Canary in a Cage: Whispers of the Heart
Chapter 1: Marry Me
In the dark of the night, her heart pounded so hard she was afraid to be heard. Like a canary caught up in a cage that is trying desperately to free itself from the bars that held it prisoner, Serenity's heart rate pulsed over a hundred beats a minute, the beat of it sounding like a drums. She was almost giddy with the sounds of "thump thump thump" pulsing through her veins as she waited at the edge of town, hidden in the woods that marked the transition of the road that led away from or into the small town of Inielle.
Shaking with the complex emotions that coursed through her veins, Serenity placed her hand atop her breasts, as if to will the beat of her heart to slow and to pound less loudly. The idea of being caught this early in her game by the beating of her heart alerting people to her whereabouts was not a pleasant thought.
Taking deep breaths to calm down, Serenity tried to assemble her thoughts, to focus on the reason why she was hiding in the woods, in the middle of the night, waiting for a man to show up. The scandalousness of her actions would destroy every hope she has for her future if she did not succeed.
"Oh God, what am I doing!?" she whispered frantically to the night sky, fear starting to override all other emotions. She closed her eyes and pictured a familiar face crowned with chestnut hair that was almost always held up in a ponytail. In that face, she found beautiful emerald eyes that regarded her with warmth and affection.
"Lita." she sighed in a whisper, as if the mere mention of the other woman's name would transport the chestnut haired woman to her side. Her fears began to give way as the picture in her mind solidified into the shape of the tall amazon woman who had been her only friend ten years out of all eighteen years of her life.
"Serenity…" she remembered her friend saying, "I'm not too crazy about this plan of yours but I will support you all the way. But if things don't turn out well, let's elope, runaway to where no one can find us so we can start our lives again. Don't worry princess; I will always be by your side."
Remembering those words and the undivided support her friend had always given her, Serenity's strength of will resurface and she faced her fears with renewed energy. It was now or never.
Straightening up her spine, she backed further into the woods, making sure to hide her person completely from view before relaxing her muscles. Taking in a deep breath and exhaling almost immediately, she closed her eyes and focused her complete attention on the sounds that surrounded her. The whistling sounds of leaves blowing in the wind, the sound of dried leaves crushing under the movement of the forest creatures, the little clicks and clinks that exposed the world of the woods around her, enchanting her with its mysteriousness.
She smiled as she welcomed the haunted embrace of the woods that were as familiar to her as the back of her hand and yet as mysterious as her own back. Yet her whole focus was on a pair of hooves clobbering down the dirt road some miles away. She was certain of his arrival long before he came insight of the town. Deciding that she couldn't wait any longer, her shaking legs carried her towards him even as her heart hammered once again in her rib cage.
As if touched by unseen hands, her lungs began to fill with air, she felt her heart expand and with each step that drew her closer to him, she felt as if she was floating. And before she knew it, she was running, wild and untamed. Her tangled hair flew behind her in a mass of Golden curls, freed from the restraints of the hood.
She walked, she ran, she flew…her heart soaring like the wind. And then she stopped.
With just two miles between them, she stopped dead in her tracks, gravity and reality bringing her back to her senses. Nothing could have stopped her airless momentum like the image that resolved itself unwillingly in her mind's eye, the image of her corn-kissed haired, blue eyed sister.
'He's not mine. He is hers.' She thought.
The sudden force of that realization rooted her on the spot until he was almost upon her. Only then did she realize that she was exposed. Quickly, she rearranged her hair back into her hood and hopped that he hadn't glimpsed much of her. She was confident that her face had been hidden from his view because of her untamed hair.
When the last strands of her hair fell into its proper place in her cloak, she looked up into two pairs of eyes; one dark brown almost black, and the other, a blue like the midnight sky. Both pairs of eyes were enchanting in their own mysteriousness but only the mystery in the blue gaze held Serenity's attention.
For a moment, that to her was an eternity, the two strangers, familiars, almost friends stared at each other. He was aware that she was no ghost, but in that moment he was willing to believe in dead souls walking in the living world.
After he could endure the silence no longer, he dismounted from his horse and as courtesy dictated, he bowed before her.
"My lady…I am speechless."
"Yet your voice still managed to say those five words." He blinked at her response and at her voice. He realized then that he probably had never heard her voice in all the years he had known her family.
"I do not know what to say." He confessed.
"That is quite alright. I came here this night to meet you and speak to you without being overheard. Forgive me for the inappropriateness of this reunion."
"I'm sure whatever you have to say to me must be very important to you otherwise you wouldn't have taken such a risk." He said, looking at her hooded face. If it hadn't been for her platinum hair he had glimpsed earlier, he would have mistaken her for a felon meaning him harm. Though he could not see her face as it was hidden in the folds of the cloak's hoody, he was certain he was talking to the older sister of his fiancée. However why he was having conversation with her in the middle of the night in the middle of the road, he was unsure. The entire encounter and the scene playing out before him were so bizarre he couldn't wrap his mind around it.
"Do not be alarmed at what I am about to reveal to you. I have your best interest at heart and my own."
"Ok." He said. He was apprehensive. Though he didn't know her all that well, he knew one thing for sure, Serenity was a no nonsense person. If she felt it necessary to come meet him in the middle of the night to tell him whatever it is she was going to say, then he knew that whatever it was, it was going to be big.
