Storybook {Prologue}

Minerva was not a princess from a storybook. She knew that. 

She also knew that at one point, when she was small, she had been a true princess. But she was one no longer.

She admired the ones her mother read to her from the thick tome that sat on the sitting room table. She grew curves and sprouted like a beanstalk. Her hair flowed down her back and was often pulled back with a faded pink ribbon. Her mother looked upon her with eyes that seemed to grow more hollow with each passing day. Instead of truly seeing her only daughter grow amongst her sons, brazen and strong, with jeweled irises and black whorls of hair sprouting to their shoulders, she saw her life slip away from her. 

It had already been taken away from her once before.  

 It was intended for their lives to be veneered by normalcy. The weepy town on the outskirts of the kingdom of Lenaria was often undisturbed. The only thing that truly sent ripples through the staunch little compact homes with thatched roofs was the birth of foal to Edward Curr’s brilliant white horse. Horses smelled to Minerva. Her brothers could not get enough of them. 

Then a man with a scarlet cloak came to their door when Minerva was alone, thumbing through the storybook with its stained and yellowed pages. The day was bitterly cold, but she was too lazy and tired to shove her feet within her silken slippers. She opened it without a tinge of caution and was met with the face of a man with whorls of dark hair that fell down to his shoulder and perfectly framed his squared face. His jewled eyes shone brightly in the overcast sunlight; the right was blue, the left was green. His lips split into a careful grin when he gazed into Minerva’s deep brown eyes. 

“Your mother did not lie when she said you would be here.” He told her. He took her hand and squeezed it. “You’re the spitting image of her.”

“Naturally.” Minerva spat dumbly as her tongue went numb. Her heartbeat quickened as she remembered the dagger that sat in the strongbox. 

“You really do not know who I am?” The man’s brows sloped into upturned arcs of disappointment. 

“I know exactly who you are, Father. Don’t come back.” She slammed the door in his face, turned on her heel, and turned her attention back to her storybook.