Chapter Three- Hate's Triumphant Blow

 3

 

The last night that Vorion stayed was the most pleasant. We’d spent most of the day together while he continually tried getting me to open the cedar box. Eventually I broke down and told him everything that had happened just the night before.

 

“Please open it before I leave, Callea, I beg you,” Vorion pleaded as he barged into my chamber.

 

I inhaled hugely then nodded my head once. “Alright, I will,” I sigh. If only a day were enough to forget of the heartache that even simple irrelevant things cracked.

 

“Callea, I also have something I need to tell you before I leave…”

 

“Spit it out then.”

 

“After you told me about Hadrian I couldn’t help but feel furious. Once you were away I stalked him out. After, I screamed at him, and I probably shoved him a few times somewhere in there. I was just so angry, so repulsed by what he had done that I had banished him and it did not strike me exactly what I had done until later. Please, don’t be angry with me I was simply acting on impulse-”

 

“Be angry with you?” I ask, and I suddenly burst into laughter. “You banished him? Why you rash, nonsensical man,” I tease, still laughing.

 

“You’re… not upset?”

 

Smiling I shake my head and I throw my arms around his neck. “No. Not at all. Brother, you quite possibly could have saved me from years of ache! In another case I would insist you find a man you banished and bring him back but I think this man would deserve it!” 

 

Vorion starts to chuckle as well, and he pulls away from my death grip.

 

“Perhaps I shouldn’t be leaving at all, if these are the kinds of things I need to be cleaning up around here.”

 

“Perhaps not,” I sigh. I didn’t want him to leave at all. Vorion reached over and set a hand gently on my cheek, forcing me to face him.

 

“Worry not, sister. I’ll be back. Now will you please open it before I leave?”

 

“Fine. Hand it over,” I sigh and he excitedly gives it to me, then the key. Slowly I open the chest.

 

A dull, dirty chain sticks out at me, on the end of it dangling a tiny diamond that‘s shining through the layer of dirt.. I gasp.

 

“It’s-”

 

“The necklace I made you,” he grins. 

 

“But I watched you throw it into that tree when you were angry at me!” I gasp.

 

So many memories flooded back to me, each memories of my past. One day while we were out in the woods (father would have killed us both if he knew) we came upon a silver rock. It was questionable where it came form or why there was only one, but we found it none the less. Vorion refused to let me se the treasure and instead he stuffed it in his pocket. A year later I saw the stone again in the form of a necklace. A beautiful one at that. He said he’d spent forever making it and molding it around the chain. It wasn’t flawless, in fact, on the diamond there was a lovable clump that stuck to the diamond that made it uneven. Vorion explained to me that he couldn’t get it off, and it looked better there. I accepted the necklace as it was.

 

Then of course, he got upset at me one day and I at him so I told him it was ugly and that I hated it and I threw it at him, so he threw it at a tree. I wailed because I didn’t really want him to get rid of it and it was nowhere to be found in that tree.

 

“I looked forever for it before I came here. One of the soldiers found it. I didn’t clean it for I thought I’d leave it to someone more professional-”

 

I wrapped my arm around his neck squeezing him tightly. Despite that he hates it when I do that, I wouldn’t allow objection. After all this time he’s been gone, and all our fights he comes back and does something like this.

 

To my surprise, Vorion hugged me back. “You know why I found this for you, don’t you?” Vorion asked.

 

“Is there a specific reason?” I wonder.

 

“It’s because you are the person I care for more than anything in the world. And I want to beg for your pardon. The war. I know you detest it Callea, and this is my plea to you to forgive me for what I have done and what I will do in the future. But I just want you to know that I love you Callea, and don’t you ever forget.”

 

I smile, a warm feeling filling my heart and tears threatening my eyes.

 

“Don’t run away for so long again,” I command in a soft tone. “Don’t ever leave for two years again.”

