“Lieutenant Winters?” One of the King’s Guard captains, as signified by the rank floating just above his left shoulder, approached me, holding a crystal white glass pad on which there was some sort of list. I took a salute pose, but he waved it away, so I just nodded in confirmation while he was scrolling through the list.

“Aha!” He exclaimed and tapped what seemed to be my name. My profile popped up. “You’ve been picked as Princess Ava’s personal guard,” he said as he lifted his head. But I was too surprised to even think.

“Uh…” I managed eventually. “Why?”

The captain shrugged his shoulders. The light coming from the lobby’s windows ran across the golden lines of his armor like a critter.

“Random selection and a good word from colleagues at the academy. Being a personal guard to a member of the royal family is probably the most important and full of responsibility position that your rank can have.” He raised a brow. “Is there a problem?”

Various thoughts had opened a battlefield across my mind. Did I really want to be that close to the royals, or did I just want to spend my life at the palace? Would I even be able to put up with the princess, if at least half of the rumors were true? Would I even have time to fly again?

“I can change my position if I want to, right?”

The captain seemed confused. It probably wasn’t the reaction he expected at all.

“Well, yeah, but, why would anyone…”

I cut him off with my hand and tried to smile. I rarely did it just out of politeness, but after passing the examination, I found it much easier than before.

“Got it. Thank you, sir.”

He stared at me for a good moment, before shaking his head slightly and handing me the pad with my profile.

“These are your responsibilities from here on out. Starting immediately. Make sure to align your daily routine with the princess’s, so the royal family is protected at all times… and that will be all.”

I nodded again and he took his pad back.

“If you have any questions, look for me, captain Slezlie. Good day, Lieutenant Winters.”

We were still in the lobby and all the new King’s Guard members were receiving their responsibilities just like me. It was weirdly quiet as if the ceremony just now had not happened at all. The day went on as usual along with the new recruits. And yet, the quiet might’ve always been the better outcome, rather than the constant buzz of a crowd. Noelle had always been a peaceful city.

The captain relayed to me the general layout of the palace and reminded me of a pad of my own that I would find in my quarters. Before any of the more… sociable new guards could talk to me, I gathered myself together and climbed the staircase.

The castle was covered in carpets that seemed brand new and kept the cold of the ivory at bay. Old and new paintings were hanging from the halls’ walls - with oil paint or easy-on-the-eye hologram dyes that didn’t glow with light. Shallow murals were smoothly carved along the corners and edges, directly into the large ivory slabs.

Many offices, rooms, and auditoriums were spread along the east wing. It was easy to look straight down to the end of the large hall that seemed to end in a wall and a staircase leading down. All the clerks were working even now, going from room to room, to keep Noelle as peaceful as it proclaimed itself to be, under the law that has kept it ever prosperous after the last Ancient had been hunted.

I swerved left instead, entered the west wing, and went through the large arch that seemed to separate the outer wall from the inner wall of the palace. Through the windows I could see the gardens - every shrub, every bench, every tree - they were all placed under precise planning by the queen’s vision and carried out by a dozen or so gardeners. This meticulous work she applied to everything, including the way she had taken to ruling Noelle - pretty, but one truly wrong thing would be cut right out.

There was a living labyrinth at the garden’s border and that made me look away, flashes from the exam still fresh in my mind.

Passing all kinds of servant rooms and the chambers of the queen and king, personal and shared, I reached the end of the west wing. Instead of a wall, there was a large shaded window overlooking a patch of the gardens with another staircase under it.

To my left was a double white door under a refined arch that had a single metal plate that simply said “Her Excellency, Princess Ava”. I wondered if they etch out a new plate for every new princess. It wouldn’t have been beyond them.

Taking a deep breath, I stood next to the door, as was protocol. That was it. That would be my life from that point on, for most of the time. When I was little, I didn’t know better, but even when I entered the military, I knew that if I got here, my life would pretty much be wrapped up. Now, for whatever reason, I had to just see what would come out of the princess.

