#jadeddiva

Prologue

Emma shifts uncomfortably for perhaps the hundredth time since sun up.

The light in the unfamiliar throne room is blinding in its brightness, assorted colored glass panes doing little to shield the room’s visitors from the harshness of the realm’s summer sun. Her back aches from the stiff posture that her corset demands. She lowers her eyes to the ground but attempts not even the small shred of comfort of movement, breath barely coming to her, much less any other human emotion. She feels frozen in place, heart pounding, yet numb as she ponders the morbid thought of whether death by dagger or hanging by the neck with the yards of sheets piled atop her new bed would be more agonizing one than the other.

(She is yet to decide.)

(It isn’t a luxury she could ever afford herself.)

She finally shifts nearly immovably at his side, longing to crane her neck until it cracks.

The ache in her back has been a long familiarity to her. She is all of twenty, and for years now gone she has been required to accompany King and Queen of Mistahaven to their business. The masses of negotiations, meetings with dignitaries and politicians, trial hearings, and simply the hours spent listening to each and every member of their kingdom’s complaints (or at least it seems so).

(But this isn’t her throne room and she will likely never join them there again.)

(She would give all she had in the world to be there.)

It’s no difficult feat to hear the kind but chiding words of her parents whenever a complaint threatens to rise from her thoughts to her lips. Now is no different. Soon, they will be your responsibility, Emma. Their protection will be your duty. Truly, she had muttered and moaned for just as long as she had been allowed, disciplined by only sharp looks from first her maid and then her mother and long, quiet talks with her parents of duty. After a time, she had come to understand. A princess, yes, but inherently selfish, Emma was not. As a child, she thought as a child, mind full of horse rides and games and secret sword lessons with the King...but as she grew into a woman, she put aside childish things – mostly, perhaps - and with that, her parents’ words stayed with her.

It was with those words, held close to her heart, that the day’s fate had been sealed.

He holds her hands as they rise.

He kisses her lips after the words are said.

She feels ill.