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The Mischievous Maiden & The Sleeping Prince

Author: MizA
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Synopsis

A runaway maiden finds herself entangled in a tale of horror when she saves the Bride of a prince from a Haunted Castle. --- WARNING: HEAVY SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS, GORE, DISTURBING THEMES, SLOW-BURN ROMANCE, RICH-IN-STORY NOVEL! I hope you like this story. If you wish, please support this tale by voting, rating, and commenting. Your feedback on typos or bad grammar is welcomed and appreciated.

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Chapter 1The Maiden

Firm knocks on the carriage door startled Alexa and the other maiden.

Cordelia, the Bride, held her breath, then exhaled carefully, knowing that outside, her husband-to-be, Prince Klaus von Wutenfall, probably wanted to greet her for the first time. They had arrived at the border of the two kingdoms, and the noble groom was there to escort his future wife to the castle. The Prince and his men met them on the road, next to the frontier's outpost, by the morning.

'Ah, if he had crossed borders and met the Bride's retinue two nights ago, then he would have been of some use! Or would have he died, too?' Alexa mused, looking at her bandaged and aching hands.

Lady Cordelia opened the sliding window, trembling in anticipation. Alexa curiously peered outside. She wanted to know who Lady Cordelia was promised to.

A handsome face showed up.

Alexa's violet eyes met Prince Klaus's golden eyes immediately. Shock widened the leonine gaze. Before she could think of any reason for this reaction, the door was fully open. Alexa was abruptly yanked from the carriage by her cloak's sleeves, throwing her off balance.

Cordelia shouted, "Prince Klaus! Stop! Stop! Please!"

Alexa fell, face down, but at least was agile enough not to have her face plastered on the muddy ground. Turning on her fours, she tried to get up, but as the maiden's hands were wounded and bandaged, she could not use them for support. Her hooded travel cape fell forward, making her blind for a moment.

The Prince once again turned the maiden with a tug of her cloak, causing her to lie flat on her back. He stood menacingly upon her, pointing the sword at her neck with Alexa between his legs.

They faced each other again. Alexa just gasped but didn't beg or scream.

Cordelia rushed out of the carriage,

"PLEASE, YOUR HIGHNESS, CEASE THIS! STOP! WHAT HAS THIS GIRL DONE TO BE TREATED THIS WAY?! I BEG—DON'T HURT HER!! SHE SAVED ME TWO NIGHTS AGO!!" the Bride pleaded, on the verge of despair, not understanding the reason for the sudden violence against her new friend.

Alexa dared not look away from the lion's eyes of the Saxon Prince. The damsel understood a little more than Lady Cordelia. She realized that her face attracted hatred and passion since she was a child.

The handsome, dark-haired Prince sighed, apparently annoyed that he had to deal with his Bride before dealing with Alexa. In her thoughts, Alexa thanked Cordelia for being there. But on second thought, if it weren't for Cordelia, none of this would happen in the first place.

"Who are you?" his voice was deep, and naturally, he spoke with the hard accent of his people. Although she could speak the language of the Lower Saxony people, Alexa was sure they would have a hard time communicating.

Starting with the fact that he was above her, with a sword pointed at the damsel's chin! Alexa, however, had her back in the cold, stinky mud and was surrounded by hostile soldiers and a mad prince.

The Greek maiden thought of many things to do and say, but given her fragile condition and health, the best thing to do was…

Cough.

She coughed and raised her bandaged, now muddy little hands to her face. Her best ally was Lady Cordelia's compassion, who was struggling to get the Prince's attention.

"Coff Coff Coff… Coff Coff"… Alexa rolled a bit for extra dramatic effect.

She hated it, but as the mercenary who accompanied her journey until days ago would say, 'honor is disposable.'

He would have laughed at Alexa's situation, the bastard.

As she raised the filthy rags toward her face, the Prince pulled the maiden off the ground by the hood. At this moment, his Bride intervened and grasped his strong arm, trying to keep Prince Klaus from hurting the petite lady,

"No! Don't touch her! Don't do it, Your Highness! She is my friend; she is… my lady-in-wait! What are you doing?!"

Alexa could not prevent her own preservation instinct and also held the arm of the Saxon prince, struggling to make him stop accidentally strangling her as he was pulling her by the hood. Her hands hurt as if a thousand needles stung her. Only then Alexa moaned, in pain.

"Who is this creature? What kind of nonsense is that?!" the man roared, taking his Bride's hand away from him. Both faced each other.

Alexa, sitting on the damp ground, watched the couple that should get married in five days on their first meeting.

The Prince wore black, with a dark green cape. He didn't look much like the blond people of the North. On the contrary, the Prince had dark, striking eyebrows and large green-golden eyes, the features of his face Apollonian as a classic statue. If not for his angry and nasty expression, he was a handsome man of Southern descent, Alexa imagined.

On the other hand, Lady Cordelia paled in the face of her husband-to-be's strength, vitality, and beauty. Nowhere could the combination of her features be considered beautiful. She was too tall, too thin, too wan and pale. Her eyes were faded blue colored, just as her lips were discolored and fishlike, and her teeth, large. But Alexa considered Cordelia's sweet voice, full of kindness and innocence, her best asset.

The Prince, however, showed neither kindness nor innocence.

'Poor Cordelia,' the maiden found herself thinking as she stood, watching the noble couple's clash of glances. Naturally, the man won, his intense gaze dominating the delicate-minded Bride. Cordelia turned her gaze but pleaded once again,

"Please don't mistreat her, I beg, my Prince. I'd be dead today if it weren't for Lady Saskia."

