A/N: Kaddar's views on his political marriage with Kalasin. Feedback and criticism and any sort of review would be fantastic! Thanks!
It wasn't like I was being forced into this, I reminded myself for what seemed like the thirtieth time that hour. My manservant adjusted my outfit as I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I am not like my late uncle, always wanting to primp and add face and hair paints to make me seem more majestic. Since I had become emperor, I began to despise the ornamental costumes I was required to wear. Well, not required, but who was I to argue with Varice? She sometimes seemed more adept at doing the ceremonial aspects of the throne than I was, and half of the time I wished she could just step in and take my place up on the throne and deal the glory and monotony that comes with it.
Now I knew I was trying to distract myself from the most significant issue. I also understood that I would have to come to terms with the idea of tying myself to a practical stranger for the rest of my life, no longer a free bachelor. I had no problems with the idea of marriage; it seemed the natural course one took in life. Marriage, children, death… and in my case, trying to control and rule an unstable country on that certain path to final and everlasting sleep.
No, the idea of marriage, that didn't bother me as much as the idea that I was marrying a total stranger.
Perhaps that wasn't true. We had gotten to know each other some since she arrived in Carthak, as well as exchanged letters before that. Kalasin was a lovely and beautiful girl. But after dealing with Daine, Varice and my sisters for most of my life, I was surprised to find her so sweet. I didn't mean to imply that she was weak. On the contrary, she was opinionated, that was for certain. Any discussions and debates we ever had over the past six months never presented her to be unknowledgeable or indecisive. But for a politician, she was remarkably sweet and naïve. She didn't believe in pure evil, and she believed that there was good in everyone. When I asked her if she believed if there was good in her great uncle, Duke Roger who had killed her grandmother and tried to kill her father and usurp the Tortallan throne all those years ago, she replied that she did think there was some good in him. Because, she qualified, despite all his evil deeds and betrayal, her father, King Jonathan, still had loved his cousin.
This girl has drunken one too many test headache potions, I had thought. She had informed me in one of our earlier conversations that she used to be an experimenter for healing potions at the university. Like many of her classmates, she had hated the thought of force-feeding helpless animals their vile and unsafe potions, and many so abhorred the practice that they decided to try the potions themselves. Kalasin had actually tried the potions many times. She told me she had never told her parents or her many guardians that she had done so. She said it wasn't fair that she would be exempt from this practice when she felt so strongly about it just because she was royalty.
When she first told me this story I thought she was completely mad. Sacrificing herself to something that had the potential to be dangerous to her health, possibly lethal, only to protect dumb beasts? While Daine corrected my thinking of mistreating animals, this was going a bit far. I told Kalasin that she had been foolish.
She laughed a pretty, clear sound that reminded me of chimes and said she wasn't that foolish. She had only drunk the ones for common headaches, which as a princess under stressful situations often, was a reoccurring ailment. Afraid that she would try to do something like in Carthak where she was in a more targeted position as Empress, I forbade her to try any more potions not cleared by Zaimid or any of his assistants. To my great surprise, she did not act as a Tortallan woman would normally respond to such a commanding order. She nodded her head serenely and said, "Of course, my lord."
I was afraid I would never figure out this Kalasin of Conté, soon to be Iliniat. She would share my name, but that would not shine through the mysteries that cloaked the foreign princess. One moment I believed I understood her and how her mind worked, but then she would do something so surprising and shocking, and usually endearing to me at the same time for reasons I could not possibly comprehend, that I felt like I started from day one. I could not fit her into a neat little box. She became a stranger. Not only did I not understand her, but I had no idea what she thought of me or where I stood with her. So how would our marriage work? I knew only one thing: it would not be anything like my parents' marriage, or any normal Carthaki marriage that I had ever seen or heard of.
And sleeping with Kalasin… if she was any casual woman I knew I would have no hesitation. She had the body of a goddess. But with marriage, a lifelong commitment, I could not treat her like a common strumpet. I found her desirable and I wanted her, but such feelings now had weight and responsibility behind them. Her opinion of me mattered now. Living with a person, seeing a person every day, making love and sharing a bed with that same mysterious person night after night… If she hated me, that would become unbearable and painful to deal with very quickly.
I wanted to be loved and accepted. And if my own wife, the person who was supposed to be closest to me, could not possess those feelings for me, then what?
My manservant straightened my collar for the last time before bowing himself out of the room. I stared at my reflection, studying the man before me. Emperor Kaddar Iliniat of Carthak. Majestic. Powerful. Untouchable. I didn't want to be untouchable anymore, I wanted someone to bear my burdens with me, help me, love me, befriend me and hear me. Because of this, I was ready to love and marry Princess Kalasin.
I knew it would take time and effort, and often times it would be hard, but what was the point of life if everything came easily? Where would be the sense of victory and feelings of accomplishment? With the same attitude I took when I was preparing to send my troops to fight against the rebels in Siraj, I turned to the door and walked slowly out, knowing that I was taking my first steps with purpose; my first steps toward becoming Kalasin's husband.