Days later, when the sun reaches its peak in the sky, a great line of carriages arrives on the cobbled road, kicking up enormous plumes of dust. From the window of the ale house I can spot which one is hers.
It is in the middle, and lacquered a shiny black. It strikes me as odd that her carriage should seem more death processional than celebratory. The approach of the dozen horses and carriages sounds like an invasion.
In a way, it is.
We all stop work, wiping our hands on our aprons before shucking the garments and walking in a group of hushed voices to the front side of the castle.
Beneath the entrance to the great hall, Harry stands beside the King, their entire staff beside them.
My prince is dressed in green. His head is held high but I can see beneath his stoic mask how tight his jaw has grown. It occurs to me that he's met her before, most likely. Maybe even spent time with her during his year in Spain. Had they held hands? Kissed? Had his mouth first met hers more gently than it did for our first kiss, only days ago?
Her footman helps her from her carriage and Harry steps forward to take her hand. To bend. To kiss it.
I don't draw breath for a hundred years.
Her face is shadowed by the brim of her hat but she looks average height but too short, too skinny. She is a royal with no flesh on her. She could be a servant girl.
She could be any average girl who will marry the man who belongs to me, and who will someday become my queen.
Maria Antonia de la Páxan.
Beside me, everyone begins to bow as the princess makes her way up the wide front steps. Beyond the paved road lies the ocean, and beyond that is nothing.
Inside me, there is nothing.
Of more than a hundred bodies, I am the second to last to bend. Mary's eyes meet mine as she lowers beside me and when I look at her, I can see that she knows. My heartbreak is so vast it has seeped from my body, through the air between us, and into her eyes.
Her fingers are warm between mine.
I bend, spilling the contents of my stomach all over the gravel beside my feet.
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No Fury
FanfictionThe prince was born in his mother's lavish rooms three days before I emerged on the dingy floor of the ale house. He's a royal . . . she isn't. But the secret friendship that began in childhood grows into something much deeper -- and much more dang...
