Emilie of the Royal Heart

Chapter 62: The Countess, the Tailor, and the Prince Come Together

 Emilie packed all her things. Her body was weak and frail as she strode through the halls from her room to Aurora's study. She had an entire trunk of items when Minnie, Ester, Agatha, and her compiled it all in one travel case. Clothes and combs and bottles of thisandthat and whatnot. She certainly had much less when she came to Fellen. Every step she dragged before she went to spend her last day with Aurora, she distracted herself by imagining what she would tell her mother about her time here. But everything always circled back around the whirlwind tale of romance where a Prince first demanded her hand and then won her heart.

To her disappointment, she was crying by the time she reached his door and she stopped to lean against it before daring to enter.

"Here's something about re-trial -it says that the verdict can be overturned if the Keepers receive new evidence that calls for a review of the case," a woman's voice chirped up inside. Familiar sound.

Emilie wiped her tears away, though the emotional rocks still cluttered her throat.

"No, that won't work. The Keepers would never return to this case even if we did supply some shocking new perspective. They've made up their minds already," Aurora replied swiftly. Emilie heard his shoes softly thudding across the floor as he paced.

"Isn't half of the problem that she's not a citizen?" a man asked from the other end of the room. Familiar too. "If she was, then she could protest exile to the Residential Court. Anyone that is deemed to contribute to the local culture on their residence is pretty much always allowed to stay. That's what my uncle's friend told me when he went through the process anyways."

"You're right, but you're also right. She's not a citizen," Aurora said, "and it would be easy to make her a citizen. It's just that... she would need to get married to a citizen and I'm the one person in Fellen she can't marry. Again, because of the Keepers."

"Ah! But what if you overrule the Keepers? As the sovereign, you can do so, can you not?" Another woman's voice. Familiar as well.

By now, Emilie was perched against the door, listening in. She wasn't sure yet she wanted to interrupt whatever was happening in there, but she was rather interested in it.

"I've been trying to overrule them for years. I simply don't have the support within the palace to ensure my word's carried out," Aurora elaborated, "Sir Tiago has even threatened to have her removed by force. If I tried to force their hand, it may end up with half of my knights against the other half."

"Sir Zuli would be on your side," the first woman -who Emilie now realized was the Countess Analeigh- declared, "and she would certainly be on Emilie's too. She was the one who helped me contact Mrs. Edmunska. If Emilie is in danger, then Zuli is your loyal knight, your highness."

"Thank you, Countess. I'll keep that in mind."

"Emilie could hide until all the Keepers are asleep and then... suggest... that they lift her banishment," came the second woman's voice -who Emilie now realized was the Lady Rebecca. She added in a mutter, "it worked on my mother-in-law..."

"We'll have to ask her about her hypnotism skills. Only she could say if that would work, but I would rather put my faith in a plan I know the Keepers couldn't use against her if it fails," Aurora told her.

"With all due respect, I'm not sure why you asked me here, your highness. I'm a Tailor, not a man of the law..."

Emilie threw the door open. Four sets of eyes shot toward her like a barrage of arrows. Though these arrows all carried pity and support, which felt odd for Emilie walking into a room of people talking about her these days.

Aurora stood in the center of the study, clinging tightly to his black notebook. Though there were papers and books strewn about the floor as though this was a new idea for the carpeting in the study, where Aurora stood there was a four foot path like a track where he had been pacing.

Analeigh sat on the floor by the fireplace in a puff of her own dress, her body like a topping to a decadent vanilla cupcake. Her arms cradled a rather large tome with a page pinched between her delicate gloved fingers.

In the armchair (that Emilie was coming to think of as her chair), Rebecca stretched out much like a lazy cat, fanning herself with an extravagant fan. There were two papers resting on her lap, though it looked like she had not considered them.

Nearest to the door was Cedric, who laid among the papers and books on the floor in exasperation. One of the Fellen Codes was open over his face and he tucked his thumb in the center of the book as he gently lifted it off his eyes.

"Oh hello there, Emilie," he said first.

"H-hello..." she started, eyes swimming about the room. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked at Aurora, "what... is this?"

Before he could answer, Analeigh spoke up, "we couldn't let you be exiled!"

"I called them here..." Aurora stepped over the river of documents to her, "to help me look for any laws, any loopholes."

"Because he thinks we are the most motivated to find a way to keep you here," Cedric elaborated from the floor. Emilie leaned out to peer at him behind Aurora's legs. He gave a sad chuckle, still holding the book over his head and added, "even if we are stupid Tailors and not lawmakers."

"You're not stupid, Cedric!" Emilie insisted.

"He was right," Analeigh supplied again, though rather sheepishly from beyond Aurora's outline, "I know that I could not see you go so easily. However much I... wish you could be staying for me."

"Yes, that's right! We have found a solution, but for some reason our dear Prince Aurora doesn't want to let you marry either of us to keep you in the country," Cedric snickered.

"I am simply here to return a favor," Rebecca announced politely, "I have my own family waiting for me, after all."

"The plan is to find some code that says either you must stay in Fellen for some outstanding reason or that the exile is inappropriate," Aurora told Emilie.

"And you..." she began quietly. Her eyes flitted out to the others, shyly from behind Aurora's silhouette before she gazed at him with watery eyes, "you're sure this is the best use of the time left?"

"If we find the right code, we won't have time left -we'll have time," he whispered, bringing his hand up to her cheek.

"Alright," she nodded, "then we'll look for the code."

"Right," he cleared his throat, looking back at the study and gesturing to the piles on the ground, "we've already gone through most of the Codes Concerning Citizenship. There's not much hope there, but if you remember something from your studies and want to check again, they are stacked over-"

"There's something I have to say to you first," Emilie blurted.

Aurora looked back. He blinked at her. He seemed a little abashed by the intensity of her stare. "Y-yes?"

"Privately," she clarified, reaching out and taking hold of his hand with both of hers. She took steps backward into the hallway, drawing him out with her. "It will only take a moment of our time. Then we can come back to this."

"Sure," he breathed. He reached out behind him with the hand holding his notebook and pulled the door to the study closed.