"I am not very good at beating around the bush so I will go straight to the point. Do not ask my sister's hand in marriage."
He blinked, as if he had not heard what she was saying.
"Pardon me but what…"
"Don't ask Minako to marry you. She won't. She can't. She's engaged to someone else. Someone I am sure you are very familiar with."
He didn't reply to her for a long time so she continued.
"Two months ago, Lord Diamond Wales of Minsceria came to the Manor in a flashy a carriage as any royalty could afford and swept my sister off her feet. He spent a week her, each minute, except night time, accompanied by my sister. By the end of the week, he had won her favor and an unofficial engagement was reached. Before the sun crested over the horizon earlier, he arrived. Tomorrow the official engagement will take place. I know that you love my sister, I know that to her you have been true but I warn you now, if you go there and ask for her hand in marriage, you will be humiliated."
He stood so still that she began to worry about him. Then suddenly he moved and turned his back to her. As he made to mount up on his horse, she reached and grasped much of his arm in her hands. Holding on with a strength born of desperation, she cried out almost frantically,
"Marry me."
That stopped him. Shock like he had never felt before assaulted his system, rendering him speechless again for the third time that night. Thrown off once again he could only crock out, "What?"
"Marry me and she will come back to you." She offered as by way of explanation while letting go of her grip on his arm. He slowly, staggeringly turned around to face the woman he was starting to suspect was not in her right frame of mind.
"If you marry me, she will return to you." She stated again.
"What sense is there in what you are saying?" he questioned, his eyes wide with complete surprise. In his five years away training with the knights of the realm and fighting through the bloody kingdom wars, he had heard, seen and felt a lot of things. But what was happening to him that night, he thought, took the cake.
"Mina has many faces. You, along with anyone she wishes to please only ever see one of her faces. But I, born and reared with her have had the misfortune of knowing my sister all too well. She is a snake in the grass; money and power are her only ambitions in life. She desires to be the most talked about woman in all the lands. She desires to have everything good anybody has. This flaw in her character will draw her back to you."
"Serenity…."
"She cannot stand for me to be happy."
"Stop it."
"Marry me. For a year, treat me as if I am a queen. The man she has betrothed herself to will lavish her with all the precious jewels this world have to offer. For the first three months, she will be happier than anyone. She will be pompous and arrogant. But the man, by nature is not good. He can only hide himself for so long. Soon, everything he will give to her, he will recollect in the most painful of ways. She will then understand the grave mistake she has made. If she were to hear how well you treat me, she will want to return to you but you cannot go to her until a year later. For one year, I ask you to marry me. By then, she will be well prepared and suited to be your wife."
"Woman, are you insane?!"
"I know my sister best of all."
"Clearly not." She looked up at him, and then sighed.
"I know all this sounds crazy but you have to believe me. If you want Minako by your side forever, you are going to have to sacrifice a year."
He stood, unable to answer her. He was confused beyond reason. Nothing of what she had said to him made sense.
"What's in it for you?" he asked. When she didn't respond, he questioned further.
"Beyond a nod and a courtesy, we've never had any association with each other. The only link between us is your sister. So why will you go through all this trouble to warn me and sacrifice yourself for my happiness. What will you gain from this?"
She turned from his piercing eyes, her heart racing. She could tell him the truth, but that one truth was the one thing she could not tell him. If she told him, it would discredit everything she had just told him.
"For the experience."
"Experience?"
"Yes." She said, turning back to him. "I have no desire to marry but my parents insist on giving me away into marriage. If I can marry for a year and then divorce, they will accept that I am not made for marriage. They will give up and allow me to live my life."
"You could have chosen anybody, so why me?"
"Do you really have to ask that question?"
"Yes."
She sighed and turned away from him, her facing him as she gazed at the full moon hanging so low in the sky, its orange color casting an eerie enchantment over the silent road.
"No one will marry me Mr. Shields and you well know it."
"But you said your parents are trying to marr…"
"The only one who will have me is a blind man in his late 70s wanting a wife to keep him company. This man is whom my parents wants to marry me to."
"What...?" he asked in shock.
"He has wealth and is closely tied to members of the royal household. His health is not too good either. I suspect that he must be on his death bed so if I was to become his legal wife, I will come into great fortune."
They were both silent after that.
"Do you not want good fortune?"
She looked at him sharply, wishing she could slap him but she reigned down the impulse and closed her eyes.
"It is not a matter of wanting fortune but rather the means of acquiring it. Besides, to acquire the fortune, he has a will that dictate that his wife could not touch his fortune for twenty years and in those years, she cannot remarry or associate with any man."
"What kind of nonsense..."
"Now you see my dilemma."
"So, just reject him."
"I have done so a thousand and one times but my parents will not let me hear the end of it. They are convinced that no other man would have me so this is the only means of getting rid of me. Anyway, think carefully on what I have told you, if you decide to go along with what I have suggested, find me or my friend, the house cook, Lita. Now I must return before my absence is noted." She said, beginning to walk away.
"Let me give you a ride on my Ankrone."
"No thank you." She said. When she had walked about a yard away, she whistled and from the woods came a light chestnut coated mare who happily greeted her master. Swinging over her back, Serenity departed, leaving Darien Endymion Shields in shock and confused.