Princess Lily

chapter 35

"She's hopeless at protocol Sasha." Said Sophia. "Absolutely terrible."

Lily stood there feeling angry while Sasha smirked . Lily couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious. Sasha was tall and attractive and dressed like royalty. She held her fan perfectly and didn’t laugh too loud and walked as gracefully as a swan. She was everything Lily was not and Lily couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that the Empress preferred her.

"I could teach her," Carl cut in from his seat on the couch.

"No Carl! I should teach her," said Sasha brightly. ”Your highness, you have so many other important duties, please let me help you out by doing this!”

The Empress smiled at Sasha.

“How kind and generous of you dear. I am grateful for the reprieve.”

 Sophia then left. Sasha shooed Carl and Lady Molly out as well. Sasha and Lily were the only ones left in the room now.

"Now let’s begin," said Sasha evilly.

 Lily did exactly as Sasha said and went through all the books as Sasha explained the titles for each and every noble along with instructions on how to organize a seating chart with nobles of various rankings in attendance. Lily did her best to remember everything and found herself catching onto things rather quickly. It really wasn’t that hard once Sasha explained everything to her. Lily found herself feeling guilty for the jealousy she’d felt towards the raven-haired beauty.

 When the Empress came to test her, she stood shocked looking down at the seating chart Lily had made for a feast that was to be thrown next week. Lily smiled proudly at her own skills of being able to do everything so well.

"Never," muttered the Empress. "Never have I ever seen anyone follow protocol so badly."

Lily stood there speechless.

"Everything is wrong," said Sophia, flinging the paper with the seating chart away from herself. "You're impossible Lily. Impossible. You are never to seat a knight with a crown prince unless the feast is being held in honor of the knight. This is horrendous, and you seated a Duke with a merchant!" The Empress clutched a hand to her heart as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d seen.

“Oh a few mistakes are all right your highness,” Sasha cut in hastily before Lily could speak. “As Empress, she will have other people to fulfill such mundane tasks anyway.”

“As Empress,” Sophia said sternly, “she will have to sign off on the seating charts and create a disaster if she signs off on the wrong seating arrangements. Our country could end up offending ambassadors from other countries or even visiting monarchs!”

With that exclamation, the Empress turned on her heel and stormed out, muttering under her breath that her kingdom would suffer under such a careless empress and there was no way they could have an engagement ceremony at the end of the month with he way things were going now. There was only one week left now until the end of the month. Lily was surprised to realize she'd already been at the palace for three weeks. 

 Lily turned on Sasha, her face red from anger and embarrassment.

"You!" she spat. "You-you did that on purpose!"

"I did no such thing!" asked Sasha in mock hurt. She then sneered at Lily. "You're so gullible. You stole my James from me Lily. I can never forgive you for that."

Lily looked after Sasha who walked out primly with a smirk. Lily threw her seating etiquette blue book down onto the floor.

"I hate her!" Lily exclaimed fiercely. "I hate Sasha, I hate the empress, I hate counselor Vesky, I hate the guards but most of all I hate James not being her!" she felt tears of frustration build up in her eyes and sat miserably down on the off-white sofa.

"Oh James," she whispered. "I miss you." 

The wind opened the windows of the room. A tear fell onto Lily’s cheek and the wind blew it gently away.

*    *    *

James sat behind the town mayor’s desk, going over the books and files regarding the bridge contractor’s dealings. It seemed that this man was corrupt. He had been given a generous contract from the crown to construct this bridge and he had ended up buying subpar materials. This man had been selected via a bidding process initiated by Counselor Vesky.

James again thought back to Lily’s reservations regarding his mother’s most trusted advisor. He wished she was here with him to help him look through this mess. Vesky had been there for them when his father passed away; James felt his own feelings might be a bit biased when it came to him.

“I want to create an investigation committee,” James spoke up, getting the mayor’s attention who had been sitting across from James, like a visitor in his own office.

The mayor nodded, glad that the crown was finally taking notice of the corruption that had always been rampant since the death of the late emperor.

*    *    *

Lily sat across from Sasha in the study room with Lady Molly.

"Eventually-" said Lady Molly, obviously teaching Lily. "Pacem will have to bow to Fortius."

"Never," said Lily. "Pacem will never surrender." Lily was obviously angry.

"Oh yes they will and those outlaws will be put into their right places," Sasha retorted.

"The people of Pacem deserve to have their voices heard," said Lily and turned the page of the book lying in front of her. A picture of Alexei Novikov was shown on it. He stared up at them with a great amount of dignity.

* * *

"I, Lord Wodsworth, the showman of the Wodsworth travelling carnival am proud to present the talented acrobat, Miss Bella!" rumbled a jolly plump man with a round boyish face and blonde hair with a receding hairline. He was of course the owner and show master of the carnival.

There were many shrieks of delight as Bella, known as the most beautiful maiden in Pacem, stepped out. She did a series of cartwheels and then jumped into the air, grabbing at the long pole situated in front of her. She hooked a leg around it and her body began to rotate around the pole in a mesmerizing rhythm. There was more applause.

In a graceful arc, she propelled herself away from pole, flying through the air again before landing on the floor. She bowed with a smile. Roses were thrown from the crowd and Bella, while smiling politely at everyone, caught site of a man standing underneath the wooden bleachers.

He winked at her and raised his hat slightly off his head so that Bella got a good look at him and then tipped his hat back down. He swished his cloak around himself so that not even his face could be seen. Bella quickly walked off stage, her heart beating fast.

The man meanwhile stood back in the shadows, behind the tent where Bella’s show had taken place and waited patiently. Then he felt as if someone had hurled a sack of potatoes at him as the wind was knocked out of him.

"Bella," he wheezed as Bella hugged him tightly. "I need air."

"Never ever scare me like that again," she whispered harshly, her head resting against his chest. Two tears trickled down her cheek. "How did you escape?" she asked loosening her grip on him. "Alexei I thought they had…" but she couldn't go on and buried her head in his shoulder, unable to keep her raging emotions at bay.

"Come now," said Alexei, stroking her hair softly. "You really think those Fortius soldiers could harm me? They're such cowards," he said breezily and then laughed.

Bella pulled back, rubbing the tears away from her cheeks.

 "Actually, I had help from some friends."

"Who?" asked Bella and so Alexei began to tell of his adventures. He told her about Duke Max, his time in Leal, and, of course, Lily. "She seems wonderful," said Bella a little begrudgingly. 

She couldn’t help it. It was clear as day that Alexei had feelings for Lily.

"She is and she and James even got into a fight because of me but they must have patched things up. Last I heard from Duke Max, Prince James asked Lily to marry him," said Alexei.

Bella opened her mouth to say something but suddenly a huge ruckus began around them. The two peered around the side of the tent to see Marshal Zhukov standing in the middle of the carnival grounds and a soldier spoke up in a loud voice.

"This carnival is now under the control of the Fortius Empire. All the carnival members are ordered to pack and go to Fortius for the Empresses entertainment and Duke Arnoff’s daughter's birthday!"

The next thing Bella knew was that she was roughly being pulled away from the safety of her childhood friends arms by a wave of people trying to move out of the way to escape the Fortius guards.