The Pauper Princess

If you take into consideration the customs of my country, I have actually been fortunate that this has taken so long. Most girls are forced into marriage as soon as they reach the young age of thirteen or so. As for me, my seventeenth birthday is only a few short months away, and I remain unwed. I suppose it just hasn’t been important for me to get married.

But now, just as is the custom in my country, I will be married off to serve as a means to reach some political goal of my father’s. He’s already chosen the man, and my marriage has been progressing for the last several months unbeknownst to me. He’s only three years older than I am, but the fact remains that I have never even met this man. My father cannot possibly expect me to marry a stranger.

Plus, this stranger, my betrothed, lives far away to the north. His country is right near the ocean. I have always wanted to see the ocean someday, but if this is the only way, I would be more than happy to never lay eyes upon it. I love my country, my people, my home. Here in Shayen, in the midst of Kyshia’s rippling plains and rolling hills, is where I’ve lived my entire life thus far. It’s here, in the city where I was born and raised, that I had hopes of spending the rest of my days.

I suppose that was foolish of me to think that I would escape marriage. My father, a very powerful man by anyone’s standards, has always been interested in making alliances. And what better way is there to form a bond than the marriage of one man’s daughter to another man’s son?

My loyalty to my father and my country should be enough to force me into this marriage, but how can I, daughter of the King of Kyshia, ever be happy married to the Prince of Lequin? The same Lequin who has been at war with Kyshia sporadically for the better part of three centuries. There is no way on this earth I will ever be forced to go through with this ridiculous scheme.