Chapter One:

Whipped Kitten

In the last four years since General Scipio Bellorum's deadly defeat, Prince Charlemagne Athelstan Redrought Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, Shadow of the Storm had grown taller and matured into a fine young man.

"A fine young man of marrying age." His mother reminded him for at least the eighth time that morning over breaking fast. "It is about time you find a girl and settle down with her! Give me a grandchild or eight! Goodness knows when either of your siblings will start a family." Thirrin, Queen of Icemark glared at her unmarried daughter and sons.

"Indeed, most wise mother." Sharley rolled his eyes and nodded vigorously as if he'd really been listening. "Unfortunately I've got to make an urgent trip to the Desert Kingdom. Mekhmet needs me for... err... something." Sharley declared lamely, making his words up as he went along.

"Really?" Cressida asked sarcastically as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Eodred yelped and then blurted, "Where is the letter demanding your presence, Sharley?" The only reason Eodred had gotten involved in the conversation was because of his sister's sharp elbow jab to his stomach at the same time as his mother's heavy boot stomped on his foot.

Sharley stared at his older brother for a second or two, knowing full well what had happened out of sight. "Right here." He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his jacket.

Thirrin immediately leaned across the table and yanked the paper from Sharley's hands. She quickly unfolded it and then let out a disappointed sighed. "It is in the Desert People's language..." Her father may have educated Queen Thirrin forcibly but that didn't mean she had a knack for picking up languages the way her youngest child could.

Cressida was handed the letter and sighed as well, echoing her mother perfectly. "Do we bother having you read this to us or do we just take your word for it?" She asked when she too realized that only Sharley knew how to read the symbols scrawled across the paper.

"Just take my word for it." Sharley said decisively as he tucked the joke letter about what Mekhmet had eaten for lunch that week, back into his jacket.

"It's not some sort of lunch schedule, is it?" Eodred asked and was promptly jabbed and stomped on once more.

Fortunately for Sharley, while his mother and sister were occupied with scolding Eodred, he could regain his composure.

He has no idea how close he was to hitting the truth! Sharley thought as he desperately held in a bark of laughter.

"When are you leaving?" Thirrin asked, resigned that her eighteen-year-old Sharley was a baby no longer.

"Three days." Sharley said slowly, figuring three days would give him enough time to tell everyone that would be leaving with him that they were leaving.

"And when will you be coming back?" Oskan asked as he stepped into the room and took a seat next to his Queen.

"Err, I," Sharley mumbled incoherently before stuffing a large piece of meat into his mouth that would take quite some time to chew and swallow.

Thirrin and Cressida sighed together as Oskan raised a brow; they weren't fooled by this display of Sharley stuffing his mouth. Eodred, on the other hand, could only watch with jealousy as Sharley chewed on the hunk of meat he himself had been reaching for.

Three days later Thirrin and Oskan stood on the battlements and watched their youngest child ride away from them, again.

"Will he be safe?" Thirrin whispered like the worried mother she was.

Oskan simply bobbed his dark head up and down, not bothering to speak his answer aloud.

"Do you have any idea when he will come back to us?" With these words Thirrin turned to stare into Oskan's eyes.

"No, I doubt that he knows yet when he will be returning home."

Thirrin smiled sadly and shook her head slowly. "That is the problem, Sharley is heading home."

Oskan carefully chose not to respond to a comment that was painfully true.

Minutes later Sharley and his party were out of sight and both Thirrin and Oskan returned to their duties, thankful to have something to keep their minds off their beloved son.

Many days later Sharley arrived in his personal chambers inside the Desert Kingdom Palace. He groaned as he sank into bed and was out within moments.

Sharley was rudely awakened hours later by the vicious shaking of his shoulder. "Come, Sharley, I need you to wake up!" Mekhmet cried as he swatted his friend's head.

"What are you doing here?" Sharley asked, slightly dazed as he struggled to sit up.

"I live here." Mekhmet answered wryly.

