Queensmen

Chapter 52

~I wonder~

"Don't go. Don't go. Don't go."

"Big sister, don't go."

Oris looked up from the two little girls tugging at her skirts to look at her mother and father. She watched them pull each other close and stare at her with solemn expressions.

They did not cry despite the pain visible behind their frowns.

Maybe they knew that one day this day would come. Maybe they didn't. She wished she could hate them for giving her up so easily, for not fighting, for not telling her earlier that she was royalty, but she knew better.

How could they resist an order from the king? How could they fight against the armoured men that now stood at their doorstep? How could they refuse when asked to raise the baby the king and queen no longer wanted?

The truth was, she was glad that they treated her as their own. She had never felt abandoned or out of place despite knowing that she was not their child. They had given her all the love her real parents couldn't. . . No, they were her real parents.

And now they were about to lose her.

Oris shook her hear head at then then knelt down to wipe the tears spilling down her sisters' cheeks. She pulled them into a hug and stroked their hair like she always did when they cried. She wished she could tell them that she would come back soon, but she knew that children took lies to heart. She didn't want them to grow up bitter and hateful, so instead she told them that she would always love them and never forget them.

When she looked up again, her mother had her face pressed in her father's shoulder. It was obvious by her shaking shoulders that now she was crying. Her father's eyes had gotten red but still he kept his gaze fixed on her. It was as though he was afraid of looking away.

She wished she didn't love them so much, then this wouldn't be so painful. If they didn't love her, maybe right now would have been a happy moment. The beginning of the life she always dreamed of living.

But she didn't want that life. She didn't want to be a princess. She wanted to go out to the farm and pick fruits whenever she was hungry. She wanted to throw rotten apples at her brothers while running through the streets. She wanted to go the markets with her mother and haggle over the prices of vegetables. She wanted to sneak her needlework assignments to her father and make him do them for her in exchange for a dance.

The last thing she wanted was to spend the rest of her life trapped in a castle but Oris ignored all those thoughts and offered her family a wide smile before turning to walk out of the house. She burned their images in her mind and that helped keep her tears from falling.

Just as she was about to put a foot over the threshold and embrace her new life, a hand caught hers and she was pulled hard against a familiar chest.

When she raised her gaze, her eyes met the determined ones of her lover. With a trembling hand, she touched the bruise blooming under his eye, the bruise their father had given him early this morning when the two men had dueled.

She was the reason they had fought. She regretted it now.

"I won," Bren took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Father said that I can court you. He said that he could trust me to protect you and give my life for you. So why. . ."

Oris tried to pull away. "I cannot stay."

Bren wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. He kissed her neck once then held her face in his hand. "Then take me with you."