Prologue

Prologue to "Sophia".

Slamming the door with all my might, I laid my back against it and slid to the ground. How did my father dare to accept such a proposal? Was money truly such a burden that he was willing to sell me off to some stranger? Especially one from the Deep East. Those barbarians never stopped causing trouble when they visited our country. And of all places in the Deep East, the man was from Merlanje? I didn’t know any of their culture or their language. How was I supposed to just be shipped off to a completely different world? And Harry… What would I do without Harry? I buried my face in my hands. Harry’s sweet face flashed through my mind, his shaggy, almond hair flying about in the wind, his grey eyes shining like smooth river stones. Harry was our stable boy, a year older than I. He looked scrawny, but could handle his job very well. Tears began to spring forward, our lives as we grew up together playing before my eyes like a film. I loved that boy more than I loved myself, and I was never going to see him again if the wedding with that Eastern filth took place. I lived in the Deep West, the beautiful country of Hinden. I could never live in a land with no grass, no trees, and no beautiful little creeks. A land filled with mountains and rock and soot was not a life for me. I got up from the floor and rushed to my window, looking at our two small and shining moons light up the grass and the broad tree leaves that swayed in the soft breeze. I could see our horse stable, and thought of Harry caring for the horses during the bright spring days. My heart ached. This was my home, and it had been since the day I was born. My spirits crumbled to nothing as the reality of the situation set in on me. I heard footsteps climbing the stairs and didn’t even bother to get up and lock the door. I recognized my father’s voice as he shouted,

            “Sophia, you must marry that man if you don’t want your family to starve!”

            I didn’t look at him, I simply stayed silent.

            “Sophia!” He sighed, “I don’t like this either. I never thought the day would come where we’d be grasping from help from the Easterners.”

            “Is there no other way?” I looked back to see him sitting at the edge of my bed with his face in his hands. He looked at me and whispered,

            “I wish there were another way. Had I the chance, I would leap to it in an instant, but right now Lord Gill is the only one with the money we need. He is our only hope.”

            My face betrayed me and crumpled, tears threatening to spill over as I took in the room I’d never see again, the light blue walls holding up oak dressers and mirrors, the light blue blankets on top of my bed with the wooden canopy over it. There were things from when I was a child; old stuffed dolls and fairy tale books in the farthest corner of my room behind my writing desk. They reminded me of a brighter time before the death of my mother and the complications of age. My father looked at me with pity and in a low voice told me,

            “I’d love if you were to find yourself happy with Sir Gill, but if you are not, you will have to kill him.”

            “Kill?” I was aghast, “Why not simply divorce? Father, I am no murderer.”

            “The conditions of the marriage will be lost in a divorce. If you truly cannot bear his company, if you must escape, you will have to kill Lord Gill.”

            “Father, I-“

            “Your mother spoke of a day where you would leave me with a broken heart, and I have pondered the meaning of those words for years. Now I understand,” my father’s voice was choked off and he stood up, “You have one week before Lord Gill arrives. Use it well.”

            With one last look, he left my room and closed the door behind him. He had never told me that prophecy of my mother’s. I thought I heard them all. My mother was no real mystic with psychic abilities, but her sharp intuition was something as grand as humans could hope for. I sighed and removed my dress, the light blue fabric flying down to the floor. I threw off the petticoat as well, leaving me in nothing but undergarments, and went searching for the pants and shirts I used to ride the horses. When I rode those horses through the open pastures, I felt as free as the songbird in the sky. As I dressed, I thought about Harry. I wondered if he was still down at the stables. The sun was beginning to set. Hurrying out the door, I ran through the manor and out to the fields. As I came closer, I saw my black mare Riella. She shook her mane and I saw a hand reach over her neck to pat it. The hand definitely belonged to Harry. My legs moved faster, making me sail through the field and to the stables. Harry saw me and smiled, those eyes twinkling in happiness. I couldn’t help the smile that grew on my face, until I remembered Lord Gill. When my face fell, Harry’s fell with it.

