Chapter 1

Diana paced furiously back and forth along the length of her bed chamber.

A peaceful-looking fire roared in the grate behind her, and the patterned rugs beneath her feet seemed cherry and bright against the white-washed walls—but that was all about the room that inspired cheerfulness.

"I hate them, I hate them!" Diana shrieked and with a savage throw she tossed a bouquet of bright yellow flowers right into the mouth of the flames. The delicate petals crumpled into ashes in an instant, and Diana grinned as the fire swallowed the rest of the bouquet from the bright green stalks right up the fragile yellow bow.

She imagined all her of her emotions being eaten up by the flames as well, but after a second of waiting, she still felt so angry that her skin began to sweat.

"Cast me aside will he?" She lifted up the skirts of her blue gown and gave the wall a kick. For a moment the unexpected pain was enough to counter the dreadful ache ripping through her chest.

She sank against the wall and clutched at her toes, watching as the moonlight crept in from the open window to dance across the floor.

Her room had been so perfect this morning—like the day should have gone.

Berthilda had laid a new dove-colored coverlet on the bed that set off the oak dressing table and chest like a fairy tale dream. The new furniture had arrived from Catha just this morning and was the best that her money could buy. It had been a wedding present, one Diana had given much fuss over, but now the beautiful fabric seemed like a cruel mocking joke and she almost considered tossing that into the flames as well.

The chamber was in shambles now, with the pure white coverlet in a heap upon the floor and the dressing table toppled on its side with a cascade of jewelry falling from it like blood.

Diana's once flawless blue dress, the color of the sea, was now in shreds from when she had torn through the castle in a rampage fit for some boar--and not a Mager's daughter—but she couldn't even muster the grace to feel embarrassed.

All she could feel was pure, maddening rage.

"How could he lie to me? How could he!?"

She wrenched off one of her elegant blue slippers and hurled it across the room to bounce against the wall.

Her swollen foot throbbed and throbbed, but even that was nothing compared to the pain she felt in her heart; the sheer pain of embarrassment.

How could Lysander do this to her? Her of all people?

She who had paid him attention when the rest of the palace girls ran in fright from his bumblingness? She who danced with him at balls when there had been several better-looking and much better off matches to be made?

She who had followed every rule that was in the "Maiden's tale." And all for nothing.

"It's all because of her!" Diana raged. "That wretched miserable daughter of a pig—"

A delicate knock at the door accompanied a delicate inquiring voice.

"Diana?"

It was the voice of a swan were it to take human form, or the voice of an angel—a voice that made Diana's rage boil over until she could almost taste it like cold vomit in her mouth.

Kara.

She wanted to lunge for the door, fling it open and rip out those perfect blue eyes that would be waiting on the other side of it. She wanted to scream at the girl to go away, but instead she did the impossible.

Breathing so deeply that her shoulders shook, Diana stood and forced herself to think normally.

Her hands worked to arrange the gown in a way so that it didn't look as if she had flung herself into a wall of thorny hedge bushes. She set her cool blue eyes into a meticulous mask all the while feeling the rage building inside her body until her head pounded with the force of it.

The figure on the other side of the door gave it another delicate tap that barely shook the solid oak.

"Diana, it's me Kara. Are you alright?" She needn’t had bothered. Diana knew perfectly well who waited at her door.

"Just a minute," she said in the calmest voice she could manage. It barely shook and that was a feat within itself, for Diana's whole body trembled so badly she could barely dart across the room to tidy it.

She flung the ivory coverlet across the bed and set the solid wood furniture back within its respective places. The bits of yellow petals from the ill-fated bouquet still strewn across the room, she swept into a pile and shoved under a velvet chair.

Turning back toward the door, she caught sight of herself in the mirror hanging over the mantle and froze as all her fragile calm shattered like a broken glass. She cursed the blackest oath she could manage: "Well I'll be a dwarf’s wench!"

From beyond the door she heard a startled little gasp, but for once she didn't care about Kara or her misplaced sense of propriety.

She looked like a troll's wife.

Her dark hair hung in limp strands and matted tangles from the beautiful coiled strands it had been in this morning. Berthilda had especially taken care to weave countless ribbons and pearl beads within the heavy braids and now they dotted her hair in thick knots like pale eggs in a bird's nest.

Diana almost cried.

Red ruts streaked across her cheeks, marring the smooth porcelain skin she spent hundreds on creams to perfect. Her blue eyes looked so huge with outrage and sadness that she could have been a dramatic little urchin from a particularly tragic tale.

