For twenty days—which soon turned into twenty years—I entertained Kings, Queens, and their children sometimes, if they were feeling generous.

My friends had all been wed to warriors from neighboring villages. Before they would leave, I would ask them without fail, “Are you happy?”

They would always smile, and pinch my cheek. “Lyra, it is either this, or nothing.”

I thought, in each of these instances, that I would have preferred nothing over a stranger. A brave knight. A savage.

“Murderer!” a boy screamed, as he pretended to stab another of his comrades before me. They had grabbed tomatoes from the gardens, then smeared the fruit all over their clothes, to mimic blood. I, had stolen a daisy.

“They are quite lively, are they not?” It was the Princess. She observed the shade of dried-wheat that reflected off my hair. She pushed pieces of it far from my face with nimble fingers, a careful touch. They often mistook us for siblings, or newly-wed. I didn’t want to be neither. I wanted to be—

“A good warrior.”

I perked up. My shoulders tensed. I had forgotten to listen. My pulse beat faster, like a cursed bracelet around my wrist. “Forgive me. Sleep was a rather difficult beast to tame last night,” I said. And she believed me, because the edges of her lips curled downward.

And I almost believed myself, too, because I did not want to lie to the face of the only honest person in town. “What was it you were saying?”

The Princess laughed. My heart settled; for now. “I was thinking he’d make a good warrior.” There was a dimple in her right cheek. It did not match her left. I wanted to reach for it, and balance the dent out by sinking my nail into her skin. “You don’t agree?”

Did I agree?

“Yes.”

“Of course.” I always agreed. I always nodded. She was never wrong. Not when her father had sent out raids to slay the last of my village. Not when her mother put down the kitten I had snuck in three years back. Not when the first image I had gotten of her, was of her hands coated in slick red fluid, when she had sacrificed cattle in the name of glory—for unknown soldiers on the battlefield, the innocent had bled.

The Princess rose from the marble steps. She offered me her hand. I took it. Her glove, made up of pearl white silk, was warm. As I thanked her, I found Starlight in her cerulean eyes. This was new. This was wrong.

I could not let it happen.

From this curse, she had to be freed.