Neva dreamed of the angel gliding from the sky, swaying as if a feather, and the black monster man rising to the fallen angel with the woman in his arms. It was a scene of ruin, of a beauty so terrible it felt like a premonition.
When she opened her eyes in her large and comfortable bed, she looked around in surprise, unable to tell where she was at first. The silk sheets felt foreign against her skin, too soft, too real.
"I'm in my room," she said calmly, resting her hand on her heart.
Her sensitive heart would speed up after each dream; it was the same again. Thump. Thump. Thump. It beat against her ribs like a bird trapped in a cage of bone. She took a deep breath, but the breath that filled her lungs was not enough for her. It never was.
Neva loved the cold, although she didn't know why. Her room, on the other hand, was suffocatingly warm, and the sunlight coming in through her window was disturbing. It was too bright, too cheerful for the darkness that lingered in her mind. She slowly got out of bed, her bare feet touching the cold marble floor—the only relief she could find. She went into the bathroom attached to her room and washed her face with freezing cold water.
She kept her eyes closed for a moment, afraid to look. Who would be staring back? The writer who knew the end of the story, or the tragic princess destined to die?
When she finally lifted her head, her reflection in the mirror looked strange. She frowned.
Her white hair, cascading down like a waterfall of snow, was the same. Her eyebrows and eyelashes, pale as frost, were the same. But the expression in her gray eyes that she couldn't understand bothered her. It was an ancient look, a look of someone who had lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths. She shook her head as if she could get rid of that expression, but failed.
"It's nice…" she muttered, drying her face with a plush towel. "Why did it have to be today?"
Today was the day. The script was set.
She quickly came out of the bathroom when she heard the heavy oak doors to her room open. The maids entering her room smiled when they saw her, plastic, rehearsed smiles, and she smiled at them too, but she felt nervous. A cold sweat pricked at the back of her neck. She walked over to the small platform in front of the full-length mirror by the closet and raised her arms like a doll waiting to be dressed.
The maids took off the nightgown from Neva and put it in a basket for later washing.
Neva stared at her naked reflection in the mirror for a long time. Her ribs showing as she took deep breaths bothered her. She looked fragile, like a glass figurine that would shatter at the slightest touch. I made her this way, she thought, a distant memory of a pen scratching on paper echoing in her mind. I made her weak so she could be broken, but she didn't take her eyes off her body.
When she raised her arms again, they dressed her in a light dress, lace-stitched and cream-colored. It was elegant, suffocatingly so. Finally, after braiding her white hair into a crown atop her head, they quietly left her room.
She was alone again. Why didn't the strange feeling in her heart and the expression in her eyes just go away?
She stepped out onto the balcony of her room with great strides, the balcony covered with ivy. Her father always wanted to have those ivies removed, claiming they ruined the pristine white stone of the palace, but Neva had never let him do that. She loved seeing nature come to life around her, choking the artificial perfection of the castle.
She leaned her hips against the balustrade of her balcony and watched the chaos in the palace garden below. Servants scurrying like ants, guards positioning themselves, the banners of the kingdom snapping in the wind. She smiled faintly because it all seemed silly to her.
She hated the Bear Riding Feast that took place on the same day every year. She hated it because she never managed to get on that bear's back. It was a test of strength, of dominance—traits the Royal Family prized above all else. Why could her father, King Reagan, her stepmother Regina, and even her stepsister Alice get on that bear's back so easily and keep it calm, and she couldn't do it?
Because you are not one of them, a voice whispered in her head. You were written to fail.
While the preparations for the feast were going on, she separated her hips from the railings and entered her room, trying to calm her racing heart.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
What's wrong with her heart again? It fluttered like a dying moth.
It was time to join the feast. She hurried out of her room and, ignoring the guards standing at her door like stone statues, she ran down the palace stairs. The hem of her cream-colored dress slithered up the stairs as she ran down, a serpent tailing her.
When she went out to the big garden where the preparations for the feast were completed, she looked around shyly. The silence that fell over the crowd was immediate. Everyone was looking at her because her physical features were remarkable—the ghost princess, the albino oddity. When she met her father's eyes, sitting under the tent set up for protection from the sun, she smiled slightly and walked over to him without taking her eyes off him.
She glanced shyly to her father's right as she sat to the left of her father, who was sitting under the tent. Her stepmother, Queen Regina, was sitting right next to her father. Her hawk-like gaze snapped to Neva instantly, filled with a venom that could kill.
Her half-sister Alice was with her mother. The moment she felt Neva looking at her, Alice turned her eyes to her and smiled warmly.
Neva had never understood her half-sister Alice. After all, Queen Regina hated Neva to death, but Alice had always looked at Neva lovingly, despite her mother's intense hatred. Neva felt great gratitude in her heart towards Alice, and she smiled at her. At least someone in this story is pure, she thought.
