Rache awoke in the bathtub with a gasp, sitting upright and splashing water around her.
She blinked, staring around her in confusion.
…How long had she been asleep?
It must have been at least an hour.
She looked down at her body.
Her skin had pruned and she felt dizzy and sluggish.
She felt a little better for having taken the bath, though.
She rubbed the back of her neck and stretched her arms above her head.
It wasn’t the kind of warmth that made her happy.
It was just…
The kind that made her feel like her body was functional.
She needed to get up.
Get dressed.
Start trying to learn her way around the building they’d been forced into for a week.
…Well.
Maybe it would only take her a day or two to map out the place.
That left her plenty of time for reading, if she was lucky.
There was no shortage of things to read in this palace.
If she couldn’t find some maps somewhere…
Then at least she could read books to pass her time, until the week was up.
And she could return to the Sideran castle and begin her search there, in more earnest, now that the wedding was done and she apparently had no more use to the prince.
She ought to be left alone, given that.
Which should make it easier than anticipated to escape.
It was even possible he might hesitate to hunt her down when she escaped…though that was unlikely.
It was far more realistic to think that he’d not notice she was gone for a proportionately long time.
A few days.
Perhaps a week.
He’d be angry, and would undoubtedly try to track her down eventually, but it would hopefully give her the chance to put some distance between her and Sidera.
She rose out of the bath and dried herself with the towel Ela had given her, before slipping back into the clothing she’d worn earlier.
She glanced around, but didn’t see a brush or anything else she could use to style her hair.
She shrugged.
She wasn’t going anywhere important today.
She didn’t need to worry about it.
It wasn’t like it mattered if her hair was messy.
She was locked in the wedding house with the prince.
It was to be expected she’d look disheveled – even among those who saw her at all.
She stepped out into the hall and glanced around.
The place was silent.
There were no signs of anyone nearby, no sound of voices, nothing.
She frowned.
She really wasn’t certain what she expected exploring this palace ‘prison’.
But…
It was not this.
She wandered from hall to hall, room to room.
There were servants, certainly, but not nearly as many as in the palace where they’d been before.
In addition, this place was huge.
Halls twisted and turned, rooms were connected to each other and had several doors that led to different parts of the building.
Some halls had no windows, but others were so bright and open that it felt more like she was outside than in a building.
Some rooms were well lit and beautiful, with rich carpets and furniture and paintings adorning their walls, while others seemed dark and dreary and unappealing, with only bare stone floors. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
It seemed like every generation of Sidera had treated the wedding palace different, added something of their own to it.
That was the only way that she could explain the hodge-podge style of decorations.
A part of her even wondered whether they actually built on extra wings.
Eventually she stood at the small door – the only one to the outside she’d find besides the main one they’d entered through which was barred and guarded – glass and delicate, leading out to the small garden beneath her room.
She glanced around herself.
No one.
It seemed to be a part of the palace complex, but at the same time, it was also a tease of freedom.
She had half a mind to climb out of the balcony and run off during the week where Donncahd was apparently certain to be ignoring her.
No alarm went off when she pushed the surprisingly heavy glass door open, but a fresh burst of chilly, clean air hit her face.
Rache inhaled sharply.
This air…
It was completely different from the air of Aurania, the air of the Sideran palace…
The smell of Sideran air was something she hadn’t really been able to pin down.
Something about it seemed heavy and oppressive.
Almost metallic.
And.
…This air was crisp and clean, with a hint of flowers.
She stepped outside, looking around curiously.
There was a small path that led away from the building and disappeared into a thick wall of trees.
It looked…
Beautiful.
It looked inviting.
It was almost enough to make her feel like everything would be alright, like she didn’t need to run away immediately, because she had time, she had all the time she needed.
She let out a breath and moved forward along the path, feeling a strange sense of excitement.
It was completely different from everything she’d seen in Sidera up until that point.
It wasn’t like Aurania – Aurania was arid and dry, even if it was always warm and welcoming.
This was still wet and cool and damp.
The rain still drizzled from the sky, and at any time it could unleash another downpour.
But…
She half expected to see a doe jump out in front of her, except that she knew this little platform wasn’t nearly as large as it felt like on the ground.
Still, there was a sense…
Of escape.
Almost in the same way a child might climb through a corn maze and wait for another world on the other side.
That’s how she felt walking through the garden.
She couldn’t help but feel as if she’d stepped through a portal into a completely new world.
One where everything would be fine.
She wasn’t going to be murdered.
She was safe.
She walked on, following the winding paths.
They didn’t make sense.
She had to stop several times to reorient herself.
It was as if whoever had built the garden didn’t want it to be navigable, wanted you to feel as if you were lost in an alien landscape, a dream-like place.
Eventually she came to a clearing, and she found herself standing in front of a small, handmade pond.
She stared out across the water, watching the ripples as they lapped at the shore.
A small, delicate bench sat at the edge.
She didn’t miss the significance that this clearing was completely blocked off by shrubbery.
Whoever made this wanted a sanctuary that escaped from Sidera completely.
…It wasn’t hard to guess that…
It was probably a previous queen.
A princess like her who’d married into this land and yearned for home.
A home that this garden likely was built to represent.
…She wasn’t the first.
Nor the last.
Her fingers pressed against the cold metal of the bench, and she sat on it, looking out across the pond, at the flowers growing in the center, blooming despite the chill.
…What happened to the one who made this garden?
They’d created this escape, and even placed it in full view of the wedding bed.
Did she escape?
Did she survive?
Rache closed her eyes and leaned her head back, inhaling the fresh air deeply.
This place was…
So peaceful, so relaxing.
It made her forget that there were guards at the door, that her only companion for the week was a man who was planning to kill her.
She felt…
At peace, here.
Even more than she had in Aurania – at least since she’d realized where she was.
Because…
There were no memories here, just nature.
She could imagine the sun, she could imagine the flowers, she could imagine a world that wasn’t filled with death and fear and hatred.
A world that was beautiful and bright and full of life.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there, staring out over the pond, when she heard footsteps approaching behind her.
Her body stiffened immediately.
Donncahd had found her, hadn’t he?
She didn’t turn her head, but she felt his presence behind her.
She could smell his cologne, feel his heat.
He stopped at the edge of the clearing.
His voice was low and soft, but it carried in the silence.
“…This isn’t open to visitors.”
She set her jaw, and stared down at her hands.
“…If you close the door, I’ll break through.”
She wasn’t meant to be defiant.
She was meant to submit and obey, be a proper demure princess.
But.
This place…
Now that she found it.
She couldn’t just let it go.
The response to her defiance was…
Silence.
For a short while there was just silence.
Then a sound that might have been a derisive laugh, before, “…There will be dinner served in the hall in a half hour. They won’t serve it late.”
And then he simply…
Walked away.