White Nightgown

TW: murder

They come late at night.

I’m not entirely sure what woke me up at first but the longer I sit motionlessly and strain my hearing, the clearer I can hear the distant murmur of struggle and muffled shouts. My bedroom is untypically illuminated by the soft glow streaming in through the windows, bathing everything in warm, orange light. It is almost as though a fireplace was lit in the room, creating a homely, cosy atmosphere, except there is no fireplace here.

As I slide from underneath the covers and pad on bare feet towards the closest window, I spy the glow’s origin. It’s hard not to, really, when everything, as far as I can see, is on fire.

My pulse picks up, heart pounding until I can feel the echo of it in the spot on the side of my neck. My entire body vibrates with it, throbbing in the rhythm of my heartbeat as my hands clench on my sides.

I whip my head towards the door. There are no guides bursting inside yet, which most likely means they never will. There are at least two stationed right outside my door at all times, and they are strictly forbidden from leaving their posts, even to help if they hear signs of a struggle somewhere else or are explicitly called for help by anyone other than me. The procedure dictates that as soon as any risk of harm emerges, they come into my bedroom and escort me to the nearest emergency passage leading out of the palace. This has never happened before, but there have been training, and I have always been ushered out long before I could even spot something was amiss on my own.

If I can already hear the sounds of a fight growing closer, it means I have no guards left to count for. I am on my own here.

Just like I’d expected.

Striding back to the bed, I throw off the covers and tug the fitted sheets off the mattress. Slipping my hand under the edge and extending my arm, my fingers close around the dagger stored in there – gripping the handle, the blade is wickedly sharp, enough to slice my fingers into ribbons had I attempted to grab it.

My boots are just by the door and my coat is in the wardrobe, but I leave them behind. The dagger is my only accessory as I slide the door open and peek outside.

The hall is eerily empty. I have never seen it this lifeless before, without a single guard in sight. There is always an abundance of them, strategically placed every few hundred meters, feeding my parents’ paranoia of being attacked.

Ironic how our biggest fears are often our downfall, in the end.

I slowly step outside, making sure to leave the door ajar. The floor is cold against my bare feet as I slowly move toward the stairs, peeking over the bannister. It’s pitch-black, so I see nothing. There isn’t a soul on this floor of the castle – it is as though my guards have disappeared, vanished into thin air.

Holding onto the bannister, I trudge down the stairs, all the way to the ground floor. All the floors before that are just like mine – disturbingly empty and dark, quiet save for the echoes of what is happening downstairs. The lower I get, the more prominent the scent of smoke in the air becomes, until it’s nearly burning my nostrils when I’m on the first floor.

It is not until I get all the way down that I see it. The bloodshed.

Everything is more visible now, with all the fire raging here. Curtains are in flames, the furniture, even the floor seems to burn. What I’d assumed earlier were shouts is actually the roar of the fire, incredibly loud up close. I pause halfway down the last set of stairs, taking in the scene before me.

There is movement – everywhere. Bodies writing, launching, fighting. People screaming, yelping, crying. Weapons clashing, clinking, killing. And among this all – fire, spreading at an alarming rate.

The scene lures me in, captivates me, holds me hostage. I can’t tear my eyes away from the massacre unfolding right in front of me, and it’s not until I hear a hoarse shout before I eventually jerk my head to the side.

“Your Majesty, run!” One of the guards finds enough air in his burning lungs to yell. “The princess is here! Protect the princess!”

Several guards break free from the fights they have been engaged in, others taking their place. They are severely outnumbered now, the ratio of the men dressed all in black, wearing masks designed to give you nightmares, significantly bigger than that of the royal guards.

No figure in black makes an attempt to lurch at me, but the guards don’t notice. Four of them rush to me, reaching me in seconds, one right after the other.

As soon as the first one runs up to me and catches my arm, I burst into hysterics.

They try to calm me down, try urging me down the stairs, promise to get me to safety. I cry and wail and sputter, leaning on one, pressing my face into the chest of another. I ask about my parents, about my older brother – find out they’re being moved to safety as we speak.

I don’t know if they’re telling the truth or lying to me in an attempt to calm me down, but I do know that my panic attack has lasted long enough that the guards’ numbers in the main hall have dwindled even more. I also know that in their haste to get to me, to protect me and then to shush me, the four guards have not noticed the dagger I’d moved just out of sight, angling my arm slightly behind my back right before they surrounded me. They are distracted by my presence here, stupefied by my sudden outburst, weakened by the helplessness in the face of this whole situation.

That is why they never see it coming when I drive my dagger straight into the stomach of the first one.

To be fair, it takes them embarrassingly long to realise what’s just happened. Two of them are still behind my back, reassuring hands placed on both my shoulders, and the one I’d stabbed reveals very little. Shock prevents him from reacting, and it’s not until I twist the blade in his stomach and tug it up when he doubles over with a strangled grunt. The one next to him notices the movement, the other two – the ones behind me – the trail of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

They all go into a stupor, allowing me enough time to tug my weapon free - the guard crumbling to the floor instantly, as though the only thing holding him up was the dagger in his stomach – and skewer it into the other one, this time aiming for the heart.

