Dancing with Deception

Dancing with Deception (16 Part II)

Chapter 16 - Part II

The next morning was a mixture of stress and relief. I was anxious to get away from the castle, not a sentiment I ever expected to feel, but while my mother continued to stubbornly reside there, it had begun to feel as though the walls were closing in around me, edging me back into the gilded cage I'd been born into.

The stress came from the surmounting apprehension I felt about seeing Prince Alexander. His unexpected appearance at my door the other night and rapid departure all happened too quickly to process, and I didn't get my bearings until long after he'd left.

Now that I'd recollected my wits I dreaded facing him. With the door gaping wide open since my mother's appearance there was no way of telling how much he'd overheard, and therefore no way to predict what his reaction would be upon seeing me.

His apparent lack of anger at least reassured me that he hadn't heard my mother's misplaced plans for obtaining the crown, but I still cringed at the thought that he heard her last words to me.

I hated that he'd caught me in a moment of weakness; that he'd been the one to see me break. It was a cruel twist of fate that brought him upon me at that moment and I couldn't begin to fathom how he would hold it over me.

I could only hope it wasn't pity. An ugly part of me knew I didn't deserve pity or concern, that same part of me told me I deserved every word my mother had lashed at me with her verbal whip. After all, I'd blindly accepted her hatred towards the Queen, and followed her directive to deceive an entire castle of my less then honorable intentions towards her son.

My only hope was that it wasn't too late to change the course of my future here, and that depended solely on how much the Prince had overheard.

With my stomach twisted in knots, I gathered my pack of meager belongings and braced myself for whatever judgment awaited me. I stopped with a pang in front of the door as my eyes lit upon the spot where I'd gathered the shattered remains of my bow last night.

Not wanting Ella to happen upon the scene—I'd already had one witness too many to my humiliation—I had carefully gathered every splintered fragment of wood and folded them neatly into the length of linen casing that once held the bow.

I hadn't the heart to throw it away, instead placing it gently inside my truck, laid out on top of my expensive gowns, a reminder of everything I had been and what I could become, but not while I remained confined in my mother's shadow.

Biting my lip to hold back the sudden and unexpected wave of emotion that crashed over me, I slipped silently out of the door, cautious not to wake my sleeping roommate. It was early yet, and there would be time enough for farewells before our departure, but for now, I needed no other company but my own.

As I ghosted through the empty halls, I knew a piece of me would remain behind in this place that had in so short a time become my home. Passing the Queen's chambers, I thought again with guilt of the beautiful gift that had been destroyed for no better reason than spite and jealousy.

And to think, those every intentions, that same single-minded purpose and lack of remorse, had been my mother's only use for me; that I would the instrument to destroy the delicate beauty that dared stand in the face of her ambition.

Was it selfish of me to leave the castle to the mercy of my mother's machinations? I could only hope that my departure would force her own.

I stopped by the kitchens on my way out to talk the cooks into giving me a few rolls, not wanting to face the crowds that would soon fill the mess hall, and hoping I would avoid a final encounter with my mother by the same token.