Marriage. The word curdled on her tongue, bitter as seaweed. It's not as though she hadn't intended to get married one day - in the very, very far future. But having it forced on her like this made her stomach heave. She thought she had more time - and the ability to choose.
She'd never expected to be the grand prize in a contest - to be fought over like a shimmering, valuable pearl.
She'd never expected to be sold out by her own uncle - the man who'd been as much a father as he'd been a friend. Perhaps this part, at least, she should have seen coming. Grief had changed her uncle so deeply, so irreversibly, that he was now a stranger. A stranger who wanted to run and hide: to abandon a responsibility he'd never wanted; to leave behind a teenager who reminded him of all that he'd lost.
He wanted rid - of her, of the kingdom - so he was auctioning both off to whoever was brave and fierce enough to pay the price. Perhaps it would help him to sleep at night, imagining Erica under the protection of someone fierce enough to wrestle sea-monsters, or whatever challenges he might have dreamed up during his nightmares. Erica didn't know. He wouldn't tell her anything more than he'd told the reporters outside the palace. He wouldn't speak to her at all.
He blamed her for Gina's death. He'd never say it, but Erica knew that it was true. Gina wouldn't have been on that ship if it weren't for her - if she hadn't needed to return to school. It was Erica fault they'd been caught in that unnatural storm. Erica's fault Gina had died, while the princess herself - somehow - had lived.
Ares, at least, was an unexpected source of comfort. A steady, quiet presence, who seemed to see Erica's revulsion to the coming challenge without her having to voice it.
The doctors had been unable to find anything wrong with his legs, but still he winced in pain with every step.
He wrote little about where he came from and how he had come to be washed up on a shore in Merpolia. He kept his past shrouded in secrets. With the scars of her own past laid bare for everyone to see, Erica didn't struggle to imagine the appeal.
The 'suitors' arrived two days after her uncle's announcement: Alidor, Ambrose and Leandre
Three suitors for three still unspoken challenges. The first, Alidor, was tall and hewn from granite, his face full of sharp angles and harsh glares. He moved with a steadiness that let him take his new surroundings in fully, his gaze heavy and assessing. He greeted the Prince Regent with a cordial bow and a hand shake that looked strong enough to crack bones. The hand which took Erica's was warm, but the lips that brushed her fingers as he kissed her in greeting were cold and lifeless as stone.
The second suitor, Ambrose, burned far brighter. His eyes glowed like flint on the cusp of sparking, full of the cunning and danger of fire. His smile blazed like sunlight as he swept into a flamboyant bow in front of the regent and the princess. Everything about him, from his chestnut curls, to his scarlet jacket and gold-lined yellow boots, was carefully orchestrated theatre. He was a prince here to charm and amuse; to play a part that would win kingdoms and hearts in one swoop.
Leandre, the final suitor was harder to pin down. His gaze was illusive, his expressions indecipherable. He could have been ecstatic, bored or murderous and Erica knew she would not be able to tell. His pale white hair was pulled back in a neat plait. His crisp grey suit was less ostentatious than the second's, but every bit as immaculate. The smile he greeted Erica with was fleeting as words on the wind.
As they stood before her in the throne room, the eyes of the kingdom watching for her reaction, Erica wasn't sure what to do.
She wanted to run from the room in tears. Run from the kingdom, with the weight of its expectations. Run from her uncle, who'd betrayed her in the very worst of ways.
Only Ares's steady gaze held her in place. He was at the front of the crowd, where she had insisted he stand. The small smile he offered her was the promise of strength and support she needed to stay in her throne.
"Welcome to Merpolia," her uncle said at last, after the formal introductions were out of the way. "Our kingdom has been much changed by the past few months, but my niece and I hope you will still find your stay here pleasant. We hope, moreover, that you will see enough to want to stay - and that we will see enough in one of you to return the desire."
Erica's stomach rolled. Ambrose watched her keenly, a greedy smile on his lips. Alidor inclined his head in deference, but there was no less longing in his stare as he looked not at her, but the golden throne beside her. Leandre remained elusive, outwardly unmoved by her uncle's words. Erica couldn't decide whether that meant she liked him the most or the least.
She realised, with a start, that she'd seen all three before, in another hall many leagues from this one. The world may have been wide and vast as the winds, but there was only one school the royalty that inhabited sent their children too, and all three of Erica's suitors had attended it.
Yet she was certain she'd never had any interaction with any of them before. Nothing beyond a passing glance in the lunch hall, or a brushed shoulder as they moved between classes. All were a few years older than her, so it perhaps made sense that they'd never interacted. But the fact that they would come here, now, to marry a girl they'd never bothered to say hello to before... It sat more uneasily in Erica's chest than the promise of her uncle's challenged did.
She knew she could have been any one of the hundreds of princesses at their school, and still they would have come.
Ares gave her another encouraging smile from the sidelines; the only thing keeping her in the throne room once more.
"And now to our challenges. The second two, you will hear more on over the course of your stay. For now, I will warn you only this: each challenge will test a skill required to be a good leader."