 

“I know Callea. I know. There’s a poem in there too by the way. Don’t read it until I’m gone. But Callea, no matter what me or anyone says, keep being you and fight to be you.”

 

Those were the last words he said to me before he left. 

 

Only a few days later I was spending time with my tutor about learning some of the essentials to being royalty and how my parents have been disappointed in me lately. But what was new.

 

Then I received the most horrible news of my life.

 

“Princess Callea, may I speak to you outside for a moment?” my father’s advisor interrupted half way through the tutor’s lecture. I didn’t hesitate to stand up, eager to leave however I could. The news I received was nothing at all what I expected.

 

“Your highness, why don’t you take a seat,” the advisor suggested, leading me into a private room. 

 

“What is it?” I asked, beginning to worry.

 

“Your brother Vorion…”

 

I gasped. “He’s hurt!” I cursed the war right then and there, quickly. “How terrible? A leg? A scar?”

 

“Your highness, it’s not quite that…”

 

“He’s ill…”

 

“Relax your highness, please,” the advisor gulped. The latter thought in my head I refused to utter.

 

“Never forget, your majesty. Prince Vorion was… is a respected general and was… is a fine leader. He never-”

 

But I knew then. He didn’t have to go on nor did I hear anymore. I let out an ear-curdling wail. A cry erupted from my voice and I was hysterical within a moment. I knew my entire life had changed that day, that my entire being might possibly stop living and explode all in one moment.

 

Prince Vorion had been killed. And my heart had been eternally wounded.

 

*~*

 

“Princess you have been lying in that bed for well over a month now. Get up you lazy old sack. Pardon me if I may say so but stop acting so trashy,” Abigail was reprimanding me and she yanked the covers off of me.

 

“I don’t feel like it,” I whined. “I feel awful and ill. Let me rest, I beg you.”

 

“And you’ll only get more ill if you keep lying there. Get up princess. Now.”

 

“I refuse,” I hissed, rolling over in my bed. 

 

She moaned in exasperation, calling me a spoiled brat as she exited the room.

 

But what did she know? She hadn’t had a great loss that could not even be compared to anything at all.

 

“Your father wishes to speak to you,” Abigail now informs me as she walks in the room, her lips in a tight line as she refuses to meet my gaze.

 

“Tell him I’m asleep.”

 

“He told me if you said that he’d come up here and drag you down himself,” she replied in a snooty tone. “And he doesn’t care if you’re bare naked when he does it.”

 

“Then let him come,” I droned.

 

“Tell him yourself,” she sighs, then I sit up as another figure enters my room.

 

“Callea, you spoiled snob! You have ten minutes to meet the court in the study. I’ve had enough of this.”

 

Disobeying my father was never an option. It simply wasn’t something you did or you paid some terrible consequences. And that was something no one ever, ever wanted to do to get on my father’s terrible side or else he was bitter for weeks, sometimes a month.

 

Abigail muttered all the while putting me in a simple gown. When she realized my hair was a mess she threw it up quickly in something she complained about having to take care of later. I’ll have to remember to do it for her.

 

One glance in the mirror and I choked.

 

Where had the beautiful creature gone? This woman was something else. Something hideously terrifying. Her usually flawless face was splotched with red here and there and black circles enhanced her pink and silver eyes. She was a miserable creature. She was frightening. Much more frightening than her alter ego.

 

Once Abigail had me dressed she shuffled me down to the study where half the royal court was waiting and several other men I did not recognize but looked of high origin.

 

“Have a seat Callea,” my father boomed. Even my mother was in the room and that was a very odd and rare occasion.

 

Several men mingled amongst them selves and I examined the room around me. A large painting stood set on the wall, picturing a small white house lying over a lake fully of teal looking lilies. A mumbling omitted from a large man dressed in striped attire whom I presumed was speaking to my father.

 

When I tuned in I started hearing whispers. Gossiping.

 

About me.

 

“She’s so… wrecked.”

 

“Childish.”

