Marial did not dream of some handsome prince from a far, far kingdom to come and carry her away on his horse. It seemed cruel for two adults to sit on one poor horse, and she knew her tendency to indulge in pastries would not help the matter. But she had wanted someone normal, someone who she could imagine a relatively normal life with. Her dowry was an estate in the far east of the kingdom, a lush and green place filled with tea plantations and villages nested among hills. She thought she would marry some ambitious nobleman and move there, settling into a simpler noble life, free of royal court machinations and the rules she had to follow within the capital. The bonus was that she would never run out of tea.

  Perhaps if she had been betrothed to Marcus in the first place, she would have accepted her new future readily. On paper, Marcus was a good match. He was the second son of a duke, and she was the third princess. Both relatively vestigial as far as inheritance went, and it made sense to reward Marcus’s contributions to the kingdom with marriage to a princess. There were no unseemly rumors about other women or vices. If she squinted and stood far enough away, he was not half ugly.

  But she knew Marcus, and he knew her. He was the mean older boy who kept her out of games, who tattled on her to her parents and to her older sister. She’d seen him with pimples dotting his cheeks, in the awkward phase where his nose had been too big for his face. He’d seen her in diapers, seen her as a snotty child who constantly had food in her dirty hands.

  She couldn’t see him as a husband, and she had no idea how he’d be able to see her as a wife. Her parents’ insistence on the matter confounded her as well. Surely they could find some other noblewoman to foist upon him.

  “He looks nice,” her sister Marial said.

  “It’s all relative, Mari,” Marial whispered. “Give a pig a bath and it suddenly looks better than before.”

  It was true that for years, she had only seen him in one or another kind of combat clothing. Loose tunics and dirt-stained trousers for training, mail shirts when he was heading off to war or coming back, and boots that were forever dirty with foreign boots. Free of dirt, dried blood, and with no grease in his hair, he looked almost like a gentleman.

  “He’s your future husband, Mari,” her sister said. “And we know him. He’s not a bad person. And smile. Don’t look so dour when so many people are looking.”

  Rosalind’s own smile looked natural and gracious, but Marial could not bring herself to pretend. Everyone in the room knew that Rosalind had been the one Marcus was supposed to marry. Second son to second daughter, until the alliance from the far off kingdom of Hesnia had come. The kingdom was too rich and powerful to refuse their proposal, and such an alliance would help the kingdom grow. They wanted Rosalind specifically, and feigned ignorance of the betrothal that already existed.

  Marial had never resented Rosalind’s beauty before, but she wished Rosalind had been born a shade more ordinary. A bit less memorable. There was no need for any person to be so beautiful that news of her beauty travelled across an entire ocean and to some foreign prince. It was unnecessary trouble. Rosalind would have found happiness with Marcus. She would have found it because she wouldn’t give up and stop searching for it, unlike Marial.

  “Couldn’t you have been born with thin lips or something?” Marial asked.

  Her sister cocked her head towards her. “What?”

  “It should be you sitting here,” Marial said.

  She wondered how Rosalind could be so calm. She had grown up thinking Marcus was her future. They had attended balls together, stood as a couple at official events. Now, they stood as strangers, neither showing any emotion. Rosalind was going to be a queen, so her apathy was warranted.

  But what happened with Marcus might be considered fraud. He was promised Rosalind, gracious and mild-mannered. Instead, he was getting Marial.

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  She possessed enough sense to know that she was not the ideal woman by her society’s standards, and enough experience to know she was the opposite of the ideal woman by Marcus’s standards. It was strange that he had agreed without argument. He hadn’t looked at her even once. Maybe he thought he was fulfilling his duty, and that it didn’t matter as long as he got a princess.

  He might be satisfied, but she was not. If it wasn’t Marcus, she would have married someone of a similar station to him. She would be fine with someone indistinguishable from Marcus in every measurable way.

  But it could not be Marcus himself.

  Her family and his looked on happily as the engagement gifts were exchanged. Everyone else in the room looked happy except for the two people that should have been happiest.

  People congratulated her, although the wishes were hollow. They wished her and Marcus a happy life with plenty of children, and she preferred not to think of that eventual responsibility. She only wanted to return to her room and pretend the day wasn’t real.

  Perhaps within the folds of her blankets she would find some secret to turn back time, to a point where she and Marcus weren’t anything more than childhood acquaintances.

  Instead, the blankets themselves became a solution. She twisted them into ropes and tied them together. They were strong enough to hold her weight and the weight of her limited luggage.

  She waited until the rest of the palace fell asleep before heading down to the kitchen and stuffing a cloth bag with all the food she could find. The corridors were empty. Many of the servants had gone home after the festivities of the engagement had ended, and there were plenty of leftovers from the banquet for her to take. Before leaving, she grabbed a few of the kitchen knives as well.

  Her father had gifted her jewel encrusted daggers and a bow made of silver, but those were pointless and ornamental things. They would only attract suspicion if she tried to sell them, and she didn’t know how to use them as weapons either.

  She returned with a bag slung over her shoulder and a plan. The daggers, with their pretty hilts and their sharpened blades, that were only meant to be ceremonial, instead found their first use tearing apart blankets and dresses. She dug out the semi precious stones that were sewn into her more expensive dresses, pocketing them all into one dress.

  When she was done packing, her bag was heavy. But it was a rough thing made out of one of her old dresses. She’d seen countless peasant travelers carrying the same kind of bags, and she had stitched a few more jewels and coins into the hems of her skirts and her bodice. Climbing down was difficult, but she made it to the ground below without hurting herself.

  “I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

  She hadn’t seen Rosalind in the dark, but her sister stood with a small bag of essentials. Marial opened her mouth to scream before remembering that it would undo all of her hard work. Instead, she stood for a moment with her mouth wide open, looking at her sister.

  “A bit more money, a few dresses I got from one of my maids,” Rosalind said, pushing the bag into Marial’s hands. “They should help you blend in more. If someone doubts you for wearing your own dresses, just say that your former mistress gave them to you when you quit.”

  “How– How did you get down here?” Marial hissed.

  “I used the door. We don’t lock the doors in the palace, just the outer gates. You know that. It was fairly obvious you’d try to make a run for it, and I saw you going back to your rooms from the kitchens. I thought you’d come out the door until I saw you drop all these blankets out the window.”

  She had spent other nights walking around in the gardens. She knew that security was never strict. They were a central building in a landlocked capital, surrounded by tall gates. Within the palace grounds itself, there was absolute freedom.

  “I was excited?”

  Rosalind rubbed her forehead. “Will you reconsider this? Marcus is not so bad, and I do not have a high opinion of your chances of survival right now. Common people do not live like we do.”

  “I know,” Marial said, although she was starting to realize she did not. Common people worked for a living. They did their own laundry, cleaned their own homes– and that was if they had homes.

  But they also were more in control of their fates. Their responsibilities ended at their own survival. There were no big worries of diplomacy, of trade routes or offending royal sensibilities.

  “Just come home if it gets too difficult.”

  She nodded, although she had no intention of following Rosalind’s advice. She was leaving home to get away from the difficulty. Unless she heard news of Marcus’s marriage or certain news of the end of the engagement, she would stay far, far away.