Author's Note: I know I haven't finished my other fanfic yet, but I randomly had inspiration for this one after reading Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. It doesn't really have the same plot or anything, but the book inspired me to write this and I think it could be an awesome story, so yeah... here goes nothing!

Just so you know, this takes place in a HM universe where the country's government is a monarchy, and the female's inherit the throne. Just wanted to make that clear so there wouldn't be any confusion.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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I can't believe this is happening.

I have just been forced to give away my unborn daughter's hand in marriage to the son of the mob boss. I can't really blame anyone but myself for the arrangement either. I had been the one who convinced my husband that we should borrow money from them in the first place. I hadn't counted on the very little business my bakery has attracted… and my husband's recently-started farm hasn't taken off yet. We needed more time, that was it. Then we could've paid them back.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the money, and they wouldn't give us the time. They were about to kill us, but by some cruel twist of fate their boss stepped in and saved us. He had somehow found out about my relationship to the queen, despite a lifetime's effort to hide it, and he used it against me.

He's not making me become queen and do what he says; no, that's too dangerous; instead he's forcing my daughter to marry his son so that his family will be in the new royal line. He didn't tell me his plans, but they are strikingly obvious. Eighteen years from now, when my daughter comes of age, she will marry his son, and then he will kill me. Not only that but he will kill the queen and her only daughter as well, so that her closest living relative will be my daughter. He'll likely have her change the laws for his benefit… He'll have complete control over her, and I'll be helpless to stop him, if I'm alive at all...

I won't even be able warn her. His spies are everywhere… I don't even feel safe in my own home. If she were to start displaying paranoia, which I'm sure she would, given the circumstances, then they would notice. And it would just be more painful for her if she struggled. I know I may seem contradictory saying so, but I don't want her to get hurt. What am I to do?

I fear I am completely helpless. Jack keeps telling me it's the only thing I could've done, but I think he knows it's a lie. After all, I could've just let them kill us... Perhaps it would've been better if I'd let them end it before. If they'd have killed us, she wouldn't have to go through this… but I have a feeling the mob wouldn't have let me do so. And besides, I am not strong enough to end her life myself, let alone my own. None of this is her fault, after all.

I think I will feel guilt every day when I see her smiling face, and every time she talks to me, I'll only hear accusations… how could I have let this happen?

I plan on giving this note to her in the future, so that maybe she will understand. Maybe she will forgive me for my crimes, even if they cost her her happiness. Maybe she'll have the strength to do what I cannot…

But enough of the scenarios. I have made my choice, and I must face the consequences. I can only hope that my mistakes won't bring to ruin the country we have worked so hard to keep intact over the years.

Cassandra… if you are reading this, then I am sorry, sorry that it has come to this… sorry that my mistakes will ruin your life.

With love, Mom.

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Kristen stared down in shock, a witness to her daughter kissing one of her friends on the cheek shamelessly, and causing the bandana-clad boy to blush profusely. Granted, she was nine and he was eleven, but the woman still thought this was a rather scandalous development. She sighed and supposed it was time to tell her, before she ended up falling in love with someone else.

"Honey, you're engaged. You can't be acting like that around other boys!" Kristen scolded, trying not to sound too harsh. Her daughter tilted her head up questioningly.

"I am, Mommy?" she asked, her eyes lighting up. "I'm getting married?" Her eyes sparkled as she thought of having a huge white wedding. Her mother suppressed a sigh, knowing that her daughter's dreams couldn't be fulfilled on her budget. After all, she thought bitterly. Just because I'm related to the queen doesn't mean she supports me financially!

The woman thought about how she had tried so hard to hide her relationship to the queen from people all of her life, only to have it thrown in her face by the head of a mob, of all people. Well, she supposed it was more of a rebellion than a mob now, but she would always think of them as a bunch of dirty mobsters.

"Yes, dear. When you are older you can meet your fiancé, but until then you have to stop being such a flirt!" Kristen said, smiling down at her daughter. The little girl pouted, but was soon lost in thought at this new development. Kristen hid her discomfort, not appreciating that her daughter was so excited to marry a man who would probably change her life for the worse, thinking that it would be all her fault, not for the first time.

Suddenly the little girl turned to her companion, who had been listening in awkwardly. He didn't understand the concept of arranged marriages and thought it odd that his friend would be getting married to someone she didn't even know, and the bewildered expression on his face showed it.

