1 The deal

"We always keep our promises," Taleyah let out along with her father while rolling her eyes.

It was tiresome to be reminded of that every day of her life. As a princess, her father reminded her of the importance of promises every other day.

At times it got boring to listen to the same thing over and over again. "It is not a joke, Taleyah," his father elucidated.

Taleyah grabbed the hems of her dress and got up from her seat. She twirled her body to face her father.

"Father, I will always remember it. Even after marriage," she assented.

Her father's smile dropped. Dead silence engulfed the room. Taleyah noticed that even her caretaker had a frown on her face.

Such was the case every time she suggested or mentioned the idea of marriage.

Taleyah was turning twenty years old today. It was her birthday, yet unlike every year she had not seen any sign of a celebration.

She convinced herself that everyone was preparing a surprise for her.

"Father, I know that you love me a lot. But I will have to marry soon as I have come of age," she argued. "I think the prince of Sa..."

"Your mother wanted to speak to you," her father interrupted her before she could complete her statement.

Taleyah held her breath, it shook her to even think of what her mother wanted to say. She knew one thing, it wasn't going to be about her marriage.

Her marriage was the last thing that anyone ever talked about. It was a topic avoided like a plague by everyone in the royal family.

"Is there something wrong with me?" she gathered up the courage and asked her father.

She was the only different one among her siblings, over the years she convinced herself that the reason why she was special was that she was the oldest.

With every year that passed, she got to see that there was more to her than being pampered the most. A secret that haunted everyone and kept them from leaving her alone.

It was the reason that no one would ever entertain the idea of her getting married.

"My sweet child, there is nothing wrong with you," the king spoke reassuringly.

Taleyah's eyes moisten, she felt like crying. Whenever her father called her his sweet child it made her sad. The tone of his voice had a hint of fear and regret.

She had no answers to her questions, the secrets made her heart skitter with fear. The unsettled feeling in her chest grew with the weak smile thinking flashed at her.

"I am going to ask you that next year and I expect the same..."

"Arghhh," the queen cried out by the door.

The king sauntered over to the queen, he held her and stopped her from falling to the floor. Taleyah shot her eyes to her mother.

The queen was breaking down. The last few days, she had not been her best self. It was as though her whole world was falling apart around her.

Taleyah felt the burden weighing on her shoulder. The joy and the chaos in the palace for the past few days were getting the best of her. Her heart tightened. Knowing that she was responsible for her mother's condition, broke her heart to pieces.

It took all of her to put on a brave face. The King glanced at her, Taleyah could see tears that he was holding back in his eyes.

He was trying to remain composed but his walls were coming apart. He couldn't take it back, his child was no longer his and he could not see himself parting with her.

For months they tried to tell her the truth, to explain to her the promise that he had made. The deal that he had taken to win the war twenty years back. A deal that requires them to send her away to beasts that were feared all across the corners of the world.

When he made the deal, he had no idea that it would be so hard to part with his child. Today was the last day their daughter was with them. After that, they might never see her again.

"Father!"

They all turned their heads to the door where the crown prince was coming in from. The male seemed panicked, he was scared.

"Father!" He called out with fear oozing out of him. "The-there is a.."

His words caught in his throat. Everyone drowned, it was unlike him to be speechless and so scared. They worried.

"What happened, son?" The king asked.

The queen steadied herself beside her husband and stood strong. Taleyah inched closer to hear what the problem was that got her brother all worked up.

"There is a palace floating over us," the crown prince uttered in one breath.

The King and queen's jaws dropped. They thought that they had a lot of time. They had not expected them to come for Taleyah so soon.

The queen couldn't hold back her tears anymore. She broke out into sobs and hid her face in the king's chest. Taleyah watched them in silence, for some reason she had a bad feeling about the flying palace.

She rushed out of the room and ran to go to the garden. It was wrong of a princess to run but the situation called out for it.

"They are here for princess Taleyah," she heard voices ahead of her. Her feet stopped and she froze in place. Her heart squeezed in her chest. The fear of the truth overwhelmed her.

Over the years, she has wanted nothing more than the truth. Now that she caught a glimpse of it, she wished they wouldn't say what she thought they were saying.

"Yes, poor child," another voice sounded.

"The king had made a deal with the five beasts of the flying palace," the person who had spoken the first time uttered. "Now the beasts have come to collect," he added.

Taleyah clasped her hand over her mouth. Tears freely flowed from her eyes. Her eyelashes fluttered as her body shivered in fear.

The princess had heard of the legend of the flying palace and the beasts that resided inside the palace. They were known to be heartless and cruel beasts that showed no mercy to humans.

Taleyah didn't have it in her to believe what she heard. It was impossible that her loving father would make a deal to give her away to monsters. He loved her too much for that.

"Shut up!" She barked. "How dare you say such vile things about my father?" She raised the question to them.

The two bowed their heads in respect of her title and went silent. Taleyah knew it was wrong to vent at them, with the way her mother and father behaved. There was a possibility that the two gossipers were telling the truth.

There was a chance that the beasts had come for her. "Get lost before I have your tongues for this," she ordered them.

The two scurried away and left her side. Taleyah sauntered forward and looked up. The silver palace glimmered brightly in the sky. It stretched far and wide that she could hardly make out how big it was.

Taleyah felt her knees weaken. The flying palace was like it was destined in books she had read of it. Magical and mystical, she had once thought of its existence as a tale someone wrote when bored.

Coming face to face with it, she was left breathless at its beauty and heartbroken at why they could have come to her kingdom.

At that moment a flower dropped from the sky. Taleyah reached both her hands out and caught it before it hit the ground. She was awed by its beauty. She was yet to see such a beautiful flower in all her life.

"A message for the king Karn, the masters of the silver flying palace have come," she heard a male voice from the flower. "To our deal, princess Taleyah must be sent to us at midnight," the voice added.

Taleyah's heart shook, her lips trembled in terror. Hearing approaching footsteps behind her, she twirled around to see who had come.

The King and Queen stood behind her in tears. "Why?" was all that that Taleyah could bring herself to let out.