The Hathway Kingdom. (Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-One.

~Twenty-one. ~

"I beg your pardon?" Julian said as the servant delivering the information to both him and Larissa, who's fork had stopped half-way between her mouth and her plate. The servant shot a worried look towards Elissa as she stood behind Larissa, who gave him a nod of his head to say for him to continue.

"Are you sure?" Julian asked the servant, snapping his eyes back to him and the servant cleared his throat before responding to the King.

"I...I am, Your Majesty. One of the guards at the North Tower spotted the flags with the Imperial insignia on them, half a day's ride from the palace," the servant repeated as he looked between each face in the room.

"Half a day...That's barely enough time to get the palace prepared. Why is he coming so early? The celebrations don't start for at least five more days..." Julian asked as he looked towards his niece, who had lowered her fork back down to her plate before pushing it away, appetite now gone. Seeing the King's attention now elsewhere, the servant who had delivered the news ran from the room both out of fear and to tell the rest of the staff to get things ready for the arrival of the Emperor.

Julian watched his niece as she and Elissa, her maid, had a very hushed discussion. He raised a brow as he watched the conversation before, he spoke up.

"We may as well end breakfast now, Larissa. As we both need to be there to welcome him when he arrives," he said as he stood up and both Larissa and Elissa fell silent. She nodded her head as she stood up as well.

"Yes, Uncle," she said, and he waved his hand, indicating that she could leave. And leave she did.

Larissa hurried from the dining room as fast as her feet could take her. She hadn't been expecting Romulus to arrive before the wedding celebrations began and Lizbeth hadn't given her any indication that they would be coming early either in any of her letters. So...Why were they?

She shook her head as she threw open the doors to her room and walked over to her wardrobe to find a suitable dress to wear when she welcomed the Emperor to her home. Finding one, she removed it from its hanger and carried both it and it's shoes out into her room. Placing it on the bed, she turned to Elissa as she came out of the bathroom.

"Your bath is ready, Princess," she said, and Larissa nodded her head before she walked into the bathroom.

Once she was done in the bath, she walked out, wrapped in an ankle-length, white satin bathrobe. Elissa had made sure that everything was perfect and ready with her dress and she looked up at Larissa as she came back into the room. Larissa looked at the dress carefully as Elissa picked up the dress and held it out to her as Larissa removed her bathrobe, having thought to put on a clean pair of underwear and bra before she put the robe on and exited the bathroom.

The dress was made from satin with lace and tule draped over it. It was jade in colour with the skirt being floor-length and the sleeves long, to just below her wrists. The neckline was scooped, and it was embellished with appliques, lace, pearls, and sequins around the hem of the skirt and top. Around the waist was a silk sash and the back did up with a zipper from the collar to the waist. The shoes were a simple ballet-flat and made from a sturdier version of the material the dress was made from.

Larissa examined herself in the floor-length mirror and she smiled. The colour of the dress brought out the colour of her eyes very gently. Though she knew that with the eye make-up that Elissa had planned, her eyes were going to shine like no tomorrow. She moved over to her bureau and sat down so that Elissa could do her hair and make-up. By the time that she was done with everything, the trumpets were sounding, signalling the arrived of the Emperor.