Chapter Nine: Hate's Treason Gone Unpunished

 It wasn’t until that moment, that very day that I realized just how much hate there was lurking about these two countries. Two kings at war, each wanting to take over the other hundreds of years ago and a passing down of stories form generation to generation. That hate grew and grew. After this many years, I can’t know who I think I’m kidding if I think that I can tame it.

        Nor till that day did I understand the true definition of detestation. Odium. Hate. The darkest and blackest word to any ear, male or female. It courses through your veins, your blood, just the thought of something that you abhor strikes your brain to pulse in raw anger , that no matter what you do, it simply can’t be tamer. It’s a word beyond words, and if pure, it’s a feeling beyond sanity. When you hate you think about hatred all the time, you’re life becomes that of what you think. People are going mad, and I’m sure that I can not only say that for Aynah. Hate destroys a person from the inside out. And somehow, after all of this, it’s a word so large, so massive that I haven’t even begun to describe just how deep, how sincere it can truly be.

        It put royalty in the stocks. The heir to a throne. A woman. A young girl. My hair was almost completely red, looking like it had been basked in glorious sun all day but it was the juice from the many, many tomatoes I’ve had thrown at me. My head throbbed a little from all of them and my feet were sore, my neck feeling stiff and aching.

        “Now tell me princess. Have we come to the conclusion yet on just why we must fight this war?”

        But still, though I know just how strong this hate is between these two kingdoms, and I know just how loathed I am, I still cannot fathom, for the life of me, just why we must fight. This war started years ago. It could end now, because it was a fight for nothing, now.

        I didn’t have any breath left in my throat; I’d been screaming most of the day. The sun was slowly starting to set now. But I didn’t want to lie. Sure it would save me, but only for now. I wanted them to see it my way. But they wouldn’t. They just would not.

        And how am I supposed to see Kier tomorrow night? How can I when I’m trapped like this? He’s going to think I’ve forgotten.

        Yet, however much I wished to see him I was deathly afraid. Because there was still that chance that now, after thirty days, he knew exactly who I was and I could have a very imminent death.

        “No,” my hoarse voice managed. 

        “Three more days like this and you’ll be begging for our mercy,” the man rolls his eyes. Three days? I don’t have three days! Who does this man think he is anyway, if he thinks this will go unpunished? True, I wont kill him but I definitely wont just forget all about this.

        The crowd suddenly got very loud, dispersing throughout the common area, and in almost a minute the entire place was cleared out.

        What’d going on? I start panicking.

        Even the man who had been taunting me all day left. My heart started pounding within my chest.

        “Release her,” a gruff voice sounds. I knew that voice all two well though.

        “Callea, are you not the greatest fool in the country? How in the world did you end up in a stock.”

        A key clings and the top bar is lifted. I pull up my head, feeling relief and joy all at once. My father wasn’t so much furious at what they had done to me on how I had managed to allow it to happen, though.         “Let’s back to the castle, Callea, don’t you dare leave like that again. You could have been killed, starved to death. What’d happened to all your dignity anyway, child, you look like scum.”

        “I didn’t do anything,” I protest, voice raw as I was stumbling behind him, as one of the guards mounted me up on my horse. “They simply loathe me, and all of them versus one of me is not a match I can win.”

        “Perhaps they wouldn’t hate you if you weren’t such a fool.”

        I glower. The horse was suddenly off and I could smell the stench suddenly stronger now, in my hair and on my clothes. I felt awful. Like I had been robbed of many, many more things than just the fact that I was power.

        “Father I need to do something about those men.”

        “They’re our men, Callea, I forbid you to kill men who will fight in this war.”

        “I don’t plan on killing them father. But they’ll do it again if they think we let them get away with it. If I don’t show them that I have some sort of power then I will be more quickly doomed as queen.”

        My father doesn’t heed my words, just sighs. “We’ll talk later. Dinner and then good night when we arrive at the castle, the guards have been searching all day.”

        I don’t respond, I just turn away as we head back to the castle, listening to only the clacking hooves of the horses.