Wildflowers Bloom in Winter

Chapter 2

To call Prince Albert my enemy was certainly overdramatic on my part, but my fears were not unfounded. I had not always held him in contempt; in fact, there was a time where I loved him and followed him around wherever he went. After spending most of my youth being neglected by my parents, he became my only friend from the day we first met. We were both ten years old at the time, and I came to cherish him like a brother that I never had the chance to know– a few days after my birth, my elder brother died at the ripe age of six due to pneumonia and a part of me believed that my parents resented me for snubbing out their son's life with my own.

Albert was kind and attentive, the sort of attitude I craved deeply after being stuck in the stifling air of my family estate for most of my life. He was a breath of fresh air, free of uppity noble attitude and tea-time scheming. Part of me worried for him and how he would possibly run an entire kingdom as an adult, but that voice was briskly shut down by my selfish gratefulness for his childish innocence. Our playdates lasted several hours thanks to my reluctance to return home and his overflowing hospitality, and I grew more and more attached to him with each meeting. Looking back, I realized the word I would use to describe my younger self in relation to the way I stuck to the poor prince was "overbearing".

Time flew by quickly, and four years had passed before I knew it– my fourteenth birthday was approaching and preparations for a grand birthday banquet were underway. This was a special milestone, since I would make my social debut, and most importantly, finally be allowed to leave my residence to go somewhere that wasn't the royal palace.

I had already set my eyes on a destination– Primdyr, a town that was a part of my family's duchy and was especially popular among nobles and commoners alike thanks to its location that was close to the capital and its markets that were bustling with merchants from all over Silvatia, my home, and even neighboring kingdoms whose merchants enjoyed a well-maintained trade route that led them right into the heart of the Gregori duchy. By a stroke of luck, Primdyr was hosting a large festival in order to celebrate the height of that year's harvest season only a week after my birthday which I knew I had to attend at any cost.

The banquet went off without a hitch. My soft black hair was made up in the most beautiful braided updo adorned with a magnificent array of pins and gems, and my gown was nothing less than a work of art with its intricate embroidery and delicate lace which fit my body perfectly. I acquainted myself with other beautiful ladies, some my age and others older, and this was the first time I was faced with boys my age other than my fiancé; I managed to avoid them by sticking close to a group of girls that looked upon men with a particular meanness that seemed to drive them away. These young noble ladies were so different than what I had cooked up in my own mind, I ended up apologizing to each and every one of them in my head as I greeted them for my premature judgment. I was so busy admiring my newfound friends, in fact, that I didn't even realize that my fiancé was absent throughout the duration of the entire event. It was that night that I eventually learned that our engagement had not been made public since Albert had not had his social debut yet; I was born in the summer while he was born in winter, which meant that I still had to wait for a few more months before we could officially be engaged. It was certainly not customary for a man to marry a woman who was older than him, even by a few months, but my status as the only heir of the king's right-hand man made me a suitable bridal prospect for the crown prince.

Getting formal approval from my father to visit Primdyr for the festival was a simple feat, and understandably so considering both his and my mother's general apathy toward me which was almost a given for any noble family. Women almost never received love from their parents, and any and all love was reserved for the men only. While love was simply given to men, women could only beg for it just as their mothers and their mother's mothers had for all their lives.