My expectations of an uneventful day were thrown like dust in the sun as the princess abruptly opened one of her doors, hung over the threshold, looked at me, and smiled:

“Mara! I’m so happy you came this quickly!”

I instantly stood in an official salute, making sure that my etiquette was as sharp as they had etched it into my brain.

“I am honored to be your personal guard, Your Highness!”

The princess snorted a laugh and waved at me as if to invite me into her room.

“Don’t act like you have a cane up your ass and come inside. And call me Ava. One way or another we’ll be spending a lot of time together.”

“Ah-” I tried to object, before noticing her casual look - a simple t-shirt and shorts just above her knees and swaying long tangled. If I didn’t know she had reached adulthood a couple of years ago, I would’ve thought she was about to come up to it. A teenager.

She raised a sunny brow, nodded her head back, and opened the door wide. A small office with a big desk at its back that was sided by two walls filled with books, hologram photos, and all kinds of trinkets that glistened, danced, or made pleasant rhythmic noises like brass beads getting knocked together.

A hard carpet covered in abstract suns and luscious meadows covered the ivory floor; behind the desk, there was a tall window divided into three vertical sections that overlooked the garden… except that was impossible because the room was too short for the window to be at the wall and was pointing in the wrong direction.

I assumed magic as I only leaned slightly forward and saw that two closed doors interrupted the rows of books. That’s where the rest of the room was.

Princess Ava almost danced as she twirled and walked over to her desk. With a ‘Hup!’, she sat on her desk, saw me standing outside the room, and waved at me energetically.

“Come on, stop acting like a tree, and get inside!”

“Your Highness,” I began, trying to diffuse the situation from going into territory I was never trained for. “Is it really necessary for me to…”

The princess shot her hand up and shut me up. With disappointment on her face and a sigh that could have belonged to an old woman, she slid from her desk, approached me, then slid behind me and shoved me into the room:

“You’ve made me act like some brute, Mara!” Without really being able to resist her, she managed to push me and closed the door just as I had turned around. She looked as if about to say something else, but instead had a look over me:

“The armor suits you.”

“Uh, thank you, Your Highness,” I blurted out, confusion and alien territory ringing bells inside my skull.

Ava squinted at me with some devilish judgment and said with a clear tone:

“Mara, I’m ordering you to speak with me casually and call me Ava. Got it?”

I blinked in utter confusion. Was this a test? Was she trying to see if I was going to be obedient? Or to see if I would break code when I shouldn’t? Was this the game of a bored noble? When I was confused in camp, it meant that some captain had thought up of an “adapting to a new environment” exercise. But, for now, I had no other choice.

“Yes, Your High… Ava… Yes, ma’am.”

I stood there, probably bright red and it really did feel like I had a cane up my ass.

The princess dragged her hand across her face:

“Sure. Let’s call it a ‘good start’,” she heaved another sigh, as if forcing soldiers to ignore the basics of training was a regular thing she had to deal with.

She circled her desk and I rotated in my new place to follow her. Dropping on her floating chair, she gazed out her window.

“I’m in a different mood today,” she said and waved at the window. One blink and the sound of rain hitting the glass spread across the office, alongside the grayish light that barely escaped the rain clouds covering the sky. I couldn’t tell if it was an illusion or if there really was rain outside the palace. But, against my will, the new sight relaxed me nevertheless.

“That’s better,” she sighed, spun effortlessly around, and stared at me. I had not moved from the last place she had put me. She squinted again, as if studying me and gathered her fingers in a house.

“I’m bored, Mara,” she said eventually.

The open honesty in her voice suddenly made everything click. Ava was a young woman born in the political world of a bunch of people who could only think about the image of their beautiful city and its gardens, which for her was like being forced into a retirement home. A very, very pretty prison. She was probably lonely too. She could still very much be spoiled, but at least she was honest.

“I… understand,” I finally managed, getting used to the lack of etiquette. “It’s probably awful being locked up here all day every day.”

The princess nodded heavily, then waved her finger at the books on the walls.

