The Branded

By Victoria Wojciechowski

It’s branding day in the country of New Meric, the reborn America, but why would that affect Josephine Harlow?

All that means for Josephine is that she has to wear a pearl at all times. It isn’t until she realizes that the love of her life, King Zander, has ulterior motives for this new caste system that she begins to open her eyes to the injustices in the world.

With the help of her best friend and maid, Annie, Josephine is able to escape to live in the woods alone, or so she thought.

While in the woods, Josephine runs into a close-knit group of three whom she quickly befriends. Just as her freedom begins to take off, so do the royal guards in their pursuit to find Josephine in the woods.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312676428

Book preview

The Branded

The Branded

By: Victoria Wojciechowski

For Michael, Laura, Lauren, and Mister

Chapter 1

There’s a time and a place for everything. That was one of the core lessons I learned from growing up in the castle. The brick walls contained me as others tried to as well. It wasn’t like I chose to lead that kind of a life, but I guess I let it happen in a way. From the parties and galas, with all the glitz and the glam, I lavished in it all, and every girl wished she was me.

They all thought I lived some kind of a charmed life with him. I heard those hushed whispers and the lies that spread like fire. They tried to intimidate me because they couldn’t understand how someone like me could end up with someone like him, but they didn’t know him. I know him. I have known him my whole life, but I couldn’t recognize him after he became king. I’m being horrible! Where are my manners? I need to start at the beginning.

I was raised in a more privileged household than most. My father was a financial adviser for the then king, and my mother was one of the queen’s best friends. When I was six, my parents suffered a fatal car crash. Nothing was ever the same after that.

It was quickly discovered that I had no blood relatives to take guardianship of me in place of my parents. The queen thought it was her duty to see to my well-being, and she moved me into the castle. She had always seen me as her own daughter, and she wished to take care of me. Her one and only son, Zander, is seven years my senior. Though Queen Ember saw me as her daughter, Zander refused to see me as his sister.

It started slowly. I was a little six year old who was left alone in the world. No one knew how to comfort me, no one except for Zander. I sat by the creek in the back woods behind the castle almost every day. I don’t know what it was between the sound of soft water and the spaced shafts of light that brought me so often, but I needed the isolated peace that it brought. I would just sit there and try to figure out what went wrong, but I was too young to comprehend that there are too many flaws in the world for anything to ever be perfect.

One day, I sat there, allowing my tears to add to the soft current. I began to hear rustled footsteps coming towards me; I didn’t care. I knew whoever it was would have nothing to say to me, and I would be left alone. Zander stepped out of the thicket and saw my red eyes. He smiled a little bit. There was mud all over him, and his blonde hair was disheveled. He was already tall then, broad too. For a teenager, he was prematurely handsome.

He bent down and picked a flower out of the ground. It was a white daisy; that was such a prominent flower throughout the forest. He kneeled in front of me and lifted my chin up. He placed the flower in my hair and said, Beautiful, just as they would have wanted you to be. We locked eyes for a moment before his friends started shouting his name again. He kissed my cheek and ran off. That was the day I realized I loved him.

We grew up sitting across from each other at the table the family gathered to eat meals at. Every morning, Zander would announce that the lady, me, was to be served first for she was, obviously, the lady. He was sweet to me even though I was so much younger than him. King Alexei and he would travel often, but Zander always would come back full of energy, ready to play. He was ready to do anything to make me smile. Though I was young and in love, I knew it was ridiculous to think he felt the same way. Oh, but how wrong was I.

I was fifteen when he came back from his first trip to Siaa, the new Asia that had formed since the revolution. The first thing he did when he got back was come to my room. I remember I wore my most flattering blue dress with my chestnut hair pulled slightly back because I knew he was returning that day. He knocked on the door but didn’t wait for me to answer. He came in and gently closed the door. My heart thumped anxiously as he grabbed my hand and led me to the couch.

They’re perfect out there. They really are. We need to mimic their mind set for running this country. New Meric is pathetic. We let everyone run loose. We need to acquire their sections. Sorry, I’m boring you. You don’t care about that, he said rapidly with a smile.

I could care less what he said as long as I could stare into his eyes. They were so blue when they stared into my hazel terrors. I couldn’t look away.

He looked down and pulled a little box out of his pocket. Slowly, he opened it to reveal a delicate blue and white stone bracelet. My eyes widened as he took it out of the box and lifted my wrist up.

I saw this at a street vendor’s cart. I thought you would like it, he told me this as if I wouldn’t be impressed.

