The Princess's Guard ✔️

14

Word Count: 2020

~Kiva

Frost crunches beneath my shoes as I wander around the gardens with father by my side.

At this time of year, it's a pitiful sight. Everything is frozen over, any sign of life have crawled away to die in the cold.

Yet father is starting to grow wary of his own staff, wanting to speak to me outside, where none of them linger.

"So you were incorrect then, about the intrusion?"

"That, or they figured out you weren't in the manor, and decided against it." Father keeps his hands neatly tucked behind his back as we walk, smile ridged.

I'm glad he got it wrong, that my mate and his companions didn't break in after all.

"Good...good."

I stare at my feet, trying to summon the courage to ask the question that has been at the tip of my tongue for a while.

"Hey, father?"

"Yes?"

"What would happen if I found my mate?" I ask softly. I've always wondered, since I was a child, and yet I've been too frightened of his answer.

Now, evidently, I can't put it off any longer.

He takes a long time to think, letting me stew in his calculated silence.

"Well, that depends on who your mate is."

My mouth dries. "Why?"

"Were he a good man in elevated rank, then I would be delighted for you, Kiva, as you would be able to marry him," he explains, as if it's obvious.

My heart stumbles a beat. My mate is not of elevated rank, I know that much. Father would never approve, and I'm foolish for thinking he would so much as consider another candidate.

"But were he any other man, I couldn't?"

"There is more at stake than a mate bond. I want you to be happy, darling, but the purity of the crown must be upheld," he insists, keeping that cold, plastic smile he uses on me in substitute of any actual love plastered across his face.

"I know, but-"

He holds his hand up, silencing me.

"You are to rule one day, perhaps soon. It is time to realise your own importance, Kiva, and to learn that you shall make far greater sacrifices as you get older," he tells me in that no nonsense tone of his that was most prevelant in my childhood.

"You're right," I mumble, although my stomach aches lowly.

"I know I'm right. And your mother would have said the same thing." He smiles down at me.

He genuinely believes he is doing me a favour. By telling me this now, he thinks he is saving me from pain in the future.

He may be right. But what if I want to find out about life beyond this myself?

I look down at my hands. "Maybe..."

My mate is out there, whether father cares or not. And despite his warning, I know I can't give up on him.

***

Tonight, I can't sleep.

My fingers dig under my sheet. I'm tempted to dip them between my legs, to find a blissful, momentary high away from all my thoughts.

I wouldn't even think about Ark. Even if I'm tempted to.

But as I start, I can't push away my thoughts of doubt. What is Ark is right about me? I can hardly contain myself. My life is so mundane, so redundant that I have to resort to touching myself to feel anything.