A gift?
Elys stared at the envelope in her hand. The piece of stationery was light, about the size of her hand, rectangular and black with specks of golden glitter. It was fancy to say the least.
What gift would a small piece of paper contain?
A promissory note of riches? Title of a land property? There were many things that monarchs could gift their children once they were wed.
In the case of the princess' fallen kingdom of the North, being as all of their people were warriors through and through, the customary gift to a royal child would have been a division of an army to command.
Or a pretty weapon imbued with magic
Sometimes even one that is just ceremonial if the child wasn't that much favored.
Items imbued with magic were rare to the Northern Kingdom of magicless people. It was only after Elys' father inherited the crown did he start giving such gifts to royal children of his siblings on their weddings.
King Alaric Whitecaster was one of the few exceptional men that ever sat on the Northern throne. One of his greatest achievements was that he was the very first of their people to learn magic from scratch during his overseas study.
Not only was he the first Northern king with magic, he also was one of the most beloved by their people.
He was kind, compassionate, and had an eye for his constituents. No wrong deed was left unpunished accordingly. Strict but still loving, he was respected not only by his people, but that of the opposition – to a certain point to say the least.
Thinking of the late king made Elys start to wallow in melancholy.
She quickly shook the memory away, and then reminded herself where she was now.
Emotions make her weak, and at this very moment, in front of the enemy, she couldn't afford to show any weakness at all. Looking back at the envelope in her hands, it didn't seem like any of the things she previously thought of was inside of it.
If it was a gift from the same king that wed his son to a slave, perhaps her earlier guesses weren't even applicable.
The princess glanced back towards the manor. The clouds were rolling, a thunderstorm apparently coming in quickly with an ominous rumble in the skies.
"Did the King Raxus say anything what this gift is?" Elys wondered.
"You will know when you read it," he replied. "Now then, I will be off before Prince Aleksander discovers me here. That kid is so mean tempered sometimes I wonder how his blood vessels are keeping themselves together from popping out so much under his pale skin."
Elys almost laughed, but she held back herself and stifled the urge to.
"I do wonder how you got in," the princess mumbled. "But more so of how you would have delivered the letter if you haven't bumped into me."
The vampire knight winked, "I have my ways."
Teo waved his cloak around him, covering his entire body from the princess' view. In a blink of an eye, he vanished completely from Elys' sight just as thunder crackled in the skies.
+++
"Henry," the prince called out from his table.
"Yes, your highness?" the attendant replied.
"Get me blood," Aleksander said, "and instruct that maidservant to come up and clean this mess after the rain ceases."
His eyes were concentrated outside his halfway fixed window. Rain had slipped in as the winds started to blow inwards his room. It was inconvenient, but there was nothing he could do to stop the rain – maybe another vampire could, but not him.
No, he had other talents, but none of it included changing the weather.
Henry bowed to his master and proceeded to exit his room right away. He squinted at his ticking pocket watch - it was right about time the prince fed.
It had been almost an hour since Prince Aleksander deemed his wife's blood as palatable. It was only just a tiny snack back then, but Henry knew the vampire prince would be needing more the next time around.
Perhaps he should get a bigger vial to store the slave's blood.
Just as the attendant was about to twist open the doorknob, a knock suddenly came from the other side.
"Husband, I have come to tell you something important," Elys called out.
Henry turned to his master, confused and waiting for his decision if the slave bride would be permitted inside the prince's chamber.
"Let her in," Aleksander waved at the door nonchalantly.
Henry nodded in acknowledgement, and then opened the door for Elys to step inside. The princess stood by Aleksander's door, and Henry could see that she had something in her hand, but he couldn't tell what it was exactly as she was hiding it behind her.
"Did you miss me already sucking at your blood, wife?" Aleksander taunted Elys.
The princess didn't give in to his childish teases. She simply didn't have time to be provoked by that now. Elys walked over to face Aleksander, and then she slid the envelope on his new table.
"It's addressed with your name on it, while mine just says 'feisty slave princess'," Elys told him.
Aleksander's smug grin vanished the moment he saw the envelope. It was still unopened. There was no name of the sender, but he knew exactly whose envelope it was on his table right now.
"By the look of your face, I presume it might have slipped under your nose undetected," the princess added. "It has the royal stamp on it, perhaps it's from your father."
The prince's face drastically switched from a cocky grin to an enraged frown in a split second after his father was mentioned. Veins instantly started popping on his forehead, and his silver eyes turned bright gold.
Elys kept her face blank. She wanted to test her theory regarding the prince's abilities. She already knew he could bend her perception of reality, but was he able to see into her mind too?
She was tired of assuming too much. It was time to make her first move into learning the ins and outs of the vampires – starting with her husband.
It was finally time to test the treacherous waters she was forced to swim through.
Hopefully, she wouldn't drown.