I love it, I beamed without being able to stop staring at how it lay on my wrist.

I finally stole my eyes away to look up at him. Suddenly, his hands grabbed my face. He pulled his face towards mine and gave me a long, deep kiss. As we held the kiss, I couldn’t help but taste the salt on his lips as it transpired onto mine. He let go and put his forehead against mine. We were both breathing deeply, looking down. I didn’t know what to say. What could I say?

He was gorgeous royalty. Every girl wanted him. At every party, girls would beg me to introduce them to him, and I would. I figured that being an obstacle to them only hurt me. Most of the girls ended up leaving with their dresses partly zipped and their hair disheveled, but it never bothered me. He never kept a steady girl, and I thought that was some kind of a hope.

You know I love you right? Sephie, you’re so beautiful. You can’t tell anyone about us, not until the moment is right.

He was so sincere, and he had such a sly smile that I couldn’t resist. I nodded a bit too eagerly, and he got up and left as I watched, wishing he hadn’t.

I had a million thoughts going through my head. I didn’t know what any of that meant or why he had decided to do it at that specific moment. I felt a pang in my chest that I could tell was a pang for him. I knew he had me wrapped around his finger. That entire sleepless night was spent thinking about him.

For a year, we snuck around. We couldn’t contain our desire for one another a secret. We would have to meet in the back of the library or in the steeples. He would pick hay out of my hair and clean me up as if I were a monkey after every secret visit. You will be my queen, he would whisper to me in public moments. He made sure to be gentle and never overstep his boundaries, but the more of a gentleman he was, the more I wanted him. He knew what he had, and he ran with it.

There was a day that he became especially bold. The queen and I were waiting in the front of the castle to send Zander and the king off to Siaa again. After Zander gave his mother a hug, he gave me a very passionate kiss. When he let go, he looked at his mother as if it were no big deal. She was staring at me in disbelief, and Zander just left without acknowledging it. I was embarrassed, and I didn’t know how to react. I immediately apologized to her, not knowing what else to do, but she gracefully shook her head ‘no’ and walked away.

For the duration he was gone, she wouldn’t eat with me. The servants told me that she preferred to dine alone in her room or in the women’s room, so I was left to dine alone as well.

I felt as if I had betrayed my own mother. I didn’t know what to do to make it better. I wanted to yell at Zander, but I didn’t know what I would say. He hadn’t done anything wrong per say, and sooner or later, Queen Ember would have found out. I just wished she didn’t have to find out like that.

I longed for Zander to get back so he could fix everything with Queen Ember, but he didn’t return for months.

He sent two letters during the time; one telling me about the journey to Siaa and another talking about the provinces and the ideals they share. I was so alone even with his letters to comfort me. I had no one to talk to anymore.

On a cloudy day, I was sitting in my room when a new maid came in. She wore a black dress just as all the other maids with her blonde hair pulled back. She had the white, youthful skin that told anyone that she hadn’t seen the sunlight for years. I stared at her as I began to realize that she was roughly the same age as me. My eyes followed her as she placed the tea she had brought in next to where I was sitting. She looked down at me on the couch and asked if I desired anything else. I asked her if she would grab another cup and sit with me. My loneliness left me in desperation.

Her name was Annie, and she came from a very impoverished family. Her parents were farmers, but her father died a year before. She had to take up work to fill the financial void he had left. She had four little brothers back home whom she sent money to. She was very sweet and honest with me. The entire time we talked, she treated me no different than she would any of her actual friends. I enjoyed her company so much that I asked her to return the next day at about the same time so that we could have another chat.

She returned the next day, and our conversation topic began to switch. I told her all about Zander and me; she wasn’t surprised at all. When I asked her why, she told me that all of the maids had been talking about it for a year, and it was no shock. She told me that Queen Ember had been crying almost everyday and mumbling about, first, losing her son and, now, her daughter. I didn’t know what that meant, but it pained me to know that she thought she had lost me. Annie saw the worry in my face and quickly changed the subject.

That’s how Annie was. She hated to hear bad news, but she was always there to make it better. We quickly became best friends and made a habit out of afternoon tea and our chats. She became my regular maid so that we could spend most of our time together gossiping and talking about our futures. We planned that I would become queen, and she would marry one of the attractive guards that she fantasized so much about. We were the same age and led such different lifestyles, but that never divided us. She filled the void that Zander had left me with.