 

“Petty, pitiful, emotional.”

 

I tuned out. How cares what they thought. They didn’t know anything.

 

“Princess Callea,” a man finally stated standing up. I didn’t know him, but he looked frightening. Even my father looked fearful in a way. He had white hair atop his head and a fine white mustache tickling under his nose. He tilted his chin, smiling. “Well, my dear, you look lovely as usual but let us start on what we’re here for…”

 

Lovely? That monster I saw was certainly far from lovely.

 

“Now as we all know, a little over a month ago Prince Vorion took his death,” the man speaks. I grimace at his tone and at the pain that stabs at my heart. “Nevertheless we can’t sit and mourn him forever. At the death of Prince Vorion, not only did we lose a good soldier and man, we lost..” he pauses here, eyeing me, measure my expression and at the same time seemingly appraising me. “the heir to Aynah.”

 

I make my face emotionless, waiting for him to continue. Since I’m the oldest child to the king and queen I suppose I have to be here to help decide on who may take over the kingdom.

 

“Death to the heir is uncommon but it happens, of course. As an old Aynese proverb states, the heir is only a loss in one heartbreaking sense. But it really opens the opportunity to a ruler that fate decides needs to lead.”

 

“So who are the options?” I sigh, wishing to just get this over with.

 

“There are no options, your highness. It’s already been decided. Let me finish.”

 

I sigh, rolling my eyes. 

 

“Through the years there have been two great leaders of Aynah. Two wonderful leaders that changed our entire history. And though we’ve gone through much debate and consideration, we’ve decided that if one woman could change this land, than another woman would have her fair chance. Women have ruled before-” it clicked.

 

“I’m the heir?” I shrieked.

 

“Princess, please, allow me to finish.”

 

How could I possibly be the heir to Aynah? How could this possibly happen? Every day I was going to be forced to take this position and all along know who it should belong to. Who it really belonged to. It’s not me, certainly not for I can hardly even think sanely half the time.

 

“Of course, a woman has not ruled for years over this land. What would the people think? How would Kaithron react or how would our own land perceive this? The fact is that we have no choice. The fate’s have chosen Aynah’s leader and that cannot be fought with.”

 

“An amendment, due to the fact that the princess is so young would have to be added. Princess Callea, we propose you marry before you rule as Queen when your mother and father pass away. This does not have to be soon in this case. And most of all, we propose that you except to be Aynah’s heir and future queen.”

 

The queen. Of Aynah. This must be some sick joke, something that they’re all snickering about behind those serious faces. And what of the war? Did they expect me to lead that? Because I could never.

 

“The queen?” I gulp.

 

“It’s hardly a question but yes. You are the next in line so you were born to this right, your highness. We do not have the power and you do not have the power to say no but if you can mentally accept this… priority than it will be a much smoother transition.”

 

“And what if I accepted it mentally? What obligations would I have donned?”

 

“Well, obviously leading the war-”

 

“The war?” I ask, standing up. “Let me see if I have this right. My brother- inhale that word for a moment would you- my brother, your prince was murdered in a war that you now propose I fight for. And if I die then my next brother will take the job? You would have me sacrificed over your ridiculous, pointless, prideful war. A war my brother died in!”

 

“Death happens, your majesty, we would see that you were more safe if that was what you wished…”

 

I shook my head closing my eyes.

 

“I refuse to fight in the war. I could be your silly heir but I will not shed innocent blood!”

 

“Callea, you dare call your brother’s murderer innocent?” my father asks, standing up now too.

 

“I dare. So what if I were to kill his murderer, father? Would his brother kill me as well? Then what? It goes again?”

 

“You’d rather let him live and kill more?”

 

“Father, forgive me. I will be your heir but I will not fight in this war that slew my soul and took my brother’s life. I will not do it.”

 

I couldn’t talk to him or anyone anymore. I wasn’t going to fight over something so unnecessary. I left the room in a huff and locked myself back in my room.