The Royal Invitation
Chapter 1
Winny’s POV:
I dipped the brush lightly into the bright orange paint. After carefully brushing it up against the palette to remove the excess I didn’t need, I looked back up at the canvas. By now, some parts of the painting had dried down while other areas were still tacky to touch, leaving an uneven patch of different levels of luster. It was almost done, there were just a few touches left.
The mix of bright oranges and yellows against the blues and greens were supposed to make the atmosphere light. The faint hints of abstract people were supposed to feel breezy. But all I wanted to do was grab a paint brush and smudge it all with a dark blood red.
This whole place felt too heavy. It felt wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here.
This was my library, but it wasn’t my library. Yes, I was painting here, I had been painting here since I was a little girl. As soon as I could hold a felt tip pen and imagine things, I would climb up on that heavy leather chair behind the desk and start scribbling away. It always felt like home, but now I could feel the cold air moving over my skin.
The library did not feel the same.
I let my brush push up against the painting I was working on. Slowly, I dragged it down, ending the stroke so that it was tapered. The light hitting it through the large floor-to-ceiling window highlighted exactly what I had just done. I should have been satisfied, and I was, but the constant monotone view was constantly nagging in the back of my mind.
I leaned backwards to try and view the entire picture as a whole. Although it did what I wanted it to, there was still something missing. I sighed and put the paint brush between my teeth before running my fingers through my blonde hair to put it up in a messy bun. There was no doubt that I had gotten some paint on the ends and from tucking locks behind my ear while working. But what was paint in my hair if it was all over my hands and clothes as well?
I knew that my appearance technically wasn’t acceptable, but it was practically a constant state I lived in whenever I was working on a piece. Did it really matter? I was by myself in the library. Nobody was just going to walk in and it wouldn’t suddenly disgrace my entire family. And even then, everybody who worked at the castle was sworn to secrecy. It was part of their contracts.
After I managed to get my hair to stay out of my face, I cocked my head to the side, hoping to find what was missing. But maybe it wasn’t the painting. Maybe it was me.
Here I was in the library, my grandfather’s library.
But now it was mine.
It had only been two days since he passed away mere rooms from here. While it had been expected for quite a while now, it was still a shock when my parents called me to come home. The entire country was in mourning. People from all over were trickling into our home. Some had never even met my grandfather but were obligated to come.
It was too strange. The passing of my grandpa, my best friend, wasn’t supposed to be such a public thing. Yet that was just how our family worked. It had been like this for generations. That’s what happened in a monarchy. The king’s funeral wasn’t a thing for just friends and family, it was a thing for anybody with any type of status and-slash-or relation. To me, my grandpa had died, to everybody else their king had died.
My dad was busy taking over duties, my mom was swamped with funeral planning she had taken on to reduce the pressure on my dad, my little brother still had his classes to go to, so I was here all by myself. I had my painting, I had all my art. Technically I was supposed to get ready to take over more responsibilities as well, getting ready to one day take over from my dad. But I never wanted any of that. Or at least definitely not now. All I wanted was to live in a small studio and pursue my art forever now.
But then again I also realised that my position was the reason why I was able to do what I was. Back in New York I was Matilde George, art student who occasionally gets paint all over herself and it able to go to the coffee shop on the block in her pajamas without too much judgement. But in the Kingdom of Dalewin I was Princess Aerowyn Matilde George Rothchester. I was expected to make appearances, act and dress a certain way, be around particular people.
There wasn’t much I could do, but having gotten a taste at normal life had spoiled everything for me.
I was hoping painting would make me feel a little better. And it did, it truly did. But still. This room just felt so cold. Especially when the cool breeze from an opening door hit the back of my neck. I immediately turned around. Nobody was supposed to come in here. It was my granddad’s personal space, then it was our shared space, and now it was my hideout.
Some guy with brown shaggy hair and the most casual clothes was standing in the doorway. He looked like somebody I would come across in New York, like a ‘commoner’. It was pretty rare to see anything of the like in the castle, especially at times like this when there was so much company.
“Can I help you?” I raised an eyebrow as his eyes looked around all the shelves full of books in bewilderment with a hint of stress.
His gaze fell upon me and the glimmer of uncertainty was replaced with a confident smirk. “Well, I was lost, but it seems like I came to just the right place.”
I cringed internally as he winked and closed the door behind himself. This was my place, though, I wasn’t going to let him drive me away. “Who are you?”
