"Please, Father, don't make me do this!"
I was on my knees. My silk dress pooled around me on the cold marble floor of my father's study, and I didn't care. I didn't care that a princess should never beg. I didn't care that my carefully pinned hair was coming loose. I didn't care about anything except making him listen.
"Elara, get up." Father didn't even look at me. He was sitting at his enormous desk, reading through papers as if I wasn't even there. As if his daughter wasn't breaking apart right in front of him.
"Father, please!" My voice cracked. "I've never asked you for anything. Never complained. Never disobeyed. But please, please don't send me to Shadowmere. Send me anywhere else. Any other kingdom. Any other prince. Just not—"
"Enough!" His fist came down on the desk, making me flinch. Finally, finally, he looked at me. His eyes were cold. They were always cold when he looked at me, but today they were like ice.
"You will marry Prince Kael of Shadowmere in three days' time. The arrangements are made. The alliance is crucial. And you, daughter, will do your duty."
"But the rumors—"
"Are just that. Rumors." He waved his hand dismissively. "Peasant talk. Superstitious nonsense."
"They say he's cursed!" I couldn't keep the desperation out of my voice. "They say his own shadow is alive. That people who cross him vanish without a trace. That his mother went mad and threw herself from the—"
"Elara." His voice was quiet now. Dangerously quiet. "Do you know what else people say? They say our kingdom is weak. They say we're losing influence. They say that soon, we'll be swallowed up by our enemies." He stood, walking around the desk toward me. I stayed on my knees, frozen. "Shadowmere is powerful. Feared. Their magic is old and strong. An alliance with them protects us. Your marriage protects us. Your brothers. Your mother. Everyone."
"What about protecting me?" I whispered.
He looked at me like I'd spoken a foreign language. "You're a princess, Elara. Your protection comes from doing what's right for the kingdom. Now get up and prepare yourself. Your wedding is in three days."
He returned to his desk, to his papers, dismissing me completely.
I stood slowly, my legs shaking. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But I'd been trained my whole life to swallow my feelings, to smile, to obey. So I did what I'd always done.
"Yes, Father," I said softly.
I walked out of his study with my head high, even though inside I was screaming.
The hallways of the palace felt like a cage. They'd always felt like a cage, but today the walls seemed closer, the ceiling lower. I passed servants who bowed and whispered. I heard my name mixed with other words: Shadowmere, cursed, poor girl.
"My Lady!"
I turned to see Mira running toward me, her skirts lifted above her ankles in a very un-ladylike way. Mira had been my handmaid since we were both children. She was more than that, though. She was my only real friend.
"My Lady, is it true?" She was breathless when she reached me. "Are you really going to marry the Shadow Prince?"
"Don't call him that," I said automatically.
"But everyone calls him that! Elara." She caught herself, looking around to make sure no one heard her use my name without my title. "My Lady, you can't go through with this. The stories about him"
"They're just stories." I tried to sound confident. I failed. "Come. Help me to my chambers. I need to... I need to think."
We walked in silence until we reached my rooms. Once inside, with the door closed, I finally let my composure crack. I sank onto my bed, and Mira sat beside me, taking my hand.
"Tell me the stories aren't true," I begged. "Tell me I'm being foolish."
Mira bit her lip. "My cousin's friend's brother works in the merchant quarter. He says traders from Shadowmere don't talk about their prince. When you ask about him, they go quiet and change the subject. He says the whole kingdom is... strange. Dark. That magic hangs in the air like fog."
"That doesn't mean Prince Kael is dangerous."
"No," Mira admitted. "But it doesn't mean he isn't, either."
I pulled my hand from hers and stood, walking to the window.
My chamber overlooked the garden, the only piece of the outside world I'd been allowed to enjoy. Even that felt like a taunt now. So close to freedom, yet forever out of reach.
"What do you know about him?" I asked. "About Prince Kael. Anything real, not rumors."
Mira was quiet for a moment. "I know he's the youngest son. I know his mother was the King's true love, but she died when Kael was young. Some say she killed herself. Some say... other things."
"What other things?"
"That she was driven mad by what her son was becoming. That she saw something in him that terrified her."
A chill ran down my spine. "That's still just a rumor."
"I know he has two older brothers," Mira continued. "Twins. Prince Darian and Prince Theron. They say the three brothers hate each other. That they're always fighting for their father's approval, for power."
She paused. "And I know that six months ago, a noble from Shadowmere tried to challenge Prince Kael's claim to something no one knows what. Three days later, the noble disappeared.
They never found his body."
I closed my eyes. "Mira, you're not helping."
"I'm sorry. I just... I'm scared for you."
I was scared for me too. But what choice did I have?
"It's only three days away," I said quietly. "Three days until my entire life changes. Until I leave everything I know and go to a strange kingdom with a strange husband who might be—"
"Don't say it."
"Cursed," I finished anyway.
We sat in silence. Outside, birds sang in the garden. Children laughed somewhere in the distance. Life continued as normal for everyone else in the kingdom. For me, everything was ending.
"My Lady?" Mira's voice was soft. "What if... what if the rumors are true? What if he really is dangerous? What will you do?"
I thought about that. What would I do if I married a monster?
"Then I'll survive him," I said finally. "I've survived being ignored by my father my whole life. I've survived being invisible, being nothing more than a tool to trade for political advantage. I'll survive this too."
"That's not surviving, Elara. That's just... existing."
She was right. But existing was all I'd ever done. Why should marriage be any different?
The next three days passed in a blur of preparations. Seamstresses came to fit my wedding dress. white and silver, like moonlight on water. Jewelers brought necklaces and rings and bracelets, all heavy and cold. Mother came to give me "the talk," which was awkward and unhelpful and made me want to disappear into the floor.
"Just do what he says," she told me, patting my hand. "Men like obedience. Especially princes. If you're good and quiet and don't cause trouble, he'll treat you well enough."
Well enough. What a goal to aspire to.
Father never came to see me again. My brothers, all three of them, didn't visit either. I suppose they were too busy with their own lives, their own freedoms, to worry about their sister being shipped off to a cursed kingdom.
On the morning of my wedding, I woke before dawn. I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined shadows moving on their own, red eyes in darkness, hands reaching for me from nowhere.
Mira helped me dress. The gown was beautiful, I had to admit. But it felt like a costume. Like I was playing a part in someone else's story.
"You look like a queen," Mira whispered, tears in her eyes.
"I look like a sacrifice," I replied.
She didn't argue.