by J P Anderson
"I was hated by everyone, and your father will get what he deserves. He should feel the pain and the helplessness of watching the only person he ever truly loved die." he growled.
"And if he does it won't be by your hand." she promised. For the first time in her life she spoke from deep inside. She didn't know where the words came from the just happened. It was exhilarating and frightening all at the same time.
"What, now you're psychic as well?" Acruz joked, although his tone had not changed from calm hatred.
"No, I just know that I'll be there to stop you." she said and blew on his face making him close his eyes and she disappeared. He smiled and shook his head but slammed his fist into the frame and walked to dinner alone, leaving Peter knocked out in his room.
She sat far from Alister at the dinner table, for some reason that made her heart hurt. Her father sat in the middle of the table by his side was his wife then Acruz and the other royals on opposite side of her. From her side the line up went as such; Therius, Andria, Gen, and various others that looked high to do, and practically by the door by the servant's quarters was Alister then Paige. As her sister babbled into one ear closest to her father the other was trying to listen to the talk of the men next to her. They spoke of the treachery of Corinth and Ranicus and how Andria would be an enemy there, her stomach twinged. She decided to distract herself. She looked down at her food. It looked like chicken or something like it. She turned to Andria and interrupted her to ask.
"What exactly is this?" she asked, poking at her food, if you call it that.
"Fin alcontratie" she answered as if it were a known fact.
"Now you choose to differ from Earth, in the most important thing." she muttered.
"It's a bird." Great it was chicken, it quite frankly smelled disgusting. But now that she thought of it she hadn't eaten anything today, other than KFC and a moon pie. So maybe she should try to down fin alactitatatatatatatataoooo-whatever. She took a bit. Yup, that's as disgusting as it smells if not more. She downed the rest of it. Thank goodness orphanage food had prepared me to eat anything. That was when she realized she hadn't a clue how to be excused from the table.
"Alister!" she whispered across the table through the wind into his mind. He did not even look up from his food. "Yes"
"How do I leave the table?"
"Beats me I leave last," he joked. "I'm just kidding, stand." She stood like an obedient pet.
"Use you core to speak loudly and say 'May the night be with you father'."
"May the night be with you father." he stood and said.
"And with you daughter, have lovely dreams for tomorrow your sister will wed." His eyes did not portray happiness as she was sure he was trying to fake. It just highlighted the wrinkles on his face and sadness that he reeked of.
"Bow" danced across her mind and she did as she was told yet again. As she pushed back her chair to leave she was surprised to hear.
"May I be excused as well?" Alister stood. Her eyes went from Alister to her father in an instant. He didn't look or sad or tired anymore, he looked angry.
"No you may not; you will wait until you are excused." Henry boomed.
"I'm asking politely." he said with hardness in his voice that made her knees weak. You could cut the tension with a knife.
"And I'm politely replying no!" Alister smiled that famous smile and bowed and sat again. She looked into her father's eyes for maybe the first time. Her father did not look away but his strong voice did dance across her mind.
"You're falling in love with the wrong kind of man"
"Ha, this coming from the man that basically put his own girlfriend on a cross in town square pored gas on her and handed the towns people matches," Man that was really graphic, I believe I need help, she thought then continued. "Excuse me if I don't take your love advice daddy dearest"
For just a moment, she felt like a normal teenager. Her father didn't like the guy she was going for, he favored her other sibling and he married a total witch whom she didn't really like. She felt normal until she realized if she were to pick the genre of her life right now it wouldn't be an epic love story but more a work of science fiction.
She turned to leave for the second time when she heard the one thing she didn't want hear, another person asking to leave to they can in turn stop her from throwing herself on her bed and staying there until the next morning.
"May I be excused?" Joshua said.
"Why not, everyone else is leaving, yes worthless servant be gone…" he tilted his head slightly in a makeshift bow. She opened the large doors and was now jogging to escape Joshua.
"Miss. Genevieve, please I'm begging you to wait." That made her reluctantly stop, she cringed and turned.
"Yes." she asked.
"I need your help." Again he made her double take, he was stepping towards her.
"With what?" she asked with a most questioning look.
"I know you know Acruz's plan and I need-" She stepped back from him as he tried to come closer.
"I need you to help me get him away from Andria. I love her. I don't want her to get hurt." She put on the fakest smile she could find and spoke in a clueless voice.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, what could I possibly do with such information?" he didn't falter, only stepped closer.
"You have already broken the rules. You love Alister, I know you can help me, you're probably the only one that can." he looked like a kicked puppy. She bit her black lip, sighed and looked up into his ocean blue eyes. Smiled and asked, "What did you have in mind?"
"I was thinking-"
"Joshua!" her sister said halting his voice and making him straighten and put on an apparently fake manly man routine for her sister.
"Hello Your majesty I was just telling your sister who she would be walking down the aisle with."