            “What is it?” he whispered, “Did something happen?”

            I cupped his face in my hand and sighed, “After we ride to the lake, I’ll tell you the turn of events that happened recently. Come,” I grabbed Riella’s saddle and put it on, not wasting a single moment, “saddle Oiron.”

            Harry did so as swift as ever, his white stallion whinnying at the chance to ride in such beautiful weather. We got onto our horses and started towards the trees at the edge of the farm, soon coming to the beaten down path we always took. Within moments the sparkling lake came into our view. Swans and ducks gently drifted on the surface, cat tails sprouting from the banks. Harry pulled Oiron to a stop and jumped off, looking at me expectantly,

            “Tell me this ‘turn of events’.”

            I sighed and Harry helped me off Riella’s back. Turning to look at those familiar eyes, I almost didn’t have the courage to whisper,

            “I am engaged, Harry.”

            At first he laughed, expecting me to laugh with him and claim that it was all sport, but when I sat silent, his mouth fell open, “Truly? You will marry?”

            A nod was all I could manage.

            “To whom? Where will you be going? Will I be seeing you again?” He clasped my face in his hands and didn’t conceal a single ounce of his concern from his eyes. I choked,

            “To a lord from Merlanje. I have a week here in my home before he arrives. I want to spend every moment with you, I never want to leave your side this last week,” I fell into him, my embrace tightly wrapped around him. His hands stroked my hair and he whispered,

            “Maybe there’s an alternative. Maybe you don’t have to go-“

            “I have to go. If I don’t, this plantation will fail and the family will starve,” my voice cracked and my eyes threatened tears.

            “Hear me, Sophia,” he pushed me away from him and clasped my face in his hands, “we will be together one way or another. I love you, I love you more than the stars love the moon,” in a swift movement, he caught my lips in his. Warmth exploded into my heart as my hands rushed to his hair and he pulled me back to him. His hand curled into my hair, our lips crashing together with a frenzy we had never known before. It was as if all our pains and heartaches came rushing between us through those kisses, forcing us to understand each other and tie our hearts ever closer together. Without my knowing, tears had began to slip down my cheeks. Harry noticed and stopped our kisses to wipe them away.

            “Stop your crying, flower,” his gentle chuckle lifted my heart, “everything will be well again. You will be happy once more.”

            “You mean ‘we’.”

            “I am happy as long as I know that you are well and strong, whether an acre of land separates us or an entire ocean.”

            “But how may I be well and strong when I am bound to another man and so far from you? How?” I gripped his shirt until my knuckles turned white, not even sure what I was hoping for him to reply with. All he did was offer a soft smile and a whisper,

            “I know you’ll thrive wherever you go.”

 

            The time I had was well spent. I spent the rest of my evening with Harry and the horses, skipping stones on the lake just as we had when we were children. The ripples upon the water’s surface brought peace to my tumbled world. The ever blowing breeze snaked through our hair and cooled our skin. We talked about all the moments we had together, about the town we lived in and the old animals we used to play with when they were still alive. Our conversation made time sprint away, and soon the sun was gone. When the night finally settled in, I gazed at the blanket of stars with Harry. Their light shone down on us like a heavenly blessing. With a sigh, I got up from the ground. There was no blessing for me. Not anymore. Harry got up with me and we both mounted our beasts. Back down the path we went, and once we were at the stables we unsaddled the horses. We hurried back to the manor. Harry was to return to his room in the servants’ quarters, but I didn’t want to see him leave. As he turned to walk to his room, I grabbed him and pulled him down into a crouch with me.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Stay with me tonight.”

            “What?” his eyes went wide, “I’ll be whipped if someone finds me with you!”

            “They won’t find out, come! I want to spend at least one night with you,” I gave him my most pleading look until he sighed and nodded. We snuck our way through the dimly lit corridors until we came to my room. I carefully pushed the door open and Harry rushed inside.

