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Chapter 1

Ninth of the Fourth Month, 65 AR

I’ve been back in Criest for three days now, and I hate every minute of it. Once again, I am trapped, except now I’m sure that I have no chance of escape because I’m sure that security around me is extra tight. I’m always being watched, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was being watched when I took a bath as well. That wouldn’t surprise me at all, but I don’t care anymore.

I’ve stayed in my room the whole time, not gotten up, I bathed because I hate dirt, but otherwise, I have only slept, written, read, and eaten. I’ve written a series of letters which I keep under my pillow to Shanne, asking her to forgive me for betraying her. I could have gotten her killed, I now realize, because of my selfishness. I ask her about herself and ask to be friends. She’ll never get them, but I enjoyed writing them all the same. The hard part is keeping them, and this diary, away from Isariun. I guess that now that I’m back, I can refer to him by name, Isariun, my husband.

Twelve years ago, when I was five years old, we met. We were both just little kids, not knowing each other from before and certainly never expecting to be wed eventually. We played games, hide and seek, until someone came to take him away, but somehow, we kept meeting again and again. We were best friends back then, and now he is my worst enemy. Marriage ruins things, sometimes, but this time, that wasn’t the problem. He’s the problem, I know that this is probably a bit biased, but you’re my diary, so you must agree with me.

Since you are my new diary, you don’t know my story yet do you? You don’t know my people, or their names.

My family was a race further north. They weren’t human, only in features, in emotion and complexity; they were the same if not more complex. They were almost white and had tails, long ones, which reached down to their feet. To someone not used to seeing them, I suppose they’d seem ugly, but to me, I’m ugly. I’ve never let that thought go. Growing up with them was hard for me. They found me, when I was little, a baby, and they raised me, but not just as a part of them. They raised me as the next in their line, as royalty.

They had never gotten along with the people of the Criestian capital, so my marriage to Isariun eased up tensions between them. In fact, they haven’t had a major battle since. Now, he can focus on destroying the south instead. If he kills Shanne, I’d never forgive him; I suppose that I’d never know though. That’s the worst thing, to live your life, not knowing about something that you care about. I could find out anything, I suppose, all I would have to do is tell him. I will never tell him about Shanne, I guess that’s my way of keeping her safe.

I feel as though I should get up today, lying in bed is getting a bit boring, but I’m stubborn, and I’m making a point, even though I’m not sure what that point is at the moment…

I hear footsteps approaching the chamber and I quickly shove the diary underneath the pillow along with my letters that will never be mailed. Am I obsessed with Shanne? I’ll discuss that with my diary tonight, I suppose, my diary is the only one that I will talk to. I hear a knock at my door, it’s a maid. Isariun wouldn’t knock. I don’t know why I’m so alert all of the time. He’s probably planning his next attack on somewhere right at this moment with his generals.

“Enter!” I command, it’s the proper way to be nobility. You must be crude and sharp with the servants, or slaves. When she enters, I see that she is a slave. Only in Criest has this not been abolished yet. Slavery is the worst thing. I would help them all escape if I could. I don’t know what stands in my way, apart from my husband, no one can stop me. I am the queen. “What is it?” I ask her, sounding impatient, even though in reality I have all of the time in the world to waste.

Her eyes are downcast. “His majesty, the lord, requests your presence in half an hour in the third study.” She speaks softly, while shivering. The third study is the smallest one, the most private. I can see that she doesn’t want to give him the response that he doesn’t want to hear, but I’m not going.

“I will not!” I answer, and turn my head away from her, we’re through speaking. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her make a curtsy and shake her head while leaving the room. I know what will happen next. He’ll come to get me, in the flesh. I think that perhaps, in the back of my head, I get some pleasure out of making him come to get me, although he’ll be annoyed. That’s for sure. I like to see how far I can push him.

About three minutes later (I counted); I once again hear footsteps approaching. It sounds like him. Purposefully, I turned my head away and dropped it into the pillow.

The door swings open and he walks in. I don’t see him on account of the fact that I pushed my face into the pillow, but I feel him, and I feel his aura. It’s negative aura, angry aura. Sometimes I think that I have empathy, although it doesn’t take a lot to see that he’s angry. I bet that I know what he looks like. His eyes are deep blue, as well as hard and cold, unforgiving. When he was younger, it was more obvious; now his eyes are looking like that all of the time, more and more.