"Not here," Sharley waved a hand to signal the Desert Kingdom. "Here here! In my room!"

"Oh, I didn't want to bother waiting for how long if would take a servant to get you up so I came to do it myself."

Sharley snorted. "Because you know that I very well can't kick you out on your hairy arse." He grumbled as he slid out of bed and headed for the washing basin.

"Exactly," Mekhmet called over his shoulder as he exited the room. "I'd better see you in the breaking fast room in less than half an hour!"

"Slave driver of all things evil!" Sharley grumbled but washed and dressed before heading to meet up with Mekhmet. "What is so important that I had to get up so blasted early?" Sharley demanded as he entered the private dining room only he and Mekhmet were allowed to use.

Mekhmet patiently waited until Sharley was seated and had started to take a drink from his glass before answering. "There is an embassy arriving from the Polypontian Empire this afternoon." Mekhmet continued on despite the fact that his friend had just spewed liquid all over himself. "Actually, they're already here. They just won't be meeting with me until this afternoon." He finished and finally glanced at his friend. "I thought you'd like to be there."

Sharley stared at Mekhmet, trying to form a coherent sentence with all the questions, thoughts, and downright outrages that were running through his head at the moment. Eventually, Sharley spat out, "Yes. I'd like to be with you. But what in the world were you thinking letting them come! I know that as Sultan you have different responsibilities! But what gives them the right to meet with you!" Sharley's voice had risen as had he and he found himself shouting as he stood over his still seated friend.

"The reason I'm letting them come is because I'd rather have them acting diplomatic than hostile." Mekhmet answered calmly. "Besides, I already think I know what they want and I can't give it to them."

"What do they want?" Sharley asked warily as he resumed his seat.

"You'll just have to wait and see like everyone else." Mekhmet replied and watched out of the corner of his eye as Sharley's face turned purple with rage.

"Ah!" Sharley screamed and lunged at Mekhmet who'd been expecting this move and was already out of his seat.

"Really! Is this any way to treat your Sultan?" He asked cheerfully as he ran out through an open doorway and slammed the door in Sharley's face.

"He won't be alive much longer to care with the way things are going!" Sharley shouted back and leaned against the wall.

Amilei took in the golden gates and the endless sand with wide eyes and an otherwise blank expression. She refused to neither frown nor smile when the Desert People who stood along the side of the road offered her food and drink and pretty trinkets.

What seemed like hours past and Amilei found herself standing in front of a large raised platform. On the platform sat the Sultan and his heir, a prince from the barbaric land to the north. The Icemark. It was rumored that the people there were so fierce that the moment their children were born they left them outside for an entire day, supposedly to eliminate the weak. It was also said that the women of the Icemark were just as large and brutal as the men and had no fears of fighting anyone and everyone that crossed their paths.

As Amilei contemplated the rumors she'd heard her entire life the Ambassador introduced himself and without pause began bargaining with the Sultan.

"The Emperor himself wishes for an alliance between your kingdom and his empire."

He doesn't beat around the bush, I'll give him credit for that. Amilei thought humorlessly.

"I'm sure he does." A deep, powerful voice muttered loudly and Amilei found herself smiling.

The gesture did not go unnoticed by the Ambassador and he laid a forceful hand on Amilei's shoulder. Amilei had to use all the willpower she possessed to not cringe at his touch.

"That is why he has sent her to be your bride." The Ambassador pushed onwards, pretending he hadn't heard the other man's comment.

"But I am sure that your Emperor knows that I'm already married." The young Sultan replied with a cool voice.

"Of course!" The Ambassador scrambled. "But do your laws not state that a man is allowed more than one wife?"

Amilei's face heated as she had not known that Sultan Mekhmet was already married.

"It once did, yes, but I changed it with my father's passing." The young man replied and Amilei felt her heart sink.

I can't believe that I was stupid enough to actually believe I'd be able to get away from the Empire. I should have known escape into the Desert Kingdom wasn't a real option. She thought as she fought to hold back tears.

