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Calian gets a funny little smirk on his face, but he says nothing.
I narrow my eyes at him, and then find myself watching out the windows of the limo with growing curiosity. Even though every logical bone in my body is screaming for me to dismiss all of this like the nonsense it is, some deeper, childish part of me wants to believe it. That part wants to believe it--even just a little--so bad that it hurts and aches like a physical pain. Even just to imagine actually being a princess is like taking a wonderfully free step away from the reality I wake up to every day. Parents who are indifferent to the point of cruelty. Two little sisters who make a mission of making me miserable. Year after year of school where my classmates constantly found new reasons to not like me.
A new place and new people, even if they weren’t really princes and princesses in some “Shrouded Kingdom” would already be appealing enough. I know it’s dangerous to latch onto something like this. Just when I’ve started accepting my lot in life, this man has to come along and dangle the perfect fantasy in front of my nose. The more I think about it, the more fun it is to play it out in my mind, like the daydreams I used to have when I was a kid where everything was fairytale perfect and the knight in shining armor came to rescue me. Even if this is all some cruel prank, there’s a tingling curiosity and hope that is slowly making its way through me. I haven’t felt anything like it for as long as I can remember and the feeling is addictive.
We reach the tunnel, which runs under a huge, grass covered hill. I have always enjoyed driving through it, probably just because my family never really has a reason to go east out of the city, as there’s nothing much that way besides miles and miles of hills, valleys, and farmland.
The driver, whose head I can only see the dim outline of through the tinted divider near the front, takes us through the first half of the tunnel like usual.
I’m embarrassed to find my hands are clenched on my knees too tightly, as if I’m expecting something extraordinary to happen, like a beam of light is going to suck us out of here and whisk me away to a fantastic place where none of my problems are real. I’m just beginning to relax and chide myself for being a gullible, silly little girl, when I notice Calian grip the seat tightly, as if bracing himself.
“What are--” I start, but I’m cut off as the car swerves to the right and the person behind us lays on their horn.
I scream like a stuck pig, squeezing my eyes shut and throwing my arms in the air to protect myself from the inevitable impact, but instead, I just feel the car lurch slightly and start going downhill.
I tentatively open my eyes to find Calian grinning.
I clear my throat. “Don’t look so smug. Screaming when your car swerves toward a brick wall is perfectly reasonable.”
“I would scream just like you if I was in your position. I’m not judging you a bit, Princess. I was just grinning because you have quite a set of lungs, I think my ears will still be ringing tomorrow morning.”
“Where are we, anyway?” I ask, scooting closer to the window and hoping he can’t see my flushing cheeks. I see now we’re driving through a tunnel still, but there doesn’t seem to be any other cars at the moment, and the tunnel looks more narrow than I remember.
“We’re passing through one of the many hidden entrances to the Shrouded Kingdom, Princess.”
“I told you not to call me that,” I say distractedly, watching as an insanely expensive car tears past us in the other direction. After only a few minutes, I’ve seen at least ten cars pass by that must cost millions of dollars. Something is definitely going on here, and that silly hope in my stomach is starting to feel a little less silly by the minute.
“It would be wise to get accustomed to it. You’ll be hearing ‘Princess’ a lot once we arrive.”
My heartbeat quickens. It’s starting to feel real. I know somewhere my parents and sisters are still back there, probably at the restaurant or maybe headed home by now. They’re probably laughing about what a disaster my party was, but there’s the oddest sense of distance from that, like it can’t touch me here. Like it is in the past now. Like they are in the past. I’m not sure I understand it, but I’m starting to think my life is just beginning.
Outside, the tunnel suddenly gives way to a strip of night sky visible between two huge valleys. We drive down a solitary road surrounded by rolling grassy plains that gently slope upwards until they eventually punch up into the darkness, blotting out the stars. It feels like half an hour or more that we drive. At one point, the driver takes us straight toward a mountain that looks far too steep to climb, but shows no signs of turning around.