“I’ve read everything here, to the last page. Twice. If I didn’t know better, I could’ve ended up with the emotional intelligence of a twelve years old child! Not that I’m all that mature anyway.” She stared at me with something between desperation and sarcasm. “The only ‘maturity’ I have, Mara, is from adventuring novels that comment on moral problems that don’t even exist anymore!”

Her tone, from sunny and careless, had turned into serious and complaining. But she wasn’t complaining about her tea being slightly colder than she liked it, she was complaining that she had everything and nothing at the same time. If I were someone else, I would’ve told her to appreciate what she had and live with it, but I knew what it was to be locked by circumstances and suffer for not being able to do what you want. The academy liked inducing that feeling into its students.

Suddenly I had as much respect for her as any of my colleagues. Although she might have not gone through rigorous physical training, this mental purgatory that her life seemed to be was enough.

A girl who had grown up between ivory walls, with only old people teaching her about the world she would barely go into as her friends and a specially curated garden as her only forest. I couldn’t even imagine such a life, but it sounded like torture.

“I think it’s proper to say that I had no idea that the life of a princess would be something like this,” I murmured, my eyes nailed at one of the desk’s legs.

Ava waved her hand again.

“If I was a different person, I would’ve been thankful for everything. And although I am thankful, it is still suffocating me. I am bored. Utterly, utterly so. But!” Her sudden change in tone made me look at her again. Her eyes were very, very brown.

“In all my years that I have been looking for a good friend every year’s new guards, you’re the first one that tingles me right in the magic. And you’re my guard, no less!” She laughed as if the fact of it was amusing. “Something will happen soon, I know it. And you’ll be at the center of it.”

And again, she was talking and I was confused.

“What… will happen?”

“Who knows?” She shrugged, as if of course, she wouldn’t know. “But the other side is all wrinkled like someone threw a… big rock in a pond.”

Even if she barely made sense, there was still logic to it. A premonition only she could understand completely. Fine, I said to myself as I nodded. It seemed that my ‘This is it,’ couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The princess tapped on her desk and stood up:

“Right, let’s go inside. We can’t talk normally here… You can take off your armor, if you need clothes, we can find you something.”

Before I could think of refusing, she opened one of the side doors and entered the rest of her chambers, a much wider room with tall ceilings, draperies, baldachins, couches, and tall windows showering everything in gray light from the rain. However real it was.

Beautiful and eccentric pieces of furniture, worthy of a royal, were the only places to sit, and under them, carpets in various landscapes. A coffee table, a whole kitchenette, and a small dining room. A spacious bed separated from the rest of the room with curtains hanging around it.

Everything was in various shades of white, gray, or beige, accented by gold - either shiny or dark. Some of her things were cloudy pink, sky blue, sometimes a sunny yellow. The cushion of soft and welcoming colors of her room drew me in with its calm atmosphere and I almost instantly felt the urge to sit and relax. Which I resisted.

“Shoes off,” said the princess as she entered further inside. I noticed her bare feet, probably quite comfortable against the soft carpets. Obediently, I touched the backs of my heels and the boots of my armor folded into themselves and back up my leg. I stepped inside in socks. The princess leaned on her couch, observing me.

“Come inside and sit,” she nodded at the armchairs around the coffee table, sipping from a tea. There was a set already prepared for two people on the table. I glanced at the kitchen and saw the already cooling kettle on the deactivated heat plate. “There’s a lot of time to waste,” she added with a gentle huff.

I pointed back with a thumb:

“Should I… protect you?” The princess raised her brow:

“You’re here, are you not? And the only threat that rears its head sometimes is the suitors,” she sipped again. “You can keep your sword if you want,” she said eventually, pointing at it with her cup.

I decided to ignore the suitors comment. It was known that The Princess of Noelle refused any and all suitors who arrived in the city. It was known that they came for love, for power, for money, and for politics, but none of them got what they were looking for in the slightest.

