"Princess Azillah, wake up! Your father asks you to come down and greet the Malayan King's entourage. The King will arrive soon to talk about your wedding. I heard he brought a big amount of dowry for your hand! Aren't you excited?" Sari greeted me with her bright smile.
It was a family tradition: arranged marriages between royals. I had to marry, even though it was against my will.
I stood and left my bed. Attendants cleaned and tidied it for me.
I went straight to the bathroom to bathe and freshen up. I needed to think of a way to get out of here, but where would I go?
I heard a lady attendant giggle while gossiping to another. "I heard the new kingdom in District 957 has a genius prince who is good-looking," said the first attendant.
"No, you heard it wrong. They say he's an evil prince who eats maidens alive!"
I scoffed at what I heard. A "genius" prince who was "good-looking" yet also "evil" and ate "maidens alive"? The tales contradicted themselves, yet the sheer audacity of them snagged a part of my mind that usually remained tightly reined.
Suddenly, I grew curious about this Prince. No, not just curious. A strange, insistent yearning sparked within me, a desperate flicker in the suffocating sameness of my life. I finished my bath, but the refreshing water couldn't cool the sudden heat in my thoughts.
The royal bath chamber, usually a sanctuary of steam and scented oils, now felt like a gilded cage. Ivory tiles gleamed under the soft glow of enchanted orbs, reflecting my own pristine image – a princess, untouched, unmoved, utterly a product of my station. But inside, a tempest was brewing.
An Evil Genius Prince. The words echoed, a forbidden melody.
My entire life had been a meticulously plotted path: etiquette lessons, history scrolls, the art of embroidery, and, always, the looming shadow of an arranged marriage.
Never a choice. Never a whisper of danger, or brilliance, or true darkness. This prince, whoever he was, represented everything my world was not.
I stepped out of the bath, allowing the warm, embroidered towels to be wrapped around me by the waiting attendants.
They moved with silent efficiency, their practiced hands drying my hair, applying rosewater to my skin.
Their hushed movements and respectful distance made them seem almost ethereal, yet they were the same ones who had just exchanged those tantalizing, terrifying whispers.
I longed to ask them more, to pry for details, but my position forbade such casual conversation.
Princesses did not gossip with their staff. Princesses did not acknowledge outlandish rumors about man-eating princes. Princesses simply accepted their fate.
"The blush silk, Princess?" a young attendant named Lyra murmured, holding up a gown shimmering with intricate silver thread. It was my favorite, reserved for formal greetings. A bitter taste filled my mouth. This wasn't just a formal greeting; it was the prelude to my own public sale.
"Yes, Lyra," I managed, my voice flat. My gaze drifted to the window, where the first pale streaks of dawn were painting the eastern sky.
Soon, the Malayan King and his retinue would arrive. Soon, the palace would swell with their presence, and my father, the ever-practical King Theon, would seal my destiny with a handshake and a ledger of dowry figures. My hand. My life. Traded for alliances and coffers.
My mind raced back to the prince of District 957. A district. Not a grand kingdom like ours, nor a sprawling empire, but a district. That implied a different sort of power, perhaps one less reliant on ancestral lands and more on raw intellect or... something else. Was he truly evil? Or was that just the terrified rumor spun by those who didn't understand him, couldn't control him?
The "genius" part was what truly fascinated me. I devoured books, history, philosophy, but my own insights were rarely sought beyond the confines of royal tutors. A prince who was both brilliant and feared… it was a dangerous thought, a thrilling one. It suggested a world where wit, not lineage, reigned.
A world where perhaps a Princess Azillah, with her quiet observations and hidden thirst for knowledge, might actually thrive, or at least exist as more than a bargaining chip.
A strange, defiant spark ignited in my chest. What if these rumors weren't just cautionary tales, but an invitation? An invitation to something utterly unlike the suffocating gilded cage I called home.
What if this prince, for all his alleged darkness, was the key to unlocking a different kind of freedom?
The thought was wild, dangerous, and utterly thrilling. It was reckless. It was everything I was not supposed to be. And yet, the yearning to meet him, to understand the truth behind the monstrous whispers, intensified with every beat of my heart.