The Seventh Prince

Chapter 14

Jack stared at himself in the mirror on the day of the wedding. He was dressed fancy, but not nearly as fancy as his brothers. He had accepted the fact that he would not get a province of this new Ostaria to govern over. He hadn't accepted the fact that Alice hadn't chosen him.

He felt betrayed. He felt hurt. He even felt a little bit of anger towards Luke as he was so obviously trying to convince Jack that he had Alice's heart and then stealing it from him. But mostly he felt worthless. 

All except for Jack were in small rooms downstairs preparing for the wedding. The princes hair nicely combed, the princesses hair in neat fancy hairdos. Jack went down to his eldest brothers room to congratulate him.

"I'm sorry, Jack," Edmund said after Jack had wished him good luck.

Jack rolled his eyes. "It's fine Edmund. It's not a big deal."

"I know what really happened, Jack," Edmund said.

Jack was getting frustrated. "I said it's fine Edmund," Jack said harshly.

Jack then left the room. Hoping to avoid any similar conversations, Jack moved past several other rooms and entered into Luke's room.

Luke was surprised to see Jack. "What are you doing here?"

"If you want me to leave I can," Jack said.

"No," Luke said quickly. "Stay. But you came for a reason didn't you?"

"Yes," Jack said, sitting down. "What did you do? What did you tell Alice behind my back?"

Luke sighed. He got up and locked the door. "Here's the story. I didn't want Alice to marry me. I didn't want any of them to marry me."

Jack snorted, "Well, you made that pretty obvious."

"I tried my best. I had to make it obvious enough that the princesses wouldn't want to come near me but Dad wouldn't notice. I figured Alice didn't like me at all, but for some reason she chose me."

"Yeah, well, she did," Jack said.

"Sorry, Jack. I tried," Luke said.

Jack got up to leave but then stopped himself and Luke knew that Jack had realized what piece of the puzzle he was missing. "Wait, why didn't you want any of the princesses to marry you? It wasn't for me, right?"

"No, not at all. It's just..I've got a girlfriend." Before Jack could say anything Luke began to speak faster. "She lives in the village and not Mom or Dad or any of our brother know about her expect now you and someone's going to want to come in here and fix my hair so you better get out and you better not tell anybody about her or I will slice your head off."

Jack laughed. "Okay, okay." His humorous expression faded. "So you won't get to see her ever."

Luke thought for a moment. "Probably not, but maybe. Maybe I will see her again."