“Yuna!” I contrast his tone of saying my name with Shanne’s tone. Her voice is light, cheery. His is angry, hard. I lift my head slowly, not because I’m interested on what he has to say, but because it would not be appropriate to not acknowledge the king when he speaks to you. I really wish that it was Shanne waking me up. As soon as I’m more or less facing him, he continues speaking with the voice that I don’t know. “What is this Yuna?” he asks, his question demanding.

My eyes meet his. “What is what?” I ask. He walks closer to the bed from the cherry door-way. His footsteps aren’t as loud anymore, since he walks on the fluffy carpeting that is rose in color. I think that it’s rose-scented as well, as I spilled perfume on it once.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” He says as he approaches. I can’t describe his voice right now. I know that I’m always interested in the tones of people’s voices. It’s how I analyze them; I can see the inside of their minds through their voices. His is soft, yet warning. I don’t respond, it doesn’t seem worth it to argue. “Get up.” He says as he walks even closer. I instinctively try to back away, even though there’s nowhere to go, since I’m already against the backboard of the canopy bed.

“I don’t want to.” I say quietly.

“Why not?” I can tell that he’s impatient, he’s only been here for a minute and he’s already impatient.

“Because.” I respond. In truth, I don’t have a reason.

He’s right beside me now, and I’m sitting up, perched against the harder pillows that are on the bed. I’m surrounded by blue satin and lace on one side. Isariun is in front of me, I’m trapped basically. His face is right near mine, he’s kneeling on one knee by the side of the bed. “Bullshit.” He tells me. Suddenly, he grabbed my arm hard, so hard that it hurts. Involuntarily, I cried out, and he pulled hard, forcing me to stand up. He let go and I rubbed my arm.

I’m still wearing my night dress, it’s short, ending at my lower thigh. I don’t know why I feel uncomfortable around him wearing that, but I do. I don’t say anything, waiting for the next order.

“Get dressed.” He says. “You better be downstairs in the next fifteen minutes.” He says. Grabbing the back of my head and bringing me closer to him “Don’t fuck with me, Yuna. Not right now.” He lets me go and leaves, just like that. I look after him and as soon as he’s gone, I lock the door. It won’t do any good, but it still gives me security. He has keys for everything. I have to go downstairs today. I assume that our meeting place is still the study. The downstairs is quite large when it’s inside of a castle, especially the modern castle that Criest boasts.

After that, I fell onto my knees on the fluffy carpet that still smelled of roses.

Realizing that I was wasting time, I rushed over to the closet and pulled out a dress. It was conservative. It was light pink, the color of the carpet, but a bit darker then that. It reached slightly below my knees and there was a large red bow in the back. The top part resembled a kimono. This dress was sleeveless therefore I had to put something on top of it. The kimono was white with small pink flowers scattered on it. I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair is too short to do anything with; therefore, I just left it alone. Slipping into a pair of black boots, I quickly ran out of the room and bounded down the stairs.

I approached the study and quietly knocked on the door, my hand shook.

“Enter.” It was the same command that I had used with the slave girl, now I was the slave girl. I pushed the door open and walked in. He was standing up, looking at a book; actually it was a record book of some sort, not literature. He wasn’t really one for literature. When I walked in, he put it back on the shelf and walked towards me. I hadn’t really noticed his appearance before, but now I took the time to notice.

His shirt was satin and black, like his pants (though they weren’t satin). He was all black, black boots too. On his hands, there were gloves, the black leather ones that don’t have fingers. No wonder his grip had felt so tough and careless.

I stood in place, not moving, but I raised my eyes to know what was going on around me. I was defensive, more defensive then I had ever been in Shiron.

He took my arm in his hand and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pressing me closer against his body; he kissed me, deeply, lovingly. I kissed him back, and closed my eyes for that moment. “I’m sorry, Yuna.” He whispers in my ear when our lips pull away. “For saying that, I’m sorry.” He was too, I knew he was.

“It’s fine.” I say. “I was being stupid…” I didn’t actually feel that way but it seemed like a good idea to say it.

He shushed me. “No, don’t Yuna. Don’t make excuses for me.” He put the arm that was around my waist onto my back instead, this way; we weren’t as close to each other. “Did I hurt you, Yuna?”

I supposed that he was referring to when he grabbed me. I shook my head.

“You know I’d never hurt you. I promised you that.”

It was true. He had promised me that, and he had never hurt me. He never hit me, never abused me in any way. He’s hard, stoic, but he never says anything cruel to me, only how beautiful I am or how much he loves me. I believe him, because he doesn’t lie, but I still don’t want to be here anymore.

