Chapter One

Thiago, messenger/servant, meets the princess, soon-to-be queen, of Xarbias in an unsettling manner.

She stalked the creature, creeping along the wood softly, her dress barely making sound. Her dark, curly hair fumbled down past her hips, helping her blend in with the trees. Her arms held steady on her bow, waiting to pull the string.
I knew who she was without even looking at her face.
She was the princess of Xarbias, soon-to-be queen as her father the King lie abed close to death. I marveled why she was hunting, rather than sitting aside the King’s deathbed.
She crept closer to the creature, so I did too.
From afar, I couldn’t tell what she hunted. But as I followed my princess, I saw it was a Cervicaz. He was a large stag, his brown fur camouflaging him against the wood. His antlers and wings, though, vibrant shades of red, orange and yellow, gave him away.
He flapped his wings upward, a whooshing sound filtering out into the silent wood. His brown veins in his wings were dark and protruding. They beat slowly with his heartbeat, so even I, farther behind the princess, could see his comfort.
The princess held stable as she watched him with an inert posture.
What was she waiting for? The stag was unmoving, a perfect shot from her area in the wood.
The princess drew back on her string, ready to shoot her arrow.
I crept closer to her, trying to learn this art of hunting. Although she a princess and I nothing but a messenger, I was captivated by her intensity in this sport. I was close enough to hear her steady breathing now, but too far away to startle her.
My breath caught as a whirlwind of colors surpassed me, silence following this creature’s footsteps. I looked over to the princess, this colorful creature nearing on her too quickly and quietly for Her Highness to notice. I stood from my hiding place among the brook and crept to her, following this creature as soundlessly as I could muster.
It was a Suidaet, a boar of multiple colors and spikes along its sides with a smooth backline. This boar had many tattoos and veins, black against the bright pinks, yellows, and blues in its skin.
The princess was closer now, but the boar was closer still. Just as she began to let go of her arrow, I tackled her to the ground. The arrow whipped past my face, the whipping sound rippling through the air.
The princess screamed in alarm.
The boar skulked away from us, still lurking in the shadows of the brook.
The smell of honey and lilies enflamed my nostrils so I inhaled more than exhaled, exhilarated by the smell. This is what princesses smelled of? Honey and lilies?
“Who dare you to touch me without even thinking to beseech my permission! ‘Lest you have a good explanation to whom you are and what your cause, I shall imprison you for your treachery!” She yelled.
I struggled to get off of her and stood slowly.
She jumped onto her feet and positioned her arrow against me.
“Your Highness, there was a Suidaet coming toward you,” I said quickly and stooped into a bow. “I did not mean to affront you!”
I dropped to my knees. The arrow on her bow leaned atop my head and my breathing became shallow.
“Why did you not fight it off rather than attack me then, sir?” She criticized.
She stood in front me, her dress billowing out from her waist.
“I have no weaponry, Madam.”
“No weaponry? What kind of sir are you, then?” Her voice was subdued now, allowing me to feel calmer.
“I am no sir, but a messenger for Your Highness.”
“You are my messenger, yet you have no weaponry?”
She tapped my shoulder with her arrow, bidding me to stand up, so I did.
“I am not permitted to carry royal weaponry, Madam, just a dagger of my own sort, which would not fight a beast as tough and large as a Suidaet.”
I looked down rather than at her face, as I knew it was not my place to look at her in the eyes. It was tempting, though, as her eyes were greener than emeralds freshly cleansed.
“You stopped my hunt and rid me of my Cervicaz.” She sighed.
“I apologize, Madam, I feared for your safety.”
“Naturally, boy, naturally.”
Movement to my left alerted my senses and I prepared to stand in front of the princess again, but I saw that it was just one of her ladies-in-waiting.
“Abril, this man could have assaulted me and you would have been too slow to alert the knights past the wood,” the princess harassed the lady.
“I apologize, Your Highness, I did not want to cause the Suidaet to pounce towards you if he felt angered by too many persons,” the lady said and bent her knees into a deep curtsy.
“You must still learn to fasten your pace,” the princess said.
“Yes, Madam.” The lady did not move from her place ten paces away, but stood motionless, staring at me.