Unfortunately, this did not last long, because the moment Regina turned her hawklike gaze towards Neva, she was forced to turn to the front. She took a deep breath to relieve her tension. She wanted the feast to end immediately, but it couldn't have ended today without her being disgraced once more, could it? That was the plot. That was the tragedy.
King Reagan and everyone else stood up when one of the soldiers blew the trumpet that started the feast. The sound was deafening.
"I would like to thank all the guests who joined us at our traditional bear riding feast with us today." King Reagan paused and stared at Neva for a few seconds. His eyes were unreadable. He cleared his throat and smiled as his eyes returned to the guests and the others. "You know, every year in our kingdom for centuries we've traditionally ridden one of the bears we caught in the forest to prove to our people that we've always been strong."
Neva's ears began to ring the moment she heard what her father had said.
No.
No, she didn't want to do that. No, she didn't want to try to ride the bear like every year and be disgraceful to the people here, and especially to Regina. In fact, Neva never wanted to prove her strength to anyone. She was not heir to the throne like her other half-brother, Prince William.
Really... Where was Prince William?
Neva felt sick to her stomach as she remembered the previous years. She was the only one in the family who couldn't ride that bear. Even though her father wouldn't tell the truth to her face, Regina was always slapping her in the face with it. Neva, according to Regina, was the disgrace of the family.
"What does that mean now, my King?" screamed Queen Regina.
Freed from her thoughts by Regina's angry voice, Neva looked around in surprise. The hum of the crowd was disturbing.
"If you're going to—"
King Reagan frowned at Regina and raised his hand sharply. It was a command that cut through the air like a blade. Unable to continue what she was about to say, Regina hung her head in embarrassment and sat down. "Accept my apologies, my King. I was insolent."
When everyone was back in their seats, Neva lowered her head and whispered to her father, not understanding anything. "Father... What's going on?"
King Reagan approached her, smiling, and answered. "You don't have to do anything you don't want anymore, my daughter."
Neva just shook her head and turned to face absentmindedly at the calm bear that had been pulled out of the cage. It was a massive beast, its fur dark as midnight. When her father got up and went to the bear, she knew the person who came next to him.
Prince William.
In other words, one of the biggest problems Neva had.
Minutes passed, and King Reagan had already done his show on the bear, asserting his dominance. It was William's turn.
Regina was muttering in her chair; she didn't care. Probably because Neva would be comfortable today, Regina was furious because she loved that every year she was humiliated by not being able to ride a bear. Neva smiled faintly and looked at her father, who was standing on the other side of the bear. Even though it was years later, his father's realization of her condition gave her hope.
Neva forced herself not to look at William, but eventually, the pull was too strong. Her eyes met his.
William was on the bear's back, holding on to the bear's fur with one hand. Even when the bear got up on its two feet, roaring into the sky, he had no trouble at all, continuing to stare at Neva.
William would have set himself on fire for Neva's gray and sad eyes.
He smiled at Neva as he stood easily on the bear's back, a dark prince in his element, but Neva frowned and looked away from him.
"Why do you hate me?" William muttered to himself, his voice lost in the roar of the crowd, but Neva felt the words vibrate in her bones. "Is it that hard to love me?"
William was wrong. The prince wasn't hard to love—if you didn't know what lay beneath the skin, but Neva felt nothing but fraternal bonds and anger towards him. William wasn't her real brother, but even if he was a half-brother, it was impossible for her to have a love-like feeling for him.
He was a really handsome man when looked at objectively. All the girls in the kingdom would be doormats for him; they would die for him. With his black hair, porcelain white skin, sharp chin folds, broad shoulders, and tall, dark green eyes, he had all the beauty a prince could possibly have.
But his heart was rotten.
The evil he inherited from his mother denied him, and it was clear that any intense feeling he felt for Neva would eventually turn into an obsession. Still, William couldn't stop, for he knew he would do anything in his power to destroy a world where her gray eyes didn't look at him fondly.
When the feast was over, it was time to spend time with the guests, but Neva managed to escape without anyone noticing. She knew the guests and the topics to be discussed very well, and at the end of the day, everything she heard made her feel worse. So it was the best solution to get away from there without anyone noticing.
The guests included the Archduke and his sons, grand dukes, grand duchesses, dukes, duchesses, marquises, marons, baronesses, lords, ladies, and more. Topics to be discussed were arena fights, the marriage, creatures out of control, the Great Far Eastern Kingdom... The list went on and on.
Neva rushed to her room, her heart pounding with the thrill of rebellion. She took off her dress, threw it in a corner of the room like a discarded skin, and put on one of her casual clothes—simple fabrics that allowed her to breathe. She put candles, a hairpin, and a book in her wooden basket, then fled into the nearby forest without being seen by anyone in the palace.
