This story starts off a long time ago in the kingdom of Guilder, where there lived a king and a queen, and their daughter, princess Angelina. She was forbidden from leaving the castle, so she occupied her time with reading. She read stories full of friendship, adventure, excitement, and love. Her parents acted with no signs of love, since an arranged marriage brought them together. Literature was the only way she was able to learn about these beauties offered by life.
One day, a couple of weeks after her sixteenth birthday, she decided to sneak out. She dressed in rags that she took from a servant in the castle, and went to the village. She breathed in the fresh air, not the air of confinement, but the air of freedom. She met the people of her soon-to-be kingdom, obviously not telling them who she really was. As she made her way to the kingdom’s bakery, she noticed a boy standing outside. He looked her age, maybe a bit older, and he was helping the elderly woman working there. He had an angelic aura surrounding him. He smiled at her, and she felt herself smile back. He started to walk towards her, with a confident stride. The sun reflected off of his golden hair, and when she saw his eyes, she felt herself staring into his soul.
“Hello,” he said.
“You lost?” he asked with a smirk.
“Never,” she replied. “But I was wondering if you could walk me to the library.”
“I thought you said you never got lost?”
“I don’t. What’s wrong with a little company?”
“Nothing at all,” he said with the same smirk as before.
He started down the road and motioned for her to follow. This wasn’t the first time he spent his afternoon with a pretty girl, but something was different about this occasion. Usually girls asked him to escort them somewhere, but never the library. He could tell from her desire to go there that she was not just a pretty face, and she was well, different. Girls in the kingdom didn’t occupy their time with reading; that was strictly a male-dominated activity.
The library was large, and it was on the outskirts of the kingdom. The librarian in the front smiled at them as they made their way past her desk. They started walking down the hall, past shelves of books; books on every subject, every genre, from romance to horror, from arithmetic to grammar, from the history of Guilder to the history of the world. They made their way over to a small wooden table in the corner, with two chairs. It was right by a big stain-glass window, and the early afternoon light hit the table causing different shades of wood to sparkle in the sunlight.
“Why did you want to go to the library?” the boy asked Angelina.
“It reminds me of home,” she answered.
“How?”
“I’m not much of a social butterfly. I spend most of my time reading.”
“Why is that?”
“My parents are very involved in who I spend my free time with,” she answered sheepishly, looking down at her shoes.
Ugh, she thought. He probably thinks I’m a recluse or some sort of social outcast.
“Don’t be embarrassed. They probably are doing that because they love you and want to protect you,” he answered truthfully. “I’m sorry, I realized that I never asked your name.”
“Ivory,” she replied quickly. It was the color of the dress she wore for her communion. She loved that dress. It was probably the last time she felt connected to something, anything that was bigger than her, the castle, and her responsibilities that she needed to fulfill as princess.
“Beautiful name,” he said with a genuine smile, not a smirk. “I’m Eric. By the way, it is unfair that you don’t get to spend that much time around other people, but your parents must have their reasons. They are your parents and they must love you very much.”
Angelina could tell that there was something more behind just the words he was saying. There was something he was hiding from her. However, she could be a little paranoid. After all, she was hiding the fact that she was the kingdom princess.
She mustered up her courage and asked, “What about your parents?”
He then told her about how his parents were both killed by fever, and since the elderly woman in the bakery was a friend of his parents, she took him in. He had no other family.
“I’m so sorry,” Angelina said quietly.
“Don’t be,” he whispered. He gently took ahold of her hand. His touch felt warm and comforting, and she felt the hairs on her body stand up as her heart started to race. They met each other’s gaze. His eyes, green in the sunlight, now shone a clear blue.
“You have beautiful eyes. I thought they were gray, but they have some blue and green in them. They suit you perfectly.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
At this point, Angelina thought she should tell him who she really was, but she decided against it. The two spent the entire afternoon together, just talking, reading, being with each other. It was truly the happiest day of Angelina’s life. She felt herself become even more at ease with him, and she felt herself start falling in love with him. She loved his honesty and his pure, true heart. She was about to tell him her truth and let him in, but before she could, the doors of the library burst open.
“Princess Angelina! We’ve found you! Has this boy harmed you in any way? He must be taken to the dungeons at once!”
“No! Please, stop! None of it was his fault! Let him go!” she yelled. None of the guards were paying attention to her. They lunged for him. As they were tying him up, he turned to look back at the princess, and a wave of betrayal spread across his face. Another guard came to escort her back to the castle.
When she arrived, she immediately ran up to her father and pleaded, “Please, your majesty, it wasn’t his fault. I wanted to see the kingdom, so I snuck out. He didn’t kidnap me. He didn’t even know I was the princess.”
“How dare he not recognize the future face of this kingdom? That is crime enough! Not only will he be punished for not showing proper respect, but this is a punishment for you, to remind yourself that you cannot disobey the rules.”
“Why should he be punished for my mistakes?”
“Why do you care so much about a commoner?”
“He is the most kindhearted, truthful, and wonderful person I have ever met. I love him.”
“You are sixteen. You do not know what love is.”
“And you do? I see the way you look at my mother, her majesty. You don’t look at her the way I look at him, the way he looks at me. When she passes by you, you don’t feel like you can’t breathe. You don’t feel like shouting from the mountaintops and leaping with joy. You have a loveless marriage. I won’t let you put me in the same predicament.”
Before he could say anything, Angelina ran out. When she got to the dungeons, she saw that one of the cell doors was open. When she looked inside, it was empty. She then raced to the courtyard and saw him standing on a wooden stool, with a rope being tied around his neck. As soon as he saw her, his eyes lit up, and he mouthed the words ‘I love you’. The guards were about to move the stool when the princess started to shout. “Stop!” she cried. But they couldn’t hear her. She was too late. She saw the color drain from his face, his once-golden hair started to dull, and a guard went to close his eyes.
She felt herself start to collapse. The one time she felt complete bliss in her life, and it was taken away from her. The one thing that brought a smile to her face, that made her feel like her life had a purpose and she wasn’t one of her father’s pawns. The one thing she was allowed to choose for herself, and it was taken away. She made a decision. Before he could say anything, she snatched the guard’s sword, and thrust it through her chest. As she fell to the ground and blood started to ooze from her body, she realized she was no longer a pawn. She was a person.