“Now, to the boy,” the princess said, turning her head to look at me. “What name do you represent?”
“My name is Thiago Rojeski, Your Highness, next to serve you as royal messenger when you take the throne.”
“I wish not to speak of me taking the throne. In order for that to happen, my father must depart us for the afterlife. It is not a conversation I wish to have with you, commoner,” she said curtly.
I nodded, afraid to speak.
“Abril, we are going to go back into the palace, now, the boy included,” the princess said to her lady.
“I am still upset you cost me my stag, boy. That stag could have fed several at the piazza,” she said to me.
“I apologize, Madam.”
“Stop calling me Madam. I am no Madam.” Her voice was troubled. Her forehead was creased and her eyebrows brought together, as if she were contemplating something heavily.
“You may call me Rowan.” Her voice was barely audible now, but I heard her correctly.
“Your Highness, I’m not sure that is appropriate,” her lady said to the princess, looking between the princess and myself.
“I believe I can deem what is appropriate and what is not. The boy saved my life, even if he did shamble my hunt, so he may use my first name,” the princess said to her.
“Let us walk back to the palace, whilst you can tell me about yourself, boy,” the princess said to me.
I took in a shaky breath as the princess began her stride back to the palace, away from the wood and the brook. I looked around me for the Suidaet, but I saw him nowhere.
“So you are Thiago Rojeski, next in line to serve as royal messenger,” the princess said.
I nodded.
“Does your father retire when my father dies?”
I nodded again.
“Do you not have a mouth to speak? Are you a mute? Or do you prefer to use body language rather than verbal?”
“I apologize if I have offended you again, Mada�",” I started and then corrected myself, “If I have offended you, Rowan.” I emphasized her name for her to realize my correction.
“You have not. Yet. So you are then to be the messenger of when he does die, if I am not beside him at that moment? You will be the one to deliver this news to me?”
“Yes, Madam,” I said quietly. It was not the first message I wanted to deliver to the princess.
I looked at her whilst she walked beside me. Her skin was smooth like porcelain, with no blemishes and all the same mocha color blended across her face, chest, and hands. She wore a green dress with embroidered flowers near the hem and across the top of her chest, down her long sleeves. She was shorter than most women, several inches beneath me, but petite and curvy. She was a beautiful young woman in all of her features, but her eyes were entrancing.
“The people fear I will become bedridden after my father’s death,” she said.
I continued to walk beside her and did not say anything.
“The Cardinal, one of my councilmen, suggests I do not visit him anymore. This is too hard and I am too selfish. I had opted for a hunt today, now, to relieve my mind of this tension and perhaps make food available for my poor. This, I thought, would help relieve my guilt for sitting aside my father’s bedside while he dies of his contagion. That was, until you destroyed my kill.”
I said nothing. I did not want to offend, nor did I want to subject myself to potential criticism from my princess.
We had long left the wood and were now nearing one of the palace’s entrances. Her palace was beautiful in a serene and spectacle way. The walls were a white marble, unusual against other palaces in other lands. The staircases spiraled upward on the inside of the palace, yet remained straight on the outside.
There were four main towers, one to mark each direction on the compass. Although the palace was beautiful, there were few windows and its white marble always looked darker on the outside than on the inside because it always looked as if no one resided there. The massive construction was larger than any other palaces or castles in the land and housed more than one thousand royals, nobles, and servants. It was built during the first year of the King’s reign, a wedding gift to his new bride, Isabella the Queen.
A garden, colossal in size and effervescent in color, marked off the East side of the palace. Variation of flowers, trees and shrubs were manicured perfectly into straight lines, pathways in between each line. Flowers did not grow in any other part of the land, so the garden and the estates on which the palace sat was quite magnificent in its mystic abilities. This garden was a present to the princess from her father the King on her twelfth birthday, last year.
“Well, messenger boy who ruined my kill, I will see you when the Lord takes my father and you come to tell me,” the princess said as we walked up the palace stairs.
“Yes, Madam,” I said and bowed, once we reached a stable platform.
“Stop with that awful Madam nonsense,” she reminded me and then turned to leave me.
Her lady walked around me and followed the princess into the palace.
I stood at the top of the stairs alone, breathless and bewitched.