Episode 4: The Journey to The Empire

        As the darkness has taken over, the night fall, all the animals, insects and other people have gone into slumber except for a girl that still wide awake late in the night.

She sits in her bed quietly in her nearly dark bedroom that only gets the light from a small melting candle.

She sits there staring at the candle’s light blankly as she thought to herself (Another half a month has passed and tomorrow is finally the day that I need to depart to the empire. In this half a month I got so busy because there are a lot of things to prepare especially I need to attend etiquette lessons as a review to make sure that I won’t embarrassed myself in front of others and that tire me out, even Mia doesn’t get the time to rest properly because she also need some training to become a suitable personal maid for a princess. What’s more, I need to be ready for what to come my way when I got to the empire, because it’s not certain that the people there will welcome warmly with opened arms when a foreign princess has come into their society. I can’t let my guard down from now on. All the preparations are ready but there is still something that I seem to can’t get my hands on it, the reason why the duke of a powerful empire need to get married to a rumored abandoned and retard

princess. I have to ask Mia later when I meet her, maybe she will know something. The distance from the royal palace to the capital city of the empire where the duke’s estate resides is a week journey. I need to stay on the carriage for a week, just think about it make me feel tired already) she make a tired expression.

“I need to sleep to gain some energy back after spending most of them on the preparations and worried about a lot of things, but I don’t know why I can’t sleep!” she said with her eyes wide opened and both of her hand wrap around her head.

“Geez, why is it so difficult to sleep when I need it the most! I can’t go on like this, I must sleep! Stop thinking brain, time to relax and sleep.” She said as she blows out the candle and lay in her bed trying hard to sleep.

    The next morning

         As soon as the morning sun rises somebody knock on the door of Montra’s bedroom.

*knock knock* “Princess may I come in?” someone asked for permission but Montra doesn’t answer because she is sleeping soundly in her warm bed with the blanket over her face.

Then they opened the door suddenly and, there, walked in Mia and a few more maids behind her.

“Your highness please wake up, it’s morning already, there is a lot of preparations needed to be done before the carriage arrived.”

Mia said as she pulled the blanket off of Montra lightly then she’s shocked with what she sees and starts nagging “Your highness! what have you done to yourself this past half a month when I’m not here? How can you reduce yourself to this state? Look at those bags under your eyes, those dark circles and a pale face.”

“Calm down Mia, it’s not that serious isn’t it, and it’s not like I want to be like this, I got those dark circles because I’m too tired and it’s difficult to sleep.” Montra complains as she sat up with her eyes barely opened.

Mia sighed and stare at her with eyes of pity show that she understood what Montra has gone through.

“Alright, your highness. It can’t be help then we can only try our best to fix it with the time given. Now shall we get started?” Mia said while she looked at the other maid as a mean to tell them to start the preparations.

After Montra get dressed and do her hair with the maids’ help, a carriage has stopped in front of her palace.

The carriage of black color with small fancy designs in gold with a big sign on its door, It’s the carriage of the duke family.

“It seems the carriage has finally arrived your highness.” Mia said as she looked through the window in Montra’s room.

“Now, it’s time, we shouldn’t make them wait, let’s get going. Are you ready?” Montra speaks with a calm voice as she looked at Mia’s eyes with expectation.

Mia smiled slightly and replied with confidence “Yes, I’m ready, your highness. What about you, your highness?”

“I’ve never been more ready in my life” she smiled back at Mia then continued “Then shall we get going?”.

Mia nodded then the both of them left the room and walked toward the front door of the isolated palace. As they walked when the carriage is in sight Montra paused a bit and took a deep breath.

“Your highness?” Mia asked her in a whisper. Montra smiled at her and whispered back “ it’s okay.”

Then they continued forward. As they approached the carriage, a man with brown eyes and brownish hair in a knight armor step forward and said as he bowed down a bit with one of his arm on his chest.

“Greeting to her highness the princess of Razh Kingdom. I am Cayden Collin a knight of Duke Nicholas’s estate and the leader of this knight team. We were assigned to escort your highness safely on your journey to the duke’s estate.”

Montra nodded slightly as she looked at the other four knights behind him, then said “We should get going we shouldn’t waste any more time.” With emotionless and calm voice.

Cayden surprised a bit because of the princess’s calmness. He thought that the princess will make a scene or stand still trembling with fear from all the strangers she has met like the rumor described. Then he extended his hand and escort Montra into the carriage.

When the carriage started to depart Cayden and the other knights get on their horses and ride along the carriage then Cayden thought to himself (I thought that the princess will make a scene when she saw stranger like us but she is too calm to be a retard princess like the rumor said or has she been pretending all this time? She is more tricky than I’d thought, I need to observe her more closely.)

Meanwhile, in the carriage, Montra sits there quietly, she thought with a serious and a bit uneasy expression as she looked out through the carriage window (the first day on the journey to the empire and today also marked the first starting point of my journey to my new life that I have been waiting and worried about for the past half a month, it’s just been started and some trouble seems to has surface itself. The knights, they seem so respectful and welcome but if you look into Cayden’s words, it is the opposite. They don’t welcome me at all as their future duchess. He rather refers to me as a princess than the future duchess of the Nicholas dukedom. Well, I’m already aware of the reason though. Before the carriage arrived I asked Mia about the reason why the duke proposed the marriage to a rumor retard princess like me, she told me that it is the emperor’s order and that explained everything that was happening until now. Which fool would want to get married to a retard princess of a small kingdom like this? Even if he has a hideous appearance like the rumor said he is still a duke and there should be a long line of noble ladies want to marry to him. The duke was force into this marriage that’s why the knights seems to don’t welcome me and when I get to the estate I don’t know how many and what kind of troubles I have to face later.) “haa….” She sighed as the carriage keep going in the direction of the empire.

TO BE CONTINUED.....!!!!!🌺🌺🌺

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