Five days after Reyna had come to the conclusion of taking Helios to his mother, the princess was once again called into the throne room. For five blissful days, the only people she had had to deal with was Marie, Carm, and Lilith. The first three days consisted of bed rest and research on everything relating to the land of magic, whether it was history, geography, or miscellaneous information about the species that could be found there. Much of it was outdated, but Helios was able to help a little. On the fourth day, Lilith came to take Reyna's stitches out, and she was finally able to go down to her gardens. She spent the whole day there with Helios, who immensely enjoyed the fresh air.
On the fifth day, Marie came running in, causing Helios to scramble towards the closet to hide, rambling about needing to get to the throne room. Luckily she was already dressed for the day, so all Marie had to do was Reyna's unruly hair. Since she was wearing a simple brown dress with white sleeves that went to her elbows, the lady in waiting just put her hair in a simple bun. With her hair up, Reyna's exposed neckline was much more pronounced, but she paid it no heed.
Marie quickly ushered her out of the room without a second glance. There was a tense silence settled over the pair, that Reyna realized was actually over the entire castle, as if everyone was holding their breath. "Do you know what this is about?" Reyna asked. She didn't want any surprises, and Marie always knew what was going on.
"When are you coming back?" Helios whined in Reyna's head, but she tried to ignore it. Over the last few days, the two had played around with the bond, and the princess had luckily figured out how to block Helios out and keep him from listening to all her thoughts.
Patience, little dragon. Reyna sent back before closing her mind off completely.
"Well," Marie started going on about who she heard something, and who they heard from, and so on.
"Can we get to the point?" Reyna interrupted while looking around the desolate halls. She had the sudden feeling that somebody was about to pop out and scare them.
"Right, right," Marie muttered. "Apparently there's going to be a wedding soon." The words registered in Reyna's mind, but didn't get fully processed.
"Really? Who's?" She asked absentmindedly. Court gossip wasn't really Reyna's thing, unless it involved her.
"Yours, dumbass."
"Wait, what?" Her wedding to Lord James. Shit. She totally forgot about that small problem.
Before Marie could say anything more, the two were met by four guards standing post at the throne room doors that were pushed open. Inside courtiers and other nobles loitered about. The room was alive with the buzz of chatter. Everybody seemed excited, happy even.
Trumpets sounded and somebody announced Reyna's entrance, causing everyone in the room to split giving her room to walk. Carefully crafting a soft smile on her face, the princess walked into the room with Marie behind her. At the end, she could see the Lord and King, both looking way too happy. It was a bit concerning, and made Reyna's insides squirm, or maybe that was just her under the hundreds of gazes.
Once she reached the King he began to speak, but Reyna tuned it out. Instead, she focused on the dragon that was currently banging on her mental door. She swung it open. What? She yelled exasperated. Dealing with her father and James was getting on Reyna's nerves, and Helios wasn't helping.
"I know we just went over the maps, but I was wondering how are we getting there?"
We're going to follow the river north, the head east to the Queen's city. Reyna sent the plan through the doorway. They'd already gone over the plan so many times, she was surprised it wasn't engraved into his head.
"I know, but how are we getting across the sea?" Shit. Reyna knew she was forgetting something big. Before she could answer, clapping interrupted her racing thoughts.
Trying to regain focus was hard, as Reyna didn't really want to, but she managed. Focussing on the room around her, she saw the lord before her on his knees, offering Reyna the ring he'd shown in the gardens five days ago. The princess had no idea what was going on, so she subtly turned her head to Marie, who just shrugged, then to her father who nodded darkly.
"Princess, did you hear me?" James finally asked after a long minute of silence.
"No, sorry," Reyna admitted. "Could you repeat yourself?"
The lord cleared his throat while Marie coughed to cover up a laugh. "I said, will you marry me?" Reyna's mouth made a big O. That made so much more sense. Seeing as she didn't have much of a choice in the situation she did the only thing a girl would do. Forcing her face to light up in happiness, Reyna accepted. The princess even went as far as to squeal in excitement. James expertly slid the ring onto her finger and stood back up.
After about an hour of 'congrats' and 'you'll make beautiful babies', the throne room was finally empty except for the Lord, the King, and the Princess. Marie had gone to spread the 'wondrous' news to the city, or something like that. Reyna knew that this would complicate things, but a royal wedding could take months to plan, giving her plenty of time to leave.
"Care to explain what all the yelling was about?" Helios asked. Apparently he had excellent hearing, so it was no wonder he heard the crowd from her room.
I got engaged. One good thing about speaking telepathically was that Reyna could send along her emotions with her words, so he knew exactly how she was feeling about it.
"Won't that get in the way of our plans?"
It should be fine. Reyna said before blocking him out, and trying to tune back in on the conversation her father and James were having. "If everything works out, the wedding could be within the week." The king said.
"A week?!" Reyna exclaimed. "No, that's too soon." Both men looked back at her, clearly seeing through her bull shit.
"The wedding will happen as soon as possible."
"I agree with your father, Sybil," Gods, she hated that name so much, and coming from James' lips it was so much worse. "This needs to happen quickly."
Reyna reached for any possible way to push the weeding back, but the only thing that came to mind was one of the strange visions she'd had in the caves. It was the one of the people against the soldiers with a cloaked figure in between. "Well, yes," She stuttered, "But I'm the one whose going to have to plan it, and trust me that won't be enough time." Sighing in relief, that she made a reasonable argument, Reyna continued. "I don't even want to marry, so this wedding will have to be perfect, everything has to be my decision, or I'll fight this union with everything I have." Which was a considerable threat seeing as she had the people's support and most of the guards liked her over the king.
"Fine, so be it. But by the end of this month, you will be married." Reyna nodded and left the room, then went back to her own. When the door clicked shut, Helios pounced on her. The princess had found that he did not like to be alone in the rooms, and usually started tearing things up early on.
"If I had been with you, I would've zapped all of them." Helios reassured her. The two had studied his magic a little, and so far knew that he could shock things, which had been a pretty painful revelation for Reyna.
"I would've liked to see it," Annoyance filled the princess, not only did she have the problem of getting across the Impassable Tides, she also had to stop her wedding, or at least slow it down, so she could have time to get ready for the journey. "Come on, we've got plans to make."
Again the strange image of citizen vs. soldier came to mind, but Reyna ignored it. She sat down at the table with Helios when Marie came barging in. "You'll never guess what just happened!" She spoke so fast her accent seemed to gobble up her words.
Helios ducked under the curtains as the lady in waiting came into the room. "Could you repeat that, but slower?" Reyna teased. Marie had the talent to turn anybody around with her fast-paced talking. After so much time together, Reyna could usually decipher her gibberish, but not this time.
"They're not making any announcement of the engagement." She said between breaths. "The king isn't going to tell the people, not even the servants know of it yet."
"That can't be right. Why not tell–" Reyna sentence stopped as scenarios played through her head. The king announced the engagement of the princess to a lord that was not popular among the people, totally going against tradition. People would be angry, there might be riots even. Things would go downhill in Aleta fast.
Marie must've seen the realization on Reyna's face. "You know why?" Again, the image came through her head. A plan began to take shape in her mind. "Reyna?"
"Marie, let's go out."