I'll live forever.
My father tells me every day. He shows me all the paintings, sculptures, letters and pressed rose petals and songs and poetry that blanket the earth underneath my windows like some miserable mold. He tells me I am unforgettable. I was made to be loved.
Sometimes I think he is jealous, because he does not see how much I suffer. My father is a king. I am just a girl with a cruel twisted blessing.
Love seems so simple. My sisters are both married. I attended their lavish weddings and watched them fall into the arms of princes, smiling and glimmering in their golden dresses under the sun. I placed laurels on their heads and danced into the night with a smile. Back then, I thought my turn would be next.
Agnes is 19, Aethalia is 21. We each have different mothers, probably Helots. My father was quite scandalous. However we are still very close, since we grew up with only nannies and each other's company. I have no brothers, much to my father's chagrin. So instead he married his daughters as well as he could.
Aggie is quiet and sensible. She wears white sashes and paints her lips pink like the Santorini. But she was forced to grow up too fast. She has always been delicate like doll. Father betrothed her when she was merely 15 and she was gone by 16. She has grown to love her husband, though I know she wept much the first months they were together. By the time of their wedding, I could see adoration in their eyes. I imagined someone looking at me in such a pure way. He built her a rose garden last year, and I saw them dancing one night through the pathways when I was visiting. She is happy.
Aethalia is cold. She used to be joyous and free. She taught me how to climb the knot wood tree in our courtyard and how to sneak rolls from the kitchen. But her husband ruled his land with an iron first and she learned to copy his image. He died of some illness several years ago. Until their son is of age, Aethalia will watch the kingdom. She takes it to an extreme. When I see her beat down a beggar or snap at a courtier, I look for the young girl I knew. I am naïve; her smile disappeared years ago. She is not the same as she once was. I can only hope she is happy.
As for me....
My father has tried very hard to marry me off as well. I am 18. He began to look after his right hand man told him I would be worth at least 100 cows, when I was 11 years old. What an awful man. Yet weeks and months of promising love proposals and nothing further wore down his efforts. He started off bold and boastful. He gave me the most stunning dresses lined with freshwater pearls, dyed in olive and set with lace, bone corsets paired with matching silk gloves. I took long journeys to neighbouring kingdoms and made sure I was the perfect pretty princess. My father let princes, oligarchs and aristocrats feast their eyes on me. Most clearly I remember visiting Athens in a cape made of thousands of peacock feathers and a green wrapped dress fastened by an opal belt. It only made me feel like a rare bird in a gilded cage.
Let me explain.
Not a single soul can love me. They can stake a claim like I'm a piece of land or pay their riches like I'm a prize cow. But never have I received a soft gaze, a loving touch, a true word. They call me a goddess among mortals. I'll be cast to Tartarus one day for their praise. They always gaze at me in their beastly way, sweeping their eyes over me just slowly enough to feel wrong. But they are also afraid of me. I am not a fearsome warrior, a brilliant scholar or a witch; I am just impossible. Impossible because nothing should be perfect, yet I am.
I cry myself to sleep and they tell me it makes my eyes shine beautifully. I pull my hair in distress and they tell me it looks artful. I dress as a peasant, much to my father's dismay, and they praise my modesty.
I cannot escape the fact that I have no match. My father will never send me away. I will not get married. I will stay solitary, surrounded by humanity while I waste in my own company, plagued by what most people desire.
I am blessed.
I am cursed.
It is despicable and unfair. I shred the letters in my hands and burn the flowers. They mean nothing. Men are too scared, too weak, to approach me face to face. It makes me want to scream. I loath the attention and crave the love.
I only loved a man once. I was foolish.
He was quiet and gentle. I first laid eyes on him in the library. His eyes were a soft velvet blue and I thought they saw through me. He was a soldier and not a nobleman. We spent hours in that library late at night, scrolls open on the big stone table. My dark hair down on my shoulders and my mind free as our eyes poured over the words we learned together.
For weeks I thought I was happy. I thought he truly cared about me. My heart lifted from the pits of despair it had fallen.
I had laughed with him, danced with him through the servant's quarters to avoid prying eyes. I was free. We were going to run away together. He convinced me he was a plain boy with good intentions. I loved him for it.
The first night I snuck away to him, he tainted my water and waited until I was half asleep before trying to force himself on me. He held a hand to my mouth so I couldn't scream and cut my dress with a knife in one fell pull. The blue in his eyes was black as the sky outside. I thought he has turned into a devil. Turns out he was one all along. But so am I. He was the first man I killed. After, I cast my heart deep into my soul and swore to never touch it again. It had turned black as his eyes had been in those last moments. But it burned in my chest like fire.
