Dear Diary,

My hands ache as I write this, and there is still dirt beneath my nails no matter how often I scrub them. Morning arrived too quickly, and yet it felt as though days had passed since last night.

I have tried twice already to write of what occurred, and each time I have stopped. It is not that I do not wish to remember, but that I fear if I set it down plainly, it will become something real and permanent, and I am not yet ready for that.

I’ll start at sunrise, I was woken by the nanny, dressed, and sent to breakfast with the family. Mother sat across from father and she was always very stern. Father and vidi sat side by side leaving me no choice but to sit by mother; thanks a lot Vidi. 

“Good morning family,” mother spoke, “today marks leicia’s 13th birth-celebration”

Father inclined his head in agreement, though his attention soon returned to his meal. Vidi smiled brightly, swinging her legs beneath the table as though this were any other pleasant morning.

“Happy birthday,” she said, far too loudly, as if volume alone could make the words truer.

“Thank you,” I replied. The sound of my own voice surprised me. It felt distant, as though it had traveled far to reach my ears.

Mother’s gaze did not leave me. “You will eat,” she said, noting my untouched plate. “Today will be long.”

I obeyed at once. Each bite tasted of nothing. I was aware of my posture, my hands, the way I held my spoon. Thirteen years of life, and already I felt I was being measured for something I could not yet see.

Mother spoke of schedules and expectations as we ate. Guests arriving before midday. The blessing to be given in Purist’s name, the same one that always felt like a chain. The colors I had chosen weeks ago now returned to me as commands rather than choices. Lavender. Swirling patterns. A grand ballroom. All of it sounded foreign, as though it belonged to another girl entirely.

My thoughts wandered despite my efforts. I thought of the hill. Of the way the lake had reflected the night sky, dark and endless. I wondered if Lineya had risen at dawn as well, or if she had been allowed to linger beneath her blankets for a moment longer. I wondered if last night weighed on her as heavily as it weighed on me.

“Leica.”

Mother’s voice cut cleanly through my thoughts.

“Yes, Mother,” I said at once.

“You are distracted,” she observed. It was not asked unkindly, yet it was not gentle either.

“I apologize,” I replied. “It will not happen again.”

She studied me for a moment that felt far too long, then returned her attention to Father. “See that it does not.”

Breakfast concluded soon after. Father rose, followed by Vidi, who offered me a small, apologetic glance before hurrying away. I lingered only a moment longer before standing as well.

Mother rose last.

As we left the table, the weight of the day pressed down upon me, heavy and unyielding, like a crown already placed upon my head. And beneath that weight, quiet but insistent, was the knowledge that something within me had shifted, and that no amount of ceremony could set it back as it was before.

After breakfast, I was taken at once to my chambers. The servants moved quickly, efficiently, as though I were already late for something important. My gown from the morning was removed, replaced with another, then another still. Each was examined, adjusted, rejected.

Too pale. Too childish. Too severe.

By the third change, I had lost track of which colors I had once chosen for myself and which had been chosen for me today.

My hair was brushed until my scalp ached, each stroke firm and unyielding. Pins were set, removed, and set again. My face was washed and powdered, my lips tinted just enough to look presentable, though I scarcely recognized the girl staring back at me from the glass.

When the corset was brought forth, I hesitated.

“Stand still,” my nanny said gently, though her hands did not slow. The laces were drawn tight, tighter still, until my breath caught sharp in my chest. I said nothing. I knew better than to complain. A princess must look composed, even if she cannot breathe as she ought.

When it was finished, I felt smaller somehow, contained. As though I had been pressed into the shape expected of me.

At last, they declared me ready.

I was led through the halls, my footsteps measured, my spine straight despite the ache it caused. The closer we came to the ballroom, the louder the sounds grew. Voices layered atop one another. Music tuning itself. The hum of anticipation.

The doors stood tall and gleaming, adorned with lavender ribbons and swirling designs I remembered choosing long ago, when such things had felt light and harmless.

A servant announced me before I could gather my thoughts.

The doors opened.

I stepped into the ballroom, light flooding toward me, and with it the eyes of the kingdom. Smiles, bows, murmurs of admiration. Somewhere within the noise, I felt myself recede, leaving behind the girl who had stood beneath an autumn tree the night before.

I smiled when expected.

I stood where I was placed.

And though my body remained in the ballroom, my heart beat elsewhere entirely.

The music began, and with it came the suitors.

They were introduced one by one, names and houses spoken aloud as though they were titles already engraved upon me. I placed my hand where I was told, allowed myself to be guided into each dance, my feet moving as I had been taught since childhood.