The arrogant Prince even tried but didn't hide his indifference to his Bride. 'Maybe if she was beautiful? She's so sweet and so innocent…!' Alexa wished Cordelia had a better destiny than consorting the arrogant Prince. She had never heard about his tiny kingdom before some days ago.

And yet it wasn't over, Alexa knew, but before the Prince answered his Bride, they heard the galloping of horses. One of the men warned,

"They are messengers, my Prince!"

'Meh meh meh,' Alexa thought peevishly, mimicking the words at the back of the Prince. The maiden could indulge this much after the events of the last minutes. She had rolled in the mud; she was stinking, and she was freezing. She had gone out of her way and was now stuck in a most complicated situation. And now she just met a jerk with a title, wanting to drag her face to the ground for no apparent reason.

Titles! What are nobility titles when death comes to everyone?

He couldn't possibly know what had happened, could he? Worse than that… would he possibly know who Alexa really was?

"Your Highness, the castle is in turmoil. Your brother Prince Alexander… He's dead!" said the messenger, who wore the same uniform as most men around the Prince.

For some completely nonsense reason for Alexa, everyone's eyes turned to her.

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plants melons but gets beans · History
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347 Chs
Table of Contents
Volume 1 :The Mischievous Maiden & the Sleeping Prince
Volume 2 :The Mischievous Princess & the Heart of Stone
Volume 3 :The Mischievous Goddess & And the Pomegranate Seed

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Maromar
MaromarLv2

Alexa, a woman of many secrets, submits herself to a tale of beyond-mortal peril when she decides to befriend Cordelia, a plain woman bound for marriage into the Holstein royal family. The wisdom of her decision in the face of political strife, the charming yet vexatious Prince Magnus, and the harrowing echoes of souls long dead is revealed within The Mischievous Maiden and the Sleeping Prince. The piece opens in medias res, teasing readers with prospects of a plot that turns out to be a tad more complex than your typical historical romance with a dash of fantasy. Even if they aren't hooked by the image of a panicked and injured protagonist dragged away by royalty in a foreign land, MizA’s style is strong enough to ensnare readers with smooth text structure. The paragraph variation, in particular, lets one’s eyes slide from one scene to the next without much exhaustion when binge reading. Another strong point lies in the exploration of the title’s genre. Where others tend to tack on the fantasy tag as window dressing to provide easy setpieces to drown shippers in, The Mischievous Maiden and the Sleeping Prince gives the more esoteric elements appropriate consideration. The plot feels very much alive past the romance. The characters are palatable overall. I only found slight issue with Magnus and much of the reason for my weariness was put to rest before too long. In the beginning, it felt like he was going to be one of those romantic interests that get portrayed as perfectly attractive and acceptable despite legitimately abusive behavior. I’m glad to say that his faults and actions were recognized by both Cordelia and Alexa and dealt with in a manner that seemed internally consistent and appropriate given the context. The story doesn't fetishize or romanticize maltreatment despite a few beats implying that pairing up with the right woman could smooth out such a tract in a man. If there was one outstanding gripe I have about him, it’d be that he seems over competent in tests of strength and skill. The issue isn’t so bad as to make him the solution to every conflict, however. Reading through the interactions and developing relationships between Alexa and even minor characters brought more than a few smiles to my face. There are enough humorous and heart-touching moments for the work to leave a lasting impression. On the mechanical side, the writing is strong compared to your average piece found on Webnovel. That isn’t to say that everything is perfect. The story often uses epithets in place of the characters' names. In some cases, it can provide information while saving up on words, but here it’s done too often and in a way that makes the scenes stutter a bit. It draws attention to description where readers are trying to process actions. Consider the use of so many bland words like “I” “said” “the” “he/she” etc. A character's name or a single, consistent epithet can be counted among their place. These common bits don’t look pretty, but they are essential for coordinating the text. Think of them as transparent strings on a puppet. When you replace lengths of them with material of different colors (a unique one for each epithet if you want to maintain this analogy) you risk distraction, or worse. While MizA does a good job of making readers feel as though they are at the center of things, there are places where the text feels distant. You can catch the odd instance of someone trying to remove a hood rather than lunging for it. I yearned for more vividity in some scenes due to a reliance on adverbs, plain/chunky text, or redundancy. Some of the adverb usage even feels like a crutch or worse, signposts implying that readers can’t discern the air of a scene. An early example takes place where Cordelia begs Magnus to not accost Alexa, interposing herself between the two. We already know that such an action could be conceived as brave, it isn’t necessary to say that she bravely held on to Magnus’ arm. There are also instances of passive voice that can turn some people off. It weakens the text but isn’t there in a way that rouses too much of an issue. I suspect that some people who are sensitive to it might even pass it by unawares due to MizA’s neat flow. Places where I hit a snag and had to stop reading for a moment were scarce but usually occurred when the above issues were found bunched together. Another point worthy of consideration is the story’s word choice. It can be very hit or miss. Sometimes the text dips into extremely rare, awkward words rather than ones that are simply uncommon. I understand that some of this is due to an effort at painting an in-period picture, but other options would be understood immediately by a general audience while maintaining the effect such as “direful” or simply “dark” rather than “tenebrous”. A good trick is to seek out words using the more common prefixes/suffixes that were nonetheless left behind in the graveyards of eras long past. All that aside, I truly enjoyed reading The Mischievous Maiden and the Sleeping Prince. So long as you keep your wits about you and aren't terribly frightened by shades, I’d say that the trip to Holstein is one well worth embarking upon.

The_night_Owl
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