"I see." The Ambassador replied after a long moment of silence, the entire time during which he'd squeezed the life out of Amilei's shoulder. "Then I am authorized to make another offer." He dropped his hand and Amilei froze, a sense of dread washing over her.

Sharley stared at the pompous ambassador and his slight charge, a mere slip of a girl. "What is he up to now?" He muttered under his breath as he watched the girl stiffen slightly.

"Yes?" Mekhmet asked, prepared to at least hear the man out.

"In that case that you would not marry the girl I have been given orders by the Emperor himself to offer her to someone else." The man paused and Sharley frowned, not liking the triumphant smile nor the gleam in the man's beady little eyes. "I am offering the girl to your unmarried heir."

A tense silence fell over the chamber.

That is just not possible! Amilei's mind screamed in outrage. Her breath came out in short bursts and it was all she could do not to collapse upon the ground in a sobbing heap. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any worse this is what happens.

Amilei knew that living under the Empire's rules would be better than living in the savage land of the Icemark.

Being a second wife would be better than being the only wife of a monster.

And marry they would, Amilei knew, because the bargain a marriage between her and one of the allies would be too huge to turn down.

Sharley started and forced his jaw to remain in place as his mind went otherwise blank. "What?" He whispered to Mekhmet switching back to his native language when the Ambassador had been using the Desert people's tongue.

Mekhmet effortlessly switched languages as well and replied to his friend in the tongue Sharley had been raised with. "I do believe your hand was just asked for." A stunned silence fell over the two friends. "In marriage," Mekhmet clarified, as if Sharley hadn't already figured that out.

All in all, Mekhmet seemed just as stunned if not more so than Sharley himself. "I am so sorry, if I'd known this would happen I would have never asked you to come today. I honestly thought that they'd only ask me and I'd be able to refuse easily."

"But nothing is ever that simple, is it?" Sharley asked as the muscles in his jaw tightened at the mere thought of being played by someone as low as the Polypontian Empire's ambassador. The slimy little man irritated Sharley for reasons he'd yet to figure out.

"Apparently not," Mekhmet replied sullenly as he slumped in his throne.

"What have you gotten me into now?" Sharley asked rhetorically as Mekhmet stood.

Mekhmet, of course, ignored him completely and spoke to the ambassador. "I will have to discuss this will not only my advisors but my heir-"

The Empire's ambassador waved his head and started speaking, rudely cutting Mekhmet off. "You have the next few minutes to decide one way or the other. After that the offer vanishes and the Emperor himself will see it as a personal offence by both the Icemark and the Desert Kingdom."

This took Sharley out of his seat so that he and Mekhmet stood, staring down at the Ambassador and his female bargaining chip. "I'm being blackmailed into marriage." He mumbled as Mekhmet and he put their heads together.

"We all know that the Empire does not have nearly enough recourses to fight both the Icemark and the Desert Kingdom. Not after the last war." Mekhmet said with forced confidence.

"Yes, but they can still do damage. Lives will still be lost. I'm not willing to be the cause of that." Sharley said as his green eyes avoided Mekhmet's black ones.

"So you're willing to martyr yourself?" Mekhmet demanded, outraged by the mere thought.

"It's not necessarily, she looks rather lovely…" Sharley said evasively and waved a hand in the general hand of the small figure.

"She's completely covered from head to toe. I wouldn't recognize my own wife in that ensemble. How can you tell that female you've never meet is lovely when all you can see is blue cloth?"

"I'm guessing."

Mekhmet rolled his eyes. "Besides, even if she is lovely, I'm sure it will make everything better when she stabs you in your sleep."

Sharley let out a slightly hysterical laugh that was completely humorless. "Tell the pompous arse I'll marry the girl but that she spends the rest of her stay here and not with him."

Mekhmet started at Sharley for a moment. "Why?" He asked finally, he black brows drawing together in confusion.

"Because now that I'm agreeing to marry her…" Sharley trailed off and gave his friend a pointed look.