“Alex,” he responded and started walking in my direction. His accent was way too American to be from here, “Alex Gaskarth.”
“Huh,” I frowned and pressed my paintbrush into my palette to grab some more paint, “never heard of ‘Gaskarth’ before.”
“It’s my dad’s name,” he started explaining as he sat on the desk that my grandpa had chosen himself many years ago, before I was even born. “My step-dad is advisor to the new king. Mom married him many many years ago, when I was six.”
“Your step-dad is Garry?” I looked past my canvas to see Alex was already staring right at me and made accidental eye contact with him.
“Yeah! So you’ve heard of him!”
“I didn’t know Garry had a step-son,” I shrugged and turned my attention back to my painting.
“I am the one and only!” He threw his hands up as if it were some great achievement.
Garry was one of the most humble people I had ever met and had the pleasure of working with. It was strange to think this boy leaving his butt print on my grandpa’s desk was raised by him.
“So what are you doing here?” I asked, still not understanding why in the world Garry’s step-son would suddenly be here now. I had never met or seen him before, unlike many other children the other advisors had.
“Well, somebody’s gotta help keep things running smoothly here while Garry is out of the King’s coronation tour,” he said so matter-of-factly that it made me feel incompetent, while I knew that wasn’t true.
“You?” I snorted.
“I’m the only one Garry trusts with all his heart. I’ve still got a few days before I’ve gotta straighten up. Now, I can still have as much fun as I could possibly want.”
“I’m glad to hear that you won’t be acting like this when you start the job. Doing this around the wrong people can get you in serious trouble.”
“What’s your name anyways?” He asked, confirming the suspicion I had that he had no idea who I was.
“Some people like to call me Aerowyn Matilde George Rothchester,” I said as nonchalantly as possible.
“I’ve heard that name somewhere before.” He jumped back up and clapped his hands together. “As much as I enjoyed this, I do actually need to go somewhere. Can you tell me which direction the west wing is?”
“The west.”
“Well, yeah, but would you be able to point me in the right direction?”
I pointed straight ahead of me, meaning he’d have to turn to the left as soon as he left the room.
“Thanks, princess,” he winked as he slipped out of the room.
I dipped the brush lightly into the bright orange paint. After carefully brushing it up against the palette to remove the excess I didn’t need, I looked back up at the canvas. By now, some parts of the painting had dried down while other areas were still tacky to touch, leaving an uneven patch of different levels of luster. It was almost done, there were just a few touches left.
The mix of bright oranges and yellows against the blues and greens were supposed to make the atmosphere light. The faint hints of abstract people were supposed to feel breezy. But all I wanted to do was grab a paint brush and smudge it all with a dark blood red.
This whole place felt too heavy. It felt wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here.
This was my library, but it wasn’t my library. Yes, I was painting here, I had been painting here since I was a little girl. As soon as I could hold a felt tip pen and imagine things, I would climb up on that heavy leather chair behind the desk and start scribbling away. It always felt like home, but now I could feel the cold air moving over my skin.
The library did not feel the same.
I let my brush push up against the painting I was working on. Slowly, I dragged it down, ending the stroke so that it was tapered. The light hitting it through the large floor-to-ceiling window highlighted exactly what I had just done. I should have been satisfied, and I was, but the constant monotone view was constantly nagging in the back of my mind.
I leaned backwards to try and view the entire picture as a whole. Although it did what I wanted it to, there was still something missing. I sighed and put the paint brush between my teeth before running my fingers through my blonde hair to put it up in a messy bun. There was no doubt that I had gotten some paint on the ends and from tucking locks behind my ear while working. But what was paint in my hair if it was all over my hands and clothes as well?
I knew that my appearance technically wasn’t acceptable, but it was practically a constant state I lived in whenever I was working on a piece. Did it really matter? I was by myself in the library. Nobody was just going to walk in and it wouldn’t suddenly disgrace my entire family. And even then, everybody who worked at the castle was sworn to secrecy. It was part of their contracts.
After I managed to get my hair to stay out of my face, I cocked my head to the side, hoping to find what was missing. But maybe it wasn’t the painting. Maybe it was me.
Here I was in the library, my grandfather’s library.
But now it was mine.
It had only been two days since he passed away mere rooms from here. While it had been expected for quite a while now, it was still a shock when my parents called me to come home. The entire country was in mourning. People from all over were trickling into our home. Some had never even met my grandfather but were obligated to come.
