Liam's POV:
Chapter Three
I was stunned that anyone would want to take that painting of my mother. That one wasn't even very good. I sincerely wish that I didn't see her every day. Would you want to see your mother if every time you saw her she hinted that you should get married? I remembered the last conversation that I had with her, just two days ago.
"When are you going to get married, Liam? You are twenty years old, you know," she had said in a scolding tone.
"Yes, mother, I remember my age quite well," I had replied, rolling my eyes. She had then proceeded to scold me on how I must marry sooner than later and how she would simply die if I didn't. Personally, I thought. I wouldn't mind if she did. It would certainly save me a lot of trouble.
Later, I confided in my sister, Emilia. I told her that I had to wait for just the right person to come along, not just some fortune-huntress who couldn't care less about me, and vise versa. Emilia had laughed.
"Yeah, right, big brother," she had said bitterly. "We're royalty. We don't get to marry whom we like. Our marriages are for money and more power for the realm. For all that we're royalty, it seems that we get less freedom than the lowest peasant. Our marriages of convenience, not of choice. I personally would like to kill the King who invented that."
"Um, Emilia. He's dead already," I said.
"I don't care!" she said, and tears started coming from her green eyes that were so like mine. My sister didn't cry that much, so I knew that something was seriously wrong. Did she love someone who wasn't a nobleman or a prince?
When I saw that scruffy street girl take the painting off the hook, I almost let her have it. But then I rethought it out, and approached her. I have perfected the art of walking silently to get around my younger brothers and sisters (and especially Her Royal Highness, the royal pain-in-the-neck, a.k.a., my mother), so I took her by surprise.
I had been wandering around in the halls of the palace, trying to think about what life would be like outside of the palace. I felt that I would never know. There was a law forbidding commoners to come inside of the palace. No one knew when this law had been passed, or why it had been made up. It was just upheld with no reason at all. And the person who upheld it the most strongly was the Provost himself.
The Provost was a brute of a man- big, brawny, and ruthless. He was handy out on a battlefield, but anywhere else he was just cruel. He tortured animals and he tortured his prisoners. Not physically- that was illegal; a law passed by my great-great-grandfather- but mentally. Telling them horrible stories of what awaited them the day after tomorrow, and then drawing the days out. Some of his prisoners went insane. My father was too scared to get rid of him and hire someone else, so our current Provost had been in his position for about twenty-five years.
When the girl turned around, I found myself looking at the most defiant face that I had ever seen. Her astonishingly clear gray eyes were glaring into mine, and brown hair surrounded her face. She probably doesn't even suspect that she's pretty, I thought. Then I mentally shook myself and pulled rank on her, even though I detest pulling rank on people. But I'll need practice if I'm going to be King someday.
"What, pray tell, where you doing trying to steal that picture of my mother?" I asked her. Or rather, demanded of her. Unfortunately, this only seemed to increase her defiance. Her mouth clamped shut.
I sighed. How can I pull rank on people if they refuse to be pulled rank on? I thought. "Will you at least tell me your name?"
She looked at me suspiciously for a second. Then she deemed me worthy of her name. And me, the Crown prince!
"People call me the Princess of Thieves." I must have looked doubtful because she shot me a look that said do you have a problem with that? I backed off.
"And I am Liam, Crown Prince of Remalna." I executed an elaborate bow.
A shocked moment of silence followed my statement. Then she said, "I thank you, your highness. But I really must be going." And with that, and a mock-curtsy, she slipped out of my grasp and out the door.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed this lowly girls PREDICTABLE story. I am sorry if this turns out a little predictable, but I'm a hopeless romantic, and things like this can only turn out certain ways if a hopeless romantic is writing them.