Ambriella

Mother and Father like to wake me up to the cheery sounds of laughter and exclamations of love to their little darling daughter. I have to sleep with my pillow pulled over my face in some attempt to block out the sounds, but it's there, drilled into my skull, etched inside my mind where I can't ever hope to escape it.

But today, I get a rare moment of peace when I awaken from a night of half-slumber. The sky is barely rosy. It's so early that the sun hasn't had a chance to warm the air yet.

"My Lady," Lucia's voice says, her hand tugging at one of my sheets. I blink at her. "You have a visitor."

I don't even care how early it is. I sit up and get changed, then head downstairs to the drawing room. It's been a while since I left my room. The memories haven't changed. They still play as I walk past them, watching, waiting, ignorant of what they've done to me—what they're still doing.

Drisella is lighting a candelabra to brighten the room a bit until the sun is high enough to do that on its own. I squint through the air at my visitor.

Oh, give me a break. Haven't I had enough disappointment for a lifetime?

"Welcome back to Royce Manor, my prince," I say, sinking slightly.

He raises his hand. "Don't do that," he says. "Please," he adds quietly.

No complaints here. The remains of the beating I took are mostly gone, but it still hurts my side to curtsey.

"Shall I ring for some tea?" I suggest, gesturing to the sofa. He shakes his head.

"No," he says. We're quiet for a moment.

"Have you had breakfast?" I ask. "Shall I send for something?"

"No," he says again, and this tiem he's almost breathless with anticipation.

I have no patience for this.

"What are you doing here, Rainier?" I ask him.

"I…I understand it now," he says. "What it is that this all means to you. And I know now that it won't be an…an easy sacrifice to make."

Oh, God. Here we go again.

"Rainier—" I start, sinking into a seat on the armchair.

"And I know a lot of things now that I didn't know before," he adds, coming forward to kneel in front of my seat. "And I want you to know what it was that I saw in you those nights. It's the same thing I see now. I saw your eyes—no one in the world has eyes like yours—and there was so much they held. I felt like I was trying to read constellations in them. And I look at you and I can see that whole road you've walked, how far you've come, how much it's changed you. I know that the girl I met at those balls—the girl who left me this—" he holds up my shoe. It glitters in the dull light and it's almost pretty in a sad sort of way but I don't care anymore. "She's the same girl that you were wanting to find somewhere in these halls. They didn't take your hope. Not all of it. Because I still saw some there in you during that fortnight. And they didn't take all of your joy because you were happy there with me. You were. That's why you came back every other night. You want to stay here because you think they destroyed you but you can't see yet that they didn't. Not entirely. You're still here. You survived them. But if you linger and let this eat away at you, then they will have destroyed you. Because you let them."

I don't like hearing the words but I hear them anyways. Why is it that this dumbass still sees fit to fight for me? Just when I'd accepted that the only person I could count on to be in my corner was me?

"And I'm not going to pretend to understand what it was like for you here," he continues. "But I can tell that you've maybe lost a little part of yourself getting here. That all the people who loved you have gone from the world, so now you believe that no one can love you again, so you hide it away like you're afraid it'll disappoint you. But the first person who stopped caring about you was you. And if you want to be able to take a single step forward—if moving on is even a part of your grand plan—then you have to love yourself. And a part of you was willing to take that step—to move on—because you came back to the ball that last night. So a part of you loves me…which means that a part of you still loves yourself.

"I can't tell you what it is you'll find if you stay here. And I can't ask you to leave it behind or forget it. All I can ask is that you find it in you to forgive it—for your own sake. If you do or if you don't…it's up to you. And when you decide…I suppose I'll still be where I always am. Still hoping that maybe you'll find it in you to accept me as I am. As a man new to this world that you know, still…still learning."

Well, he's got a lot to learn. That much is certain.

"I'm not asking you to choose royalty over revenge," he says. "But do you think that maybe…you might be willing to choose love over it instead?"

I can't hear any more of this nonsense, but lucky me—he doesn't seem interested in saying any more, either. He kisses my forehead and leaves me there in the silence of the house and the dull light of the morning. It's not until I hear his horse gallop away that I see that little girl looking out at me from beside the door, and the disappointment and disdain in her eyes is enough to make me pick up the candelabra and toss it at her. It hits the opposite wall with a resounding crash, and I'm left there in ruin as half the house comes to assess the damage.

"Are you alright?" Louisa asks.

"What happened?" asks Jane.

I run out past the watching figures because she's still looking at me, looming ever closer, silently judging me for finally taking back everything I've ever wanted, for taking back what's mine.

Mother and Father spin and dance and sing through the halls and it makes me nauseous just to hear the sounds. The doors to my bedroom clang shut behind me and I'm left in the pale light again.

Mother sits by the vanity, brushing out her little girl's hair, and that little girl looks at me with eyes so scornful and ashamed that I can't even throw anything at her. I just turn away, throw a sheet over the vanity, roll up into a corner and hug my knees to my chest, shield myself from everything around me because I know that no one else will. No one else will protect me from what evil lingers in this house. No one else will save me from the memories. No one else will be able to understand the bitter, horrible truth—that no matter how hard I try, I'll never be able to convince anyone to see Royce Manor as I see it. Because how I see it is cruel and cold and empty and haunting.

This is a place beyond light, beyond hope, beyond joy and beyond good. No prayers are answered here at Royce Manor because we are in a place beyond prayer itself. There isn't enough of that foul detergent in the world to wash the misery out of this house.

I can only thank God that Father and Mother didn't get to see what it has become—that they're dead dead dead in the ground and didn't live long enough to watch their fairy tale turn so sour. That they didn't live long enough to see their perfect little angel morph into this empty, tired, vile little thing that carefully waited her entire life so she could sit here and wallow in the shadows and be shaken awake in the night by the ghosts of memories past until she's standing on the railing of her balcony.

I look down and my stomach gives an odd lurch as I realize that I'm doing it again—standing on the railing, looking out at my little queendom. I can see the forest beyond the garden—the world beyond my queendom. I'm not sure where that world has gone and left me behind but dammit I miss it now.

She hates me, that girl in the memory. She hates me and what I have come to represent in her eyes and she hates what I let her turn into. She hates me. I hate me.

'Ambriella', she asks me. 'When did you allow your hatred to become stronger than you?'

This is Royce Manor. I am an Allendale. Allendales belong here. No matter how much it hurts.

Those eyes are still on me, and it takes every last bit of fight I have left in me to pull back, to turn away, to keep my feet planted to the railing instead of taking that last easy step that could just make it all stop.