Emilie of the Royal Heart

Chapter 4: The Prince Needs Some Love (Not Like That)

"This is a disgrace to the Fellenite crown and we will not allow it!"

Emilie gasped and jumped back from the door, pressing her back to the wall beside it. The escort who came to get her brought her to the Prince's reception room and told her to wait for him there. She wasn't into breaking the rules, at least not in recent years, so she waited for him. And waited. And waited some more. And then she checked the clock on the wall and saw that there was only twenty minutes until the dinner and she wasn't even in the proper dress yet.

She feared crossing the escort's orders. She feared crossing the Prince's orders. But she felt the point of the evening was for her to show up and be his fiancee and she couldn't do that the way he wanted unless she wore the dress he so went out of his way to procure for her. Emilie thought he would want her to take the initiative.

So, she left the room and asked the escort to take her to the restroom and on the way there, she lucked out by their running into a flock of talkative courtiers. Emilie gratefully patted the handkerchief she had tucked in her sleeve and she called to her acquaintances. They swarmed her before the escort could keep up and Emilie slipped out of the crowd to sneak through the palace on her own.

Her plan was to go back to the fitting room to find Cedric and ask him where the dress was, but she passed a door along the way that was slightly ajar. She had peeked in long enough to see the Prince was inside before that other man's voice shot through the air. Now she hung to the wall nearby and listened in on their conversation.

"As if the Keepers of Tradition has any power over what I do," Prince Aurora replied wearily, "and, I'll illuminate you to the fact that you simply have no proof of what you're claiming."

"The Zuhian refugee is not of Fellen blood, nor is she of noble blood, and besides all that, the marriage is a sham! You have chosen her for no other reason than to silence the will of the royal advisers and of your brother, the Emperor himself!" the man growled. He moved further into the room, perhaps closer to the Prince to say, "the Keepers don't always require the ruler of Fellen to marry, but there is a reason we asked it of you. Your childish and selfish ruse with this poor Zuhian is simply undermining the point we are trying to make and complicating palace life in the process."

"You have no basis to claim that I have no reason to marry Emilie," the Prince shot back, this time with more finality, "the engagement is legitimate and it will be official when I bring her to dinner tonight and sit her by my side. There is nothing you can do about that. But I would say that even if you have the smallest doubt that I am lying about wanting to marry her, perhaps consider that you shouldn't have backed me into a corner the way you did!"

"Your majesty, you must stop reacting like a child. I know that you understand why you were asked to wed. I know you agree that it was a critical suggestion," the man insisted, now adopting a soothing tone, "you cannot throw away something as important as this. With your circumstance, it is necessary to choose a partner who will have the capability to rule Fellen in your stead or it is necessary to choose a partner who might have a deep enough fondness for you to learn to take on such a burden."

"My circumstance," Prince Aurora snarled, letting the words fall slowly off his tongue like drops of poison. Emilie imagined them burning through the floor below, "is a theory. At best. I advise that my advisors stop forcing my hand to address issues that aren't even certainly real while I am trying to run a country!"

A pause.

Then the man huffed, "this is improper. The Keepers will expose this act for what it is and you and the Zuhian woman will be punished under Tradition's law."