"I hope you don't mind, I know Therius is Therius but he is Acruz's best man so you sort of have to, or you could walk with Charlotte."
"NO…" She screamed and then changed her tone in a split second. "I mean no Therius is fine."
"Okay?" she said waving to Gen and ripped her wing man away with her, him keeping a normal distance from her as she chattered on and on, Gen could only guess, about nothing and everything.
"Shit." she muttered. We now had no plan and I'm pretty sure me and that man will never be that alone in my whole life.
Chapter 15: Moonlit Ball
"Sister!" someone yelled from behind her, she sighed, she was really looking forward to going to her room, getting off these God awful clothes and going to sleep for a very long time and sleep off this horribly strange day.
"Come with me I, uh, want a, go for a walk." Therius stuttered. So much for sleep and taking off the girdle.
"I don't know, I'm pretty tired I was about to pack it in actually." she told him, motioning towards her room.
"I think you're going to want to go on this walk, it's very, special." she groaned as he took her hand. They walked aimlessly for about thirty minutes in silence, Therius looking behind corners at every turn. Gen didn't want to fight with him but she knew something was up and she had had enough stringing along for one day.
"What is it that you're keeping from me?" she asked. She stopped in her tracks to face him.
"Nothing" he answered not looking at her directly and then continuing on, he pulled on her elbow that was locked with his but when she just stood there, with an angry look on her face. "Tell me the truth Therius" She practically ordered.
"It's better if I show you." he leveled. He walked to the end of the hall to two huge wooden doors, guarded by two men. They bowed low to Therius and opened the doors. Therius turned to her and held out his elbow. She rolled her eyes with a smile and locked arms with him and stepped into, what she could guess, to be a ballroom filled with twirling people dancing in swooping in synchronicity. The curved walls of the octagon shaped ballroom where incrusted with mosaic patters all leading up the ceiling which was the most beautif
ul work of art she had ever seen. Traditional at first glance, it reminds one of most Roman paintings by Da Vinci but it had a mixture of all sorts of creatures, around a table made of the trunk of a tree, discussing something. There were two thrones at the top of a regal platform and to the right of that where tables and chairs next to the arched stain glass windows. She was taken aback when they all stopped and stared at them as they came in. Andria smiled. Everyone stared, hateful looks on most of their faces, Gen gulped.
"Happy birthday, sister, it is such a happy day is it not?" Andria said. Her voice amplified from across the room. Henry came up behind her and put his arm around her waist and they glided towards her. She felt the need to run but stayed where she was. Andria hugged her, and The king nodded to her and Andria looked back on the crowd, Genevieve's hand now in her's. Therius started to sing what she could only guess was an Akadian Happy birthday song. It didn't even sound like it was English, but after a while most people caught on and started to sing as well. She was escorted to where Alister Grey was standing. It was more of a drop off, because when she turned to talk to Therius, he was half way across the ballroom.
"What is this?" she asked Alister as he handed her something she could assume was suppose to punch, if punch was chunky and black.
"We had to throw you and your sister a party darling, we do it every year." he said in his best English accent.
"Is everyone here?" she asked causally.
"By everyone do you mean Acruz?" She didn't dare answer.
"He's over there." he stated in the most bored of tones. She looked across the dance floor at a stunning Acruz Deveartae entering the ballroom. He wore black slacks. A white dress shirt and a black overcoat which he quaintly refused to give to the butler and the door and practically played tug a war with his cane before the man won and put it away for him. He straightened his black hat so it was tipped with an onyx feather that pointed back. A man came in that she was a little more familiar with, Peter Gallagher walked through the door with his faded jeans and a grey button up shirt that he was wearing earlier, although they were considerably better looking without the blood. He stopped in shock almost falling down at the sight of the diamond chandelier hanging from the painted mosaic ceiling of the rather extreme ballroom. It all seemed so familiar, like she had done all of this, but she couldn't predict what would happen next, nor could she remember how it all seemed familiar. Every time she tried to think about it, her head grew fuzzier and the memory slipped farther away.
Therius stood next to Henry's grand seat of honor at the top of a rather grandiose three stair platform. He blew his hair out of his face with a sigh and took a swig of his golden liquid.
"What's bothering you my son?" Charlotte asked leaning forward to see him from behind the throne. He ducked behind the throne and resurfaced on her other side. "Nothing mother" He answered, as if trying to assure himself more than her with his answer. "I think I should know when my own son is upset, is it about the party? You had one just as grand when you where a boy, you shouldn't feel-"
"Mother if you think, for even a moment, that I care in the slightest that Andria gets a bigger party than me than you don't know me at all." Therius growled.