I missed steps. Nearly every time.

My focus drifted no matter how fiercely I tried to anchor it. Faces blurred together. Compliments reached me as sound rather than meaning. I felt the room spin slightly with each turn, my breath shallow beneath the corset’s hold.

With the first suitor, I nearly stumbled. He laughed it off politely, tightening his grip just enough to steady me.

With the second, my foot slipped, and I felt the whisper of a fall that did not quite come. Murmurs rippled through the crowd, quickly swallowed by the music.

By the third, my hands were trembling.

I told myself to breathe. To count the steps. To remember who I was meant to be. But the ballroom felt smaller with every dance, the air thicker, the lights too bright. I could feel eyes following me, weighing me, deciding things I had no part in choosing.

Then came the second-to-last.

I do not remember his name.

I remember the turn. Too fast. The floor catching the edge of my heel. The sudden, awful certainty that I was no longer upright.

I fell.

My heel struck his shin sharply as I went down. He cried out in pain, a sharp sound that cut through the music like glass. Someone screamed. Someone else gasped. The room erupted all at once.

I felt hands reaching for me, voices calling my name, but they sounded far away, distorted. My chest seized painfully, each breath coming faster than the last, thinner, wrong. The walls felt as though they were closing in.

I could not stay.

I rose without waiting for permission and ran.

I do not remember how I left the ballroom. Only the cold rush of air as I burst into the halls, the echo of my footsteps chasing me as I fled the castle entirely. I tore through the streets of town, skirts gathered in my hands, tears blurring my vision.

People stared. Someone called after me.

I did not stop.

The lake came into view like a promise I had already broken. I ran to it anyway, breath burning, heart hammering, until my strength gave out beneath the familiar tree.

And there she was.

Lineya turned at the sound of me, her eyes widening in alarm. I must have looked dreadful. Hair undone, breath ragged, tears streaking my face.

“Princess Leica?” she said.

That was all it took.

Everything came rushing out of me at once. Words tumbled over one another, half-formed, desperate. The dancing. The suitors. The fall. The screaming. The way I could not breathe. The way I could not pretend anymore. I spoke of the crown, of the expectations, of the fear that had wrapped itself around my chest and refused to loosen.

“I can’t do it,” I cried. “I don’t want any of it. I don’t want them. I don’t want this life. I don’t know how to be what they need me to be.”

Lineya did not interrupt. Her face held shock, then anger, then something softer and far more dangerous. When I finally faltered, when my words gave way to sobs, she stepped forward without hesitation.

She held me.

I clutched at her as though she were the only solid thing left in the world, my breath slowly finding its way back under her steady presence. I felt foolish. Weak. Exposed.

But I also felt seen.

And in that moment, beneath the autumn tree by the lake, I knew with terrible clarity that whatever awaited me after this day, there was no returning to the girl I had been before.

“Princess?” she said, the word slipping out before she could stop it.

It struck me like a blow. Not cruelly, but sharply. I nodded once, unable to speak, my chest still heaving as though I had run miles more than I had.

She took a hesitant step backwards. “I… I didn’t know if it was truly you.”

I broke then. Whatever composure I had clung to shattered entirely, and I crossed the space between us in a few unsteady steps. When she caught me, her arms coming up around me without hesitation, I felt my breath finally stutter and give way.

“Pelta,” she whispered, holding me tightly. “It’s alright. You’re here. I’ve got you.”

I clung to her as though she were the earth itself, my face pressed into her shoulder, tears soaking through her sleeve. I spoke between sobs, words tumbling out in no proper order. The ballroom. The suitors. The fall. The screaming. The way my lungs had refused to work, the way the walls had closed in.

“I couldn’t stay,” I said. “I tried. I truly tried.”

She pulled back just enough to look at me then, her hands still firm at my sides, her expression fierce and frightened all at once.

“Leica,” she said quietly, carefully, as though testing the name for the first time. “You shouldn’t have to do that. Any of it.”

I shook my head. “It’s my duty.”

Her jaw tightened. She opened her mouth as if to argue, then stopped. The words did not come. Whatever she had meant to say seemed too small, too fragile, or perhaps too dangerous to be spoken aloud.

For a long moment, she said nothing at all.

Neither did I.

We stood beneath the tree in silence, the lake stretching out before us, calm and indifferent, as though the world had not just shifted its weight entirely. Her hands remained warm and steady against me, anchoring me in place.

I did not know what would come next. I did not know how I would return, or if I even could.

But in that quiet, with my name spoken gently upon her lips, I knew one thing with painful certainty.

Whatever I was expected to be after today, I would never again belong only to the crown