In Chains by C. Noble (ebook reader with highlighter .txt) 📕

dropping down on her bed next to the hysterical Mary Ann. For several minutes all that could be heard was Mary Ann’s sobbing. Darcey was unsure what to do. Mary Ann was always talking. When she wasn’t, it unnerved everyone around her.
“Darcey, I don’t know what to do!” Mary Ann wailed. She tipped back onto Darcey’s elaborate set of crimson embroidered pillows and gasped. “I thought everything would work out. I thought… I thought maybe we could still pull it off.”
“Work what out, Mary Ann? Are you ok?” Darcey wrapped her arms around her distressed friend. Gently, slowly, Darcey rocked the sobbing girl. What seemed like hours passed before Mary Ann could choke back her tears and explain what had happened.
“Dante and I…had a fight,” Mary Ann said, trying desperately to control the flow of tears down her face.
“So? Honey, it doesn’t matter!” Darcey rubbed Mary Ann’s back in slow, circular motions. It always helped her high strung friend to relax.
“It doesn’t matter? Darcey, of course it matters!” Mary Ann was in no position to be comforted. Darcey had no idea what the real problem behind this was, but from the way Mary Ann was bawling, it wasn’t long before she would find out.
“Mary Ann, why does it matter? Why does it matter if you and Dante had a fight?” Darcey asked quietly, mindful of her friend’s generally over the top reactions to simple questions.
“Because, Darcey…because I love him.”
Mary Ann’s simple statement almost knocked Darcey off her feet. Mary Ann and Dante? They had always seemed like mutual friends, content when the other was around, but just as easy to be alone. Scenes from her past, from her memory of Dante, came tumbling back into her mind. Dante fighting with Will over who, she had thought at the time, would get to date her. Dante holding her hand on that first flight to Dijoubwe. Was it possible that he and Mary Ann had been together all that time?
“You…oh,” Darcey fumbled over her words, trying desperately to save what little self-control she had left.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Mary Ann whined, sinking back into Darcey’s plush down bed.
“Mary Ann, I honestly have no idea. I mean, how long have you two been, uh, you know. Together?” It was uncomfortable, talking to Mary Ann about a boy who had so recently tried to win Darcey’s heart. Or at least that’s what she thought at the time.
“I don’t know, Darcey. Around two years?” Mary Ann sniffed, trying gallantly to hold back her tears.
“Oh,” Darcey said quietly. Two years was such a long time. And there had been so many clues to dissuade the idea! Will had said that Dante had a girlfriend in the mountains back home…and another one on Obweji. Had Will been lying to her?
Darcey softly left the bed and wandered to her balcony, watching the little people scurrying around beneath her, oblivious to her observations. They were all of them so small, so insignificant to her, but they each led their own lives separate from hers. They did not know of her inner demons, and she of theirs. But surely they had them. Everyone had to.
“Darcey?” a voice behind her quietly called. The foundling princess did not need to turn to know that it was Mary Ann, eager to reanimate her sympathy. Her back tightened at the thought. She drew her shoulders together and straightened, closing her eyes but refusing to turn and meet her friend’s.
“Get out.” Her voice said, with all the cool poise of a summer thunderstorm. Her mind and body had gotten hard, her heart iced over. The warmth and love died from her eyes, replaced by severe judgement and distrust.
“What? Why would you…come on, Darcey. Can we talk?” Mary Ann’s voice spoke of anxiety and unease, but Darcey knew her countenance would be as calm and collected as it ever was.
“You may address me as Princess, or My Lady. But now, Lady Palma, I insist upon your leaving me to myself.” Darcey turned and stared down her friend. Her green eyes flashed a dangerous fire, ready and willing to devour every positive emotion she once held dear. And she was on the verge of letting it do just that.
A minute passed as the two girls stared at each other, one desperate to understand what had happened, the other desolate of her former feelings. Finally, Mary Ann took a step forward and reached for Darcey’s arm. Before she had even covered half the distance, the dangerous girl opened her mouth and screamed. “Guards! Guards! Take Lady Palma away from me. She seems to misunderstand which of us is more consequential.”
Darcey watched as two burly men in violet and gold came forward and each took one of Mary Ann’s arms. They led her out of the glorious bedroom, while three more followed behind. She put up no fight, but continually threw glares back at her princess, demanding to know her crime. Darcey just stared through her, entirely unwilling to even entertain the thought. The winds picked up and flew her robes and hair before her face, whipping around her like flames devouring their victim. She watched as her former friend was dragged off into uncertainty. Turning back to the balcony, she once again watched the street peddlers and palace servants, but in a new and deadly light.
Darcey was a princess. Someday soon, all of this would be hers, and she would make absolutely sure that no one, not even a trifling childhood companion, would ever forget it.
 
-end of part III- Imprint

Publication Date: 06-24-2011

All Rights Reserved