And to prevent the thought from continuing, I simply obeyed again and sat on the armchair, then sipped the tea, when I was asked to - when I did, Ava smiled at me, like she had on the top of the stairs about half an hour prior.

“We’re going to have fun, you and I.”

----------------------------------------

The princess… No, Ava, she had incredible spirit. I had never met someone like her before - someone as read, thoughtful and perceptive. Intelligent to the point of overflow.

It quickly became clear that what she really needed was someone who was good at listening, but also furthering her thoughts - unlike the various servants who paid attention to her only as a part of their job, and not with true interest.

The weird looks they gave me, as if I didn’t belong in the princess’s room amused me for some reason, as I kept listening to her ideas.

And she had many of them, for everything. Always having something to pull in argumentation, or just in comparison. She described the very basis of her thought processes expansively and with a happy but focused glint in her eyes. Sometimes she argued with herself, doubted her own ideas, and kept attacking them with counterarguments out loud, until there was only one valid solution to a problem. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she set the nice carpets on fire with her walking back and forth, as she explained her mind with incomparable passion.

“Everyone is holding so tightly onto the idea of draining whatever’s left from the Ancients for energy, while they keep forgetting about the Sun itself!” As she exclaimed, she raised her arms at the ceiling as if performing some intense sermon. “Everything comes from the sun! Plants feed through the sun, animals feed on the plants and we feed on the animals!” She turned around and nailed me with shining eyes. “The sun is feeding the entire world and we’re still stuck inside the remnants of the ancient glorious beasts we killed however long ago…”

She played chess with the experience of a war general. I could keep up with her only thanks to the war tactics training in the academy. And although she was a rather interesting person already, one day, after a few months, she surprised me.

With her ceremonial, but still very functional armor, she pulled out an elegant thin double-edged sword and looked at me with one of her devilish smiles:

“A spar with your princess, Mara? I want to see what they are teaching you in the academy.”

Before I could express how I felt about anything lethal being pointed in her direction, she nodded at her sword and continued:

“When I ordered one of our generals to teach me how to fight, then argued with mother,” a smirk pulled her cheek, “father’s will gave in and he called for a master swordsman from Froelle.” A city famous for its martial arts. “After only a couple of months with her, and the general turned into an unworthy opponent!” she laughed.

It was obvious that she was trained. There wasn’t a reason for her to lie. It was simply yet another one of her ideas and by that time I had already started learning to simply accept them. Making sure to sigh to still express how I felt about it, I picked up the sheath with my sword - a big battlefield weapon - and looked around.

“Not here?”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed. “In the garden.”

As she headed for the door, she tossed me my armor module. I had started taking it off; after a couple of hours of sitting, it did start becoming somewhat uncomfortable. Now I placed it on my chest and it expanded onto my clothes. The royal symbol lit up, hanging half a centimeter above the golden disk. Strapping the sheath on my waist, I followed Ava.

Fall had painted the garden in yellow and red, the trees swayed back and forth and the leaves exchanged rumors about the upcoming duel in the breeze; the pavement was somewhat slick from the recent rain and the soaked fallen leaves. The world around us was still, quiet. The palace was always quiet.

“Afraid?” Ava looked down on me with humor glistening in her dark eyes.

“I wouldn’t dare, Your Highness,” I made sure to smile with my teeth as I pulled my sword out, making as much noise as possible. Ava pointed the tip of hers at me:

“We’ll see about that,” and lunged at me.

I spun around with a side step, dodging her straight attack, and yet she didn’t back up to attack again. Goosebumps crawled up my neck, a sure sign that something I wasn’t seeing was happening. I instantly crouched, spun back around, and tried tripping her with my leg. Her blade whistled above my head and she jumped back swiftly, avoiding my counterattack. My leg swept only a few leaves.

“Okay, Mara,” she grinned, her breathing quickened. “You’re the first in a long time that I haven’t beaten in the first exchange.”

She was quick. Deadly quick, with that light pin of a sword. But I knew how to deal with it, grinning back with confidence:

“I don’t know what to say, Your Highness. Perhaps you’ve lost your form?”