"A woman?" she guessed. His mother was so beautiful once. Her high cheek bones and perfectly white face made sure of it. She used to wear her hair down and laugh. Now she never smiled, merely grinned when she thought it would be proper to. She was the hollowed out shell of the mother he knew and loved. She was dying, even though she won't dare tell anyone, Therius could see it. Her hands shook and her lip trembled. She was in pain, and she refused to tell anyone. Once upon a time he would have thought that selfish, not letting anyone help her, but now knew it to be an act of bravery. She liked Andria, he assessed, she pretended to be angry at her, but really she was just angry at the fact that Henry obviously picked her because Alison left, not because he loved her. She would keep that grudge on Andria for the rest of her existence, he thought. She would never know how similar she and Andria are because she refused to see Andria as anything more than a stupid, naive human brat.
"Yes, mother, but not just a woman. The woman, the only woman that matters" he stated. She put her aged hand on his firm young one as one of the only acts of affection she had ever really given him.
"Then go to her, the Fates know I'm not going to talk to you all night." he shook that one off and took back his hand. She could never say something nice and be done, he thought, she had to add a little snip of hate onto the end.
"Mother, at weddings, guards on every corner might not be the most beautiful of sights to behold." he hinted, flashing a discreet wink before he glanced at Henry's seat and left her to her thoughts. He sauntered over to his little sister, who was nodding ever so often at a man who was obviously regaling tales from the olden days. Therius put his arm around her shoulder.
"Therius," she greeted with enthusiasm. "Little sister I have something to tell you in confidence." he hinted. She sighed and gave a smile to the man.
"Excuse me, my brother needs me." she curtsied and he tipped his hat and went along his way.
"Thank you," she sighed.
"You're most welcome, how is your grand birthday moonlit ball going? I have a bit of a favor to ask." he asked leaning against a pillar.
"Awful, boring, and a lot of other hateful adjectives for my disposition." she breathed. Genevieve's sister was many things but complainer was never one of them. When the special time came for her to show her displeasure it was always in the breath of a whisper and usually only in the company of Therius or Alister, or even Regulus, although he had only been in town a few years he was the only person she could talk to openly that was near her age coincidently those men are the only people in the world she's ever trusted.
"It does seem rather dull, this party, that planned, and paid for." Henry said from behind them, placing a hand on either of their shoulders and splitting them apart to he could stand in between.
"Father" she breathed. Her face was beet red, the vein on her forehead pulsing erratically.
"Do not pour your apologies on me, my child, simply do not speak ill of things you know nothing of and you will not make such a fool of yourself." he brayed and walked to his throne. Andria looked ill, her face had blanched and her mouth was open as if she were controlling her urge to be sick, or pass out.
"I think I shall retire, good night." she said without a single pause, choking back tears and fled from the room before Therius could catch her
"You are late." Charlotte pointed out the king as he sat in his throne beside her without a word.
"You are out of your place." he growled.
"What's gotten you into a foul mood?" Charlotte asked, her tone no longer indifferent but angry.
"Nothing" he grumbled.
"So nothing just sent your daughter out crying?" Charlotte asked, glancing at him from her curved in chair.
"She can handle herself just fine." he mumbled.
"Acruz enters in a fuss; you come in making little girls cry and growling at whoever asks you a simple question. Did you two finally have it out?" Charlotte asked, raising her perfectly plucked red eyebrow.
"It is none of your business Miss. Caunell." he practically yelled and stormed from his throne into the crowd.
"Far be it from me to converse with my husband." she said to no one. Paige stood at the window in the side office next to the ballroom, admiring the rain in the darkness when someone grabbed her shoulder so hard she was about to screech at whoever it was, when she saw his face.
"Henry" she whispered. His face was half covered in shadows but the half she could see was very distraught.
"Paige" he swallowed hard. He looked up, obviously trying to be calm and not fall apart. Paige held out her arms and Henry ran into them like a child to his mother. He breathed out another desperate breath to stead his voice.
"You have been my family's most loyal companion for so many years. You have been my confidant, my only true frie
nd. Everything is falling apart and I don't know how to fix it." he sniffled. She patted his back and then pushed him back by his shoulders and slapped his so hard across his face that even though his black beard you could still see her hand.
"Get a hold of yourself Henry. It's embarrassing to watch. Now listen here, you were not born to be king, you were never trained to be king. But you are, because you were meant to be. Just because everyone doubts you, does not mean it is wrong. But there is such wisdom in what people say, as well as stupidity." she told him.
"What do you think I should do?" he asked.
"I think you should stop spewing your crap because no one is buying it and think of your daughter first for once, she is the only one that loves you with her whole heart and you are abusing her's more than anyone else's." Paige instructed. He nodded. She had always been like a sister to him. She had always instructed him on the ways of life, mostly because no one else would listen. But he quickly became one of her greatest friends. That is one of the only reason she agreed to hid her beauty for eighteen years and take care of Alison's, whom she had never been fond of, child.
