Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 14922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 75(@200wpm)___ 60(@250wpm)___ 50(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 14922 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 75(@200wpm)___ 60(@250wpm)___ 50(@300wpm)
“What’s up?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem salty.”
“Of course not, brother.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you. You’ll tell me eventually, so you might as well tell me now.”
“If I do tell you, it’ll just make the rest of our lives more difficult than it needs to be. I’ll get over it.”
I look at him skeptically but head upstairs to my room to change into a suit. I’m back downstairs a few minutes later.
When I walk into the West Parlor, my parents turn to look at me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I say, bowing to my parents first, then the king and queen of Springlandia.
“No worries, son. No worries,” my dad says in complete opposition to his thinly veiled, threatening phone call.
Before anyone else can speak, the door opens again. My brothers and sister file in, followed by Lavender. She looks even less happy to be here than I do.
After a few minutes of torturous small talk, the dinner bell rings, and we make our way into the semi-formal dining room. This table seats twenty, compared to the main dining room, which seats a hundred guests.
There is no direct conversation between Lavender and me, and if the looks that pass between Rudy and her are any indication, I know exactly why.
It’s late when they finally leave. I’m stopped by my father as I head upstairs.
“You will marry her,” he says ominously.
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I marry her,” I vow.
I don’t know why, but I’m surprised when hell freezes over the next day.
CHAPTER
THREE
ELISE
TWO DAYS LATER
“Stupid. I am so stupid.” I have been saying this to myself in between crying and self-pity. I mean, I barely know him, and it's not like we are dating or anything, so why should it bother me that he hasn’t been here in two days? He doesn’t owe me anything. He has done more than his share of nice things for me. So then, why the hell am I crying, and my heart feels like it is breaking? Why do I care?
The tea kettle begins yelling at me reminding me I was in the middle of doing something before I once again began thinking about him. When I reach for the kettle, I notice my hands are thawed out. “Damn it,” I curse before pouring my tea. What I need to be worried about is why, when I think of him, my body turns into an inferno. I mean, none of this happened to me before I met him and as much as I tell myself it is unrelated and would have happened anyway eventually, I can’t help wondering if it is really connected to him somehow.
Tea in hand, I sit on the couch and pull out my laptop. I give a silent thanks so that no one can see what I am typing in because normal people would think I am crazy. As it is, no one in my kingdom knows about the special powers I have, such as putting out fires with a swing of mind or shooting ice from my fingers. It’s not something I share with anyone. The only people who know are my family.
Initially, it was terrifying. At ten, when it started happening, I felt like an outcast. A monster. My parents had the royal physician come to the house numerous times a week, trying to figure out what was going on. Then, one day, Goober, my parent's advisor, came to them with some ancient scroll telling them this is something that happened every so many hundred years to an ancestor, and it is a gift from them. A gift. I wouldn’t call it that.
I spent years indoors trying to figure out how to control not the power but myself. I had to retrain my brain not to touch others, not to get angry, and not to lash out. Yep, loads of fun. Finally, when I was fifteen, I got the hang of it, and I was allowed to leave the palace and perform my royal duties as the next in line for the throne, and so far, I have managed to do alright.
What is happening now is something different altogether. I type in heat curse into the search engine, and even the internet laughs at me with cartoon images. “Great.” I continue looking up articles, and that is when I see it- glaringly bold in all of its proclamations.
King Leyland and Queen Isis of Wintergreen are proud to announce the engagement of their son, heir to the throne, Prince Frost to Princess Lavender Windemere of Springlandia.
Suddenly, I am in the bathroom using the toilet to hold myself up while what little I did eat comes back up. Over and over I wretch a bundle of feelings I didn’t realize I had or ignored into the porcelain bowl. How did I not see this coming? Of course, he is getting married. That is part of our duty. Hell, isn’t that why I ran, to avoid this happening to me? He has no choice. A tiny voice in my head whispers. Sure he does. You chose to leave. It's true I did, but for a man, it is different, isn’t it?