"Falling"

Prologue

She wished she still had tears to cry, but they have been long gone. Her father was still raging, even as they lowered the casket into the ground. People approached her, all telling her how sorry they were and how missed her sister will be, but all she could think was that none of these people knew the truth. As far as they knew, it was a sudden illness. Only a handful of people knew what really had happened.

Arabella Williams, or Bella as her mother used to call her, was now the only remaining daughter of King Logan Williams, ruler of the Ethil Kingdom, outliving her older sister, Kimberly. As much as Bella loved her sister, having grown closer after their mother's passing, she would be the first to admit that Kimberly was just as much to blame for her own death as was the sickness that took hold of her.

Bella took one last look at her sister's casket before turning and heading back to the Castle. She could hear her father up ahead, still blaming a neighboring King for Kimberly's death. Her sister had fallen madly in love with him, and their father did all he could to make a marriage agreement happen that would see Kimberly getting married to the King.

What neither her father nor Kimberly had been expecting was that the King would flat out refuse to marry someone he didn't love, or even really knew, just to secure some alliance that her father was offering as an incentive to bind together the two Kingdoms.

The refusal had been enough for Kimberly to fall into a deep depression, eating the bare minimum and spending most of her time in the Castle's gardens. Bella always knew where to find Kimberly, it didn't matter if it was cold or raining, her sister would always be in the garden.

It didn't take long for Kimberly to become sick and, by the time she allowed one of the Royal Healers to see her, it was too late. A few days later and Kimberly was dead, sending their father into a rage like Bella had never seen.

Even now, a few months later, her father still blames the King for Kimberly's death, no matter what anyone tells him. As far as her father is concerned, Kimberly died of a broken heart, not of the sickness that took hold of her and didn't let go until it was too late.

Bella remembers the last few months with a clarity that she shouldn't have, not with everything that happened, and she knows that something isn't right. Her father came to her, the day before, and told her that he was sending her to the King's Court as an envoy of goodwill, to show the King that there's no ill will between them, his demeanor even colder and more distant than usual.

However, this didn't sit well with Bella, who knows just how much her father hates that King for what happened. Then he told her that he wanted her to find information on the King and the Lords that are closest to him, and send it back to him.

When Bella asked him why, he told her it was to help him plan an alliance that suited both Kingdoms' needs the best, and that didn't included a marriage to secure the alliance. Bella has to admit, it wasn't so much what he had said, but how he had said it that made her question her father's real intentions.

Bella climbs into the carriage that will take her to a new Court and Kingdom, wondering if maybe she can change the path that her father has decided to stay on. A path that will, undoubtedly, only end in misery.