The Crowned (h.s)

VII

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When I was much younger, my family had taken an unplanned trip inland one summer when the heat and humidity of the air had become much too oppressive. It had been a drought season that year, and much of our grasses had lost their beautiful verdant color. The air was dense, and I would spend afternoons resting in the shade of our gardens convincing myself that it seemed to move in waves. The open air outside, though still heavy, was cooler than the darkened indoors where all curtains were drawn and shed a dreary look about the palace. However, my mother refused to leave her room. The heat had seemed to make her sick, leaving her in bed for hours of the day, taking cold baths, and refusing any kind of company to her room. After a few weeks, my father had grown wary and decided that to gain some relief, we would visit our country home unexpectedly.

It seemed that our trunks were packed within that day, information written out for our staff on what they were to do while we were gone, and information given out to others who would be joining us on the endeavor to the smaller Linwood House. The journey was a long one, my mother's heat illness worsening until we escaped the hot city streets and found ourselves on grassy roads surrounded by trees and sky. She rode in her own carriage, and for one of the first times in my life, I was joined during the ride with my brothers in the same coach. Although William and Nicholas teased me and loved to pull on my hair and poke at me, during that trip I felt a sort of power that I hadn't before.

While my mother continued to rest inside, accompanied by her crochet basket and enjoying the country only from the window, under the watchful eye of the governess, I was allowed to run about with my brothers and play in the fields surrounding the small manor so as I wouldn't disrupt her rest. I was welcomed into my brothers' games and tales of the French Revolution and adventures of explorers who found distant lands and cultures. I romped about with them, hiding in trees, running away from soldiers and rebels, and charging towards them too. It was a great, marvelous fun, to live a summer just as a child. No lecturing, no reminders of posture or piano lessons, no instruction on dinner etiquette or scoldings for dirtied stockings, just complete adventure. And to see my father laugh as he watched us run about made me feel as though I truly belonged there with them.

When the season had ended and us children were told that we would be returning to Sarasau within days, I remember looking out all around me and feeling something strange. It was as though the weeks of summer had never happened, and I knew I would be returning to the city as the girl I was before. There would be no more running, romping, jumping, or tumbling about the gardens with my brothers. While they would enjoy hunting trips with my father, finding their own adventure, I would stay at home with my mother or sit shaded drinking tea and awaiting their return. I wouldn't have a place in their fun anymore. Sitting outside watching dusk set in as my brothers told stories of phantoms and spirits on that last night in the country, the question of whether I would be able to ever feel that unbound again I didn't dare answer. In a few months time I would be 12, and with that would come an understanding that my childhood was diminishing and my ascendance into young womanhood was creeping ever closer. Girls are always the ones who must grow older faster than their brothers.

That same feeling, one of freedom being lost and a creeping unsureness of the future was what I felt when Harry asked for my hand. Everything about their visit suddenly made sense. Except perhaps, my role in it.

After his words left his mouth, they circled me, encompassing me, pushing out every other thought that existed in my mind and all the air in my lungs. I was 18 years old, of marriageable age, good blood, and also existing simultaneously at the same time of my father creating a state alliance with a country that had been our enemy longer than any of us had breathed air. An enemy that while I had no part in creating, I would be the one to solve.