Destined Path

Chapter One: Deals Stuck

They sat at opposite ends of the large wooden table at the Hall of Konungur Steini, the keep of regaining house Jagontá. The kastala, Brúviður Castle was still a day's ride away, so meeting at such a mid-way point was well suited against threats. King Haraldur, sat heavily in his wooden throne, his face aged greatly in the passing months and his breaths coming raggedly. His pale eyes falling sunken into his wrinkling face, no longer the fine, chiseled features of a man in his prime. No longer the great, immortal king fools once thought he was, I thought bitterly from my place hidden high out of notice. I smirked at the 'grand king'. His dusty brown hair shedding in chunks and silvering. The once hardened muscles of his body filled with the soft fat of a withering man. His oldest son by a mere minute and a half sat healthily at his side. Lucky little brat. If only he knew that those who rise highest the quickest fall twice as fast.

The cropped hair had grown an inch or so, slightly curling in its dirty blonde nest. His strong jaw darkened with the promise of a beard to come. Piercing blue eyes observed the room cautiously, as a long fingered hand strummed over a full bottom lip in thought. Under pristine, well-kept clothes lay the hardened muscles laid over strong bones of a solider. The stronger one born from the twin boys. His right ear bore a thick steel earring through half way up the helix, near the auricle. He had the handsomeness of his father but the striking wit of his mother.

Ah, the beautiful queen, intelligence lingered within large, doe eyes, undistinguished in dark colouring. Her skin was so flawlessly pale in comparison to the tanned bodies of the rooms other occupants. Her lips were small, pressed and painted a dark rouge. Her hair once, naturally, shone a darker shade of blonde, like her children's, but I had taken to bleaching it to a pale lightness, as it was comely in fashion. Queen Willow was a woman known throughout her lands, known and feared. With the removal of hundreds of lower, poor citizens from their homes on the rudeness of being unable to pay their monthly taxes. She stared acidly at the other mother siting at the opposite end, she raised her chin and smoothed out her caped, black woollen gown. Her wide golden jewellery contrasting majestically.

In comparison to Willow's collective calmness, Queen Bellatrix, third of her name, was red eyed with tears. Her violet speckled blue eyes were blood shot, tragically rimmed with sore red skin. On other days she was known to be truly beautiful, yet on this day her heartbreak drowned her. Her light mousey brown hair was coiled in tight curls, pooling from the ends of her braids. Her gentle, tanned skin reddened with her motherly distress, fading the tiny freckles upon her cheeks and across the bridge of her straight, Viking nose. Her curved, pouted lips were frowned as she listened to her husband selling her youngest child away. She was the fifth wife out of eight of the tyrant King Lucifer, first of his name, a man well thought of for being heartless as well as merciless. Fading marks upon his wife's face proved just how pitiless he was. I smiled, I've heard so many fascinating and detained stories of the occurrences and ongoing within that king's castle.

A silvery mane of straight hair flowed down his strength hardened back, fixed, piercing pale slivers of blue eyes gazed across the wooden length. Features of dark, unforgiving beauty tricked the eye. Thin lips grimaced a square jaw from a long, sharp nose. He thrived on authority and dominance; build up upon his vanity and power. He turned to his wife with a sneer, "Stop that squabbling! The girl has brought this upon herself, with her stupidity and cockiness. You should be pleased that I even bothered to come here to settle her comfort." He snapped. His wife turned to him, her face tightened with bitter loathing hidden so carefully under a tight smile. The gods favour brave women, and Bellatrix was one of the bravest. She certainly was.

Her tone was sweetly disciplined, "Of course, beloved husband. I apologize for my weakness. I simply wept with the thought of being so far." Her gaze turned to the coughing king, bent wheezing him his chair, "My dear King Haraldur, Queen Willow, as you have three children and a daughter of your own, you'll understand that I'm a mother of five. Onyxia is my youngest of my second pair of twins. I love her as dearly as you love your own children, I beg you to allow me the comfort that she's safe and happy. If I could just see her-"