Awww thank you soooo much for reviewing! You guys have motivated me, I'm pleased that you like it .
Here's chapter 4. I've got an outline of the entire fanfic going! Yay!.. I might be able to finish this one after all.
If you are sensitive to MILD sexual behavior, I suggest you skip this chapter. Otherwise, read on!
Chapter 4 – A Tear of Guilt
Five years later
Silken layers of her pale lavender robes fluttered behind her as Solita glided through the palace halls, with her own trail of servant girls following. She had been sent as a personal messenger by Queen Napea to fetch her eldest son. Solita had bowed her head slightly, and obeyed her stepmother's wishes, despite her resentment towards Ethel. He was nineteen years old now, and had begun to court several of the court ladies and foreign princesses, who were undoubtedly entranced with his charming personality. And it was no surprise to Solita how he can be so gentlemanly towards other woman, but only cold towards her. His current princess was from Lairen, a rather high-pitched, thin voiced woman two years older than Ethel himself. Solita remembered the look on his face when introduced to her. Though he may fool his mother and the foreign princess with his honeyed words, he failed to successfully conceal his disgust of the princess from Solita.
She approached the doorway of his chambers, and parting the misty silk suspended from it, she stepped lightly into his vast quarters. The stone ceiling, like the ballroom, was hand crafted, carved with the beautiful figures of angels. Solita, seeing the room empty of him, paced to his the next room, his bedroom chamber. She knocked gently. No answer.
Solita furrowed her brows. She could almost hear noise – it was.. Ethel's voice – gentle and coaxing.
Parting the layers of silk separating the two rooms, Solita quietly walked into his bedroom chamber. She gasped at the sight she saw. Lying, quite pale, on the canopy bed of Prince Ethel, was the royal cook's assistant, Romi. Her hair was a pool of ebony, dripping into her bare shoulders. On top of her was Ethel, with his mouth polishing her neck with fiery kisses. Solita acquired a look of pure disgust, and turned her back on the two, covering her eyes with pale hands. The servants behind her all gasped and did the same.
Prince Ethel withdrew himself from his affair immediately when seeing Solita standing there. Romi's eyes widened in fear, and she scrambled to clothe herself. By the time Solita turned around at them, both her and the prince were hurriedly dressed, Ethel no longer flustered, but regaining his usual air with a drip of anger.
"Who – " His voice was deathly quiet. " – are you, to strut about my chambers without giving notice, and invading my privacy like this?"
"I did not expect your highness to be involved in an affair with a servant girl – " Solita said coldly and calmly, " – while still having courtship with the Princess Ilea."
Ethel's cheeks flushed scarlet with fury. "It is no matter of yours. Pray tell me, why have you come here in the first place?"
"Your mother demands your presence to discuss matters concerning…" Solita's gaze trailed to Romi on the floor. "…Princess Ilea."
Solita felt sympathy for Romi, who had done nothing wrong but let herself be found in a dangerous affair with the prince. Did she not know of the death penalty for such things?
Ethel said quietly, with a small sneer, "Tell her… I will be there shortly."
Solita forced a thin smile, and said, "She insists you attend now."
"Of course," said Ethel in a bored voice. He walked out of his chambers without giving a second glance at the girl he left sobbing on the floor.
"My brother has gotten himself into trouble again, hasn't he?" sighed Prince Alaric. They walking along the West Garden, Solita occasionally bending down to breathe in the scent of the flowers.
"Yes, indeed. I did not mean to be the fault of it all," said Solita, remembering Romi's lips, frozen and dripping with black poison.
"He has broken the courtship with Princess Ilea." Alaric turned to look at Solita. Wavy locks of dark chestnut hair framed a slender face and dazzling smile. He was perhaps, not quite as handsome as his brother, but his eyes were brighter and his heart warmer towards Solita.
"I am not surprised," commented Solita dryly.
"And the girl…" Alaric furrowed his thick eyebrows a bit.
"She was put to death. By poison."
Alaric nodded, but said nothing.
"Your brother did not give her a second look before she died. He said he wish to have nothing to do with such whores."
Alaric shrugged, and looked a bit sorrowful. "He's not as bad as you think, Solita. My brother does have a heart."
Solita raised an eyebrow slightly. "Yes, indeed. A black heart."
Voices and images entwined in Ethel's head violently, dizzying him and filling him with various emotions.
"Princess Ilea was ready to call an engagement, and yet, you destroyed all of that with a lousy affair with a servant girl. You had a chance to be king!"
"And yet there is still a chance. But we must hurry. Solita has but two years until she reaches the age of crowning." The queen sighed bitterly.
"Mother, why is becoming king so important? I do not care!"
With a swift blow, his mother slapped him across the face, leaving deep red marks. "You must care," she said coldly. "It is your destiny. Do you understand?"
Ethel bowed his head, ignoring the stinging of his cheek.
"Do you understand?" repeated Queen Napea.
"Yes, your highness," he murmured in a frozen voice.
"I shouldn't be doing this," whispered Romi, the dark-haired beauty. Ethel's hands had already slipped into her robes.
"It is not wrong," he said softly.
"Yes, it is. If they find us… the queen… Princess Ilea…" she paused and looked at him with pleading eyes, begging him to understand..
"My mother cannot tell me who to love."
Eyes downwards, she said with a small laugh, "We both know you do not love me."
Ethel made no reply, but his fingers kept moving. Romi, not daring to disobey a prince, surrendered herself to him.
He stood like a statue by her crate. His face was stone-hard, but a single tear forced itself out and dropped onto the dead Romi's once red-wine lips, now faded into a rusty blue. Why am I shedding tears? There will be plenty more of them, he thought. It is only natural for a noble man of his age to have bed mistresses.
In the back of Ethel's mind, he thought about Solita. He loathed the girl and her cold, withdrawn manner. He did not particularly like the fact that she possessed the crown, either. But Ethel was not bloodthirsty. He did not wish to murder anyone. His train of thought was broken as he looked down at the dead girl under him. Enough. He shook himself.
He thought about the slender figure of Princess Solita. Her blood-red lips. Her creamy skin, whiter than snow. Her raven hair, darker than the black poison which had stained Romi's lips. Why not have some fun before death, then? Ethel smiled to himself, and cast a glance at her isolated tower.
As you can see... Ethel's quite a bit of a bad boy. Playboy. Anyway, thanks for reading!