It was the sight of her own wretched face that finally sent the fat tears rolling down her chin—not the embarrassment of preparing for a wedding that would never happen. Not the painful hatred coursing through her veins, and certainly not the shame of being left at the altar!

Once the tears started seeping from the corners of her eyes, they just wouldn't stop.

Diana Isatel Gwrent never cried, but here she was, blubbering like a baby.

This wasn't how the day was supposed to end.

She should have been Mrs. Lysander Burtle, living happily in her husband's courters with a pile of wedding presents and the position she had longed for for so long.

Instead she was here, back in her old wing with the sting of rejection and the ache of being nothing more that single, helpless, powerless Diana Gwrent.

It just wasn't fair!

"Please Diana! Let me explain!" It seemed even more unfair that even pleading, Kara managed to sound beautiful.

Surely someone so sweet would never mean to hurt her so thoroughly, or ruin her life so completely?

Kara was shy and kind and good, where Diana was anything but—It was that exact thinking that had the rest of the castle fooled.

Well not today, Diana thought. I won't let Miss Twit pull one over on me!

"Let you explain what Kara?" She snarled so viciously that her ears stung at the venom. "How you manage to worm your pathetic way into my life, or how you managed to steal the man who was as of yesterday my fiancé!"

She glared at the door's reflection in the mirror--almost seeing Kara's, devastated expression behind it. Her cherub face would do doubt be flushed a pretty pink and her blue eyes would fill dramatically with tears. Even thinking of it made Diana sick.

"If you let me in.....I can explain..." Kara began weakly, but she didn't even sound like she believed it.

There was no way she could explain. No one could.

And that made Diana madder than even Kara could.

Suddenly the roomy chamber seemed far too small.

Diana could feel her skin prickling with warning, as her chest heaved beneath the gown's bodice. She couldn't get any air to go down her throat-it was as if the oxygen fled in face of the swirling rage she kept inside.

One more second within this place and she'd go insane.

"Leave me be Kara, we can talk in the morning." It was all she could manage in terms of a dismissal.

Her eyes raced around the chamber distractedly, darting from the elegantly carved dresser to the wardrobe bulging with various fashions. An old blue cloak fluttered on a hook beside it and Diana leapt for it without thinking.

She could hear Kara sobbing now, quietly. That girl did everything so quietly that not even the mice would be able to hear her. But somehow everyone took notice, Diana grumbled.

Even now, she couldn’t help but feel guilty, and she almost apologized. Then she’d remember that beautiful blonde hair swinging back as Kara had danced with Lysander and forgot to feel anything but anger.

"Diana if you just listen--"

"I am going to bed Kara," Diana said over her. "You can listen to me snore."

She reached for an iron poker that leaned against the fireplace and gave the flames a vicious stab until they faded like all of her ambitious dreams.

The room descended into darkness and after a moment, Diana could hear soft footsteps retreating down the hall.

Even Miss saintly purity knew when to quit.

Diana pulled the cloak over her head and stood in the middle of the room, looking as ridiculous and useless as she felt.

She couldn't very well go out the main entrance now could she? By now the whole wing—if not the whole castle--had heard of what had happened.

She would be the laughing stalk of Ivor, and Diana would rather scrub the chimney free of soot than walk with her head held high amid whispers and rumors.

Rejected by Lysander Burtle. That was a disgrace in its own right.

The window, a voice in her mind whispered and she headed toward it.

The sturdy glass had been cut by a master glass-smith into the shape of an hourly cross. Two thick bars of glass stood upright to be crossed cut by a sideways bar.

Normally, Diana would have never considered it. The window was far too narrow for even the most slender of females, but after months of fasting for her wedding day, she'd be damned if she didn't fit through even a door crack.

With a groan, she slid open the glass and peered out into the early night sky. Bright stars dotted the horizon like stolen diamonds spread across a thief’s dark cloak.

High above, the moon gazed impassively at the world, shining and pale—whiter than even Kara's perfect skin. It shed brilliant light over the emerald green of Ivor's countryside in gentle fingers that seemed to caress the hills.

Diana watched it longingly and wished she could be so detached. She would have given anything to feel nothing at all, but instead all she felt was this damn pain that wouldn't leave her be.

For once, everything she had yearned for seemed to be finally hers, but in an instant it had all been torn away.

All she had left to remember it by, was the yellow bouquet she had thrown into the fire and this blasted dress.