One day, I was in the library studying when Annie ran in breathlessly. She panted out, He’s home! He’s down stairs! She choked out the last part, pointing down at the ground. I gasped and quickly ran downstairs. Queen Ember was already welcoming Zander and the king back. I smiled as he saw me, but he didn’t return the favor. He gave me a cold half-smile and nodded as he and his father retreated into the men’s study. The queen looked at me, noticing my obviously hurt face. She started to step forward, almost to comfort me, but I turned around and went back to the library.

Tears were streaming down my face when I collapsed into the large sofa. I fell into Annie’s waiting arms and told her everything. What had that nod meant? Why was he so cold? Did he love me? Was there someone else? I was so confused, and I had no idea what to do. She listened intently until I was finished.

Seph, he’s changing the country, she said like I should have already known.

He’s always doing this and that! I yelled without understanding why she was telling me such nonsense.

"No. Seph, he’s really changing the country. That’s why he went to Siaa. One of the other maids was saying that we are going to start taking on the ways of the Siaan government. He went there to finalize his plans for transforming New Meric. He’s probably making the changes official right now. He has a lot on his plate."

I was dumbstruck. Annie was so smart; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known any of that.

Annie was right of course. Right when they had arrived home, Zander and his father signed the new policies that changed our country forever. No longer were New Meric’s people free to do as they pleased. We were an entirely different country.

The transformation began with the people being sectioned into classes. Based off of their ability, intelligence, and wealth, they were assigned to a class that they could never outgrow. Their children would be born into that class, and they would only ever work that class’ task and make that class’ wages. No one was aloud to marry out of their class, and being friends with someone that was out of your class made you an outcast. People that didn’t want to live this way ran off to the woods and were branded ‘Woodsies’. It was law that anyone who publicly opposed this new proclamation, beggars, the homeless, and the Woodsies would be publicly killed in the Platform Circle in the Main, the center of the royal city, Cass. Our country had changed.

Not only had we transformed as a country, but King Alexei was no longer. While they were in the study, King Alexei signed the country over to Zander. The ceremony was preformed in the office, and only Queen Ember and the approved witness were present. Zander was king. We had gone from a very normal country to a sectioned nation with Zander at its head. I didn’t know what to think about all of it after Annie finished telling me everything that she knew. I sat in disbelief, first, because I had no idea that anything of the sort was going on and second, because Zander wasn’t the one telling me any of it. He had long since left the study and took on his role as king without even noticing me. I figured his new position as king had taken my place of importance in his life.

I was in my room waiting for Annie to bring me my breakfast when Zander’s maid appeared. She gave me a card that told me that my presence was requested at that morning’s breakfast. I hadn’t been down to breakfast in days and I knew I couldn’t hide in my room forever. I quickly ran through my hair with my fingers and straightened my dress out. I checked my eyes in the mirror to see if they were still puffy from the previous few nights. I rushed downstairs, wondering what was going on.

Everyone was seated at the table as usual. I sat in my regular seat across from Zander. I avoided making eye contact with anyone, still confused as to what was going on. Queen Ember was the first to talk.

You’re seventeenth birthday is soon, Josephine. We’ll have the party next week perhaps? That will be our last party at the castle.

What do you mean? I asked her with a puzzled look.

Well, now that Zander is king, there is no reason for us to stay in the castle. I have always wanted to move into our castle on the coast, and this is a perfect opportunity to.  So, yes, next week we’ll have your birthday party.

I could’ve stared a hole into my plate. I was confused. She was leaving me. The only mother that I had ever really known was leaving me. She hated me. Tears began to form in my eyes, and I looked up to see Zander staring at me. He was smiling happily again, but something was different. He wore his usual gray suit with a black tie, but he didn’t look like a boy; he looked far older than his twenty-four years let on. He began to speak.

It’s okay Sephie. You can stay here in the castle with me. I’ll take care of you, don’t worry. You’re not being kicked out. It’s just going to be a bit different now.

He was so confident and eloquent when he spoke. I felt comforted, but I was still choked up.

I managed to nod my head, and he let out a sigh of relief. We ate in silence for the rest of the meal. When we were done, I rushed to my room.

Annie was dusting by the window when I came in. That was the first time I realized how lovely she was. Most would call her plain, but she had the most beautiful green eyes along with a tall and slender body, unlike me. I wasn’t large by any means, but I was short compared to her and Zander. Before I could say anything to her, I heard Zander talk from behind me.

Get out, he said coldly to Annie.

Annie quickly left, staring at me the entire length of her departure. I turned as she walked