Mara

4

“You should have told him.” Jameston sighed as I explained everything to him latter that night. “You still can,”

“How can I?” I threw my arms in the air. “His guards hear everything, and snitch to Palmyra.”

“What are we going to do then?”

I didn’t know. Neither of us did.

Jameston had had and unpleasant day as well as far as Palmyra was concerned. She’d caught Jameston walking down the corridors leading to the dungeons while he was lost and looking for the stables. She’d accused him of trying to free prisoners, and she’d threatened to put him on trial. Luckily Jameston’s advisor had convinced her that he was innocent, and she just warned him if he disrupted her castle’s business again he would never set foot in it again.

“How can we stay here and still be together.” His frustration grew as he paced the room, but he was just thinking out loud. “With you getting married in a month, and me too terrified of messing up and getting my self banished to set foot out of my room.”

The answer was simple. The consequences could cause more problems, so neither of us suggested it yet.

“You’ll have to pretend to be in love with him.” Jameston turned to face me. “If Palmyra thinks that she set you up with you true love she’ll put an end to it.”

“Something will go wrong!” I cried even though it was a better idea than what I feared our relationship might come to. We might have to run away. If we ran before Jordan was married and my father was dead we could both be arrested and possibly killed, depending on the anger of Palmyra, and the resistance of Jordan. “It is too simple.” I couldn’t look at him. It was just the second day I’d even known him! Why did it hurt so bad to think about not being with him. Why did I hate to think about being in love with Weston, especially when nothing at all was wrong about a relationship with Weston, and so many things were wrong with a relationship with Jameston?

He noticed I wasn’t looking at him. I heard him stop pacing, but I was afraid if I looked at him I’d cry, and I’d cried more in front of this man than I had in an entire year in the rest of my life.

“Why is it that we are doing this to one another?” He asked standing across the room from me.

“What do you mean?” I coughed holding back my weak tears as I risked looking at him.

“Talking only of problems, and not of how it will be once everything works out.”

“Because we don’t know if anything will work out.”

“But we do,” He smiled and took my hands. “You my dear are a wizard after all.”

“Not until my 21st birthday’” I pushed him away gently, but he reached for my hands again.