Part 5

My mind and my soul had collapsed what seemed like ages ago, slowly and steadily crumbling while I stood there trying to hold all the falling pieces together. I knew it had only been mere moments, but what am I supposed to think? My whole world fell apart, everything and everyone I loved now lay around me dead and dying. My sea-bearing uncle had always said ‘The captain goes down with his ship’ and now it is me, for I and my vessel were sinking, drowning, dragging to the bottom. I don't remember anything and I remember far too much. The feel of my father’s cold arms slipping from me, the stink of my family’s blood soaking the palace I knew as home. The frozen stare of my twin's eyes, golden hues so usually full of life now lifeless and sparkless as they stared at me being dragged away. I had screamed for them, begging them to help me, to save me, to wake up, but they did nothing. My father lay unmoving, my uncle's body slumped over their children’s -my beloved cousins-, my mother did not stir from his place on my bedroom floor, and my brother’s mouth did not open to speak in protest at the rough hands dragging me down the hall.

Perhaps I should have been scared, was I scared? I was, I was terrified, but not for the reasons any rational person would have been. I was the lone survivor of the royal family, on the side that lost. Emeny men were dragging me away, down hallways that I didn't recognize in my blind grief. I was a princess, young and untouched, and beautiful as I had always been told I was. I should have been terrified of it all, but I wasn't. Not of that.

For the first time in my life, I was alone. And that was petrifying.

“My lady.” it was a whisper but I couldn't care to hear it. I was weeping and wailing as my mother before me was, the knife in his hand seemed much fairer now than this.