Young Writers Society

Well, she's back, for better or worse. I couldn't edit until I had feedback on the whole story anyhow. And stop asking questions that'll be answered later in the story! xD Well, you can, but they shan't be answered. Enjoy, if you possibly can.

My consciousness was dark; a swirling mass of faded colors and half-forgotten memories. Someone’s face swam slowly forward, focusing bit by bit… a man, dark-eyed, dark-skinned, and dark-haired. Voices spoke, but they lingered just beyond my power to hear, and so I contented myself with memorizing the regal points and sharp curves of his face, the exact color of those doe-like eyes.

“Quite so, Madame Tadstreet. The heat must have gotten to her – I’m simply sorry I could not have foreseen such an occurrence,” purred a man’s voice, apologetic and yet perfectly pleased with itself. My eyes opened of their own accord, and I sighed quietly as the blurs around me solidified into meaningful objects. What had happened? Why was I laid out upon one of the sitting room sofas, and where were those voices coming from?

“And so early into spring! Mariadelle is normally so hardy, I can’t imagine what could make her act so strangely!” Mother, I realized, must be speaking to Duke Warrington in the front hall. Act… strangely? What did— I remembered, thoughts disappearing, changing and sifting in the memory of my walk in the garden. I had kissed the duke… what had possessed me to do such an imbecilic thing?

“Wait… I think she might be coming ‘round. May I speak with her alone?”

“Of course, of course. You – naturally, Your Excellency,” spluttered Mother, and I heard the shh-shh of her slippers across hard floor, fading away into the distance.

I closed my eyes as the door behind me squeaked slightly on its hinges. There was silence again, silence so loud it buzzed in my ears and made it quite hard to feign sleep.

“You are not the best of actresses, petite un, and for that I am grateful. How are you faring, stranded on this dreadful little couch?” chuckled Duke Warrington, and I started as his cool fingers brushed my cheek.

“As well as any woman can, milord. And what of you – how long have I been gone from this, the waking world?”

I opened my eyes to find the duke standing but a foot from me, that satisfied smirk resting easily upon his lips. “A few minutes, no more. Here, milady, let me help you,” he said, and, taking both my hands in his own, pulled me up beside him. “Your mother was most upset when I brought you inside, hanging limp in my arms.”

My deep breath turned to more of a scandalized cough, as I imagined being held in his arms at all – it did not help to remember I’d been unconscious at the time. “Your Excellency, I wonder if—”

“You want me to take the ring off for you, aye?”

“Y-yes,” I said, pacing over to the bookcase. I was not so much interested in reading a book as in putting some respectable distance between us.

“I’m sorry, milady, but I cannot assist you there,” he said, and I glanced over my shoulder to find him gazing thoughtfully out the window.

“Cannot?” I said quietly, studying the ring on my finger. “Or will not?”

I didn’t hear a sound, but after a moments’ silence, I felt a hand on my back. From under my lashes, I chanced a glance of his face, and the smile thereon was answer enough. Just as he had in the garden, he took my hand in both of his, one thumb stroking the round ruby-diamond.

“I can make it do different things, you know. Four options in all, if memory serves,” he murmured, looking up from the ring to smile at me. “I could release it from doing anything but coming off. I could have it track you, so I would always know exactly where you go, or remind you not to do certain things. And I could have it punish you for disobeying my orders.”

I mouthed the word punish, and frowned confusedly up at him. “What do you mean, milord?”

“But isn’t that my greatest weapon? Fear of the unknown. Perhaps that will keep things in order while I’m away.” He twisted his finger around a stray strand of my hair, admiring the different shades of brown. “And now, to make myself very clear.”

I would have tried yet again to move some ways from his unfathomable brown eyes, but he had my hand in his and a long wisp of my hair twined around his finger. Trapped so easily, I thought with a frown.

“You will not try escape attempts of any sort,” he said, and the ring flashed once, as though the bloodred ruby were on fire. “You will not do anything to harm or remove this ring, or your hand. You will not even contemplate ending your life.” The ring flashed once, twice, thrice, and then seemed to tighten the slightest bit before the flame within the jewel faded, and it looked, again, just as any ordinary gold-and-silver band should.

“Farewell, mince un, until such a time when our paths may cross again. Soon, let us hope.” He kissed my hand, letting the ‘cocoa’ strand of hair slip off his finger, and swept hurriedly from the room.

Simple days passed, ones in which I did little and thought less – and the latter mostly because the only things that could have occupied my mind after the meeting with Duke Warrington were strictly forbidden. Every time I attempted to think of an escape plan, the ring on my finger would suddenly flare to a blistering heat, so that, in an effort to stop the pain, I switched to safer pastimes.

It was not until one cold night long after sister and parents had gone to their beds that I began to truly worry about the future. I lay in the dark and silence, drifting along the fine line between the sleeping and waking worlds, and I thought. But the thought was too much of a dream to truly be a thought, and too much of a thought to truly be a dream, and so the ring did not punish me for it.

I could see the escape in my mind, clear as a bright summer’s day and quite easy – in fact, almost absurdly so.

Father always left the back garden gate unlocked, although if I had ever asked why, I did not remember his answer. That same back gate led into the small strip of forest between Therien, Ape’rafer’s capital, and the neighboring town, Earlkone. If I slipped off one night shortly after the rest of the household went to bed, I would make it to Earlkone, with luck, by dawn. After that… work, good honest work would be my objective, and much better it would be, when compared to being Duke Warrington’s wife.

As I thought of the duke, I was led off to wonder why I was so very against marrying him. Perchance it was merely because he could never replace the childlike, naïve love I had saved for my prince – no matter, I thought stubbornly, I shan’t ever love him. I did not feel, then, that I would ever change my mind, not about that.

