If it fails to capture the interest of a fickle reader such as I, it is bound to be tossed back in the dusty dark corners of the tall shelves. Ah, who am I fooling? I shall read anything as long as it has words. There is an easy segregation of books in my library. Military tactics, foreign languages, economics, market strategies and general history chronologically arranged in the starting shelves, where they are most easily accessible to anyone who wanders in. Although I have never seen anyone wander in here with their own conviction in all seventeen years of my life. 

“You should be in your bedchambers already.” Adam sighs, his granite face hardening into an even greater severity of monotony. I almost find him amusing enough to toy with, but the man is trained to focus his gaze on anything but my face. 

“Oh, you're still here,” I mutter, turning to the shelves again. “You should be on the training grounds already. Sparring, wielding swords, duelling, wearing breeches and leather shoes.”

“It’s eleven at night, my lady. I have his highness’ strict orders to escort you to your bedchambers.”

My fingers pause. I spin around on the wooden stool and lean on the bookcases, cold leather pressing against the flushed skin of my back. “And whatever use is that, Sir?” I flash him a pretty smile; one that I use when a court minister asks about my impending marriage. 

My brother’s kingsguard knight looks away in an instant. A tousle of black hair frames his face, tanned and calloused, hardened with sharp lines and rough hide. He is a little younger than my brother, and a tad bit shorter. Had he not been a Knight and traded his fair face for military stability as an adolescent, Adam could have easily been the most handsome man in our duchy. Although being the best of all knights has only demoted him to the rank of a baby-sitter.

He never fails to rub that fact in my face every little chance he gets. But that doesn’t mean I will let him off the hook easily. 

“But I have no intention of sleeping just yet.” I clap my hands gleefully. “Perhaps you should be my reading partner. Engaging in a mundane history book works as an excellent sedative.”

Adam sucks in a sharp breath. “Go sleep, my lady.”

“Or what?” I fist my hands into the shabby fabric of my skirt and twirl it, steps lighthearted and teasing as I walk to the front sections. “Look, it’s something I always wanted to read!” 

Adam’s face further falls into a display of abysmal gloom. “History of the Snowcrest Castle? Are you being serious?” He blinks at me several times, and I watch those full lips pucker into an impressive scowl. 

The candle lamps flicker even though all windows are closed at this hour of midnight. Nothing irks the knights more than talking of their enemy in front of them. All of them brainwashed to lay down their lives at the mere sound of the war cry. They were never recorded in hefty books, lives lost in vain to feed the ego of their fat bellied commanders who stay back in lavish tents and drink mead while the world around them burns. 

“Why not?” I trace my finger along the jagged spine of that book. “Who knows? They might be similar to us. Our little land, kingdom, marsh… or whatever you might call it, comes under the boundaries of their empire. Don’t you think it is fitting for me to learn about them?” 

Of course, I am not interested in that. My fields of interest lie in meaningless rot literature; noble ladies meeting noble men and escaping in the gardens, falling in a wild, wild love and living happily ever after. Too bad those sorts of books are not available in our magnificent library. But those fantasies are not that different from the high philosophies of the well educated. Both, in the end, exist only in someone’s fantasy. 

“Sangyal,” I mutter, turning the book around. 

“Yes?” Adam snaps up. 

“The house.” I blink. “House Sangyal owns the Winterholds, does it not?” 

I see Adam smirk before covering it up. “They are supposed to be savages, don’t you know?” His face remains impressively impassive. “Wildlings born out of the snow. Heartless creatures that are only versed in the art of war. All they want is to lay waste to our fertile lands.” 

“Since when is war an art,” I say to the books. “And aren’t you a little too biassed about those alleged savages?”

“You should sleep.” 

I grit my teeth. I don’t show him I am enraged, however, for that would mean he wins. I simply flash him a smile, grab the book in question and walk up to him. Adam looks straight ahead while I raise myself on my tiptoes to push my face near his neck. Curse his height. 

“Accompany me to my bedchambers, then.” 

In an instant, his narrowed eyes are on mine. As if he challenges me to act on whatever I just said. 

Oh, I could kiss the thumping vessels on his neck and walk away with not a single care in the world. In an ideal world, of course. But I push myself away and scrunch my face to mirror his expression. “Anyhow, Sir Bancroft, conversing with you is enough of a sedative. I must take my leave now. Ah, one last thing. You need not accompany me to the Cathedral tomorrow.”

Adam frowns. “Accompany you?”

“You will accompany my brother, will you not?”

“Yes, but why do you need to be there?”

“You do not suppose that I have to report every little detail of my life to you? There is a limit to how much my brother can know. Do not be alarmed.” I watch him narrow his eyes and tilt his head in the most delicious manner. “I shall take Sir Raphael with me. Although I do not think I would be in any danger.” 

“My princess, what if someone tries to harm you?” Adam’s brows dip in concern. The prospect of the princess roaming out unattended raises a few suspicions but I reckon if anyone out there really knows me as Tara Somerhaden. Daughter of the great king Erwin Somerhaden, conqueror of the southern isles and the richest man in the realm. What is the use of being so rich when his daughter starves for some good quality romance novels? 

"Oh it is?" I swish my faded mud coloured, cotton dress, "I dress worse than a commoner. If I go out wearing this, a baker might hand me her leftover bread, thinking of me a beggar." 

Adam bows his head down, but I see a hint of his chapped lips curling upwards. “Please retire to bed now, my Lady. Even the candles are dying away.” 

