Chapter 50: The Cat Who Started It All

"Someone! Please help me down!"

Up on a sprawling branch some six feet above the ground, Riella sat huddled against the trunk.

Clutched tightly against her small chest was a tiny, trembling ball of orange fur.

It had all started thirty minutes earlier as a brilliant, heroic mission. She had slipped away from her maids near the rose maze, intent on proving that she was quite capable of exploring the gardens without three fussing women tailing her every step. Then she’d heard a tiny, pitiful squeak coming from a tree. Naturally, as a princess, it was her sacred duty to rescue distressed subjects, even four-legged ones with dusty whiskers.

The climbing part had gone surprisingly well. The coming down part, however...

"Hello?" Riella called out again, her voice coming out as a tiny, squeaky little puff that barely carried past the nearest leaves.

She swallowed hard, her throat feeling very dry. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and tried again, using the loud, commanding voice she usually saved for demanding extra sweets at tea time.

"Is anybody there?! Please help me! I’m stuck in a tree!"

Silence. The wind merely rustled the leaves, sending a shower of loose blossoms drifting down toward the grass.

A sudden wave of cold panic washed over her stomach. The ground looked absurdly far away, like looking down from the top of the palace watchtower. What if nobody found her until nightfall? What if giant garden owls came out? She hugged the little kitten closer to her ribs, feeling its tiny heart hammering wildly against her palm.

"Don’t worry," Riella whispered fiercely to the cat, her small lower lip trembling furiously even as she tried to sound brave and sensible. "I am not frightened. Not even a tiny bit. I am just... I am simply waiting for the guards to arrive."

Her voice cracked on the last word, sounding suspiciously like a quiet sniffle that completely ruined the noble effect.

"What on earth are you doing up there?"

Riella jumped, nearly dropping the kitten right out of her lap.

Standing down on the grass, clutching a half-eaten green plum in one hand, was a young boy with a mop of unruly, bright green hair. He was wearing a dusty tunic with one button undone at the collar, and his knees were covered in dark dirt smudges as though he’d spent his morning crawling through the garden hedges.

He blinked up at her with big, wide eyes, squinting against the sunlight.

"I am saving a kitten!" Riella announced with as much royal dignity as a little girl stuck in a tree could muster. "It was lost! And now I am... well. Now we are both waiting."

"Right," the boy declared, nodding firmly to himself. "Don’t cry! I’m going to help you get down."

Riella stared down at the boy. She had never seen him before, and she wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved that someone had finally found her or worried that her rescuer was a complete stranger.

"Can you really do that?" she asked, her voice wobbling slightly. "Are you going to climb up?"

"No, that would take too long," the boy answered casually, tossing his plum core away into the bushes. He wiped his hands on his trousers and took three steps closer to the base of the trunk. "You’re just going to jump, and I’m going to catch you!"

Riella stared at him as if he had suggested they both fly up to the moon.

He was barely half a head taller than she was! His arms looked like thin little twigs!

"You can’t catch me!" Riella protested indignantly. "You’re small! What if you drop me and I break my leg?!"

The boy puffed out his chest, standing as tall as his little legs would allow. "Don’t worry! I’ll catch you! I’ve got two perfectly good arms, haven’t I?"

"That’s not a real reason!" Riella argued back, her small hands tightening around the orange cat. "What if you try to catch me and you fail?"

"I won’t fail!"

"You’re just saying that! You don’t even know if you can!"

The boy looked momentarily, profoundly offended by this terrible, unprovoked accusation against his personal honor. He threw his hands into the air. "Well, how am I supposed to prove I can catch things if you won’t jump out of the tree?!"

Riella opened her mouth to argue, but no words came out. Much to her annoyance, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

"Hold the cat really tight," the boy instructed, stepping directly underneath her branch and spreading his arms wide like a bird preparing for takeoff. "Take a big, deep breath, and jump when you’re ready! I’m right here! It’s going to be completely fine!"

Riella looked down again. The grass still looked terribly hard, and her eyes were watering so much the green boy looked like a fuzzy, bright blur. But her arms were growing sore, the kitten was squirming, and the boy looked so remarkably confident standing down there with his arms wide open.

I am a princess, she reminded herself fiercely. Princesses are brave.