The night passed slowly, and I half-slept, watching through glazed eyes as the shroud of night was pulled from my bedroom. The thin mist that had settled over my east-facing windows during the cold night slipped away as the sun, his face as fierce and bright as ever, rose up over the Hahnor Mountains.

“Milady,” came the sudden but muffled voice of Liza, “Milady, please let me in. There’s a visitor for you and he says he won’t wait long – oh, milady, quickly!”

I was not much used to being ordered about by anyone, much less my own maid, but the frantic urgency in her voice caught my attention, and I grudgingly left the simple comforts of a warm bed to allow Liza’s entry. I pulled the door open, and she shot inside so quickly I nearly mistook her for a green-and-blue bird. “Milady, do shut the door, and get into your things! Oh, how disgraceful!” she moaned, pulling the first gown she could find from the bureau as I gazed confusedly at her.

“Liza, what in Ciergden’s name are you going on about?” I mumbled, but she was already pulling off my nightdress and forcing me into a corset and shift.

“Royalty!” she said darkly, as I slipped my arms through the long sleeves of an evergreen gown. “Royalty, in the manor, in the front hall, no less! And me, opening the door and calling for Madame Tadstreet as if the whole house were burning down!”

I knew that in the state she was in, I would get little sense out of the poor girl. Taking a long, steadying breath, I sat down upon the unmade bed. “Liza, do calm yourself. I can’t understand a word you’re saying, you know.”

Her voice died to an unintelligible mutter, and I realized that I would have to discover from someone else why I must rush downstairs in the earliest hours of the morning to greet an unknown man – royalty?

When she had finished braiding my hair, she twisted it into a bun on the top of my head and steadied it with a rather lot of hairpins. I could feel her hands shaking, but dared not comment for fear she would begin to bewail what seemed to be her misfortune; or was it mine?

“Thank you, Liza. Stay in my chambers until I fetch you, or send one of the other servants to do so for me. I do not need unsteady hands spilling tea or dropping dishes,” I said, but smiled comfortingly, as though to smooth the sharpness of my words. The moment I reached the stairs, a strange calm settled over me, and if I had been worried or afraid of what I would find at the base of the stairs, I was no more.

I could almost feel the cool tile beneath my slipper-shod feet, as I stepped down from the last scarlet stair. The front hall was empty and quiet, and I began to wonder if perhaps Liza had mistaken – was this mysterious ‘royalty’ the product of a scatterbrained girl and the appearance of a new milkman at the door? I smiled slightly at the thought, straining my ears for any nearby sounds.

The dining hall, I soon found, was empty, as was the sitting room and, somewhat halfheartedly searched, the gardens. I heard no voices and saw no strangers wandering the manor – but then, I did not look very hard in the first place.

I had just turned to thoughts of a somewhat lamentable fashion – why had Liza woken me for this? – when I heard a voice behind me, soft and amused.

“You don’t always greet your guests like this, do you, Mademoiselle Mariadelle?”

I glanced over my shoulder, and had to regain my composure before I lost it. An older, more lined Duke Warrington stood behind me, leaning against one of Mother’s favorite elms and with a rather unfamiliar smirk pulling at his lips. With one elementary guess, I knew who stood before me.

“Your – Your Majesty, I am so sorry, my maid—”

“You were forgiven before you erred, my dear. I am afraid most of my wife’s ladies-in-waiting have such a tendency to quite lose their minds in pressing situations.” He chuckled, but it was a kinder sound than the way Duke Warrington laughed, a chuckle that had seen the world and found it all vaguely amusing, in a sad sort of way.

“Is there anything – anything I can do? You must be tired, after such a journey,” I said, breathless, just barely managing to keep my hands from fluttering uselessly ‘round me like Mother’s did when she was flustered.

“No, Mademoiselle, I only stopped in for the slightest moment. You see, my brother, His Excellency Duke Warrington, has always been something of a bother to me. He has little to do, and most so just now, as he waits for the opportune time to marry you. Instead, he harries me for a war to fight or an uprising to crush, a tax to raise or lower, and often as not, I find it hard to quiet him. The day he arrived home from his journey to Ape’erafer, he told me of your enchanted ring, and how now you could not escape him any more than you could stop the sun from setting at night.” He paused a moment, smiling at me in sympathetic way. I looked away, and felt suddenly as though I might cry at the miserable thought of such powerlessness.

“And so, I have decided to give you both a challenge.” The man set a finger on the ruby of my ring, murmuring something under his breath. “You may now contemplate and attempt escape from the manor, although his order concerning death is still upon you.”

I stared at him in disbelief, in utter surprise, but he merely smiled his sympathetic smile, saying, “The ring itself, my dear, is cheating. It has been a tradition in Jharrim for centuries, this ring-giving. The prince, or one of his very close male relatives, would take this ring – this very ring – and give it as a gift to the woman he wished to marry. After she put it on, only he or one he was very closely linked to could control it, could control his future bride, and the ruby-ring she wore. A dirty trick, I assure you, but it has worked for us, and I apologize for allowing him the use of it at all.”

I opened my mouth to reply, to retort, to demand why he had to choose me, and not some other, less lovesick nobleman’s daughter, but no sound came out, no words could truly take form in my mind.

“Do enjoy yourselves, won’t you?” he said, and winked once.

And then King Orendell of Jharrim strolled away, through the open door just to his left, and into the house. After a moments’ pause, I fancied I heard the sounds of horse’s hooves, clattering away down the road.

I smiled faintly; I was free.

Constructive compliments -- er, er, criticism, please. All these words of praise are going woefully to my head...