•ON HOLD•
Chelona Castellanos is not a queen.
She is not someone who can handle a kingdom, have a lordly, kingly, husband, wear ball gowns and pass judgement. She is a free spirit who never really was free.
But when she finds her family murdered, he...
She was getting married to her late sister's fiancé, mostly against her will. She hated it. Hated him. She blew out the candle at her bedside and lied in the silken sheets. None of them managed to warm her. Thick velvet curtains were drawn over the windows, letting no heat escape. Despite that, she was cold, cold as she could get.
She wanted to scream, out loud so every person doubting her, as a queen, as a ruler would hear. Why was a man any better, any different? Was just the presence of her breasts enough to disqualify her from her birthright, her people, her kingdom? Why was she seen only as a pair of breasts, why not as the eligible heir.
Her father had had to marry their mother because of the many advisers suggesting that the kingdom would now want to be pleased with an heir.
Her mind shifted to Uma Mavro's request to talk. She was someone who Chelona had idolised. She was fierce and she was a predator, one who wasn't to be crossed. She and her Silencers were said to be the deadliest women to set foot on Findaran lands. She knew that she'd be sure to understand what she was going through. . .
Her curtains rustled in the darkness and her hand went immediately to Astrea's dagger at her side. If she would go, she wouldn't go without a fight. If there had been anything she could never forget was Astrea's mutilated body. She'd fought, until her very last breath. She'd been a warrior, despite her perfect pink princess front. Despite what anybody thought.
For Chelona, Astrea had always been the one ray of hope in her dystopian life. Things had been terrible after their mother's death. Now, Chelona half imagined her life as a void of compete hopelessness. These thoughts, she couldn't get them out of her mind. She lay in the darkness contemplating them as sleep was nowhere nearer.
Finally when sheer exhaustion overcame her, her heavy eyelids settled over her eyes to turn everything pitch black. As she slept, her velvet curtains whooshed, letting cold wind in, welcoming winter.
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Chelona woke up to a cold biting wind. She'd left the windows open, very stupidly at that. She rubbed her knuckles against her sleep ridden eyes as she disentangled herself from the sheets. The curtains were not parted, meaning Laura hadn't been here yet and she was early. She yawned, and stood in front of the large ornate mirror. Her hair was a rats nest, and the sleeve of her nightgown had slipped down her shoulder, leaving little of her chest to ones imagination.
She remembered her nasty experience with the Prince of Noctin and went red. The fact that she was to marry him made it worse. Her mind couldn't wrap itself around the idea, well, she guessed, it didn't want to. Her thoughts flitted to those of Uma Mavro, of what she would say to her, and at the back of her mind a small voice asked what she might have to say.
The doors to her bedchamber opened and Laura walked in balancing a heap of laundry in her arms. She seemed startled to see Chelona up and about as she stumbled a bit and dropped the laundry in surprise and she bowed low. No light peeped through the small gaps of the curtains so she guessed it was well before sunrise.