"You hear that, Joe?" she said. "You need to stop flirting with me! I'm engaged, after all!" He gawked at her.

"I wasn't flirting with you! You were the one who kissed me!" he cried out defensively. She glared at the older boy and turned up her nose, crossing her arms across her chest. He huffed, grabbed his little fishing pole and marched back to his house. Kristen sighed.

"Cassandra, there was no reason for that," Kristen scolded again. Cassandra looked up at her with big blue eyes, confused. "Remember what I told you about being polite. I'm raising you to be a lady." Cassandra curtseyed a little and gave a small apology and Kristen turned to lead her down the path back home.

Kristen mused about how differently she would have raised Cassandra if it had been a matter of choice. She decided that she wouldn't have raised her to be so proper, because she wouldn't have been raising her to be a queen at all, let alone one for someone else to control. She had neither told Cassandra or her brother Carl about their relationship to the queen, because she figured that if they didn't know then others couldn't find out. Maybe, she thought, I would have been able to be myself in front of my family more often, instead of the proprietary snob that I am forced to be and allow my daughter to emulate.

"So Mommy," Cassandra began, walking beside Kristen as they made their way back home. "Who's my… fee yawn say?" The girl contorted her face trying to pronounce the word, and Kristen chuckled.

"It's fiancé, Cassandra," she corrected, and Cassandra just nodded. "And you'll meet him soon enough." At least, in my mind you will, she added to herself. She didn't want to let her little girl go, especially given the circumstances, and she thought that the seventeen years she had her for wasn't long enough.

"Aw, but Moooooom…" Kristen sighed again, trying to decide what she would do with her inquisitive little girl.

"Alright, I'll tell you, but only if you're good." With that, Cassandra smiled and straightened up, beginning to walk with the dignity her mother had taught her to walk with, planning on being a perfect angel so she could find out who she was to be married to. Of course, Kristen wasn't planning on letting her know anytime soon, seeing as she really didn't know herself. She had only met him once, when Cassandra was born and his father had come to 'check up' on her, and had brought his son with him.

Kristen scowled as she remembered what was supposed to have been a happy night. The two had shown up at her house shortly after the doctor had left, with Kristen still in bed holding her baby. Kristen had given the older man a glare but had said nothing, not wanting to provoke him into taking her child sooner. His son trailed in after him almost unnoticeably. She couldn't help but soften her gaze as she looked at the young boy, who couldn't have been more than four years old. He hadn't looked too happy to be there and was frowning, staring at his shoes, so Kristen could only see the top of his blonde hair.

That was the night that the man had told her when the wedding would be; Summer 17th, a week from that day and eighteen years in the future. He had also told her that the two wouldn't meet until Summer of the year before, and though Kristen hadn't understood why, she had been grateful her daughter wouldn't have to deal with his family for seventeen years. She had glanced again at the small boy that would be her daughter's husband, and he had looked up at her. His cold, blue eyes had shocked her when they had locked with hers, showing a raw emotion that Kristen had thought one so young shouldn't have been feeling; hate. Hate for whom, she couldn't have said, but she saw it as easily as if he had told her, and she had assumed that the hate was directed at her; that his father had already taught him his heartless ways. They had given her another warning before they left, leaving her even more angry than she had been when they had arrived.

Kristen already disliked the boy her daughter would marry, and, if he was anything like the other members of his family she had met, then she could say safely that, once she met him, she would hate him like she hated the rest of them.

As if on cue, a boy stepped out of the building across the street from Kristen's house. The sixteen year old cousin of Cassandra's fiancé gave Kristen a glare, and then moved his hand in a sweeping motion across his neck like a knife, reminding her of what would happen if she ever said anything about his uncle's antics. His expression remained neutral, almost bored, as he did so, and then he turned and walked away as if nothing had happened. It astonished Kristen that the boy's uncle would use him in such a way and wondered, not for the first time, if his son would act the same way, if not worse. A shudder ran up and down her spine, and she feared what the boy would do to her daughter, hoping that saving Cassandra in the first place hadn't been worse than going through with this.

Either way, the young man across the street was a constant reminder that she didn't have a choice any more.

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Author's Note: So how do you all like it? Reviews appreciated! Though I'm probably going to continue this regardless of whether you guys like it or not. XD Thanks in advance to anyone who reviews!