Princess Shyra's life has only extended till planet Ziya and she doesn't know how to look beyond helping her people. As far as she's concerned, she's being trained to rule her entire life, and it's the only goal she's ever known.
Cue the handsome pr...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Princess," Aita fumbled with her hands but Shyra beat her to it.
"How would my parents have felt when they heard a baby's cries from out here, how they must have stopped their vehicle and searched for the sound? They would have been shocked to find me under here, right?"
The handmaidens looked at each other, avoiding Shyra's eye, but like all the times she'd asked them, they didn't have an answer for her.
"It was quite the celebration, they said," Shyra continued. "Ziya's childless royalty sets out to the temple to pray for a child and returns with a beautiful and healthy baby girl. It made the headlines quite a few times."
And she wouldn't even have known she was adopted if she had been less curious and pestering about her surroundings.
As it was, when she was young, Shyra had come to the temple with her parents to pray on her birthdate. She noticed that they always stopped by a little rocky ledge and muttered their thanks to the gray stone instead of offering prayers to the Cosmos first, as tradition dictated.
After observing them for a long time, Shyra mustered the courage to ask her parents about their little ritual, and their response shook her to the core.
"Shyra dear, I know this would be hard on you. Papa and I wanted to reveal it to you when you grew up a little more, but it looks like you're ready now," her mother had bent down and said in an unusually serious tone.
Her father knelt down as well and held her hand. "Shyra, the thing is, not all of us are blessed with our own children. Sometimes, we need someone else's help in finding a child to raise and shower with love. In our case, you were not born to us but handed over by fate and the Cosmos. This here-" he pointed at the hollow. "Was where we all first met as a family. You see, when we were returning from the temple, your mother was crying and praying when we heard a baby's cries."
"And your mother, being the brave woman she is, went and found the child all by herself!" Queen Nayaka butted in with a smug smile. King Sinay laughed and nodded.
"The kshana we laid eyes on you, we knew that you were our child, whether or not you were born to us. So we took you home and raised you as our princess."
"And I became the Princess of Ziya as well, since then," little Shyra said with wide eyes. The small child wasn't understanding much of what her parents were saying, but they seemed so serious that she felt inclined to nod and agree with them.
Their words stayed with her though, and as she grew up their implications became clearer. The fact that she wasn't their child made her feel obliged and undeserving of her title, and she tried to treat her parents with extra love to make sure that they wouldn't regret taking her in.
This was till they laughed and told her they love her as much as they would have loved their own child, and that she needn't feel like an unworthy princess.