“I know.” I replied, but I pulled away from him all the same. “I know.” I repeated. I sat down onto the burgundy sofa that was in the small room. He sat on the armchair that was across from it.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Of course, we can do whatever you want.” I replied.

“I didn’t mean it like that…” he looked up at me and then back down at his hands.

“I know.”

“Why did you run away?” That question caught me off guard. I knew in the back of my mind that he would ask me that sooner or later but I didn’t expect it.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say. I knew why I had run, but I wasn’t about to tell him that it was to get away from Criest and from him. “…I don’t know why.” I said quietly.  “I guess that I wanted something different.” It was a good lie, I thought it was anyway. I wasn’t sure how he had bought it. He was hard to get things past, but typically he trusted me more then he trusted anyone else.

“You don’t know?” he asked. He didn’t believe it, but he wouldn’t force it out of me, I could tell.

I shook my head, continuing with the playing dumb technique. I think that he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get it out of me, so he dropped it.

“There’s a gathering, a social gathering coming up…” he paused to make sure that I was paying attention. “…it’s in a month, we have to attend and discuss terms about the war…” he paused again and looked straight into my eyes. “…I have to discuss, you have to keep quiet and socialize with the other guests, but not a word about the war, clear?”

I nodded. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t think that much choice was being given to me in this matter.

He nodded back to me, and bowed as was proper to do before leaving a room with a lady in it. Then he left. I sat back against the sofa and let my breath out. He was gone for now, but now that I got up, life would resume as normal. I jumped up from the couch and bounded back up the stairs to my room, reached under my pillow and grabbed my diary. I had a plan and I had to tell someone, there was no one else to tell, so I took out a pen and began to write, as fast as I could in sloppy script that only I could read, I wrote.

This party is my ticket out of here forever, little does anyone know. My plan is far from foolproof, but it is pure genius. Since there will be southern representatives, I’ll stow away with one! I know, I’m sure if you could respond to that, you would tell me that it was the dumbest idea you have ever heard and that could be true, yet, I like it! I really do hope that no one else can read my writing, but it is written in my language, my original language. I considered going back home, they would hide me for sure. But, it’s too close. The south is the only place in which I would be truly safe, and then as Shanne said, I’d destroy Criest from there. I’d help them, I’d spy, fight, anything.

I have a few things to do before I go, and I only have one month.

1. I have to find out about Shanne’s fighting style, it’s been bothering me. It’s very unique, not northern. I think that Isariun should now, I’ll ask him later, when he’s in a better mood. I like to think of it this way because he’ll actually be helping me get away, little does he know!

2.  Secondly, I have to learn the language that Shanne was speaking. That, I can’t ask him about. I’ll go to the library and talk to the scholar there. It’s just risky, the king finds out about everything, but the language scholar has known me since I was very little, he’s like a grandfather to me I guess. He’ll keep my secret and if not, then I’ll just have to make my escape earlier then I though, but I’ve always trusted him. Actually, the sooner I start on that the better.

3. Actually, I forgot something, not that important, but heck it still needs to be said! I haven’t seen my pony in days; I have to ride her today. If I’m going to leave, it wouldn’t be without her. I wouldn’t leave my Chocolate for anything. I named her when I was five, and she was a yearling. She’s eight now. She’s an Arabian, with a finely shaped head and almond eyes. I have to go hug her right now!

I close my pen for now.

            I shoved the diary back under the pillow and changed from my house clothing into outdoor clothing, which wasn’t much different except that the skirt covers only half of your body and there are pants worn underneath, the tight ones that make your legs look fat. I laced my boots up over them and grabbed a light shawl witch I tied around my shoulders.

I didn’t want anyone to see me leaving, because then they’d question me and if they didn’t question me, they’d tell Isariun and he’s question me. So, I climbed out of the window. (It’s not a big deal; my room is only on the third floor.) I climbed down the checkered wall witch supports the vines and ivy. It also supports me, or it has for the past few years and has shown no signs of breaking. I landed softly on my feet and check myself to make sure that I am clean, and I am, so I see myself presentable enough to walk over to the language library, which is actually in a separate building.

I push the heavy, stone door open and walk inside. “Hello?” I call, not too loudly but loud enough that if there was anyone inside, they’d hear me.

“Yes?”

“Sir Healern?” I call out.

“Yuna? Is that you?” The gray-haired man walks out from behind a shelf with an armload of books stacked so high that he can barely see over them. I rush over and grab some from the top.

