Chapter Eleven: Do Her Good

         “I should leave before the sun rises,” I whisper as I ring out my locks and he pulls his small boat onto the shore. He stops with the boat halfway beached and turns.

        “Your father?” Kier questions, then comes towards me.

        “My father,” I nod, breaking the eye contact.

        “But the sun doesn’t rise for another hour,” he muses. I nod.

        Where was this proclamation of love anyway? And of course I find it important; a simple flirtatious boy would not believe in using the word love, let alone the idea of marriage and I couldn’t quite pin if he was just that or not. Yet if he was a believer of love than why is it that nothing has been proclaimed? Is it that I love him far more than he fancies me?

        “Meet me again tomorrow night,” he whispers, gripping onto both of my cheeks and leaning his forehead on mine.

        “I can’t,” I whisper.

        “A week,” he tries. 

        I shake my head again. “Aza, I can’t not see you. I need to see you again soon.”

        What am I even doing? “Thirty days,” I respond, biting my lip.

        “Thirty  more days of lost life. Thirty interminable days,” he moans quietly. “Why so many?”

        I sigh, still refusing to meet his eyes. Why do I adore him so? “You speak words out of your character, Kier,” I echo the words he said to me earlier. 

        “I disagree,” he grins. 

        “Thirty days,” I repeat, then my eyes move to meet his. He stares for a long time and I wait for him to move in, to kiss me…

        Kier pulls away, losing the physical contact. “Then fly away angel as you remain in my dreams for thirty long days and one new moon. And upon thy return,” he grins. “Use your wings and come again to stay another perfect night in my sight.”

        “I’ll try not to disappoint,” I stutter out foolishly. I couldn’t echo his poetry that he continuously speaks in at all. 

        “You couldn’t.”

        I nod once ands then I turn away. 

        *~*~*~*~*

        “She simply can’t just keep running off as she does! She’ll be dead one of these times and the last thing we need is a ten year old in line to rule Kloshia,” I hear the muffled voice of my father through the door.

        “Love, she is a wise woman she can’t do just fine for taking care of herself. You can hardly blame her for wanting to escape from protocol every once in a while,” my mother argues. “Be reasonable.”

        “That child,” my father hisses, “is anything but wise. I fear the day she rules because that will be the day that our country corrupts.”

        “You don’t know that-”

        I sigh, tuning out of their argument and leaning my head against the large wooden door. He’s irrational. He just doesn’t understand anything, and he most certainly doesn’t understand me. He most certainly isn’t any wiser than I am at all, either.

        “That’s not what’s best for her! Do you know your daughter at all, Harold?” my mother was starting to raise her voice, and that was something she simply never did. I knit my eyebrows together. What was that about?

        “She’s unstable, and a husband would do her good. My love, it will be the make of a good queen for her.” my father tries to reason with her. I freeze. They weren’t talking about what I think they were… are they?

        “You know that she will never settle for an arranged marriage, she’s far to outgoing, lively and fantasizing. Ever since she was small girl she’s been speaking to me of such things she can not wait for.”

        They were… oh they were! How could father even consider such a thing! Why, he wasn’t forced into an arranged marriage himself, how dare he try and marry me off against my will! And what about Kier? What will become of him in the possibility that maybe, quite possibly he returns my affections? Or will he not even care? I absolutely will not do it if I have to lock myself in a room all day or kill myself in order to avoid it.

        “And who’s the man you have in mind?” my mother queries. My jaw drops a little. Was she succumbing to this repulsiveness? Was she just going to go along with the entire thing, even though she knows very well that I will not, for a second, agree with it? I am in love! How could I marry someone else under these circumstances?

        There wasn’t a response. I stood up, storming away from their chamber, heading towards my own. Why don’t they understand? Why doesn’t anyone ever understand why war is bad, why I view things the way I do?

        *~*~*~*

        My mother came into the room that night. I figured it had something to do with the fact that I would ignore my father if he dared come near me and my mother was there decided weapon. I wanted to be angry at her but because of the sanity level she’d been helping me to keep I simply couldn’t hate her right now. Even though I knew what was coming and I was determined to not let her get her way. I was not getting married to anyone.

        “Darling, can we speak?” my mother asks, sitting down on the edge of my bed. I pull my pillow close to me, not wanting to say anything. No, no we can’t speak, because no, I’m not getting married to a cow.

        “I heard you and father speaking,” I muffle through the pillow covering my face.

        My mother lets out a huge sigh. “Please, listen to me for a moment. I understand that you’re upset and I know that choosing your own husband has always been a dream of yours for as long as either of us can remember. But Callea, please understand that I respect your opinion about the war in a high respect for you but darling, Aynah does not agree with you. If we wait to find you a husband than I’m just afraid that men will refuse to wed you, not because there is anything wrong with you dear, but because they may disagree with you.”

        “But mother,” I sigh, releasing my head from the pillow. “I’m in love. You can’t take that away from me.”

        “You are?” she asks, seeming surprised. “With who?”

        I shake my head. Not that I was going to tell her but she didn’t have to marry when she was in love with somebody else so perhaps just the thought alone would make her reconsider. She waits for an answer and when she clearly sees that I’m not going to give her one she sighs. “And does this man love you too?”

        I stare blankly for a while. How is it that she can always ask the very question that could possibly be a flaw in anything? How does she do that? “I think so,” I answer honestly.

        “But what if he doesn’t then, Callea?” she asks. I keep silent, not replying to her question. “With this marriage arrangement we made we’ve considered that it will provide you safety, for sure. He is a wise ruler and a strong, brilliant man so he’ll be able to protect you from any harm.”

        “Does he support the war?” I question. “Will him being king lead me away from being the absolute ruler?”

        “Only if they listen to him over you…” my mother hesitates to reply. And I knew they would because the people of Aynah would not follow someone like me who would try to change the entire kingdom. I turn away from her.

        “I wont marry him.”

        “Well you’re meeting him tomorrow morning dear. We wont talk further tonight Callea, but get to know the man a little and then we’ll speak again.”

        “I wont marry him,” I repeat, not even caring to question who the man was. I was going to marry Kier someday and that was just it.

        My mother simply smiles, then stands up and walks out of my chamber.

        I burst into tears.