"…she doesn't necessarily have to remain untouched." Mekhmet said slowly and softly, nodding as he spoke.

Sharley nodded in agreement and returned to his seat heavily, slouching down in a rather dejected manner.

"We agree to your terms. My heir shall marry the girl the Emperor himself felt entitled to provide."

It was an obvious slight, but one the Ambassador had no response for.

No. Amilei's mind whispered and a tear dripped down her cheek.

"Wonderful! The wedding can take place a week from now! Until then, we'll just return to camp." The Ambassador's hand returned to Amilei's shoulder before traveling to tighten in a vise like grip around her upper arm.

"No." The voice that had earlier mocked the Ambassador declared, full of unquestionable authority.

"I do not understand?" The Ambassador asked as he stared up at the raised platform the Sultan and his heir were seated upon.

"The girl will remain here until the wedding, which will take place tomorrow. You are welcome to come if you so choose. But as her betrothed I believe I have the right to keep her here." The voice neared and a pair of brown boots entered Amilei's down cast vision.

The Ambassador sputtered as Amilei was dragged from his grip and into the arms of who she now realized was the Icemark man.

"You may go now." The voice rumbled against Amilei as she was pressed against a warm, solid wall of man.

"I," The Ambassador continued, flustered.

"Guards!" The man shouted as he turned and led Amilei away from the throne room.

"Thank you." She whispered in the Empire's language.

"You're welcome." The man answered and Amilei bit back a gasp, not realizing that he could speak her native tongue. "Do you have a name?" The man asked as he gently shoved Amilei inside a room and she glanced around, careful to keep her back to the man so that he could not see her face.

"Amilei," She whispered and waited for her betrothed to ask another question.

"Do you have any belongings you wish me to retrieve from the Ambassador before he has them destroyed?" The man asked just as quietly.

"The only valuables I own I keep in a hidden pocket in my dress. Everything else I own is just clothes. I do not care if they are ruined."

"Alright. I'll return in the morning to... escort you... to our wedding." The man forced the words out as if the very thought was painful, and maybe it was. "Until then you need to stay in this room." The man paused to let his words sink in. "Someone is being sent to spend the night in here with you and they'll help you dress appropriately in the morning." With those words a knock was sounded on the door and the man answered it. A few moments later Amilei found herself in the company of a Desert Kingdom woman, the man, her betrothed, had left.

"Who do you think she is, Mekhmet?" Sharley asked as he slid into a chair beside his friend.

Mekhmet shrugged. "Obviously the daughter of someone important or the Emperor wouldn't risk marrying her off to you."

"Obviously," Sharley replied and pondered this for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to have a scholar handy that knows anything about the favored families of the Empire, would you?"

"Actually, I think I just might." Mekhmet sounded stunned that Sharley had come up with the very thing he himself had missed.

Under half an hour later a man had been summoned and was standing before Sharley and Mekhmet.

"I was told that you know a few things about the Polypontian Emperor's favorite families." Sharley said and stared down at the man.

"I do." The scholar replied fiercely, puffing himself up to look like a bird that'd had his feathers rumpled.

"Do you know which family has a daughter of marrying age named Amilei?" Sharley asked slowly, not paying any attention to the little man's display of making himself appear bigger.

The man thought for a moment before shaking his head. "No, sire, but that does not surprise me. The Empire does not value women for anything aside from breeding and making fine political matches through arranged marriages."

"I see." Mekhmet replied, knowing that before he'd taken the throne his country had been much the same way.

"So the daughters' names are not all the important." The little scholar finished. "Perhaps if you gave me a description I could do a little digging..."

Sharley shook his head. "No, I don't know what she looks like. She's kept herself entirely hidden from our view."

The scholar nodded. "Not surprising either. The Empire's women are raised to be modest, submissive, and to follow orders and commands without question."

"Great!" Sharley exclaimed sarcastically and shook his head mournfully. "I'm marrying a whipped kitten!"