The Rose Revolution (working title)

Chapter One - Rennard

There's a strange breeze in the air today.

I notice it immediately as it sneaks in through the open windows of the muggy and stifling air of the castle kitchens and gently caresses my skin. Instinctively, I shiver. There's something about this breeze that doesn't feel quite right. It's as if I can feel an alien hum of energy along with it that feels like, for lack of a better term ... magic. I quickly dismiss the thought with a shake of my head, and continue to scrub the plate I'm holding.

One might be wondering what a prince is doing down in the kitchens, but that is a question you should be asking my dear, dear mother.

From the very beginning she seemed to loathe me for simply existing, as if being born from her womb alongside my sister was an unforgivable criminal act, and it took me a long time to grapple with that. Truth be told, I still don't understand why it is that she feels the way she does. She has never revealed the reason even during my whipping sessions, which are always just oodles of fun. She would just continue to tell me how pathetic, worthless and insignificant I am with every crack of that whip.

Once I had simply just asked her why she hated me so, and she answered me by spitting in my face. Lovely little chat, that was. Very informative.

While tradition dictates that daughters have always been the ones chosen to rule, I've never heard of the sons in Alfera's royal lineage being treated this way before. Alfera's princes, though they had been few and far between, had not been treated any differently by their mothers and grew up to be upstanding noblemen, or they'd become captains of the royal guard while their sisters took the throne. They were never shown this much cruelty or denied life as a prince, as far as I know, so I suppose my situation is a unique one. Alfera's future historians will have a field day recounting my life.

"Your Highness, please rest," the head cook Marina says next to me as I continue washing the abundance of dirty dishes. She has been more of a mother to me in all my eighteen years of living than the monster who birthed me. Marina is a plump woman several inches shorter than me, with warm brown skin and dark hair that has now grayed with age, silvery strands clinging to her forehead. Her large emerald eyes look at me with love and concern so pure, it almost brings me to tears. "You've been working non-stop all day, you deserve some time to unwind, don't you think?"

I force a smile as I place a clean dish on the side, then move on to another filthy one from the huge pile on my other side. "It's alright, Marina, I've nothing else to do."

"You haven't even eaten today, have you?" she asks in that motherly tone of hers. "I thought I heard a torkel growling but it was your stomach after all."

I smirk. I remember what torkels are, fluffy little horned creatures from all those folktales Marina used to read to me when I was little. Apparently their low growls are are strangely akin to the sound of hungry stomachs, so Marina would always say "Get that torkel out of your tummy" to me back then whenever I got hungry, and it never failed to elicit a giggle out of me. She uses the expression still to this day, mostly to her grandchildren but also to me on rare occasions.

"I will later, I promise," I reassure her. "But for now you should rest. That luncheon took a lot out of you, I'm sure. I'll take care of everything." I'm referring to the luncheon Mother held earlier today; the most famed nobles and aristocrats of the kingdom gathering together in the grand dining hall, feasting on the fine delicacies that Marina and the rest of us broke our backs to prepare and perfect.

My sister, Ravina, informed me through a note—sent to me via one of her personal guards—that it had been a grandiose affair, with hundreds in attendance, hence the sprawling mountain of dishes beside me now.