Chapter Twelve: To Woo

         I dig my nails deeper into my skin, chewing, literally chewing on the inside of my lip. I’d heard rumors and I could only pray that none of them were true. What am I going to do if they are? Suicide, at this point, doesn’t seem like an awful idea.

        Yes, it would be that incredibly awful.

        “Callea stand up straight, you look like your disfigured,” my father scolds. I throw my shoulder back and stand up tall, anxious to know whether or not it was true.

        “Your majesties, they’ve just arrived,” a servant announces, walking up to my father through the crowd of gathered courtiers throughout the castle, all just as curious to know who their new future king shall be, and my future husband.

        “Bring them in,” my father urges. I hold my breath, and two more servants open the door to the grand throne room.

        “Ladies and gentlemen please give a welcome to your future king-” future king? I thought nothing was decided just yet? “Please welcome The Duke Hadrian II.”

        My stomach tightens. They were true. They were true! What awful rumors and of all the times for the gossip to be correct, today had to be the time!

        Duke Hadrian. No, not Hadrian as in the Hadrian who is getting married to my cousin, Gloriana. No, that would be Duke Hadrian III. I’m marrying his father.

        An applause erupts in the room and I feel myself  trying to keep myself stable. I was infuriated and absolutely repulsed. My future husband was not alone you see, the very Hadrian I once though I love walked next to him, slowly coming closer and closer to me…

        “Keep smiling Callea, everybody is watching you,” my mother whispers to me. Those words were probably the only reason I didn’t burst out of the room right then. How were they going to take me seriously as a queen if I ran from my husband upon our first meeting. I’d be a joke for the rest of my life. That, and Vorion would be very disappointed in me if I didn’t just stick this through, somehow.

        They came closer and closer to me and soon I could make out the face of young Hadrian, and then I noticed my cousin, Gloriana, trudging behind the two of him with a slight snarl on her face as she glowered at me…

        *~*~*~*~*

        A cold rag was pressed to my head and I open my eyes. I moan. “My head,” I whine, trying to lift it but then setting it back down on the pillow.

        “You hit it when you faint on the stairs. You’ve got a large cut from hitting against the stairs so it may hurt for a while…” Abigail presses the rag to my forehead again and I flinch.

        “I fainted?” I ask. She nods, giggling a little. Despite everything I had told myself, I managed to make a fool out of myself in front of all those people anyway. That’s terrific, Callea.

        “Well, I suppose this means that all of the rumors were true, Callea…” Abigail says, trying to make some sort of small talk.

        “I’m not going to marry him,” I state. “He’ll be dead tomorrow for one and for another he’s likely just as pigheaded as his son.”

        “Alright dear, calm down,” Abigail says. I felt slightly confused. Abigail was never polite to me, not even before Vorion’s death and before the entire kingdom came to loathe me. I shrugged it away. 

        My father chooses that moment to burst into the room, his face completely emotionless. “Good, you’re awake, the Duke would like to see you.

        I keep silent, biting the tip of my tongue to keep from swearing profusely at him right then and there. I swallow.

        “Well, get up,” my father commands, giving me an annoyed look.

        “I don’t feel well,” I moaned, putting a hand to my forehead dramatically. “My head hurts.”

        “Sir if I may say so I don’t think it would be in your best interest to make her rise, please excuse me for saying so, but her highness hit her head pretty hard and should rest another day before getting up and going about.”

        My father grunts once then turns. “Alright, I’ll tell the Duke to come to you then.”

        I moaned again, not wishing to see him. Sure, I was supposedly going to marry him but I’d rather not think about that at all… ever again. 

        I barely had enough time to come up with some sort of plan though before he appeared at my chamber door, knocking once. “May I come in, your highness?” he asked, but then went ahead and invited himself in anyway. His white-blonde hair was tossed back into a ponytail with his hair at the nape of his neck and I could make out a couple of the wrinkles on his face.  I turn away, and then Abigail leaves the room, closing the two of us in the chamber together, alone.

        “Well it’s been an eventful morning, hasn’t it?” the Duke tries to Jest. I avoid his gaze but let out a smile, only to be polite. “And I know this must come as something as a surprise for you, but I’m already aware that this will take some… getting used to. And I’m sure you don’t think nearly as highly of me as I do you, but I’m sure time will heal that. I don’t mean to hurt you, so as long as you need I’ll give you your own space to breathe and freedom to roam… it may please you that for this reason we have not set a date for the wedding.”

        This did capture my attention but I wasn’t going to let it get to me. So as long as I pretended to absolutely abhor him there would be no wedding? How long was that offer good for- could I hold it off… well, forever?

