the wise princess

prologue - the lost princess

THE CLASH OF metal on metal and screams were enough to wake Queen Luna Bellamy from her peaceful sleep.

She sprung from her comfortable, sizable bed, topped with tons of pillows—in fact, more than strictly necessary, as she ran to the baby's crib just two steps away.

She scooped the fragile girl into her fair arms, smiling widely at the sight of her beautiful, beautiful girl. She felt a tear slipping down her cheek, and she hastily wiped it away, regaining her composure.

Something was wrong. The painful sound of clashing metal continued, as the screams became more agonized, and she rushed to her husband's suite with baby Siena in her arms still.

"James!" Queen Luna called, worry and fear creating lines in her face as she took in her husband's empty bed. "James, dear, where are you?"

She heard her husband's voice from a distance. He was undoubtedly far from his quarters, possibly in a different wing of the palace, even. Queen Luna left her husband's marbled floors and hurried past the many halls of their personal wing. Stone walls with hundreds of paintings and portraits alike whizzed past her line of sight as she ran faster than her legs could take her, her chest heaving with the big huffs of oxygen she inhaled.

She finally made it to the ballroom, where all of the sound was coming from.

Nothing in the world could have prepared her for what she saw.

A complete and utter bloodbath took place in her very ballroom. A bloody massacre in a room built for joy and laughter. The room where she danced with her husband oh so many times, the room where she experienced some of her happiest moments.

And as her eyes scanned the room, she saw her own soldiers fighting each other. The kingdom's colors, royal blue and silver, were strewn across the shoulder of everyone in the room, and when her eyes finally landed on the last figure in the room, the man it seemed everyone was dueling, her delicate jaw fell to the ground and her eyes widened.

Her Royal Highness's soldiers were all huddled around one man, and it was her husband.

She gasped, and it was as if hell froze over. Everything stopped, swords froze midair and the screams and grunts subsided. Her eyes yearned to look for any possible threat to her, yearned to scan her surroundings to make sure nobody was racing to her with their own sharp-tipped sword.

But her eyes could not move from the scene laid out before her, could not move from the metal sword plunged in her husband's heart. The oxygen left her useless lungs as she saw the love of her life's own life end, and as she saw the ruthless beast whose sword was in her lover's heart pin her with his cruel gaze.

"You're next, dear Luna," he spat, licking his dirty lips as he and every other soldier in the room turned towards the queen.

The queen spun towards the hallway she had just entered from minutes before, and ran.

Ran like she had nothing to live for.

But, she did. And she knew exactly what she was going to do upon entering her quarters, and it was not cry for the life she's lost. Although she knew very well that her dear James deserved more than his thirty years of life offered him, she would not let her precious Siena's life be stripped away from her before she took her first step.

Even if it meant she wouldn't be there to witness it.

She heard the clank of the soldier's metal armor as they started in her wake, and the chambers around her heart tightened as she realized she may not get to fulfill her own dying wish, which was to save her beautiful girl.

"Do not pursue the woman," she could hear her Captain of the Royal Guard, Sir Edward Beethoven, purr as she zoomed past the twists and turns of the Royal Palace. She had yet to reach her and her late husband's personal wing, and fear came extremely close to consuming her whole before she let her thoughts roam to her daughter, and only her daughter.

Her dearest Siena Bellamy had yet to gain her middle name, a tradition in the Bellamy family stating that the husband gift his daughter a middle name of his choosing, but without James in her life any longer, Queen Luna would have to leave her without a middle name or gift her one herself.

She entered her sleeping quarters at last, shutting the door behind her as she took Siena into a secret room; through her closet, to the far left, and through a narrow corridor with a golden door placed at the very end. She knew that Edward would find her soon enough, and if she hid in the secret room with Siena, he would find them both and kill them both.

Her Royal Highness knew only one of them would survive this attack, and she'd be damned if that wasn't her daughter Siena Luna Bellamy.

After placing a kiss on her daughter's beautiful head, she carefully set Siena on the floor of an old dresser in the darkest corner of the room. She raised her right arm, her eyes settling on the glittering gold bracelet enclosed around her wrist, as she unclasped it and put it on her daughter's wrist, casting a rushed spell to make sure no matter how big or small her wrist is, the bracelet will always fit her.

Very few held the knowledge of the magic that lay active in Queen Luna's blood, rushing through her veins. She closed the door of the dresser slowly, her eyes fluttering shut as she cherished the last moments she had with her girl.

She bit back a sob as she raised her arms, drawing circles and squares and words with her fingers as she spoke words of magic, performing a spell she had learned from her grandmother in case she ever needed to flee. However, the spell can only carry one person, and often left the spell-caster unconscious, for the spell demanded a great amount of power.

As she muttered the last of the spell, a tear slipped down her cheek and the room was soon covered in purple smoke, swirling around the entirety of the secret room like a graceful tornado. The queen let her eyes close for the last time as the smoke subsided, and she fell to her knees without checking if her daughter was still in the dresser.

With the amount of love and sadness she had mixed into the spell, she knew there was no way it could have failed.

Before Queen Luna let the darkness take her grateful soul, the beast burst into room, sneering as he waved his metal sword.

"Queen Luna," he bellowed, clearly proud of himself for catching her. "Show yourself and your daughter and surrender or die at my hand."

And Queen Meraluna Kassandra Bellamy let her lips quirk into a sly smile as she replied with her last words.

"You're too late." bc