The last thing Taylor expected the morning she set out to leave the kingdom she had been brought up in was to be dressed in peasant clothing and dumped into a rickety carriage with a sneering driver whose eyes promised maliciousness.

The boring brown dress hung loosely around her body and made her look like a sick child. Her dark hair knotted around her tanned face, making Taylor look more unkempt than she had ever been since the day she was born.

Her luggage had been recklessly thrown into the back of the carriage and she left the castle as though she was a disgraced servant instead of simply a disguised princess. Perhaps her disguise was too good that it fooled even the servants of the castle?

Taylor shook her head. No, that was wishful thinking. The way the servants kept her in the carriage, roughly dumping her in yet ensuring it was done with a certain amount of gentleness and manners, that was not the way they treated a fellow servant.

She had once seen a chambermaid who had been accused of theft being escorted to a carriage to go to prison by the servants of the castle. The way the servants held her, bruising her arms until it turned purple, glaring at her with obvious animosity, it was as though they would have killed her on that spot if they could.

No, Taylor knew that the servants were aware she was their princess. They also seemed to be aware that the carriage driver did not know that. That must have been why they treated her like that. Making it seem as though she had done something wrong and was escaping before the sun rose and everyone else awoke.

Still, that did not explain why her entire family did not bother to bid her goodbye before she left. Of course, they could not have done so in front of the carriage driver, but a simple hug from all of them, especially her younger sisters, before she even stepped foot out of the castle would have been enough to reduce her apprehension on what she was about to do.

The rocking of the carriage as one of its wheels hit a rock on the road brought Taylor out of her thoughts.

A gleam of green caught her eye and she moved her head towards the window at the side of the carriage. Poking her head slightly outwards, her eyes widened at the scenery beyond her.

Greenery surrounded the entire area, stretching out as far as she could see. The happy laughter of children rushed past her ears as the carriage traveled onward. Every once in a while, a stretch of red and brown flitted in front of her, the row of houses too far away for her to clearly see. It was simple, but beautiful. Exactly how Taylor wanted everything else to be.

Unfortunately, things did not always go the way anyone wanted it to go. Every life had its own series of twists and Taylor knew that she about to see the twist in her life.

Regardless of whatever she found out about the new Mazian king, she knew that things were no longer going to go her way.

After all, she was no longer Princess Taylor Gwendolyn of Kelone, eldest daughter of throne, but simply Gwen Chaser, daughter of a former noblemen, yet now an inexperienced chambermaid setting off to live a life she has no clue about to earn enough to save her family from the brink of starvation.

“We are here,” the driver announced, his eyes lingering on Taylor.

Taylor looked out of the window. Indeed, they had reached. She could finally see the looming wall that hung between the two kingdoms, connected by a small entrance that could fit only two carriages at a time. She had seen this wall every day from her room, but seeing it in front of her stunned her for a moment.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” the driver said arrogantly, smirking at her surprised face.

Suppressing a shudder, Taylor mustered a fake smile and dropped a few coins in his open hand.

“Thank you for your service. Now, remove my luggage from the back,” Taylor demanded.

The driver grumbled. “A please would be nice to hear. With such a haughty attitude, no wonder she was thrown out of the castle in the dead of the night.”

Taylor huffed at his words when she caught it. Dead of the night? Thrown out? No such thing happened to her. If anyone else heard him say that, it would surely spread rumors that she was a difficult servant to handle. That would definitely put off any potential lords that required a chambermaid for the next few months.

She wanted to shut his mouth immediately and stop any rumors from even escaping from it, but she knew it would not do her any good to bribe a carriage driver when she was pretending to lack sufficient funds to buy her next meal.

Exiting the carriage without any assistance from that insolent driver, she grabbed her only suitcase and dragged it away from the carriage and the man, joining a group of young girls that huddled together near the wall of the border, looking similar with the dirt spread all over their bodies.

The dresses they wore matched Taylor's completely and she felt slightly at ease knowing that she was not going into the Mazian alone.

Taylor grimaced as she went through what she had been told early in the morning when she scarfed down her breakfast.

She had to pretend to be a chambermaid, probably to some noble family close to the king. While doing this, she had to gain the favor of the family she was working for so that she could get closer to the king and unravel his secrets without getting caught.

Frankly, when Taylor heard what she had to do, she was more than shocked. She was astonished that her parents thought she would be able to pull such a thing off.

She was not an actor and doing something so out of her league would simply end up in a disaster. Yet, for the sake of her parents, she did not argue too much.

Glancing at the sky, Taylor realized that there was still two more hours before sunset. She had enough time to take a short nap before the man she was supposed to meet arrived.

She looked at her luggage and frowned. There was nothing of value in it and anything anyone could steal from it would not terribly affect.

Perhaps it would be devastating for Gwen Chaser, but for Princess Taylor, anything lost from that bag could be easily replaced.

Comforted by that thought in her mind, she let her eyes close in exhaustion, oblivious to the fact that she was no longer a princess. At least, not to anyone she was around.