Chapter 4

It was easy to make it to Endymion's room, (of course I knew where he slept. I made it my business to find that out almost right away) and easy to keep hidden.

I watched as he removed his various decorations and trappings of official formal wear.

He sighed heavily and ran an agitated hand through his hair. He was all wound up, like a spring pulled too tight.

I watched as he walked out onto his balcony, into the moonlight. When he returned, he was not alone. The ... woman ... he was with made me catch my breath.

She was alien, so strange and awful and did not belong in a way that made me feel unbalanced and ill to be so close to her. The magic rolled off her in waves, more powerful than anyone I'd ever encountered. But it was a magic that hurt, like squeezing a lemon when you didn't realize you had a cut on your hand.

Everything about her was wrong. She was too ethereal, too thin, too alabaster white. Her eyes were too big, too ice-blue, and too unassuming for someone with that much raw energy swirling around her like water down a drain. Her hair was silver and white and shimmered in a way that hair shouldn't. She shouldn't be here, she wasn't of here. She made me feel uncomfortable in a way I'd never felt before. Part of me wanted to run, but a bigger part wanted to make her run.

Endymion touched her arm so reverently, this man who shouldn't worship anything, who should be revered. This ruler of our planet, of our home. The one responsible for our welfare, with the power of the Earth and its people beneath his fingertips. He ran his hands through that too-white hair and touched that too-pale cheek and murmured a name that made my blood run cold.

Serenity.

The name of the Queen, in that place that didn't exist, that Kingdom no one believes in. But this woman, this girl- she is no Queen. Too small, too young, too little. But she had an insignia on her forehead, between those luminous eyes - eyes shouldn't glow like that - she's someone. Someone important.

My stomach, teeth and fists clenched simultaneously as he kissed her.

I'd seen father take pity and feed starving men who sometimes come through our inn. Endymion kissed her like those men fall on that first meal in days. Desperately and fervently and I didn't recognize him at all.

I felt sick.

It came to me who she is at the same time the Ambassador's drunken slur rings in my head.

Their princess.

"They want us to submit to them! That's the problem!"

I watched our Prince succumb to the charms of the too-strange girl until the bile rose in my throat and I left. Completely unnoticed.

I curled up in a ball just inside the castle gates, cursing my decision to stay, wishing I could unknow the rumors I heard, unsee what I saw. Wishing I was just some girl with a broken heart, who found out the man she was falling for already was in love. Instead I felt a betrayal much deeper than that.

They want us to submit to them?

I think they may have found a way, I thought, bitterly.

But I wouldn't let them. They couldn't have us. They couldn't have him. This foreign, alien stranger wouldn't take what I so desperately wanted.

I would make sure of it.

AN So this is all I wrote, then I got electricity/internet back. :-P I could certainty keep writing it though, I have a few more chapters in mind (nothing epic), if people want. Thanks so much for all your feedback! Wasn't sure how a story like this would go over. Obviously, Beryl isn't evil yet (hasn't met Metallia although that is coming) but she's not good, either. And I took/will take a lot of liberties because otherwise the story might not be as fun.

What do you think?