A cold breeze of wind passed through, making the grass tickle my feet, yet this sensation did not move me, not even an inch. As if I was a statue, I stood still. My ears tickled when I heard how, one by one, commoners started to come up front with them.

Disbelief. At that moment, I closed my eyes shut, as if doing so would change a thing or two. 

‘Didn’t I tell you? Look at her! That’s how they lie to us, common people, just to scam us out of our lands!’ his voice kept ringing inside my ears, and I didn’t have a chance to clear my mind before another person started speaking. 

After him, the voice of a woman broke the silence. Her voice felt familiar, but I could not think to whom it belonged. 

‘They stole all my crops, and now it was all for nothing? I can’t believe it! Your Majesty, what do you have to say about this? We have children to feed!’ 

The crowd, in unison, spoke of their disgrace towards this event. Short-lived, those complaints ended in a minute, the moment my father shushed them down, yet, for me, it felt like an eternity. No matter how much I closed my eyes shut or clenched tightly onto my dress, it was like the earth did not want to swallow me at all. To dare open my eyes under those circumstances was something I couldn’t do. To meet K’s eyes, Isabella’s or even my father. It was beyond my powers. 

I disappointed everyone. 

Closer and closer, loud steps came into my direction. By this sound, I knew the sound of those steps belonged to my father, loud and clear, without hesitation, those steps mirrored his actions. I jolted when his right hand grabbed onto my right shoulder. His hand grasped tightly onto my shoulder, and I had to clench my teeth. 

I felt his mustache tickling my ear, but it wasn’t the tickles who send shivers down my spine, in fact, those words were the ones who made me shiver: 

‘Show us your powers, or I’ll have to kill everyone who saw your failure.’ 

At that moment, my entire world fell apart — I trusted him, I loved him and I tried to follow in his footsteps, but how did he react to me failing? 

Quickly, I opened my eyes to look at him, as I opened my mouth, I couldn’t mutter anything. My face paled when his eyes stared at mine. At that moment, I knew he wasn’t lying.

Daring to speak badly about the Imperial Family was a great sin, and my father was someone who would kill just to tame people with their fears. I knew him very well, but those commoners weren’t aware of it, and they spoke without thinking. 

Something had to be done. 

I took a deep breath, and, when I blinked, he let go of my shoulder. I don’t know if it was because of how tightly he held me, or because he pushed me at the moment he let go of me, but, what I know was that I stumbled over my dress and I fell forward. 

Panicked, I closed my eyes, waiting for the impact with the ground. Yet, that did not happen. 

Two cold hands grasped tightly onto my body, preventing me from falling. For a moment, I still kept my eyes closed. This person helped me get back onto my feet, and only then did I dare to open my eyes. 

The moment I opened my eyes to look at who caught me, I was expecting to see that it was K, or maybe Isabelle, but this person wasn’t someone I knew. In fact, he wasn’t a citizen of our Empire. I was sure of it. 

One thing I wasn’t sure of was the color of his eyes. Even in the darkness, it was strange. When I looked into his right eye, that oddly specific color of red, which reminded me of fields of poppy, while his left one brought me right in the middle of the ocean, where the lands were washed off in the distance and all I could see was the reflection of the clear blue sky.

An odd combination of colors — which I was never fortunate in seeing — with the pale skin of his and cold hands made me wonder: who was this guy, why was he here? 

He didn’t belong here. 

I grabbed his hands and looked back, expecting to see the crowd staring at us, but, strangely enough, no one was here. As if my wish came true, as if the world swallowed me, I disappeared. 

That night, the two of us were the only humans in the forest. Other than us, only the howling of a dog was heard in the distance. 

Strangely enough, I’ve only heard my breath. 

As I turned to look at him, he gave me a strange expression, whom I could not name.

With a brow raised, he asked: ‘How are you alive?’