The Prince's Choice ✔

Chapter Eleven • Lessons

-Jade-

"Get up, child!"

Jade sat straight up in her bed, startled and abruptly awaken.

The woman had entered her room and was pulling the curtains. It was barely sunrise. Why did she have to get up now? She had no chores here...

"Why?" Jade groaned and fell back into the wonderfully soft bed. She had slept quite well, if one didn't count the part about her crying herself to sleep.

"Because you have lessons." The woman, or governess, chirped and was suddenly standing at the right side of Jade's bed. "Come now!" She got hold of Jade's cover and ripped it off with no warning. The cold air suddenly embracing Jade made her shudder.

"Lessons?" Jade yawned and sat up. "What kind of lessons?" She stretched her arms slowly upwards and closed her eyes in a second yawn.

Her governess walked over to the door, she opened it and let in the same girls from yesterday. One of them were carrying a new dress for Jade.

She rolled her eyes when she saw the corset. Please, don't make me wear it today...

"I don't know." Jade's governess said and delegated out the girls' tasks.

One dragged Jade out of the bed and led her to a bathtub in the far end of the room. It was empty. Jade gave the girl a confused look as she helped Jade into it and then removed her night gown. A second girl made a quick and sloppy bun of Jade's hair on the top of her head.

Then it came. Two buckets of cold water was thrown at her naked body.

"What are you doing?" She screamed in a high pitched voice and her now wet and cold body started to shiver. She put her hands across her chest and grabbed her shoulders in an attempt to stay warm. "Who drenches someone in cold water? First thing in the morning?!" She exclaimed. She gave two other girls each an angry stare each. They blushed with the empty buckets in their hands.

An hour later Jade was dressed. She was also pouting because they had forced her to wear that wretched corset again. The woman didn't care. She was admiring her work as she put Jade's hair in a knot of loose braids in the back of Jade's neck.

Jade pulled out two strands of hair so  they framed her face. She couldn't take the neatly and perfectly constructed hairdo the woman had made. It was too strict.

Jade was led by the woman through the castle. Meanwhile they walked, she studied her dress; it was dark green and equally as pretty as the one she had worn yesterday, but this one didn't have any lace. It was quite plain but still beautiful.

"Where are we going?" Jade asked as they entered a part of the castle she hadn't been to yet.

It felt like they were going to the right wing, but she really couldn't tell from all the turns and corners they made.

"The library." Her governess answered when they stopped outside a door. "If you need me, send a guard to come and get me." She said and opened the door for Jade without giving her the chance to answer.

Jade was forced into the room with a soft but stern hand in her lower back. The door was closed silently behind her.

The library was a room filled with bookshelves, of course, but Jade couldn't really grasp how many there were. Everywhere she looked there were books, either neatly placed next to each other on shelves, or placed in stacks on nearby tables, as if someone had been looking for one particular book and just left the others to be taken care of by someone else.

Jade put her right hand on a shelf and traced the books with her fingers while she studied their backs.

There were volumes of different kinds. History books and what looked like stories. Jade had never seen so many books in one place before.