She laughed and attacked again - a straight, whizzing jab at my legs. Predicting another feint, instead of backing up, I walked forward, aiming to step on her blade as I pierced straight with mine. Ava sharply stopped her movement, pulled her sword back, and spun around to gather momentum. I walked forward again and interrupted her as I brought my sword down on her back, scraping her armor.

Her stance was broken and she stepped heavily forward, taking a deep breath, before turning around and squinting with her devilish judgment.

“So you won’t make me sweat only at chess, will you now?”

I simply shrugged:

“I have trained to do this my entire life, without any breaks.”

The princess took her stance again and donned a new sportsman smile:

“It seems I’ll have to hit you with the heavy stuff. You brought this upon yourself, Mara.”

I mirrored her and gripped my sword, smiling back:

“Come closer, Your Highness, and we’ll see.”

She lunged forward again, her tip pointed at me. She was too far for me to need to react, but then her blade glowed golden and she quickly hit the ground. Sparks the size of blades exploded out of her sword and flew at me. The duel’s bar was lifted.

I turned my sword like a bat and swung sharply, activating its magic. A white wave of force canceled out the sparks. Without wasting any time, Ava spun around again and sent a similar wave of golden at me. I dodged underneath as I noticed her wind up just a moment before, and as I lunged low and forward, I ended up barely a meter away from her.

Anticipating her movement, I blocked her high pommel strike and gripped her wrist. A kick was aimed at my crotch, but I stepped forward again between her legs, as her knee struck the armor on my thigh. Gripping her other hand, I hooked her leg from underneath and locked her in a hold. If she tried to move, she would fall on her back.

She didn’t seem to know the only counter to the lock, so we just stood in the garden, intertwined.

“It seems we are tied, Your Highness,” I murmured, controlling my breathing, until I realized that I was only a couple of centimeters away from her face. I couldn’t let go until she forfeited, but I started feeling red climbing over my body. The only other person I was ever this close to was Katya and with her it wasn’t serious, it wasn’t too engaging and it was free enough.

But here… there was something more here. I felt as it made my heart skip and I suppressed it, pushed it down.

Ava was breathing heavily and staring into my eyes, as I did into hers. I could see something else, different from the usual glint that told the story of her thoughts. There was no need for her to speak. Something newborn that didn’t know what exactly it was yet. But it was beautiful.

“You know…” Ava began. “You know why the princess of prosperous Noelle sends away all her suitors?” she finally asked, looking for something in my eyes. I pressed myself down again. Be calm.

“Why?”

“No other princess came to seek an alliance.”

“Oh…” I found myself so surprised that my lock weakened and I dropped the princess on the damp pavement. She fell with a thud and a cute:

“Oof! Why did you do that?”

I shook my head, trying to contain all the things that had suddenly swarmed my head. My heart was beating faster. Had she meant what I thought she did? Her eyes were still glued to mine. I pushed it down again and took a deep breath with a dry gulp:

“Uh… Let’s… Let’s go back,” I finally said, trying to control myself to the best of my ability. I gave her my hand to help her up. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Something wrong, Mara?” She wasn’t leaving me alone, but I couldn’t even contain it all in my head. I just shook it and:

“I just don’t want to… fight. Anymore.”

She pulled back, nodded, and sheathed her sword:

“Let’s go back then. A good duel,” she extended her hand forward and I shook it, but I was already drowning in my thoughts, stiffened by them and only noticing things if Ava explicitly drew my attention to them.

Later, when I went to bed in the palace’s guard quarters, I couldn’t stop repeating what she had said to me, like the broken record of a movie.

In the end, I decided that there was only one solution to a problem like this - to ignore the problem altogether. There was barely a way for me to talk with Katya and… and it was the Princess of Noelle.

Luckily, Ava seemed to have decided the same thing on the next day - I couldn’t find any trace of yesterday in her eyes. We simply had a good duel and never determined a winner.

I told myself that it had passed, but a lie like that could last only so long.