It was too strange. The passing of my grandpa, my best friend, wasn’t supposed to be such a public thing. Yet that was just how our family worked. It had been like this for generations. That’s what happened in a monarchy. The king’s funeral wasn’t a thing for just friends and family, it was a thing for anybody with any type of status and-slash-or relation. To me, my grandpa had died, to everybody else their king had died.
My dad was busy taking over duties, my mom was swamped with funeral planning she had taken on to reduce the pressure on my dad, my little brother still had his classes to go to, so I was here all by myself. I had my painting, I had all my art. Technically I was supposed to get ready to take over more responsibilities as well, getting ready to one day take over from my dad. But I never wanted any of that. Or at least definitely not now. All I wanted was to live in a small studio and pursue my art forever now.
But then again I also realised that my position was the reason why I was able to do what I was. Back in New York I was Matilde George, art student who occasionally gets paint all over herself and it able to go to the coffee shop on the block in her pajamas without too much judgement. But in the Kingdom of Dalewin I was Princess Aerowyn Matilde George Rothchester. I was expected to make appearances, act and dress a certain way, be around particular people.
There wasn’t much I could do, but having gotten a taste at normal life had spoiled everything for me.
I was hoping painting would make me feel a little better. And it did, it truly did. But still. This room just felt so cold. Especially when the cool breeze from an opening door hit the back of my neck. I immediately turned around. Nobody was supposed to come in here. It was my granddad’s personal space, then it was our shared space, and now it was my hideout.
Some guy with brown shaggy hair and the most casual clothes was standing in the doorway. He looked like somebody I would come across in New York, like a ‘commoner’. It was pretty rare to see anything of the like in the castle, especially at times like this when there was so much company.
“Can I help you?” I raised an eyebrow as his eyes looked around all the shelves full of books in bewilderment with a hint of stress.
His gaze fell upon me and the glimmer of uncertainty was replaced with a confident smirk. “Well, I was lost, but it seems like I came to just the right place.”
I cringed internally as he winked and closed the door behind himself. This was my place, though, I wasn’t going to let him drive me away. “Who are you?”
“Alex,” he responded and started walking in my direction. His accent was way too American to be from here, “Alex Gaskarth.”
“Huh,” I frowned and pressed my paintbrush into my palette to grab some more paint, “never heard of ‘Gaskarth’ before.”
“It’s my dad’s name,” he started explaining as he sat on the desk that my grandpa had chosen himself many years ago, before I was even born. “My step-dad is advisor to the new king. Mom married him many many years ago, when I was six.”
“Your step-dad is Garry?” I looked past my canvas to see Alex was already staring right at me and made accidental eye contact with him.
“Yeah! So you’ve heard of him!”
“I didn’t know Garry had a step-son,” I shrugged and turned my attention back to my painting.
“I am the one and only!” He threw his hands up as if it were some great achievement.
Garry was one of the most humble people I had ever met and had the pleasure of working with. It was strange to think this boy leaving his butt print on my grandpa’s desk was raised by him.
“So what are you doing here?” I asked, still not understanding why in the world Garry’s step-son would suddenly be here now. I had never met or seen him before, unlike many other children the other advisors had.
“Well, somebody’s gotta help keep things running smoothly here while Garry is out of the King’s coronation tour,” he said so matter-of-factly that it made me feel incompetent, while I knew that wasn’t true.
“You?” I snorted.
“I’m the only one Garry trusts with all his heart. I’ve still got a few days before I’ve gotta straighten up. Now, I can still have as much fun as I could possibly want.”
“I’m glad to hear that you won’t be acting like this when you start the job. Doing this around the wrong people can get you in serious trouble.”
“What’s your name anyways?” He asked, confirming the suspicion I had that he had no idea who I was.
“Some people like to call me Aerowyn Matilde George Rothchester,” I said as nonchalantly as possible.
“I’ve heard that name somewhere before.” He jumped back up and clapped his hands together. “As much as I enjoyed this, I do actually need to go somewhere. Can you tell me which direction the west wing is?”
“The west.”
“Well, yeah, but would you be able to point me in the right direction?”
I pointed straight ahead of me, meaning he’d have to turn to the left as soon as he left the room.
“Thanks, princess,” he winked as he slipped out of the room.