She climbed onto the window sill as gingerly as she could manage, and paused. What kind of noble woman went climbing out of windows? Surely not the daughter of a well respected Mager?

But then, Diana thought sourly, what noblewoman in her right mind would get rejected at the altar by a man who couldn't put his own wardrobe together without his mother's approval?

She nudged herself forward until her head peeked out over the stone side of the castle. Her stomach clenched fearfully as she looked down.

Ivor was a large castle, typically known for its elegance as well as the large Ivordraft stones used to build it. It stood well over a hundred feet taller than any other grand estate and claimed over half as much in acreage alone. Safely to say, it was a long way down, and the only safety net Diana had above it was the narrow balcony that jutted under the side of her wing.

Slowly-with her sides straining against the window’s edges--she eased herself onto the ledge and stood. One foot balanced wobbly in its slipper as the other connected harshly with cool, rough-cut stone.

She flinched. The slipper she had thrown during her fit was still back inside her room. She turned to go get it, but took one look at the narrow window and changed her mind.

Oh well, she thought with a shrug and reached down to undo the other slipper's blue ribbons. The shoes had been a gift from Lysander's parents anyway.

With a flourish she threw the slipper over the side and watched with a smile as it went down, down, down to connect with the courtyard below with barely a thump to its name.

She instantly felt better.

The dress as well, her mind supplied, and before she was even aware of it, she had pulled the gown over her head and bunched it in two hands. She—a girl who had never undressed by herself in her life.

The dress went down like a butterfly with broken wings and Diana felt a laugh ease out her throat at the sight. The slippers had been worth a poor man's life wages--and the dress had to be more than ten times that, but it felt good to see them go.

Almost as good as if she had Kara and Lysander to throw down too.

In only her plain white shift and leggings, Diana felt freer than she even had without the yards of fabric holding her down. Naked as well, but that was to be expected, she told herself. Even if her feet were already beginning to bunch up from the night chill.

She scooted along to the further edge and looked down to where the land of Ivor met the Cerradis Sea. It churned beneath; its frothy waves the color of silver threatening to swallow her up.

The seas went on and on as far as she could see as if someone had stretched yards of silver cloth along the ground.

All at once, she felt the rage and shame leave her soul as though the waves had pulled them from her. She felt empty, and drawn and tired.

‘At last all returns to the sea…’ The phrase came from nowhere. A memory perhaps, of something her tutor had said once? Whatever the source, the words made sense now.

It felt as if all her rage was pulled into the sea along with the waves.

In this state she couldn't hate Lysander and Kara anymore, and was only glad that they weren't here right now to see her like this.

Dejected, lonely and sad...

I'm not really so bad, am I? She wondered.

Lysander certainly thought so. It said as much and more in the simple act of him setting her aside--curt, ambitious, cunning, sly Diana Gwrent--for her loving, sweet and demure cousin Kara.

"Who wants sweet anyway?" She demanded of the world. "Too much sugar will make one sick anyways...he might as well just use Kara to bake a pie, for all the good she'd do him as a wife!"

The words seemed to spew from her like bile--she couldn't stop her lips from forming them even if she tried. "I'll serve them right in the end anyways," she promised vehemently. "They won't know what’s coming to them. Cast me aside will he? I'll show him! I'll show them both!" She brandished a fist against the icy air. "And if I'm wrong in feeling this way, then may the god's strike me down!-"

Whoosh!

There seemed to be a disturbance in the air as if something cut through it like the slice of a knife. Then a far away thud accompanied by the most head-splitting pain Diana had even felt in her life knocked her from her feet. She tried to brace herself against the balcony's ledge but even that seemed too weak against the dizziness that had her stumbling.

It felt as though someone used all the jeweled daggers in Ivor tower to split her apart.

All at once her vision shattered and the last thing she saw was the brilliance of the sea rushing closer as her body raced toward it.

A/n: This is for the Original Ficathon Challenge (I'll eventually get around to posting a link on my page)

My Challenge was:

Challenge 12
Genre: Anything
Rating: K-M
Like: An Interesting Protagonist, Fantasy If Done In An Interesting Way, A Dystopian Environment.
Hate: Mary Sue Type Characters, Excessive/Unconvincing Angst
Words/Quotes: At last all returns to the sea (Rachel Carson) "I thought I knew you better than that", "When I need your help I'll ask for it."

I'm trying my best, and this is a work in progress.

Any form of comment via review is highly appreciated. :D

~nicola