The Hathway Kingdom (Book 2)

Sixteen.

~Sixteen. ~

"Everything is ready for you, Your Majesty," a servant told Larissa and she looked up from the document that she had been reading and at the servant carefully.

"Are you certain?" she asked as she put the document down and stood from her chair. The servant looked up from where he had been staring at the floor and looked at her before they bowed their head again.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I was the one who was supervising the work that was being done," they said, and Larissa gave a relieved smile and sigh.

"Good. Good," Larissa said before she turned and picked up a small stack of sealed envelopes. The servant lifted their head long enough to watch her curiously as she turned back to him and held the envelopes out to them.

"Could you please have a messenger send these to each of the names written on the envelopes?" she asked the servant as he accepted the envelopes and bowed to Larissa.

"Of course, Your Majesty. Shall I send for Miss Barton to help you prepare?" he asked her, and Larissa nodded her head.

"Yes, please. Have her meet me in my bedroom. You may go," she said, and the servant bowed to her before he left the room.

Larissa turned to the window of her study for a moment before she sighed and turned away from it in a whirl of fabric. She then left her study and made her way towards her room, beginning to undo the fastenings of her current dress as she walked, startling a few maids as she passed them in the corridors. Once she had gotten them as loose as she could on her own, she then reached up and began working on getting the braided bun undone as well. By the time she reached her room, her hair was loose and hanging about her waist now and Elissa was inside, waiting for her.

"You have enough time to bathe and wash your hair, Your Majesty, before you need to be down by the clearing," Elissa said as she helped Larissa to continue to undress as she walked over towards her bathroom.

"Thank you, Elissa. I can't be late for this," Larissa said, and Elissa nodded her head before she took Larissa's clothing as Larissa climbed into the filled bathtub.

When she was finished in the bath, Larissa walked out of the bathroom and over to where Elissa had hung the dress, she had chosen for her. The dress that had been chosen for Larissa to wear wasn't like anything she had worn before. Not even her coronation dress compared to it. And though she already had the dress from her uncle's funeral that she could have worn again, Elissa had insisted on one for occasions such as the one that she was about to attend.

Made from the finest material that money could buy, it was black in colour and the skirt fell to the floor. With a princess silhouette, the top of the dress hugged her body where it needed to. Around her waist, it had a dark, royal blue, velvet belt sewn into the material and a V-shaped neckline before its sleeves and shoulders acted like a cape, covering each arm, and falling to just before the floor, with a split just underneath each of the underarm areas and going down to the ends of her sleeves, allowing her to use her arms and hands. On each of the shoulders and going up her collar, there sat a flower and feather design that went down each arm to just above where her elbow sat, all of which were done in a silver thread. She smiled as she admired her reflection in her mirror before she turned to Elissa.

"You really have an eye for this sort of thing, Elissa. Do you know that?" she said to her maid and Elissa smiled before bowing her head.

"Thank you, Your Majesty. Now, come over here so that I can braid your hair around your crown," she said, and Larissa did as she was told.