Dawn arrives like a timid servant, slipping quietly through the tall windows of my chamber. Pale sunlight spills across the floor in long, delicate ribbons—golden threads weaving themselves over marble, silk, and the endless trinkets scattered about as if trying to convince me I live a life worth envying. The hours before the castle fully wakes have always belonged to me. They stretch like long strands of spun sunlight, fragile and shimmering, as though they might snap if I breathe too deeply.
I rise slowly, not because I am tired but because there is no reason to rush; the day ahead offers nothing I have not already endured. A princess’s life, they tell me, is one of fortune. A kingdom-sized cradle of luxury. And perhaps it is. Yet gold has always struck me as the loneliest color. It shines, yes, but it isolates. You cannot touch it without feeling cold.
The early light catches the edges of my vanity mirror, shattering into little suns that shimmer over my skin. Amber combs, silver mirrors, yellowed perfume bottles—objects curated to create the illusion of happiness. My handmaid, Sloan, should come soon to arrange my hair, lace my gown, and remind me why appearances matter more than breath. But she is not here yet.
Beauty means little when it serves only to remind you of your own stagnation. My life is a palace carved from light, yet I am its shadowed occupant—seen, adorned, but never truly living.
My reflection stares back at me as though expecting me to recognize someone of importance. Genevieve Delle Mayfinn, heir to everything and owner of nothing that matters.
I pull open the top drawer. Jewelry gleams inside—rings encrusted with citrine, necklaces dripping sunlight in gemstone form, bracelets heavy with carved Ivory. Each piece glitters like a lie. I let the drawer fall shut; the metallic clink echoes through the room with the finality of a locked door.
I watch my breath fog the glass before fading, as all things do.
My steps take me to the far side of the room where tall bookshelves loom like silent sentinels. The room is large enough that my voice never makes it across the space without dying halfway. Walls lined with shelves sag beneath the weight of stories I have memorized beginning to inevitable end. Their words are my only companions, though even they have grown stale, their conclusions predictable, their heroes tiresome. The windows stand open, inviting wind and birdsong in places where friends should be. A confidant who would not treat me like a duty bound in silk.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Sometimes I wish the morning sun would burn hot enough to melt the opulence around me, to free me from its quiet prison. But instead it drapes itself gently over my shoulders, warm and soft, like a loyal but suffocating hand. I tilt my head into its glow anyway. It is the closest thing I have to affection.
I wonder if the sun knows how easily gold can tarnish.
The balcony doors stand ajar, curtains fluttering like pale yellow wings. I part them gently and step out onto a cool stone. From up here, everything looks deceptively peaceful. Villagers cross the distant fields, their silhouettes tiny against the ocean of wheat, each stalk tipped in luminance by the rising sun. Their lives appear simple, touched by sweat and earth and genuine purpose. I envy them—envy the freedom in their footsteps, the unimportance of their names. The kingdom wakes with reason. I wake only because my body insists on doing so.
The view should thrill me. It once did. When I was a child, I imagined running through those fields, losing myself beneath the horizon, breathing air untainted by expectations. But now I simply watch, as though the world beyond the castle exists in a different realm entirely—one where a designation is a name without consequence.
But imagination is a fragile rebellion, and reality is patient. It always returns.
The door remains shut. No one has knocked. No one ever does unless duty requires it. It is strange, how a palace filled with maids, ministers, and watchful nobles can still feel so utterly empty.
Solitude is my most loyal companion. Privilege, my heaviest chain.
Today will be like all others—hours stretched thin by the monotony of lessons, embroidery, decorum, and silence. Orchestrated smiles for people who care more for my lineage than my existence. Hours spent nodding at advisors who speak to me as if my mind were made of polished jewels: decorative, valuable, and hollow.
Yet even now, in the quiet cradle of morning light, something stirs within me. A restless ache. A longing so sharp it feels almost alive.
I want… more.
But “more” is forbidden. “More” is impossible. “More” is the seed that wilts the moment it touches my hands.
And so I gather myself from the warmth of the sun, don my practiced serenity, and step away from the window’s aurelian glow.
Another day begins—brilliant in color, hollow in meaning.