I feel it make contact with bone, scraping one of his ribs as the wickedly sharp points sinks into his heart. I twisted the dagger sideways – just like Ro has taught me – so the cut is clean and successful. As I watch the life leave him, two men in black make quick work of taking care of the ones at my back.

Soon, my weapon is free once more, gripped in my hand at my side, and the four bodies are sprawled on the stairs, some having rolled down a few steps, others having landed in awkward positions. From what I can see, one of the other two had died in the same way as the second one I’d killed – just stabbed from the back. A crimson line cuts across the other one’s throat, but he’s still sucking in sharp, wet breaths, his hand at the wound as though he’s trying to push all the blood back in. Though I wasn’t the one to deliver his death, his watery eyes are focused on me, wide and full of so many emotions. I turn my own gaze away and step over his body, the two men in black following me as we slowly make our way down the stairs.

There are only a few royal guards left standing. They are still fighting, even though it is clear their resistance is fruitless. Some of the bodies littering the floor are on fire by now, and that is what prompts me to leave the palace as soon as possible. My throat and lungs are already burning from the heavy smoke clouding the space, the last thing I need right now is the stench of charred flesh making matters worse.

Only a handful of the men in black remain inside – it will take them minutes to finish off the few guards still struggling, still defending the honour of who are already dead people walking. Their queen, king, and crown prince.

I don’t know if they have seen what their princess has done at the stairs, or if they were too preoccupied with the fight. If not, then they will never know that one of those they have been fighting for, was the one who’d brought this upon them in the first place.

I haven’t managed to get much out of the four guards regarding the whereabouts of my family, but if it is true that they are currently being escorted to safety, then I know where to find them. The men in black follow me wordlessly as we make our way across the front lawn, with all its ridiculous animal-shaped bushes and merry trickling fountains.

Technically, I shouldn’t know which tunnel each member of my family is using to get out of the palace. During all of the previous drills, everyone was escorted to a different place, as the risk of gathering the entire royal family in one spot and evacuating us all in one carriage is too big. I should not even know about any of the tunnels, save of the one meant for me, but the perks of being the one member of the family everybody disregards like a bird in a cage, alive and there but unable to listen and understand? I know a lot of things I shouldn’t.

I wonder briefly if my family is really being protected right now. If the guards had rushed to their sides, leaving just me to my own devices. I’d specifically instructed Ro’s men to take care of the guards on my floor first, but I’d been worried about more rushing in regardless. Either they had more faith in each other, or not enough respect for me. Neither would surprise me.

Or they simply had not expected somebody to sneak in from inside the palace and kill the guards stationed on my floor silently. After all, I am not supposed to know about all the tunnels leading both outside and into the palace.

Nobody ever questioned why I had requested the escape drills. Why I suddenly felt so unsafe in my own home that I needed to get the security measures tested. My parents were paranoid about safety, so I probably took after them.

Nobody ever noticed when I used my tunnel to sneak out of the palace, night after night, to secretly plot their demise.

They would all die, never knowing that it was their own blindness, their disregard for the useless female second child, had been what brought this fate upon them.

My hold on the dagger tightens. It’s sticky from the blood covering it, its warmth slowly dissipating under the brisk night air – just like the warmth leaving the blood’s owners’ bodies right now. I look down at myself, noticing the splashes of red splattered all over my nightgown. I probably shouldn’t have chosen to wear white to bed last night.

But then again, I had been allowed to make so few choices in all of my life, I guess I just cannot make the right ones. My entire existence has been dictated by the fact that I had been born a girl, and a second child, at that. The kingdom has no use for me. My parents have no use for me. What is the point of providing me with the same education my brother had received, teaching me strategy and logic and wise decision-making?

All the skills I need are embroidering, etiquette, and horse riding – in the female saddle, because gods forbid I straddle a horse. Not in the presence of men teaching me, as sadly, there are no female instructors available.

There are none even existing, because apparently, it requires a penis to ride a horse – or do anything, really – well.

So, no I cannot make good choices. Perhaps the blood on my clothes, the smoke in my hair, and the weapon in my hand are testament to that. But the thing about bad choices? There are better than no choices.

So I stride forward, my pace never faltering, as I lead the group of men towards where I believe the first person might be hiding – my mother. Her first, because she’s been the least guilty in all of this, being a woman herself. Or perhaps the most – instead of accepting things as they are, maybe she could have made an attempt to oppose the way things are. As the queen, there is no one other woman who can possibly make that happen.

Other than me, of course.

Then my brother. Him, I would regret the most, because despite being a man, he is a good one. He has actually made the effort of sneaking to me some of the information he’d acquired in his lessons, of sharing with me the notes he’s taken. But he’s never supported me in either of the countless discussions with father, where I’d tried to convince him I’m useful for more than selling off to the most powerful prince in the neighbouring lands.

Ah, yes, father. Him, I would leave for the last.

I wipe the blade of my dagger on the material of the already-bloodied nightgown, careful not to nick myself.

The time has come to make my own decisions. And they are all going to wish they had taught me how to make the right ones, in the first place.