The King of Vesarae is dead. Word was spreading throughout the kingdom and by the time the farthest village had heard, the King's funeral procession had begun. His final resting place would be Palace of Kings, a cemetery made for royalty and their progeny. His body was being brought there inside a mahogany casket carried between four horses each lead by one the King's trusted generals.
Behind the King, riding in an open carriage draped in black, was the queen and their young five year old daughter, Crown Princess Vasaelisa Arianna Nya Josephine. Both were pale having had a hard week making decisions for the funeral. Aria had been included in the proceedings as long as she'd kept quiet and out of the way. The Queen worried about her, she hadn't spoken a word since her father had been pronounced dead.
As the procession reached the big stone doors of the Palace of Kings, Queen Aadora gripped her daughter's hand. If it hadn't been for that little hand staying by her side through all of this, she was sure she'd have collapsed in despair by now. Looking down at her daughter she saw the late Kings big expressive cerulean colored eyes staring up at her with a strong determination, not so commonly found in children, and just with seeing that expression on her daughter's face the Queen came to a decision. She made a silent promise to her daughter, to rule this kingdom with all she had and make it prosper in preparation for when her daughter became the queen. However, she realized, this may not be possible for she had made a reckless deal with the King of Almidon last night.
Aria had gone to bed and she had gone to meet with King Vaylor, who'd requested audience with her earlier in the day. When she gotten there the talk between the two monarchs had started out well and then it had gotten bad and in the end they had decided that their children would decide which kingdom would merge with the other, for they both knew that without an alliance between their two nations their kingdoms would soon be separated between the other kingdoms.
Crown Princess Vasaelisa Arianna Nya Josephine and Crown Prince Sebastian Tobias Cyrus (the eight year old heir of Almidon) would have to capture their counterpart, without harm, and bring them to their Capital where they would expose their charge to their own family in their country. When that had happened they would then be able to take their captured heir's kingdom for their own. At the thought of what she'd done to her daughter's future she hugged the little girl tightly and got out of the carriage. Little did the Queen know, her daughter was twelve steps ahead of her.
Little Aria was a smart little girl, smarter than any others close to her could even guess, and she knew her mother would eventually succumb to the pressure of kings work, so she had to be ready to take over for her mother as soon as she possibly could. Unbeknownst to her mother Aria had secretly followed her mother the other night, sensing something would happen that she would need to know. She had quietly listened to their rising argue-mental voices and she had barely gotten away fast enough when her mother had suddenly rushed from the kings guest chambers. She had quietly slipped back to her own nursery thinking about how she would accomplish the task ahead of her. Her last thought before falling asleep had been I must protect my fragile mother from the harsh reality of what is to come.
Firsties!
ReplyDelete