There was a place she loved so much in that forest where she always fled, full of green grass and flowers. It was her sanctuary, the only place where the script didn't feel so tight around her neck.
Sitting on the fragrant grass and leaning her back against the tree, she put the candle between her feet, took the matchbox from the pocket of her dress, and calmly lit the candle.
Neva stared in amazement at the glowing fire. For a moment, she could not take her eyes off the light of the fire rippling in the warm wind. She smiled; the small and peaceful moments in her life always fascinated her.
She took the hairpin she had put in the basket and put her hair in a bun, because her hair was so long, she always collected her hair while reading a book. As she took the book about dragons in her hands, the warm wind blew against her face, her baby hair caressing her skin. The flame of the candle she lit flickered but did not go out; she continued to read her book.
Neva wanted to learn more about dragons because she still couldn't forget the dragon she saw as a child.
She was six years old when she first saw a huge dragon in the dungeons of the palace. They called her the little white princess back then; she was too beautiful to be true. She had descended into the dungeons of the palace in the middle of the night because of a voice calling her, and she could not sleep well because of the nightmares she had as a child. To prove that the voice calling her was not real, the huge dragon she saw in the dungeons she had descended should have frightened her, but she did not feel the least bit of fear in her heart.
The little girl fell to the ground giggling as the dragon pressed its big nose to Neva's stomach and exhaled. At that moment, Neva could have sworn the dragon was smiling at her, but the next time she descended into the dungeon, the dragon was no longer there to prove it.
That night, the voice calling her had whispered to her from the dungeons.
"Find us."
Neva whispered as she looked at the book in her hand, tracing the ink illustrations. "Find us. We're lost in the order."
Neva squinted her eyes at the weight of her thoughts. "I can't find any of you because I don't even know who you are yet. What order are you talking about? I don't know who I am yet. I don't belong to this world."
She took her usual deep breath, lay down on the grass on the flowers, and closed her eyes. She loved to sleep here.
The wind blew hard, the flowers and grass moved, and a raven passed over Neva, cawing a warning she did not hear, but she continued to sleep.
"Hey! Wake up."
When Neva opened her eyes with a startle, she stood up in fear because of the man she saw in front of her and looked around.
It was dark. Night had fallen without her realizing it.
Seeing that Neva was frightened, the man stepped back and sat on the grass, tilting his head to the side and grinning.
"Don't worry. I haven't even touched you."
Neva pressed her back against the rough bark of the tree, her eyes trying to adjust to the shadows. "Who are you?" she said, her voice trembling slightly. The candle had gone out.
"Who am I?" said the man, looking into Neva's gray eyes with an intensity that made her breath hitch. "Nobody."
Neva froze at the unexpected answer and studied the man.
The man had a sharp jawline that looked like it could cut glass, full lips curled into a half-smile, slender eyebrows, and a stern facial expression that contradicted his playful tone. He had blond hair and blue eyes that were like glass—cold, clear, and dangerous. His body looked fake as he sat on the flowers, a weapon of war resting in a field of peace.
For a moment, Neva couldn't help thinking that the heart of this man, who claimed to be nobody, would be as sullen as his face. He didn't look like a hero. He looked like trouble. He looked like the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about.
"I have to go," said Neva as she gathered her things, her hands shaking as she shoved the book into her basket.
The blond man calmly watched her pack her things and stand up. He didn't offer to help, nor did he try to stop her. He just watched, like a predator observing curious prey.
"Goodbye, Princess," he said, looking beyond the forest, towards the towering silhouette of the palace.
Neva froze. She had forgotten that because of her physical features, her white hair, her pale skin, there is not a person in this kingdom who would not see her and not recognize her. She wasn't just a girl in the woods; she was the anomaly of the Royal Family.
"Goodbye, Nobody."
The man squinted his eyes as he stared into the forest, smiling. It was a smile that promised secrets, a smile that promised that this was not the end.
When Neva luckily returned to the palace without being caught by anyone, she climbed to the highest tower of the palace and watched the forest where she had just met that man.
Neva thought; she thought a lot. Where could she find that man again? The man she created. "I don't belong here," she said again to herself. "My name is Angela. I am the creator of this world. I do not belong here."
Smiling through the corridors of the palace, ignoring the stifling air, she entered her half-sister Alice's room. Alice was asleep in her large bed, innocent and unaware of the darkness brewing outside.
Neva lay quietly beside her and watched the ceiling, the candle burning on the nightstand by the bed casting long, dancing shadows. She stared at the ceiling for hours, as her trembling lips gave a smile to this world, tears spilling from her eyes and mingling with her hair.
This is not real, she reminded herself as sleep finally claimed her. This is a fairy tale.