She spent the next few days preparing. Packing, or rather letting her father pack, what little things he could fit into a small chest. Celeste spent the rest of her time in town rather than at home, asking others in town what the Count was really like and when she heard the stories she felt her stomach turning into knots and her breakfast wanted desperately to come up. The stories were horrid, and she only hoped they weren't true. She prayed that he wasn't as cruel to his staff as she'd been made to believe. She hoped he didn't beat his maids at every wrong turn, she hoped he didn't take them into his bed forcefully when he just happened to feel the urge.
Did he not have a wife, the countess? Where was she in all of this? Busy taking care of his legitimate children, people said. The maids who happened to conceive were forced to send their children away as soon as they could walk, to keep them from ever being able to claim that the Count fathered them. Celeste could just picture herself getting beaten daily, just because she knew she'd be clumsy and slow. She felt like he had just requested her to be his punching bag.
She let her feelings stew, and although she would have liked to have formulated a grand scheme to let herself go free she knew she'd only be able to rely on luck. Luck was what would bring her out on the other side unharmed.
Later that night, her father and herself sat by the fire in their house for one last time. In the morning, she would be collected and escorted to her new home, the Count's manor. This would be the last night they could be together. He'd never see her again.
"Celeste," he started, staring into the small fire they had going in the fireplace. He then leaned forward to her, sitting across from him and he held out his hand. "Hold out your hand please."
She did so, and when her palm opened a long necklace with a tiny pendant dropped into her possession. "What is this?"
"It was your mother's. She told me to give it to you when you were to be married, but I figure now would be as good of a time as any. Something for you to remember this house by."
It was a little thing, a metal chain that was practically worthless with a tiny little pendant flecked in tinier bits of sapphire that barely measured the head of a pin. To her father, it was an expensive gift he'd given his wife many years ago, even though the gems were too small for anyone of nobility to care. He even debated selling it once or twice, but the memory of his past wife made him keep the little trinket.
Celeste grinned and put it around her neck, playing with the little pendant. Even though she couldn't see its beauty, she could feel it was important and there was so much energy coming from it. If she wanted to kid herself, she'd even say she felt her mother's presence upon it. "Thank you, papa."
The next morning, two guards came on horseback with a third steed in tow and stopped at their door to collect the poor girl. Hoisted atop the speckled grey horse, her chest was tied to his saddle and without allowing her much of a goodbye she was led away to what she dreaded to be her new home.