“It’s me!” I reply cheerfully as I efficiently put the books back in their alphabetical order onto the dark, wooden shelves. The library is grim, but not dirty. It is always kept clean by Sir Healern and his workers. I offer to help as well, but he declines, saying that it wouldn’t be proper to have me caught dusting library shelves. I suppose that he’s right but it’s not like I would mind doing it. He puts the rest of the books that he was holding in arms onto the shelf and turns towards me, placing his glasses onto his nose.

“Is there something you need?” he asks, pleasantly.

“Actually…” I just realized that I don’t even know what the language is that they speak in Rai. “…I don’t know exactly…but it’s a language that I heard somewhere.”

“If it’s that, then I’m the person for you.” He replies and smiles. I smile back. “Come with me, and we’ll talk.” We walk over to a whole pile of books that needed to be out back and dusted off. “I know how much you want to help.” He’s teasing me, I laugh a little, it’s the first time since I’ve gotten back. I pick up the first book and start dusting and talking.

“It’s a southern language.” I said. “But, I don’t know the name of it and I don’t know any of it, but I’d like to learn.”

“What do you need to know a southern language for?” he asked, eyeing me. He knew that I was up to something, I could tell by his face.

“I need it to improve my knowledge of languages.” I quickly said. “Learning this one would bring my grand total to four!”

“Do you anything about it?” he asks. I think that he’s interested in it; he just wouldn’t show interest in a southern language. He’s as northern as they come but he’ll know it. I’m sure that he knows it.

“They speak it in a small village, called Rai.” I say. “I know that cause that’s where I was when I ran away!” I added quickly before he could ask. “Don’t tell anyone.” I said quickly afterwards. I gave him my smile to make sure that he wouldn’t. He shook his head but I caught the smile playing at the corner of his lips.

He took out a map and we spread it out on the floor. He pinpointed the village. This map was extremely detailed and extremely old. The edges were starting to fray and a couple of corners were missing. “If it was here…” he began, while pointing to the small dot that represented Rai. “…then I believe that the dialect would be Shi’kala.”

“Do you know it?” I asked, hopeful. He looked at me and nodded.

“This dialect is one of the most common southern dialects.” He explained. “Any scholar would know it. I’m sure his majesty even knows it.” I doubted that, but I happily shook my head in agreement, eager for him to go on. “You want to learn?” he asked as he eyes me sharply. I nodded solemnly. “Very well.” He sighed and stood up. Walking over to a shelf with me following, he pulled out two books which he handed to me. “Learn from these books, come by when you need a lesson or want to practice.” I nodded, happily taking the books and wrapping them in my shawl so that no one would see. He shook his head and clicked his tongue in disapproval, but that small smile was still there. I hugged him, catching him quite off guard and laughed as I skipped out the door. I was really immature sometimes.

“Bye!” I called back. “Thank you!” I took off in a run towards the stable. The workers were quite surprised to see the queen running as fast as she could in her clean clothing into the barn, but I didn’t care. I stopped next to one of them.

“Chocolate?” I asked, using my pony’s name.

He pointed to a small group of horses grazing in a far field. I nodded him a thanks (I wasn’t really supposed to say anything to them, apart from the point). I took off in a run and climbed over the fence of the paddock as quickly as I could. “Choco Love!” I yelled. She picked up her head and whinnied loudly. She was next to me in five seconds flat, placing her head onto mine and I hugged her neck.

She was just a gorgeous as ever. Her coat was chocolate colored (like her name) and her mane was black. She had a single splash of white on her face and her two back legs had white socks. I hugged her tightly for a few more minutes, feeling her calm, slow breathing. My breath was coming fast since I had been sprinting the whole way.

I don’t know what I was thinking but I jumped (from the ground) up onto her back and took off towards the gate. As we approached, I grabbed her mane and closed my eyes. The gate was about four feet high, but we soared over it. The workers stopped to look and I know that when they huddled together, they were talking about me but I didn’t care. I had flown, for real this time, through the air. As soon as we were on the other side, Choco stopped and dropped her head down to eat more grass. I laughed and caressed her warm neck; something that I had longed to do ever since I got back.

I then hopped back onto the ground and landed on my feet, brushing my clothing off a little bit before walking back towards the paddock, Choco following closely behind me. I opened the gate and she flew inside and bucked a few times. I could tell that she was happy. I only wished that one day I could be free and happy like her, but then again I remembered that she wasn’t free because I owned her. At that moment I wanted to open the gate and let her go, but I knew that she wouldn’t leave even if I had done that. I sighed, I know that I would leave at the first opportunity that I had.