        The thought seemed unlikely but I could only hope. 

        “I do wish to say this, however,” the Duke sighs. I continue to listen but I still refuse to meet his gaze, crossing my arms tightly in front of me. “I can’t offer you much, but I hope to be able to offer you protection. And I hope you will come to love and know my son as much as I do and that you’ll be able to accept him as being their heir to the throne for when we pass away…”

        What? He would be the heir? What about my children? And am I really expected to have children of my own with this hairy, wrinkle skinned old man? I grimace again, closing my eyes and trying again not to think about it. What happened to Aynah being ruled by a woman- me? Was my father really so dense as to just hand over the crown to another line of lineage?

        The idea of Hadrian becoming my son brought shivers to my spine. That means I would have to love him… as much as I hate him.

        The duke was still going on, “but I hope that you will come to find that you may very well be happy with me, as perhaps you would with anybody else. I would make sure that your ideas and your voice was heard in any way that I could possibly manage. So I bed you… don’t make any decisions just yet.”

        Without another word the duke kissed my hand and left out of the room. I wipe it all over the covers, trying to disinfect it to no avail.

        Why shouldn’t I marry him? Consider it? Well lets see, maybe because I used to think I was in love with his son, he’s more than twice my age and because I’m already head over heels in love with a Kaithronese man… call me unwise but it’s an emotion I can’t control.

        *~*~*~*~*

        Where is it… certainly not placed where I left it. I always place it here, why should it be missing now? Who else would have taken it to read besides me?

        I walk a shelf over, seeing if I was tired and I had accidentally stocked it one isle over… but I had no such luck. The book was missing and it seemed that it was nowhere to be found.

        I sigh, huffing once and then stand, trying to remember if I had left it somewhere else. It was an important book… one Vorion gave to me just before he went off to war for the first time, to help stock the library that I absolutely adore.

        Only now it’s gone. How will I ever find another copy when I’ve been imprisoned in this palace?

        “Now… you see, I really can’t see why you like this so much. I find it rather… dry and too detailed.”

        I snap my head over to the end of the isle. Hadrian stood leaning against the shelf, holding a book in his hand with a silly little smile playing across his lips and his brown hair seeming slightly longer than I ever remember it being.

        Walking over to him, I rudely snatch it away from him. “Where’d you find it?” I ask.

        “On the shelf,” he shrugs.

        “How’d you know I read it?”

        He seems to find something very funny about this as he lets out a little chuckle. “The whole palace has seen you carry that book around with you. I’m sure most people would assume that you’ve read the book if you feel obliged to carry it around all the time.”

        I study the tattered cover of the book for a moment. 

        “I’m really curious as to what you find so fascinating in that book?” Hadrian asks after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “The way it speaks of human emotions is so unrealistic.”

        I snap my head up, making sure to glare. “Humans feel happy, and sad.”

        He chuckles, seeming so calm and relaxed. I couldn’t stand being this close to him. I huff. “Not that emotion,” he says.

        “Love is real.”

        “Only fools love,” he tells me. “But any other person would know that love does not exist, thus writing and entire novel on it is a complete waste of time, allowing others to work up an unrealistic fantasy that maybe a myth does exist.”

        I roll my eyes. “Charming, an engaged man who doesn’t believe in love, if you would excuse me-”

        I try to brush past him but he steps in the way, stopping me, the smile continuing to dance on his flawless face I once was in love with.

        “You know, I figured that since you’re soon to be my stepmother I was hoping we could start off on better terms.”

        I squeeze my lips together. “Fools may love but it’s the idiots that don’t believe in such a word. Those who don’t love may not be fools, however, I’d rather be a fool in love than an idiot engaged without love. Now move out of my way, I have somewhere to be.”

        Hadrian steps in my way again, stubbornly, and keeps doing so as I try still to keep brushing past him. 

        “Now tell me, why is it that you can tell me it is wise to love when you yourself are being a big hypocrite. Are you not in a loveless engagement, yourself?” he asks.

        Despite myself, I tell him this. “Perhaps that’d true but I suppose that means I’m both a fool and an idiot so clearly we can conclude that I am utterly senseless- that being said, you have nothing else against me, so I do believe that this conversation has come to an end.”

        “You’re completely contradicting yourself,” Hadrian points out. I attempt once again to brush past him, with no success. “And you say you’re in love.”

        I pull my lips together tightly again. I huff. “I am in love with many things, my future stepson not being one of those things on my list.”

        I turn around, walking out through the doors leading out the long way through the castle on the other side, leaving that dumb heartless boy behind me.