CHAPTER 1-The Escape

HELENA 

“Fire, everyone out! there is a fire.” Smoke choked me before I was fully awake. I coughed rushing out of the servants’ quarters. When I got outside it was chaos, maids and guards running around like headless chickens with buckets of water trying to put out the fire. I stood there in daze with my eyes still full of sleep. My mind not fully working, but a shout got my mind working in overdrive. “The prince! Where is the prince? Did someone get him out?” the voice was frantic; it was the consort, Layla.

The prince was in her care, but when the fire broke out, her brain had not been working properly, she got out alone and completely forgot about the prince. I jumped back into the house through the window and found the prince out on the bed, still, too still, not moving no matter how hard I shook him.

I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. Left with no choice, I struggled to pick him up. he was heavy, my arms felt stiff and weak. I kept looking back at the fire as it spread. Fear rose within me as I looked at the blazing fire. There was no time, I had to get out. I sat on the bed, took both of the prince’s hands and pulled him onto my back. My body screamed at his weight, I straggled to stand with him on my back, I was just a skinny maid who had just come back from the cold palace.

I was punished there for three days without food or water. I didn’t exactly have the energy to carry the prince, but I did it. he was a prince, if I dropped him and he got injured, the king would have my head. My legs shook as I tried to move. “Please, not now” just as I turned to head back to the window, a beam fell right onto my foot. I gritted my teeth in pain, but I didn’t make a sound, my pain wasn’t important at that moment, I had to get the prince out first.

I jumped over the log, fire grazing my legs greedily trying to grab me and swallow me whole, how vicious! I stumbled almost falling with the prince on my back. I balanced with the screen but removed my hand quickly, the screen was burning hot. Tears sting my eyes, but I pushed them back. it was not the time for tears.

I managed to get to the window just as the curtain started catching fire. To avoid the fire spreading to the window and trapping us inside, I yanked it off and threw it aside. I tried one leg, but the prince was too heavy, I couldn’t get out with him and so I called out. “Help, the prince!” someone rushed over.

I turned and the prince was snatched from my back. The person ran with the prince, didn’t even glance back once, or offered to help me get out. He just rushed off with the prince leaving me behind. My chest burned as the pain of being abandoned to die spread through my chest. But I pushed all of that aside, it was not the time for me to feel sorry for myself. it was either I got out and save myself or stand there and burn to death. Death was not an option for me though.

I had nothing, I was poor and many had told me that death was better for someone like me. but I wanted to live, go far away from my miserable life in the palace. Go to the countryside and find grandma. With grandma in my mind, I jumped out of the window. By then the king had already arrived and everyone was fussing over the prince.

No one was paying attention to the burning house anymore; they figured nothing could be done and they just left it to burn. With all the chaos a thought crossed my mind, if I left at that moment, who would look for me, no one, I was nothing but a worthless maid, even if I died there, no one would care. My chest burned, the pain hit hard. I looked back at the burning house, the blazing fire, and the fear I had felt while in there, I thought I would die. I look back at the crowd surrounding the prince who was being checked by the physician and shook my head in self-mockery.

I had saved their precious prince and yet no one cared to check if I got out. Cruel people! with that, I slipped out to the back of the palace. With my throbbing hand and foot. I ran towards the palace gate. The guards there had seen me many times with the consort, so when they saw me rushing towards them, they didn’t ask questions. They opened the gate for me, not paying me any mind as they continued with their conversation.

When I got out, I didn’t stop I ran faster than I ever had in my entire life. I wanted to get as far away from the palace as possible. Hell! I wanted to get as far away from the capital as possible. There was nothing for me there anyway. I almost died there, no more. I was done. I ran until the early hours of the morning.

I eventually collapsed on the grass panting like a dog. Exhausted, my chest burned my foot and hand throbbing like hell. I looked up in the sky and a small smile formed on my lips. I was free, finally. I laughed; no maid had ever made it out of the palace. At least not alive.

I was the first and I was not planning on going back. just then my stomach growled. I laughed hard. That was the sweetest sound I had ever heard, to me it meant I was alive and I could continue living now that I was free. I didn’t mind. I turned to my side, hesitated for a moment. Having no other choice, I picked a handful of grass and brought to my lips.

It was either that or die of starvation before making it to grandma. I didn’t hesitate anymore. Like a cow, I ate that grass, it tasted like dirt, but it was fine, I had eaten worse at the palace just to stay alive. I continued eating until my stomach was full.

My mouth was dry; I desperately wanted water but there was no water there. I wet my mouth with saliva then got up and walked forward; the grass wasn’t going to kill me. I just needed to get back to grandma, and everything would be fine. When I went to the palace to be a maid, I thought my life would change. That I would earn money and send back to grandma.

But life in the palace was hell, maids were treated worse than animals. For small mistakes we would be punished and starved. Our pay withheld. In the two years I had been there, I had never been paid a single coin. Yet I worked like a dog trying to survive. I didn’t want to die there and I got out. I glanced back, I could still see the red roof of the palace from afar, “I will never set foot in that godforsaken place again!” I spat