So there was to be no thought given to being a good husband then? Erica knew this shouldn't bother her, but it stung all the same. If her aunt were here... No; thoughts like that were pointless. She couldn't waste time worrying about what might have been - not when she needed to focus on how to get out of her all-too terrifying present.
When her uncle had first announced the challenge, Erica had been so numb with shock and pain that she'd barely registered what was going on. She'd let everyone around her worry for her, flapping over how to get the castle ready and what she ought to wear. She hadn't given any thought to her future - a future she'd put on hold the day her ship had been wrecked.
This time last year she'd had so many plans, so many dreams and hopes for the future. They'd all been washed away with the swell of the sea, some of them lost forever, impossible to reclaim. She hadn't thought about creating new ones, hadn't wanted to think too hard about a world that didn't have her aunt in it. But now, with those potential futures being ripped away from her once more; washed out of existence with this incoming tide of princes... She wanted those opportunities back.
She wasn't sure how she was going to manage it, but she knew with a certainty that raged inside her that none of these princes were her future, and she wasn't going to accept this fate without a fight.
"One of the greatest qualities a leader can possess is patience," her uncle continued, not even glancing in her direction. Not noticing the irony of his own impatience to be rid of her. "Building a kingdom takes time; waiting for it to flourish, for well-laid plans to come to fruition. I will give you tonight to settle at the palace, and to think on what patience means to you. Tomorrow morning, we will meet by the northern door of the sea-wall." Erica startled at that - there would be no reason to meet at the door unless they were going through it, unless the challenge her uncle had planned had something to do with the sea. "I will explain more there."
That night, after the foreign princes had been given time to 'settle into their rooms' her uncle hosted an elaborate dinner to welcome them to the kingdom. Erica was sat at the head of the table, beside her uncle, the three suitors positioned closest to them. Thanks to a clever bit of manipulation on Erica's part, Ares had been given the seat to the other side of Ambrose. Her uncle had startled when he'd first entered the room and noticed, but since all their guests were already seated, there was nothing he could do except scowl at Erica and take his seat. Erica had shot Ares a victorious smile, which the suitor beside him hadn't failed to notice.
Unfortunately, due to his lack of voice, Ares couldn't help her to drown out the monotone drawl of the suitor sat closest to her. Alidor came from a kingdom of miners, and proceeded to tell Erica all about the kingdom's mining history in minute detail. Erica had never heard so much about rock formation in her life. He was a second in line to the throne, after his elder sister, who was apparently a world leading expert on igneous rock formation. He'd already noted Merpolia's lack of mining opportunities.
Erica sighed into her napkin and her eyes met Ares's across the table. With his own, exaggerated yawn in the direction of Alidor, he pitched his head forwards, pretending to fall asleep in his soup. Erica's resulting giggle quickly turned into a cough at the sharp look her uncle gave her.
"So, Erica," Ambrose asked, cutting across Alidor. "You used to go to the royal academy?"
Erica's hands balled into a fist beneath the table. She kept the tremor from her voice when she replied, "yes."
"But you're not there any more?"
"No."
Her uncle shot her a look that could have frozen a burning candle. "Erica is taking some time out from her studies to focus on the kingdom," he told Alidor smoothly.
"And how is the kingdom flourishing under your focus, Erica."
"It's fine," she replied. Ares stifled a silent giggle with his fist. Her uncle nudged her under the table. She forced herself not to roll her eyes. "Merpolia has gone through a number of changes over the last few months, in light of our move away from association by the sea."
"A move which came as some surprise to your neighbouring kingdoms," Leandre cut in, speaking for the first time that evening.
Erica bristled. Beside her, she felt her uncle still. Ares mimed throwing the table salt at Leandre.
"Change always takes some time to adjust to," she replied.
"And what of your trade? You're fishing industries? Tourism? Surely they cannot all be flourishing in the shadow of the sea wall?" His questions were cutting, assessing. The challenge may have been designed to win her hand, but Leandre seemed to only suitor keen to check the kingdom was worth winning first. Erica was pleased he at least directed the questions towards her, rather than at her uncle. It was this which made her feel compelled to reply.
"The kingdom's economy is still adjusting, as can be expected after any major change, but we are confident that things will pick up again soon. Give it a year and Merpolia will be flourishing more than ever." She smiled sweetly, "without resorting to the risk posed by our surrounding seas."
"I've heard they are full of merfolk," Alidor inputted helpfully, with a sideways glance at Leandre.
Ambrose scoffed. "Merfolk?"
"An old fish tale," Leandre agreed.
Beside Ambrose, Ares had stilled, his mimes ceasing for the first time that meal. If Erica didn't know better, she'd think that he looked afraid.
{So this was meant to be a chapter about the first challenge, but I somehow got to 2,000 words without starting it, so you're going to have to wait until next week's instalment to see what happens. Make sure you read the end of next week's chapter carefully, as I'm going to give you some options to vote on for the second challenge! Please vote/comment if you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you for reading!}