She squeezed her eyes shut, clutched the orange kitten tightly to her collarbone, took a giant breath, and let go of the branch.

Down on the grass, the boy planted his feet and spread his arms, preparing to prove that he could do exactly what he’d promised.

He did not catch her.

There was a sudden, violent collision of small limbs, flying skirts, and a high-pitched, combined shriek of utter chaos as Riella crashed straight into his chest.

THUMP!

The two children tumbled onto the soft grass in a messy, tangled heap. The boy landed flat on his back with a loud, hollow OOF! that knocked every last drop of air right out of his lungs, while Riella ended up sprawled awkwardly across his stomach, her nose buried in his velvet collar.

For three long seconds, neither of them moved.

The boy lay entirely flat, staring up at the blue sky through the green leaves with a look of profound, shocked betrayal, his mouth working silently as he tried to remember how breathing worked.

Riella slowly opened her eyes. The ground wasn’t hurting her legs. Her dress was even dirtier, yes, but she wasn’t broken!

"I’m alive!" she gasped, her head snapping up. She checked her arms and found the little kitten still nestled safely in the crook of her elbow, blinking its yellow eyes in mild confusion. "The cat is alive too!"

Then she looked down at the boy beneath her, who was currently letting out a low, pathetic, rattling groan that sounded like a squashed frog.

"Oh," Riella murmured, realizing her rescuer seemed to be having a considerably worse afternoon than she was.

"My back..." the boy wheezed out, rolling slowly onto his side and pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. He rubbed his spine with a small, dirty hand, glaring at the grass beneath him as if the lawn had personally insulted his ancestors.

Riella hurriedly scrambled off him, clutching the kitten securely. Once they were both sitting upright, the boy held out a hand, and Riella accepted it, letting him pull her up onto her feet, though he wobbled slightly as he stood.

The green-haired boy dusted a thick layer of dried garden dirt off his velvet sleeves, straightened his messy tunic collar, and looked at her with a proud, entirely unbothered grin.

"There!" he announced loudly, nodding with immense satisfaction. "See? The rescue was a complete, grand success!"

Riella blinked at him, her jaw dropping slightly. "But... but you didn’t catch me! We just fell down!"

"You landed safely, didn’t you?" the boy argued smoothly, gesturing to her perfectly unbroken legs.

"I landed on you!"

He paused, considering this point for a brief, thoughtful second, his head tilting to the side. "Well... that still counts. I stopped you from hitting the hard dirt!"

"The hard dirt stopped you!" Riella pointed out.

Before the boy could come up with another excuse, the orange kitten decided it had had quite enough of noble children. It wriggled out of Riella’s loosening grip, dropped lightly onto the grass, and trotted away toward the stone wall with a flick of its tail.

"Wait!" Riella gasped, taking a quick step forward.

But the little cat paid her no mind. It slipped beneath a nearby hedge and disappeared from sight.

Riella stopped in her tracks, her small shoulders slumping as a wave of utter, tragic disappointment washed over her. After all that terrifying climbing, the ruined dress, and crashing out of a tree, the little creature hadn’t even stayed to offer a single polite purr!

The green-haired boy watched the hedge for a moment, then turned to look at Riella’s heartbroken face.

"Well," the boy said solemnly, placing a comforting hand on his own hip. "Perhaps the cat had very important, high-level matters to attend to."

Riella smoothed down her ruined skirts, taking a slow breath. Despite the grass stains, the sticky tree sap in her hair, and the deeply embarrassing fall, she suddenly remembered that she was a Princess of Werestia. One had to maintain proper decorum, even after crashing out of an apple tree.

She turned toward her savior, drawing her feet together and offering him a small, perfectly graceful, albeit slightly dusty curtsy.

"Thank you for helping me," Riella said politely. "And I’m sorry for falling on top of you and hurting your back."

She hesitated, looking at the boy for a moment. "Um... I just realized I don’t know your name."

The boy’s entire demeanor instantly transformed.

His slouch disappeared at once. He straightened his back, lifted his chin, and squared his shoulders as though he were about to make the most important announcement.

Placing a hand over his chest, he grinned at her with unmistakable pride.

"Lioren Roscaire!" he announced proudly. "Future Grand Duke of Roscaire!"