Page 2 of The Princess and the Demon

I was only female after all.

Therefore, I had been left in the care of Granuail, or “G” as I had come to nickname her. She had been my mother, my teacher, and my friend for twenty-two years.

I pick up my book and hold it against my chest, walking slowly towards the window. The light outside was beginning to fade, the last vestiges of light disappearing behind green mountains in the distance.

The library begins to take on an otherworldly glow as the maids start lighting the candles and sconces scattered throughout the giant room.

This place was my refuge.

The only place I could go to get away from the constant naggings and expectation of a princess of Delyra.

I was the middle child of three royal children.

One elder brother Olam, who, at this very moment was welcoming his first-born child into this world.

Another, Ilanie, was six years younger than me, and probably in her chambers by this time.

I was much closer with my brother than I was with my younger sister.

The kingdom of Delyra was small but peaceful. Walled off on three sides by tall, impassible mountains, it was the third kingdom of the descendants of Eden.

The world before this was corrupt, and technology and money ruled and governed all.

The people who lived then were on the brink of destruction by their own hands. Earth was the bargaining tool in a war that spanned millennia, and when the battle was fought and lost, the remaining population of the three kingdoms had been given a second chance.

The price had been their technology.

So long as they gave up all their technological advancements and promised to go back to a simpler way of life, they would be given clemency.

Of course, the ancestors of the three kingdoms agreed, and each made their peace with the entities that governed our world.

Demons.

I shiver.

It was all stories, passed down by the elders that raised us to keep us in line. Granuail had used a story or two to scare me into cooperating numerous times.

I smile at the memory of being huddled up beneath the blanket, nothing but the crackling of the fire to keep me company after one such story.

“Come now, we should get you to the birthing chamber.” Granuail starts, interrupting my nostalgia.

“Olam will want you there when the babe arrives.”

I nod, following Granuail from the library. I’m careful to pull the skirts of the lavender gown I wear from beneath my feet as I right myself. There was only one thing I feared more than the ghost stories of demons haunting Delyra.

Falling.

I wasn’t exactly born well and had brittle bones. “The result of a hard pregnancy,” the physician’s had called it…or something along those lines.

I quickly realized when I was younger that I wasn’t able to do all the things other kids my age did. My attempt at horseback riding had resulted in three broken bones. I was never strong enough to draw the string on a bow.

Therefore, I found my solace in books.

I studied everything I could get my hands on. Languages, art, history, old texts and ancient teachings. I immersed myself in learning of the world before this one, and attempted to uncover more information about the elusive deities that ruled this world.

I quicken my strides to catch up with Granuail.

“How is Ziterra?” I ask.

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