            “I need to change into my night clothes,” I whispered, walking to my dresser and pulling out a purple nightgown. Harry nodded, a crimson hue creeping into his cheeks before he turned away from me. I quickly pulled my clothes off, dropping them on the floor and slipping the nightgown over my head. I glanced over at Harry. His head was down and his back facing me.

            “You can look now.”

            “You know,” Harry smirked, “It’s a tad scandalous to see an unmarried woman in her nightwear.”

            “Who cares what it is?” I smirked back, “Unless you don’t want to be here with me.”

            “I wouldn’t trade this moment for all the riches in the world,” Harry came over to me, his hands wrapping around my waist and bringing me up against him. His lips caught mine furiously, hands gathering fistfuls of my nightgown. He picked me up and carried me to the bed, never once breaking the kiss. Hovering over me, his hands glided under my dress and rested on my hips. They crawled up to my breasts, gently caressing them. Suddenly, he pulled away,

            “I love you, Sophia.”

            I smiled, “I love you too.”

            He fell beside me and took a lock of my hair between his fingers, “Somehow… I feel this just makes it harder…”

            “Hmm?” I watched him twirl my hair, his face slightly crumpling.

            “Your marriage… You moving so far away… I feel that it will just be harder for you to continue this…”

            “Are you saying-“

            “I’m not saying anything. I still want to be here with you, I still want to hold you every moment we have left, but I just feel that it’ll be harder… for you. My hopes will remain as high as your sails, but will you…?”

            Smiling, I nuzzled my head into the crook of his neck, “I’ll be fine, Harry.”

            “Alright,” he still seemed troubled but ended the conversation. We got under the covers and I curled up to him, his warmth letting me sink into the deepest sleep.

Author's Note

This is the prologue of the story. I want so much to get into the rest of it but the beginning is so important xD please tell me what you think! ♪♫

Reviews

[Surya Mayim]

I don't know if you still reference this, so I might be wasting my time. But it's still posted so I have to assume otherwise.

I read the other review for this story, and I agree with their point about proof reading. There are some glaring errors that diminish the readability. These are easy to fix, and you should do them yourself, in my opinion. The other reviewer suggests you have someone else do it for you. I totally disagree. Your objective should be to have people read your stories only to tell you how much they liked them. Until you get the grammar and all that tightened up it is kind of a waste of your time really. Not writing, I mean the editing. If you have others proofread everything for you, a significant part of the writing process is lost to you.

Okay, about the story. Well, I don't read a lot of romance novels. Like I don't read them at all. I have read a few pages here and there, just to see what all the fuss is about, and the tone you have in this story seems very similar to what little I have read in the genre. So, that is a success.

Also, the adverb usage made it read awkwardly. Limit those in the future for enhanced readability.

Lastly, there were some sentences that with a very slight revision would be some much cleaner and easier to read. So, yeah, read through it and say it simply. Less is more.

The fact that you're fifteen makes you ahead of your peers for sure. When I was fifteen I wasn't writing anything like this. But for as accomplished as this is for fifteen, with those improvements this would be better.

Be well...

[EurasianFlavour]

Good start to the story. You're setting up a scene well and clearly, so readers know exactly what's happening and where the story generally will lead.

A few things: you should definitely proof read your work, or have someone else do it. You switch verb tenses a lot, and sometimes your word choice doesn't fit well with the scene or sentence. For example when you have their lips crashing together when they kiss passionately....I think crashing is too violent a description. It provides the wrong imagery. You want a word that will illustrate their urgency and passion.

Also, I think you should change the part where her father tells her to kill her future husband. What father tells their daughter to murder?? It doesn't fit. He can feel sympathetic towards her pain, but it would make more sense if she asked about divorce, he said she can't, and then she thinks about murdering as an option. She's already desperate to find a way out of the marriage before it even happens, so jumping to murder is more logical a step.

Finally, when you say prologue...is this actually a prologue or just the first chapter? Not every story needs a prologue and this feels like you're just jumping into the story right away. Not a criticism, just curious because your other chapter isn't up.

Anyway, hope this helps and keep writing!