I sat atop the roof of my bedroom high in the air, overlooking the capital under the light of the midday sun. It was a small flat spot with direct access to the column that I used to climb up and down. The constant preparations for Faria’s birthday and coronation have been suffocating. I had managed to escape the stuffiness and chatter of the whole of it and came here. This spot was where I would hide whenever I needed to get away from it all. Few people knew that I came here, and I liked it that way. 

“Look who I found.”

Climbing up the banister was the woman of the hour. My sister Faria, the soon-to-be crown princess.

“What do you want?” I asked, surprising myself with how cold the words sounded.

She carefully strode over on her bare feet and sat down next to me.

“Probably the same thing you want. To be left alone.” She sighed and leaned back against the smooth stone. “Every hour of every day. They drag me around like a doll, ask me something, then answer it without letting me say a word.”

“I guess they don’t really need you down there, do they.”

“No. They. Do. Not.”

We sat there for a moment as a calm breeze brushed past. The clean air felt nice as I breathed it in. I turned to Faria and noticed that she was looking at me with her warm brown eyes. The wind blew her curly, brown hair gently, like a kite hovering in the air. You couldn’t tell from how she was sitting, but she was tall. Much taller than your average woman. She was going to be eighteen in two days, and she would no doubt have a long list of boys clawing their way in to get a chance to even look at her. She was beautiful. I never met her mother, but Faria supposedly inherited all of her looks from the late queen. My three older brothers, however, inherited their features from their mother, the king’s second wife, Olivia. They all had black hair and striking green eyes.

Then there was me. My birth was quite a scandal. Out of all my siblings, I was the only one to inherit my features from our father. We both had thick, reddish-blond hair and enchanting, blue eyes that would look more at home on a sapphire. The reason for the scandal was that the current queen was not my mother. I didn’t know who my father was until I turned six years old. My mother became terribly sick and came forward. The current queen wanted to have her put to death immediately, but my father turned her down and brought us both in. It was also around this time that father decided that Faria would be the crown inheritor. Needless to say that Queen Olivia put up quite the protest, but it was all in vain.

“Hellooooo. Are you gonna say anything, or just keep staring.” Faria called out to me, waving her hands in front of my face.

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Our messed up family.”

“I guess we are pretty messed up, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Faria chimed, a smile spreading across her face. “Okay, I might trade Lysander, Marcus and Pierce and definitely their mother. Oh, she has not wasted her chance to make me miserable.”

“Maybe I could hang around with you for a while. She usually leaves if I’m in the room.”

“Now that’s a plan. I’ll have you help me out. It’ll be the perfect birthday gift.”

Faria stretched her arms and sat up and moved towards the column to climb back down. The column lead directly down to my balcony with room to move, so it was pretty safe.

I followed after her, climbing down to see her standing in the doorway of the balcony, holding a small wooden box.

“Happy eleventh birthday.”

A smile spread across my face as she stepped closer. Because our birthdays were so close, nearly everyone forgot mine. Faria was one of the few that remembered.

I took the box and opened it to find a small pendant inside. The pendant was a tiny silver cat the size of my fingernail that hung on a simple, gold chain. I quickly fit my heap through the loop and let the pendant drop against my chest.

“Thank you, and- wait. How did you get in here? I made sure to lock my door when I came in.”

“Remember what you gave me for my birthday last year?”

I thought for a second and sighed, “I taught you how to pick a lock.”

“This princess isn’t getting locked in any towers, you hear.” She joked, playfully jabbing my shoulder. “Now let’s go.”

As we left my room, I spotted Lysander, our oldest brother, standing against the wall nearby, playing with a big coin in his hands. He always had that weird thing with him and played with it whenever he was bored. It always creeped me out.