A Whisper of Night

11.3 || LORELEI 🌊

This chapter is dedicated to NDeMeer, a super awesome reader and an amazing person who answered the question correctly in the last triplet of chapters. Thanks so much for your encouragement for this story! Your support means so much to me.

    The doors flew open.

    In strode a stranger, a cloak of the purest white billowing around his shoulders. He wore a tunic of silver and blue, a belt of gold around his slim waist. His hair was swept backwards, his eyes a stunning cobalt. The ridge of his cheekbones, the line of his aquiline nose....

    Lorelei had heard all too much of Prince Verradaen's fabled beauty, and he did not disappoint.

    "Your Majesty," said the prince, kneeling before King Glion. The hall was stunned into silence as hundreds of eyes followed Verradaen across the hall.

    "Rise," said the king, his voice taut.

    "For the hand of your daughter," said Prince Verradaen, "I offer my humble self...along with two-thirds the strength of the Kingdom of Svanvald."

    Lorelei was stunned. Someone had pulled her chair away from her...she was falling, dreaming...this couldn't be...behind her, the lords and ladies were beginning to whisper and gasp.

    "Thirty-thousand men, two-thousand cavalry, and a fleet of five-hundred ships," said Verradaen, a gentle smile on his lips.

    "Impossible!" hissed a lord - perhaps it was Lord Jarold, she could not tell.

    Lorelei stood, dizzy.

    "Thank you for your gifts, my...my Prince," she managed. "Please enjoy yourself by the hospitality of my father and the rules of the Maidendance."

    Prince Verradaen strode to the side the hall. The musicians started playing. King Glion motioned for the lords and ladies to start dancing without him and Lorelei.

    Glion and Lorelei stayed in their seats, both too shocked to move.

    Finally, when Lorelei couldn't take the silence any longer, she stood. "Father," she said, "by your leave...."

    "Go," Glion said. She couldn't tell what he was thinking - his eyes seemed to be dark with everything from anger to despair to grief.

    She headed away from the dais.

    "My Princess," came a voice. "Would you honor me with this dance?"

    She turned, expecting Verradaen, but coming face to face with Lord Jarold instead.

    Her mouth opened and closed. His audacity! "I - " She wanted nothing more than to refuse him, but courtesy demanded her agreement. "Yes, my Lord."

    His lips curled into a smile as he took her hand and led her onto the dance floor. "I presume you will wed the Prince Verradaen, then?"

    "Unless a suitor with a larger army arrives." She glanced desperately at the doors, but she knew her hopes were futile - Svanvald was the most powerful kingdom of Wyaernos, and not even King Glion's power could rival Prince Verradaen's.

    "You have heard of the illness of their lands, haven't you?" Lord Jarold demanded. He was younger than King Glion, with wrinkles marring his forehead and a head of receding blond hair, but he was still handsome. I can see why my mother would him, but he is old...far too old for me. "They haven't found a cure for it yet. What's to say that the Prince's army isn't infected?"