Seize the Day

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I was lost. Lost in a jungle of flowers and trees and bushes that shouldn’t have been past that door. But they were.

As if meeting the Crown Prince of Aria wasn’t enough to run my nerves through molten lava and immediately submerge them into a bucket of ice cold water.

Fate had always been rather cruel to me, but this was ridiculous.

Immediately after I had entered through the door, I was met with a garden. An unnaturally thick garden that bustled with movement. I went left, as the prince had instructed, and found the path. Unfortunately, the garden wasn’t all that it seemed. The wide leaves of several plants made it difficult for me to follow the path and I ended up getting lost in the flora.

This was why I never left my house.

I trudged through the dense undergrowth, avoiding a three-foot tall mushroom blocking the way. The telltale sign of violet veins coursing through the mushroom indicated that it was bioluminescent. It was like many of the plants in the garden, and I wondered briefly what this "jungle" would look like at night.

Sweat made the hair on my back sticky, and I cringed, remembering the prince’s words regarding the duchess: You’d be surprised how offended she becomes in the presence of a dirty person. At this rate I was going to be extremely offensive.

The prince… It made me want to crawl in a hole and die just thinking about him. I had actually been saved by a royal brat, and now I was indebted to him. I wondered what he would ask of me in return. I shivered, silencing the terrible thoughts going through my head. I had more pressing troubles on my mind right now.

I checked the position of the sun. Fifteen minutes left until the meeting. Odd numbers meant good luck. At least something in my life was going right.

I ducked beneath a plant with exceptionally large leaves, and a groan escaped my throat when I saw what was on the other side. More plants; this time, a barricade of high-reaching mushrooms stood in my way. Didn’t the prince say that the door led to the castle grounds? What if he isn’t the prince? The sudden thought made my bones grow cold. Maybe he was simply playing me? If he was, this garden could become dangerous quickly. Then again, he certainly looked like the prince… His amber eyes were what all of the girls in the Lower Quarter fawned over. Not that I payed any attention to those girls.

Once I passed through the mushrooms, all of my suspicions came to an abrupt halt. The castle lay before me, massive in size and grand in appearance. Colorful banners flew atop turrets that seemed to reach to the sky. It was made of an oddly gleaming dark stone; the castle, with its precious building materials imported directly from Balua, was the pride of Aria’s famous architects.

The walls surrounding the castle were on either side of me, encompassing the garden. An empty bridge led to the castle door, spanning a placid lake. Given its small size and ordinary appearance, this must have been a back entrance to the castle.

As I exited the garden, I spotted the path I had originally been following several feet away from me. My mouth dropped open as I stepped back to examine the garden. It was, in reality, smaller than what I had thought it to be. If I had been able to stay on the path, it would have been a thousand times more easy.

I shook my head and turned back to the castle, making for the small bridge. Despite the fact that this was a castle, there were no guards or servants on the bridge. The silence I met as I trotted across the walkway disturbed me. Even the lake below me was deathly silent. Was I supposed to be here?

A splash to my right made me jump. I glanced over the edge of the bridge to see a ripple. Then an aquatic hand. A nymph popped her head out of the water to stare up at me, a curious expression on her exquisite features. I inhaled sharply as we studied each other. A naiad. She tipped her head as a bewitching smile crossed her face.