The Jewel of the Five Kingdoms

Anastasia Lucendent Adela

The castle was quiet the weeks that followed.

  August stayed out. He tended to the horses as much as his healing wrist would allow, and spent the days out in the field.

  Charles is often locked inside his bed chambers. Occasionally he can be found drifting from the royal library to the dining room and then back to his room to get lost in his books.

  Even the twins have stopped setting of pranks, the two barely smiling at all.

  Mother and Father had delayed the contest for my hand in marriage. I would have been excited if it weren't of the circumstances.

  The prince's tried to comfort me but I pushed them all away in a tornado of disgust and raw emotions of pain. The Clans can call me awful. They can spread rumors of my unwillingness to open myself to comfort. They couldn't possibly understand how I feel. They can't possibly know this pain, and the fact that they want to use it as an opportunity to become closer to me makes me sick.

Yet, somehow I knew Arthur understood the pain of which I am feeling. At first I wondered if he felt pity for me since he was with me when I first discovered the news. I realize now it isn't pity he feels for me, but a great sadness. The same kind of sadness he always holds in those mysterious blue-green eyes. If anyone can comfort me accordingly, it is Arthur, but to my dismay his father keeps him away from me as if my emotions would sink into his son's skin and poison him.

  He dared to use the excuse of training his son for when the contest resumed, and this made me even more bitter knowing that the only one who slightly understands what I am feeling is being taken away from me.

  My family wore black for the next two weeks and the weeks that followed. I have never understood why it was custom to wear black during mourning periods. Now I understand that loosing someone you love truly seeps all color from you life, so why would you want to wear it in your clothing?

Even after my brothers slowly transitioned into lighter colors in a desperate attempt to start feeling like their old sleeves, I found myself only drifting to the midnight fabrics. The black didn't suit me. It made my olive skin paler, and purple crescents more prominent under my hazel eyes, but I didn't care.

At the funeral it rained.

  The whole kingdom came to the funeral and mourned for their dead prince.

  I stood, shivering in the rain apart from my family. Since the night of James's death the rain has not let up, and consistent thunderstorms plagued the Kingdom.

My black dress and cloak were soaked, and my curls fell in wet strands around my face. I wrapped my arms around myself and cried silently, a mix of a weeping cry of sadness and of anger that he is gone and I can do nothing about it. I should have gone to my family for comfort. I know they are feeling the same as I, but for some reason I wanted to distance myself from them.

I have never been the distant type. Charles was always the quietest in the family, but even then we were all close. Yet for some reason I wanted to stand alone and sink in my own river of sorrows. I didn't want to pull near to my family in fear they would offer a hand to pull me out of the quicksand. I want to sink.

  The funeral was in the valley we had always ridden in when we could both sneak away. I was glad this is where Mother had chosen to hold the service. James would have liked that.

  The white edelweiss flowers wilted in the heavy rain and wind that flew around them, causing them to look as if they were bowing their heads in sadness just like the rest of the kingdom.