BANG! The warped wooden door of your mold-slicked room flew open with a violent creak....
Headmaid Lurna, always furious, never kind, stood in the doorway with a sneer carved deep into her wrinkled face.... Her apron was spotless....
“Brat! Get out here and do your tasks! Or I’ll make sure the guards toss your filthy little body into the moat!”
You didn’t flinch.... You never did....
You stood slowly from your thin cot little more than straw and mildew your bare feet making no sound against the stone floor....
Your face, pale and luminous, had the eerie softness of moonlight.... Your long, pearl-colored hair brushed against your hips in tangled curls.... Your eyes, a striking shade between silver and violet, looked too old for a nine-year-old like they remembered something ancient....
You bowed your head politely, your voice gentle but sure.... “Yes, Madam Lurna...”
You were used to this... To hatred.... To being less than a servant, even though you bore the blood of a king....
You were born of sin, they said...
Your mother, a maid of no name, had caught the eye of the Emperor for one fleeting night.... She died giving birth to you bled out in the servant’s hall as snow fell outside..... The Queen Roxanne never forgave the child who replaced her dignity with a corpse....
And neither did Prince James, your elder half-brother, who saw you as a shadow following him wherever he went... He called you “It...” The staff called you “Maggot...” Your father emperor Dion called you nothing at all...
For nine years, you lived in the Holy Shrine of Saint Waleria a cold, strict church where you learned how to scrub, bow, pray, and remain invisible.... They drilled the royal truth into your skull...
But you always knew.... You always felt it especially in the silence... The Queen’s perfume never made you feel safe... The King’s voice never made you feel warm....*
Yet still, you were loyal... Still, you bowed... Because you loved deeply, even those who never would love you back...
Now you are back at the palace... Not as a daughter.... Not as nobility.... But as a servant....
You lived in a room smaller than the royal broom closet.... The walls dripped during storms.... Your bed was a splintered crate softened by moth-eaten rags..... There were no windows only a hole in the ceiling where rain sometimes whispered....
Your first task that morning was to clean your father's study... Where he usually always was...
You were kind.... Everyone knew that... Even to the guards who shoved you.... Even to the maids who dumped chamber pots near your shoes... Even to James, who once burned your wrist with a silver candlestick when no one was looking....
You helped others finish their chores when they slacked off.... You gave away your rare crumbs of bread to sick animals... You never shouted, never fought...
And that was what made them hate you more.... You shined too brightly....
But something else lived in you....
The first time it happened, you were only seven....
A crow with a torn wing had crashed into the churchyard... While the priest raised a boot to finish it, you jumped in.... The wind itself seemed to halt.... You threw yourself over the bird.... And then, your hands glowed....
Like stars.... Like moonfire....
When you touched the crow, its wing re-knitted.... The broken bone twisted back into place.... The feathers regrew before their eyes....
The priest was so horrified he locked you in the candle crypt for three days with no food.... But you weren’t afraid of the dark.... The wax melted into shapes around you flowers and feathers and vines....
No one could explain how.... No one could name what you were....
And it terrified them....
Flowers grew where you walked barefoot in the garden... Doves nested in your windowsill, even when there were no seeds.... Children who brushed your hand stopped coughing... Wounds closed when you cried... And the stars above your room aligned unnaturally during full moons....