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Chapter 9 - Drizzle
Luella
I firmly believed that we could have been friends. For a moment there, it almost seemed like he was willing to be gentle. Kind. The gems almost felt like gifts of courtship, even though we both knew that our impending marriage was nothing more than a convenient arrangement.
I was the sole heiress to Queenspell, with a considerable dowry, yet the gems still felt precious. It sounded foolish, but I almost felt like I had earned them somehow. Most of the things that I had received in life felt unwarranted, including my curse.
As soon as Metheus stopped fiddling with the soil, his mood changed. It was like he remembered something, and whatever it was took over him. He sauntered away, using his long legs to his advantage. It also annoyed me how Cora rushed to wipe his sweat, eager to please. Was that what he expected of me, as well?
When Cora was wiping his temples, I noticed that she wore golden rings. Peasants only wore copper and other metals. Who gave her the gold? Was it Metheus? It annoyed me that a servant woman seemed to be closer to the man who was supposed to become my husband. Why was she here in Mogochislenia in the first place? I did not like the answer that formed in my head, about how she was probably there to serve as his lover since I could not be his.
That night, I could barely sleep. Suddenly, my room felt more stifling. Hotter. I was afraid I was feeling a little emotional, something that I had been trying to avoid for a long time. I twisted and turned in my bed, my sheets off my body. When I finally fell asleep, nightmares visited me. I saw Thomas burn again, saw the flames not only licking at his skin but consuming his flesh. The skin peeled off reddish muscle until I saw bones. Through it all, his eyes were wide open as his hands tried to reach for me. I did not even have the strength to scream.
In the morning, I was understandably not jovial. Barely having slept, I was cranky enough to refuse Francilia’s hairbrush. My hair was wild and loose on my back. There was no disapproval from my mother, just concern. She knew that it would take something serious for me not to care for my appearance.
I thought that Metheus and Emir had already left. I did not expect him to say goodbye after what happened yesterday. However, I felt more than heard him when he approached to tell me he had to go. I was surprised that he decided to talk to me. I had to admit a little bloom of hope spread through my chest. It died down when he declared that he only wanted to marry me to prove a point – that they were not savages. While I was upset with him when he was talking to me, I was even more frustrated when he turned his back.
That morning, he seemed to have refused to wear Mogochislenian clothes. Instead, he wore his Arrowspear garments proudly, a man who would not bow down to others. I had to admit he looked best in his own clothes, muscular arms on display and tight from the bag and weapons he carried. True to the name of their continent, a leather quiver adorned his back. The fletching of his arrows peeked from the top, in green and red.
He would be gone for about two weeks.
“Your Highness, two weeks will not be long,” Francilia reassured me.
“I do not mind the two weeks, Francilia,” I responded haughtily. “It is not like I would be pining for him. It is not a love match.”
I could swear Francilia rolled her eyes, but I could not be sure. I only caught the movement in the corner of my own eyes. She could not possibly have dared do that. I would strangle that girl.
Of course, I would not.
We had been together for a few years now, two spinsters who had both been barely presented in the marriage market. Francilia did not want to marry. She was afraid of doing so. Her older sister had married a brute of a man who beat her in the privacy of their own home. Should I feel so lucky that men were the ones afraid of me?
“Your Highness, he bid you goodbye.”
“I believe that was respect. He is a prince, after all. He is just behaving accordingly.”
“Yes, but have you seen how he looked at you?”
I was pretty sure he looked at me with displeasure. He only had that moment when he was presenting the gems. His eyes were gentle, then, and his gestures somehow more languid. Then, it was gone, almost as if I had imagined everything. He was quickly back to his rigid self.
“How?”
“He looked at you as if he did not want to leave.”
I scoffed at that. Francilia was the best lady-in-waiting anyone could hope for, but she had a wild imagination.
#
Later that day, I presented the gems to my mother in her study. She was pleasantly surprised.
“I am gathering that it was not part of the deal, mother?”
“No. We offered the Prozeus royals your dowry. King Doro was disinterested, but Prince Metheus openly opposed it.”
“They are wealthy,” I stated a fact, shrugging my shoulders. It was an unladylike gesture, and I knew it.
“Wealthy or not, it is a little bit of, uh…” my mother touched her throat, and then she drank some water as if something had gotten stuck in it.
“A sacrifice, you mean?” I asked, my own throat suddenly tight.
