Far From Never

“Ugh!!!” I stomp into my room, “I don’t want to!”

I throw open my windows and pick up the dagger sticking out of the windowsill. I enjoy the familiar weight of it in my hand before I send it spinning through the air above the courtyard and straight through my brother’s open window. My trained ear hears a dull thud as it sinks into the thick wood of his oak door. I step away just in time for an arrow to fly through my window. It sails straight into the carved surface of my ebony door, hitting the same spot it always does.

I walk over to it and see a dull brown piece of paper wrapped around the black arrow shaft. I untie the blood red ribbon and the paper falls in to my hand.

“I’ll be right over,” it reads in my brother’s large handwriting.

I flop on my bed and close my eyes. I hear my door start to open and then stop when the end of the arrow hits the wall.

“What the-?” Hattie, my lady-in-waiting says when she can’t open the door fully. Hattie is ten or so years older than I and the complete opposite in manner. She was taken from a Light orphanage and given to me on my eighth birthday. She is technically speaking a slave but to my brother and me she is a level headed aunt of sorts. Whenever one of us have a rash moment where our anger gets the better of us she is there to talk at least some sense into our heads. Everyone in the house knows that if they were to treat her like a slave they would feel my wrath and that is something the most do not recover from.

“Just push harder, it should break sooner or later,” I tell her waving my hand. I hear her grunt slightly and then hear the wood of the arrow snap and the door hit the wall.

“Your father sent me up here to make sure that you is actually getting ready and to help make sure you pick appropriate attire,” she walks quickly to my immense closet. Hanging on the door is the dress I had originally picked out to wear for the night.

Hattie took one look at it and I could see the look of disbelief on her face. It was a black leather dress with a low v-shaped neck. It had a drop waist and the skirt was broken up into calf length, free moving panels. It was one of my favorites and completely inappropriate for the party later tonight.

“You are not wearing this!” it wasn’t spoken as a statement; it was a friendly command that I knew I would have to follow.

But I wasn’t giving up that easy, “Why not?”

“It’s completely inappropriate for one-”

“This ball is completely inappropriate!” I interrupted her.

She carried on acting as if she hadn’t heard me, “- not to mention the fact that it looks like you’re there to kill someone!”

“That’s what I should be there to do!!”

“You are there to make means to an end. By marrying him you are creating an alliance that will destroy our rising, mutual enemy,” she takes the dress that I had picked out and placed it back in my immense closet.

I hear the hangers clank as she sifts through the dresses, most of which have never been worn. “Can you at least pick something that will make me stand out? If I have to be there I want to make one hell of an entrance.”

“What do you mean ‘Stand out’?” she asks from the depths of the closet.

“Everybody there is going to be wearing poufy sleeves and big skirts, I want something form fitting, something that shows off my figure, something sexy,” I crawl to the end of the bed and sit, resting my head on the frame of my king sized four poster bed.

“And that is your most dangerous weapon,” a voice carries through the doorway. Langston Marcus, one of my brother’s best friends and my personal “body guard” walked in from the corridor. “I have seen many a fierce warrior and deadly assassin stop dead in their tracks at the sight of you,” he teases.

“Is that before or after I gut them with my sword?” I joke with a wide grin on my face.

“One usually follows the other,” he looks around the doorframe toward the closet before he says in a low tone, “And I’ve seen you seduce many a man to his death bed.” He winks and his smile turns into a devious smirk. He leaves the room before the pillow I threw can make contact with his head.

Instead, it hits my brother square in the stomach as he turns into my room. “Hello to you too,” he greets me a bit winded. It may have been only a pillow, but I threw it quite hard.

“Oh suck it up princess,” I rest my head again.

“That’s you remember,” he pauses, “But not for long.”

“I don’t want to!!!” I yell as once again my bad mood is brought to the surface. Before I can get another word out Hattie shuts the door so she doesn’t have to hear me complain.

“You have to, we both have to,” Victor explains, “I’m sure neither of them wants to marry us either, you especially, you can be quite ornery,” he teases me, picking on my temper.

“Don’t make me throw another pillow at you Princess,” I warn reaching for the pillows at the head of my bed. He puts his hands up in surrender and just shakes his head. He walks across the room and sits on the stool in the middle of the room.

For a few moments, we sit in silence, both of us trying to grasp what the other is thinking and feeling. I am the first to speak.

“I’m scared Vic.”

“I have never in my life known you to be scared,” he looks up at me, deep concern in his eyes.

“Neither have I, but then again I’ve always been prepared for everything,” I admit.

“So you’re saying you’re not prepared?”

“Exactly! After mom died I was no longer being raised to be a strong lady or trained to be a confidant princess. I was raised and trained to be an assassin, a cold blooded killer who drops the blade on command,” my true fears come bursting out. “I don’t know court etiquette, I know sword etiquette. I make a better seductress than I ever will a queen!”

“Then be a seductress!” Victor interrupts my rant, “Seduce the country, the people. Make them fall in love with you because even if your husband hates you, you will have far more power than him; the power of the people.” There is a look in his eyes, like he’s trying to convince himself that I can do it, “If you are loved enough they would even stage a bloody coup in your name!”

“Don’t get carried away now! If Father heard you say that you’d get the tar beat out of you,” I warn although a smile is playing on my lips. His words have made me feel surer of myself, even if only a little.

“What you should be concerned about is, are you prepared to be a wife?” he is back to teasing me.

“Psht, that’s the easy part” I finally smile and roll my eyes at him. We sit in short silence again.

“I’m worried for her,” Vic says in a deep tone.

“Who?”

“My future wife.”

“Why are you worried for her?” I ask.

“You’ve seen our court and been around the “gracious” courtiers! They’ll rip her throat out and spread her blood on their morning toast!”

“True, they are even too much for me to handle. If she is as beautiful as we are told the men will have their hands all over her in lust and the women will place knives in her back out of jealousy.”

I have spent as much time away from court as possible because it is filled with power hungry knaves who play mind games and wage social wars far worse than anything on the front lines. I know that if I am around them for too long someone will not make it to the next day still breathing.

“Ahh here we go!” Hattie emerges from the closet carrying a slim, floor length, satin gown. She lays it on the bed. On the floor by the hem of the dress, she laid a pair of extremely tall, black heels with jewel-encrusted snakes wrapped around the thin stiletto. “Master Victor, don’t you need to get ready as well?” It was said as a question but in reality she was telling him to go get ready and get out so she can get me ready.

Victor stands and walks to the door, “I’ll talk to you later sis.” He turns before he leaves and says in a low voice, “Good luck!”