Duty, my child…It must always be duty before self.
The wise words of her grandmother filled Saieke’s heart. Her parents would not understand her resolve to never marry King Ajali. They would expect her to be above all else dutiful. And the cruel irony was that Saieke would resist all of his advancements because of the love and duty she felt to her people. She could not allow such known cruelty into their kingdom. There had been a time her grandmother had placed her own needs before the people of Boreas and hundreds had died.
Saieke would never make the same mistake.
It seemed she must think of another way to unchain herself from King Ajali. The only other option was to flee, and she did not want to contemplate taking such an action. No, she would find another way to save her people. She had twelve weeks before he would arrive on her castle steps, and she would continue to scour the great archives for a solution. She leaned into the balcony railing, at a loss at finding a way to make her parents see reason.
Saieke did not consider Boreas weak as her father, the Ricarkri—ruler and king of their realm did. She saw the strength, will, and beauty of Boreas. Their kingdom was located in the middle of the other kingdoms, a position her father believed made them vulnerable to attacks from all sides. Boreas had been the meeting ground for warring factions, and they had paid dearly with lost lives and broken spirits. With rumors of another war, her father wanted a bond forged in fire with the power to withstand enemy attacks.
An Allegiance.
Allegiances could only be formed through marriage or through might, and it was that fight for power—to subjugate and conquer kingdoms—that had led to the first Great War. No current allegiance existed within Amagarie. No king or queen would relinquish the right of rule from their bloodline and hand it to another. It was unthinkable. Yet her king had made a blood-oath to remove the right to rule from the El Shyokara bloodline, and wanted to hand it to a man known in the seven kingdoms as the tyrant. A man who had invaded their kingdom during the second Great War and had left death and despair in his wake. A man reputed to be remorseless and unforgiving.
With a soft growl, she flashed from the balcony through the massive corridors of the castle. She needed to feel the wind on her face, feel the power of her Kuns—powerful four legged beasts—beneath her as she rode across the rolling lawns of Windhaven.
She stopped, overlooking one of the cliffs at Windhaven. The castle was located in the inner most part of Boreas, embedded deep inside one of their most imposing mountains. The soft chirping of birds carried on the frigid air, and heavy waterfalls roared as they crashed off the mountains. She inhaled, letting the breeze and fine mist of the waterfall flow into her.
The leaves on the ground rustled. She spied her closest friend Raikae, a human. She was just one of many Otherworld beings who had accidentally crossed through the portal gate and had remained in Amagarie.
“You failed with the Grand Duke,” she said, not wasting time with niceties.
“I did.”
Raikae laughed, and Saieke could not help smiling.
“You are hopeless,” Rai said, joining Saieke at the mountain’s edge. “What will you do now? I think it is safe to say your attempts as a temptress must end. I have even heard whispers in the court of your pitiful attempt with Count Jarneck. It seems you were the only one unaware he held no desire for women.”
“If I cannot make mother and father see sense, I must leave Boreas.”
Raikae stiffened, her golden eyes darkening with fear. “You speak recklessly.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she snapped.
“To remain and refuse to honor my father’s promise would mean conflict between Boreas and Nuria. If I disappear no assumptions can be made as to my intention without direct proof.”
“And where would you go? Which kingdom would aid you?”
“I would travel to your realm.”
Rai gasped. “You would escape to Earth?”
“If I must.” Duty to our people above all else.
“You will be hunted.”
“Yet they will not find me.”
“I hear the doubts in your voice.”
“It is alive in my heart. Leaving my people is not something I wish to do. I promise, I will do all in my power before I even consider such an option. I have twelve weeks before King Ajali arrives. I hope I will find a way out by then.”
The blood-oath was binding, and the only way for Saieke to legally not honor it would be to find a consort. The law allowed for the breaking of a blood oath if she had a consort before the promise was entered into, not after, but she could find no man willing to risk the wrath and threat of death from Nuria to lie with her, and then pretend as if they had been lovers before King Ajali’s preposterous claim.
The air stirred, and on a burst of wind, Thyon, one of her protectors, the second ranked of her Queen’s Blades appeared.
“King Ajali heads to Boreas,” Thyon snapped, his handsome face appearing unduly harsh in the fog shrouded courtyard.