When I was a child, I watched my father die. He was king, and the guards had just captured a lord who’d sworn to kill him. I loved my father, but I knew, even then, that his greatest flaw was arrogance. He had the man brought in chains to the town square, where he was to be publicly executed. I wasn’t supposed to be watching, but since I really wanted to observe the execution, I’d stolen my brother’s spyglass and ridden to town. I knew better than to let my father catch me; instead, I went in the back door of the city hall and climbed to the observation deck on the sixth floor, where I could see everything.
It happened when the prisoner was finally brought forward and chained to Execution Stone. With my spyglass, I saw a traitorous guard drop a key into the lord’s hand. Nobody saw but me. My father certainly didn’t! He was too busy giving a gloating speech, telling everyone about how he was better and stronger than the weakling that was chained behind him. When the prisoner managed to unlock one hand, I knew it was serious. He patted the back of his belt, and I saw the imprint of a dagger beneath his shirt.
I desperately tried to break open the window to scream a warning, but I was only eight. I couldn’t muster enough strength to smash the thick, double-paned glass, although I did manage to shatter the spyglass in my efforts. Frantically, I ran down the stairs, figuring that if I ran fast enough, I could get out to warn my father before he was killed.
I came sprinting out of the door as my father was just finishing. A talented public speaker, he’d managed to capture and hold everyone’s attention, so the would-be assassin had been able to free himself, although he still crouched with the chains around him. I shoved and pushed through the crowd. People made room for me when they realized from my crown and richly-embroidered clothes that I was the reclusive princess. I was fifteen feet away when one of my father’s advisers grabbed my arm and held me back.
“Let go of me! Father!” I shrieked, jerking free and dashing towards the prisoner and my father. The king bent forward to whisper something that was no doubt insulting, and at the same moment, the lord leapt to his feet, slashing with the dagger. My father was caught unaware, and his throat was cut. He choked a little, falling to his knees and dropping his sword. Nobody was close enough to do anything but stare. With the desperation of a child who’d just watched her father be attacked, I ran to him, not even considering that I might be in any danger.
“Adrienna...” said my father, clutching at his throat.
“Fetch a doctor!” I screamed, sobbing. Guards had rushed forward to seize the king’s murderer, but I could see that everything was too late. The bleeding had already begun to slow, and soon my frantic hands could no longer find a pulse.
“The king is dead,” said the advisor who’d stopped me earlier. Tears streaming down my face, I turned to look at him from where I knelt in my father’s blood.
“You’re the reason he’s dead!” I shouted, and the captain of the guard, who had just come over to retrieve me, stopped. “I would’ve reached him in time if you hadn’t stopped me! You killed him! I hate you!” I snatched up the brass spyglass and hit him in the groin with all of my fury, bringing him to his knees. I got in two more blows to his face before strong hands gently grabbed my small ones. It was the captain of the guard. He underestimated my rage, though. I smashed his nose and went back to battering the advisor, who protected his head, knowing better than to try to strike me back. When the captain finally recovered enough to snatch the spyglass away from me, I’d broken the man’s nose and cheekbones and severely bruised his face.
“Your highness,” said the captain, not angry with me. I was only a child, after all. “Come with me.”
“He killed the king,” I said haltingly through my tears. The captain scooped me up, and I wrapped my arms around him. We walked away from the bruised advisor, but passed the lord, who’d been re-chained and was currently being beaten.
“Wait!” I said. They paused for a moment, since I was the princess. The lord looked up at me through rapidly-swelling eyes, but couldn’t hold my gaze for very long. It was one thing to kill the king, and an entirely different one to kill the father of a little girl. “I want to watch him die.” The captain paused for only a moment.
I was a different person, an older person, when I returned to the castle.
