APRIALLA
I carefully placed my lantern on the floor when I spotted the silhouette of the person I have come here for. He was staring out of the balcony. His back was facing me.
I then wrapped my arms around his torso from behind.
"Surprise?" I chuckled.
"Does everyone of your class have a tendency to be sneaking around the school grounds in the dark hours?" His soothing voice spoke.
"Eh?" Puzzled, I stopped clinging on him and positioned myself beside him to stare out towards the direction he was staring at.
"You people sneaked out last night and caught Princess Irene doing so as well and now…" He was string at a figure that was lurking into the True's building. "It is Prince Perseus, isn't it?" Cedric questioned.
"Indeed."
"What do you reckon? He is out to secretly see some lover as well?"
"I do not know and I have no desire to know. All I care about at the moment is that today was your birthday and I am able to see you only now. An hour before your birthday ends and in the dark in this occult manner." I huffed.
Cedric turned to me with a comforting smile.
He was at least a foot taller than me with spiky blonde locks and eyes of burning amber. He was my lover. We have been seeing one another for about a year now. He is a year ahead of me. He is a… what the others label as 'Pretentious'.
I absolutely despise the term. Though for most of the royalties, these terms True, Partial and Pretentious hold a momentous status, I am not much fond of this system. Just because someone is from a Old or New money family and is not a high-born, they must not be labelled as 'Pretentious'.
The term itself is downgrading and insulting.
But I do not expect myself to overthrow this long-standing custom overnight.
"On the bright side, at least we are able to meet." His smile did not waver.
"At what cost? We are only able to see one another only under the cover of darkness. I am exhausted concealing our relationship behind closed doors and in the dead of the night. I have been suppressing this desire to scream at the world that you belong to me!"
"But the both of us know that we unfortunately cannot do it." He held me by my shoulders.
His touch itself is so consoling.
The man himself feels like a gentle and solacing breeze during the summer days when the unbearable heat of the sun makes me feel like wanting to give it all up.
"I know…" I sighed.
"Imagine His Highness getting informed that I, a low class Pretentious had courted and am now seeing his daughter, the princess of the biggest and most influential kingdom of the continent in his own kingdom's grounds, right under his nose."
His words earned a little chuckle from me.
"I would be sentenced to death if only he feels generous." Cedric continued with a smile. "Not to mention that the princess is getting hitched soon."
I rolled my eyes at the remembrance.
My eyes fell on the ring on my finger. It was a diamond ring. The diamond's size was no smaller than an eyeball. Every time my gaze rested on this ring, an ache of inevitable but undesirable fate haunts my thoughts.
"This makes me a homewrecker." Cedric chuckled lightly.
"What homewrecker? I intend on eloping with you after we graduate and before I tie the knot with Benjamin." I walked over to a bench that stood there and took a seat.
Cedric sighed and settled beside me.
"How many times must I tell you that I am not eloping with you?" His voice was merely above a whisper. "I will never ask you to run away with me to marry. I will go ask for your hand in marriage from your father after we graduate."
"Indeed, and he will just hand me over to you." I sarcastically said.
"He might not. But I will beg. I will leave no stone unturned to persuade him but if he still refuses…" Cedric turned his head to me. "Our story ends there."
"Just like that?" I scoffed bitterly.
"April, our love story is the favourite chapter of my life but I will never ask you to elope with me. It is unethical. You are a princess. Do you have any clue what your family would have to go through if the princess of their kingdom elopes with a commoner?" Cedric reasoned.
Sometimes, I loathe that he is correct.
Nothing is more notorious for a kingdom and a royal family than their princess running away. This had once led to the overthrown of a royal family back in my parents' days.
I sighed out.
Sometimes I feel like I am playing a losing game but sometimes it is not about winning.
I put on a smile and turned to Cedric. "Pauline has started to talk to me again. She does not suspect my father anymore." I shifted the topic.
Cedric flashed a genuine smile. "Now that is a good news, isn't it?"
I nodded rapidly.
I went on to explain to him about our adventure in the staff's building after nightfall and our condition after that and how my efforts persuaded Pauline.
I tell Cedric everything. From how my day went to the struggles with my family. From the gossips within my friend group to what the teachers taught that day. From what I ate for breakfast to how much I wanted to escape this reality and build a little cottage with him in utopia.
I impart my innermost thoughts to him without reservation.
I still recall our first meet. It has been clearly inscribed in my mind. Two years ago, I had a tussle with my parents. It was regarding my engagement to Prince Benjamin.
With an intention to run away from home once and for all, I had gathered some essentials and snuck out through a hidden passageway of our castle after the night fell.
But even before I had set my foot out of Brindlemark's boundaries, a destructive storm emerged.
Cedric is the heir of a large jewellery business.
