To Capture A Heart (girlxgirl)

Part Seven

My father had told me not to worry myself too much with taking food to Avery, a few days later, as he was going to get the guards to take care of it. Although I felt partially relieved that I was going to be able to avoid having a glass bottle thrown at me again, I did have this weird feeling in my chest at the prospect of not seeing her. Either way, she would be fine. Besides, I had to have a meeting with my father. I just had a feeling that it wasn't going to be a meeting to look forward to. As I had turned twenty-two recently, I knew that my father had been struck by the idea of marrying me off. It was customary for most of the young adults in Wingacre to be married by the time they were twenty-five. In my opinion, this had always been far too early, but that was something that I was going to have to discuss later with my father. 

I looked at my pale skin in my bedroom mirror and sighed. I had silver shadows under my eyes. I supposed I could do with sleeping a little more. I didn't know so much about taking food to Avery, I think I probably needed to eat more, too. My maids would bring me food but I hadn't had much of an appetite recently. Maybe after Avery had thrown that bottle at me I had just been too emotionally messed up to even feel like participating in normal activities. I didn't even understand why it bothered me so much, I just knew that it did. I just knew that I had this weird ache in my chest and that I was going to need to fix it, soon. I couldn't allow the daughter of the enemy empire to have any control over how I felt. 

All I knew was that I needed to take my mind off current events and soon. I couldn't allow these thoughts to mess with the organisation of my castle responsibilities. I would start the day off by studying the history of Wingacre, and then soon move on to battle training, and then I had to speak with my father about our monetary guidelines and borders and all of that stuff, too. I tuned out for a lot of it. I had already seen my father carry out most of these jobs over the course of his time as emperor. That in itself had been enough for me to learn what I needed to about being a chief associate to the emperor. Being a chief associate was sort of like being an emperor, the responsibilities were just a little less intense. 

Eventually I decided to place my book down on my bedside table, so that I could begin to walk towards my father's office, where we would be having the meeting. As soon as he caught sight of me walking through the doorway, his eyes widened. 

"What?" I asked him. 

I just moved a hand through my fluffy hair. Damn it. I had forgotten to brush it. This really was becoming ridiculous, I needed to stop allowing Avery to occupy every space in my brain. 

"Just put your hair up, no one will notice," he told me. 

"Who exactly are you getting me to look so nice for, anyway?" I asked him. 

"Sebastian and Thomas," he said. 

I felt my eyes enlarge slightly at that. 

"Oh," I said, as I began to tie my silver hair up into a loose bun atop my head. I caught my reflection in the window. At least I now looked somewhat presentable. 

"Better," my father said, with a small smile. 

"I look tired, I know," I said. 

My father gave a slight shake of his head, then. 

"No, you look fine," he replied, as he ran a hand through his own hair, "Our conversation with them shouldn't take too long. I just think that it's important that we discuss matters." 

"When you say 'matters', what exactly do you mean by that? I mean, I thought this was a meeting about the impending fate of my future marriage. Wait," I said, as I came to a realisation, I suddenly felt much more lively. "You don't want me to marry Sebastian, do you?"