I grab the book and turn around, enthusiasm in keeping the conversation alive fading. Giving the man a curt bow, I push past him and slip into the stairway outside the doors, steps hushed and gait slow. I hear Adam trailing behind me at a considerable distance. When I reach the corridor that leads to my bedchamber, the walls behind me fall silent. 

It is so glaringly obvious that he likes me. I peek behind and see his tall silhouette amidst the flickering candles, waiting and watching me. It fills me with a strange kind of warmth, clandestine and wholly mine. I turn away, satisfied to have his eyes on me for the night. 

My bedchambers have the best view in the entire castle. A compensation for locking me up in these high towers, I suppose. It gazes at a fading landscape seemingly straight out of a romantic’s poetry, lush green mountains in the distance, a little beyond the dark cloak of stars. The Azov mountains. The books say only one side of those mountains are green; the one facing us. The side hidden from us is barren snow. A kingdom of ruthless barbarians, savages, existing on the flesh of one another. Those frosty peaks are always waiting in the dark, plotting for a chance to spill over and devour the greenery we hold so dearly. Of course, all this is written in a book, or are sayings passed from one mouth to another— creations of man, in essence. 

And man lies. He spins a tale so believable, it compels a reader to understand and realise that all of this is truly happening. All of it is true. 

I look at the tattered book in my hands. There is no use for me to learn its history. My worth isn’t quite different from the ornate, one of a kind jade vase lying in Father’s study. 

Tearing my eyes from those ominous mountains, I sink down on the soft bedding and curl up, my hands firmly pressed against my chest to preserve a little of my body heat. My bedchambers do have the best view, but I feel as if the room lies straight before those frigid stones. I can’t help but think someone watches me, eyes camouflaged in snow. And my mind is quick to draft a fantasy wherein I am stuck in snow, helpless and abandoned, and Adam is pulling me up in his arms and whispering sweet nothings to comfort me. 

I fall into an easy sleep, dreaming of a young wolf fighting a pack of hyenas, their mouths torn open and their guts wrenched out on the ground.   

* * * * *

Morning comes in a heartbeat. I wake up before any of my handmaidens or the Baroness comes in and I sneak into the kitchens below. A little girl gawks at me in surprise, and I pull the hood off my head. “Hello,” I say to her, hoping for a mundane conversation. 

But the pompous little child puffs up her cheeks and stomps back to her mother. Her mother goes back to her business of chopping carrots. The harvest was plentiful this year, and going by my brother’s miserly standards, it would last us three winters. But the kitchen seems to be preparing a feast. Fifteen boars hung up by the wall on the opposite side and two scullery maids bickering over a cauldron as large as them. 

“What are we preparing for, miss?” I tap the shoulder of a young girl. 

She jumps back in fright and I laugh a little, but then her fright goes even more extreme. “She’s new here, my lady,” says David, the pot bellied, jolly old cook from behind. “That’s Tara Somerhaden and get used to seeing her down below from now on.” 

The girl drops the plate of diced carrots she is holding and slaps both her hands to her mouth. “Pardon me, my Lady! I have gravely offended you —” 

“Introductions can be done later. Are you preparing for a feast?” I shrug. 

“Yes.” David nods his head and goes back to his business. “We have guests.” 

“Who?” I ask. 

“We have guests,” he says without looking up at me. 

“Yes, but who?”

“We have guests —” 

David's voice distorts into several voices at once and then turns into a high pitched screeching. I grab my ears and crouch down, watching the world around me spins. All smells, cinnamon and cardamom, parsley and basil, all sounds of clattering utensils and banging spoons, shouts of human voices intensified. 

Then it stills. 

The ground beneath me has changes from stone to marble. 

“Get on, why are you not hurrying?” Cries a deep voice and several hushed grunts follow. “Chop chop, lads, we haven’t got all day!” “Hey, the stew’s boiling! Watch it!” “Gods, I do not have a thousand hands, can you tone down the yelling, please!” “For God’s sake, I need more hands here!” 

“I can help.” I find myself saying. And then I find myself walking to a man incessantly poking a stirring paddle into a black cauldron. Orange liquid bubbles from the surface, and I look down at my hands. A crate of oranges that match the shade and a dress that matches the shade of marble floors. Marble floors. Only the Cathedral has floors made of marble. Even the kitchens. Especially the kitchens. 

“You?” The fat cook eyes me up and down, while I stand there, too stunned to comprehend a thing. A moment ago I was in the castle kitchens, six in the morning. And now it is… a glance at the huge clock overhead tells me it is ten. “Your arms are too skinny. You go dice the apples for the pie. Hey you!” He yells at a hooded figure behind me. 

“Me?” a soft voice shrieks. 

“Yes, you! Come stir the curry.” 

I gently step back and give the hooded figure a small smile, and a pair of the greenest eyes stare back at me in a nondescript expression. “Young girl,” calls an old woman, “here, line these up in the shape of roses, will you, dearie?” 

“Sure, madam,” I say with the most happy smile. I do not want to smile. But then it happens again. 

A sharp ringing sound drowns everything and pulls me into the vacuum, colours bleeding and blending into a shade of hazy midnight and starry dawn. A taste of mouldy paper fills my mouth and my ears; my knees wobbling and sinking to the marble floor. My hands grab a cold, smooth floor and nostrils flutter at the scent of expensive incense. It takes a moment to register that I am kneeling before the altar of the Five, under the looming high arch of the Cathedral. 

The polished tiles on the wall and the ominously sweet sound of the harps, faint lingering scents of lilac incense and sesame rice settling on my bones and fading into a dim halo of purity. My eyes flit up to the large clock above the statue of the weeping goddess. Twelve noon.  

How did this happen?