AN:
Prologue
Scarlet remembered her mother’s death.
Her sisters said that at not even a year and a half old she was too young to, maybe she imagined it. Scarlet suspected she had, indeed, filled in some details from stories she had been told, created some of them herself.
But she definitely remembered Charlotte’s screams.
As a toddler, her sense of what was right and what was wrong relied on whether or not it caused her or someone else pain. That screaming signified what must have been the worst thing that could possibly happen. In fact, she even questioned if it was screaming at all. It was a curdling noise, the sound of a heart ripping in two clean down the middle. The sound of the world ending.
Eleven year old Melanie had run into the nursery and shushed Scarlet and her elder sister Delphine who stood in her cot, chubby hands gripping the bars as if trying to crush them. Melanie put her arm around her and held Scarlet, her own head bent over them. Scarlet remembered the brush of her hair on her own soft head.
Things began to happen. The girls who had left to see what the matter was, or those who had not yet come in from their various locations round the palace were ushered into the nursery, where they sat ashen faced and terrified. Around them, servants hurried, sobbing and wailing in their own sorrow, whispering what had happened to each other. The heavy hooves of a messenger horse could be heard even above the storm. Some strong men went to the tower roof and came down with something wrapped in cloth. At the sight, Flora slammed the door to the corridor shut. Below, the city bells began to ring out that the queen was dead. The girls all huddled together, some crying, some whispering, some frozen.
But Charlotte, always so strong, shunned any comfort and curled up, by herself, in a tiny pathetic ball. Scarlet could always remember that sight, a heap of red silk on the floor. And the screaming.
The screaming…
Chapter One
Opening her eyes, Laurel took in the oak rafters, the light whispering in through the shutters, the crack in the plaster that looked like the side of an oak leaf and knew exactly where she was.
The Meltwater Lake Academy for Young Ladies had become a second home to Laurel over the past six years. Putting her feet on the floor she expected the cold it would send up her ankles, the pulling of mountain air at her arms as she left her quilt down. She anticipated the hoarse whispers of “Sleep well?” the other girls suffering from morning throat asked each other. As always, she moved quietly so as not to disturb those still sleeping, though the rap on the door telling late-sleepers to get up would soon come. Her fingers found from habit the hook on the shutters and she opened them to reveal the ice-coloured morning, white tipped mountains, the lake surface slowly melting, the bare broken limbs of trees dropping water that was once snow. And even now, though the garden was bare and dead, she could see Tom’s bent back amongst the flowerbeds. He was probably whispering for the new shoots to come, as he had been when they first spoke. Laurel smiled.
She pulled a pink day dress on over her shift, found some stockings and let her black hair free of its night time plaits, leaving it loose around her shoulders. One of the others beckoned to her and she left.
The corridor that led them down to breakfast was long, but beginning to fill up with girls as they all went the same way. Laurel hung to the back of her group, not feeling the urge to gossip or chatter about her dreams. As they passed one doorway however, a vision in green flew at her.
“Lo!” her sister said, tossing the black hair they shared out of her face. “Have you seen Immy?”
Laurel had to suppress a laugh. “Morning to you too, Cass. Can’t say I have, don’t see why I would have if you haven’t. Sleep well?”
Cassandra nodded and looking around once more, linked arms with Laurel as they continued down the corridor to the dining hall. There, in the spacious room filled with blue-white morning, they found their way to the first table below the staff table on the right. Here was where the sisters always sat for breakfast, three to a side, and, looking over, Laurel saw the other table where her elder sisters had sat in their time. It was now filled with girls who were not related to her, but could have been, they had known each other so long, known each other so well.
As for actual family, though, turning back to where Cassandra and her now took their places, only Sienna was waiting. With her dark blonde hair brushed to perfection and pushed demurely behind her ears, she smiled but said nothing.
“Morning, Sea,” Laurel said. “Sleep well?”
Sienna nodded but as Laurel opened her mouth to ask if she was going to the village Cassandra cut across her, whispering, “There’s Immy, look at her, has she no shame?”
Laurel followed Cassandra’s green gaze to where their next eldest sister was sitting at the head table. She had slid into one of the teacher’s chairs, her jet black ringlets held back by what Laurel was sure was a paintbrush. She fiddled with the prongs of a fork while she talked to the art tutor, the young and relatively handsome Tristan. As she watched, he reached out and touched her fingertips. It made Laurel’s stomach flip over. Imogen and Tristan were both artists, and she knew they gave little heed to protocol as such. Laurel was only vaguely uneasy about the four year age gap but the fact that Tristan was, to all intents and purposes, a teacher worried her far more. Still, to say anything would be hypocritical, she reminded herself, thinking of Tom’s blue eyes and the mixed scent of compost and flowers that rose from his clothes.
“At least it answers your question, Cass,” she murmured.
The hall continued to fill, and Imogen retreated to her seat opposite Cassandra, and the two leant over the table and began to whisper excitedly. Laurel looked at the two still empty seats beside her, but almost as the thought of where are they? began to form in her mind, footsteps slapped towards them and a red-cheeked Delphine took her seat.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, slightly out of breath.
“You’re not, Mistress Quale isn’t here yet,” Laurel said. “But where have you been?”
“I went for a run around the lake.”
“Alone?” Cassandra, leaning back in her chair, raised an eyebrow.
“Well, no, Adam was there-” Delphine said, clearly trying to be dismissive, and seemed relieved as girls began to stand up and go silent around them. They followed suit as Alannah Quale, the headmistress of the Academy, went up to the head table, followed by her son Henry, who grinned with pearly white teeth at the girls and winked at Cassandra, the rest of the staff, seeming sullen in the morning, and finally, Scarlet, who broke off to join her sisters.
“Sit,” Mistress Quale said, bowing her head graciously once she had taken her place. They did so as the food was brought in and the hubbub began to rise.
“’Let, where were you?” Imogen asked, frowning. “We’re used to Delphine being late, but not you-”
Scarlet’s blue eyes- Laurel remembered her mother’s being the same shade, Charlotte’s too- glittered. “I met Mistress Quale on the way down,” she began, “and she said she had something for me so we went to her study, and, well…”
From her skirt pocket, Scarlet revealed a creamy white rectangle and passed it to Laurel, being the eldest present. On the front, lay a single word.
Princesses.
Chapter One has five other perspectives in it, but I thought I wouldn't torture you with them all. So. Go on!
. You know how in a movie sometimes it starts off with action then blinks out into like normal life? Well that's how your prologue felt when I read it. It was intense at the beginning then it faded like a movie. I think these piece is one of the only ones I have ever read that does that. The only other thing I have to say is if you're going to say something say it. You don't have to have fancy words like "oblong" to get your point across just say envelope. 
However, I do agree with the others about the story starting out with a good action scene and then changing to something not quite as thrilling. Also, having so many characters introduced in the beginning is a little overwhelming. All right, that's about all I have to say; the rest of it is down there in blue. 
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