Hello, dear readers! Thank-you so much for all your reviews! This is something of a filler/bridge chapter; I stretched it out in one draft, but it seemed that it would just slow down the pace of the story.
No one could truly call my father a coward, or anything at all that was less than a man, but it still seemed insulting to him to arrange a marriage for his younger daughter. Other kings boasted of the strong political matches they made while my father treated the entire incident as a bother. No, that wasn't the right word. I saw him meet with the ambassadors, discussing possible matches with a bemused expression.
Lydia claimed she heard him say something about hoping I would pull some fast trick before anything happened.
Lydia... she still was upset I was doing this. But my mind was made up, and each day gave me, to my surprise, a fluttering of the heart that could mean nothing less than anticipation. Why shouldn't I be excited? If everything went well, I was to be married! Weren't all girls abuzz over a wedding?
Willow, at least, thought the whole situation wonderfully romantic, and my mother took the time to educate her youngest daughter in the truth of love, that love was something deep and meaningful.
Why couldn't I eventually love the mysterious stranger who was to be my husband?
"You fall in love first," Mother would say. "Then you get married. It doesn't happen backwards. That's impossible."
Well, how was love supposed to happen?
Then it happened. Not the love– but the marriage. Willow came skipping into our bedroom, blonde hair in bouncing braids, shouting something about Father finding me a perfect husband, one with family ties that would be nothing but an asset to our family and kingdom. Lydia was quick to make fun of that.
His name was David, and he was the eldest son of the King of Rantolia. I had no idea where that place was located; I never much bothered with the maps. Our wedding was to take place in two weeks. There would be no courtship, only a fortnight to prepared my belongings for a new life in a kingdom of which I had never heard, a fortnight to wonder about the only adventure I would ever have.
It was no wonder that I laughed. Willow and I spent the next hour jumping around the room, like children. Willow would never be too old for that.
Lydia just smiled. Maybe she did understand me, a little.
But that was also the same night she ran away. She woke us up in the middle of the night, kissed our cheeks, and said she was off.
My parents were thrilled.
I wasn't. She wouldn't even be at my wedding.