They have a shop here in Brindlemark. I ended up seeking refuge in that shop for the night. Cedric was there in the shop that night. He had no clue that I was the princess of Brindlemark.
Nonetheless, he treated me with hospitality.
Cedric comes from a new money family. Recently, their business had bloomed. Hence, he would be attending Wisteria Royal Academy. He went on telling me about how eager he was to go there.
As for someone for whom attending this school was not a privilege but a given, I could not quite understand his enthusiasm.
Even so, I played along.
I did not lie. In the course of the night filled with heavy rain, thunder and destructive wind, I revealed to him thar I was the princess.
My parents had always warned me against revealing my identity to strangers but the magic of the moment erased the fact that he was a stranger from my mind.
To me, he felt like someone I had known from lives ago.
I am aware that it sounds delusional, but I cannot help it.
It did not bother Cedric that I was the princess, he neither feared my presence nor he had started buttering me up. He felt genuine when he treated me as a fellow human rather than the princess of the land.
I had not told him that I would be getting hitched soon.
I did inform him that I had run away from home. I just did not reveal why.
I dropped my plan on running away and went back to the castle the next morning. Initially, I had no reason to stay in this land but now I did and I did not want to abandon the reason.
I made an excuse to my family that I had gone for an early morning stroll.
Cedric soon started courting me. It was our summer holidays and hence I could visit his shop almost every day.
And eventually, we found solace in one another.
I felt like I had finally found something that tied me to the infatuation of life.
Suddenly the realization hit me. "It totally slipped off my mind to wish you!" I face-palmed myself. "Many many happy returns of the day, love." I placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.
Cedric wrapped an arm around me protectively while he smiled down at me. "Thank you, love."
"Actually, I had given it a lot of thought but I still could not figure out any perfect gift for yo-" Cedric interjected my sentence, "You are here with me on my birthday, it is the most perfect gift I could ask for."
Heat rushed to my cheeks and I did not need to hide it. Cedric has always accepted me even in my worst and most vulnerable state.
"Even so, in Brindlemark, it is disparaging to meet someone on their birthday empty-handed. And hence…" I pulled out a celestial blue pendant that resembled a shimmering droplet of morning dew.
"Isn't it-" Cedric gasped.
I nodded.
"Indeed, it is the Azure Guardian. It belonged to King Xandros and has been passed on through generations. It intercepts fate's darkest threads, weaving a protective tapestry around its wearer. Saving the wearer from any grave danger." I stared at the amulet in my hand.
"I cannot accept it, April!" Cedric tensed up, "It is like a family heirloom for you."
"You feel like a family, Cedric." I shifted my gaze to Cedric's sceptical face.
"Even so…" He bit his lower lip. "It must belong to the king-"
"Father considers it trivial and just a myth as King Xandros had died either way. But Father is overlooking that King Xandros had died of old age after living a fruitful life. I believe in its power." I said in a determined voice.
"Still…" Cedric was still sceptical.
"Oh, Father would not even notice that it has disappeared from the royal treasury!" I waved a hand in the air.
"Aprialla…" Cedric's voice dropped to a suspecting whisper, "Did you steal it?"
I laughed nervously. "Extracting something from the royal treasury as the princess is not usually termed as 'stealing'."
"It is. When you did it without notifying the king!" Cedric nagged. I scoffed. "I thought that you would be happy that I went to such extent to bring you something meaningful for your birthday but you are just complaining. It was just a gesture of love from me but you-"
I withdrew my handkerchief and sniffed dramatically.
"You do not understand my love!" I accused him.
"Its not that, April. Even so, receiving such a valuable item as a gift…" Cedric was persuaded to an extent.
"Do you not love me?" I sniffed.
"I do. But-" I interrupted whatever contradicting statement his mind was about to put forward. "Then, that is enough."
I leapt to my feet, shoved my handkerchief into my pocket and went behind Cedric with the amulet shimmering in my grip. I carefully put the amulet around his neck and hooked it.
I then went to him with a grinning face.
"You are too persuasive." Cedric exhaled a defeated sigh. "I bet you can even persuade people to believe that the sun rises from the west and soon people would give into that statement and have no choice but to agree with you."
I flicked my hair brazenly.
"Even now, I cannot help but overcome with guilt as I am accepting this prized possession from you." Cedric's hand caressed the amulet.
"You are my biggest prize, Cedric." I genuinely said. "And I want you to be safe."
Cedric turned to me and ruffled my hair.
"I might just be termed as a gold-digger now." He chuckled. I let out a soft laugh as well.
"I love you so much, April." Cedric's voice dropped to a husky whisper as he pressed his forehead against mine. "I love you too, Cedric." I responded.
Cedric's gaze soon shifted from my eyes to my lips and the both of us knew what was going to succeed this moment. I slowly closed my eyes.
Not after long I felt the sensation of soft lips against mine that electrified my body even though it was not our first kiss.