, my body trembling with the shock of being pulled from a vivid dream so violently. I stumble in her arms as she guides me into the bathroom, a hot bath already in the works.
I must have slept through the night well into the daylight. The room is warmed by the sunlight, something only capable of happening in the afternoon because of the spring chill that still grips the city.
Her soothing voice reaches my ears, but her words don’t register. I’m thinking of the dream, trying to pull pieces from it and tuck them away to remember for later, but they’re just out of reach, fading with each step I take until I can’t remember anything but the cold horror of what I assume is a battlefield.
Glenda strips me of my clothes until I’m naked and shaking, my skin prickling with gooseflesh. The near scalding bath water causes my skin to tingle painfully as she helps me lower myself into the bathtub. My teeth chatter and tears fill my eyes. Looking down, I see the fresh bruises dotting my skin on my legs, torso, and arms. I reach up with a soapy hand and touch my swollen chin, feeling where the skin has split and begun to scab over.
I meet Glenda’s eyes and notice her soft, concerned expression as she wets a rag with the rose scented water and gently dabs my aching shoulders.
“W-whats going to h-happen to me?” I ask in my native tongue.
Glenda probably guessed what I said based on her deep exhalation. She sits on the edge of the tub and rubs shampoo between her hands before running it through my hair, shaking her head.
“The king requested you,” she says slowly, having to think over each word before saying it so I’ll understand.
I sink into the water and close my eyes, unsure of what to expect.