It feels as if her entire world is breaking off, as if the floor beneath her is cracking open to swallow her up wholly. She can feel it, she can hear her world crumbling down. It happened so fast that it took a few minutes for Elsie to finally unite the words that had fallen out of her father's mouth, for it to register itself into Elsie's brain. She doesn't know. She didn't see it coming.
"What?" Elsie can barely hear her own voice, she doubts if they even succeed at pushing past her trembling lips. But her suspicions fade quickly as she watches her father open his mouth.
"I had to give my word, Elsie. There was no other option. You're bound to marry the King now, for the sake of our people." The king's, her father's bottomless voice is dull in his ears as if it's muffled by something unknown.
Elsie's blood turns cold in her veins, she can feel the forming of sweat on her hairline even though it's bone-chilling cold out there.
Elsie's heart pounds rapidly in her ears so that she can no longer hear her own voice as she talks, trembling hands finding their anchor on the pale white satin robe she had chosen to wear.
"No, father. I won't marry the King. Not him!" Elsie dares, eyes wide as she holds her father's gaze.
"There's no choice. We don't get to choose."
"Why?"
A sigh sounds from the King's left, and her eyes cut to her stepmother, the queen of Sevannah, Kia Fernandes. Her dark brows are scrunched slightly, disappointment swimming in her fiery orange eyes. "You are twenty for the Moon's sake, your highness. I assume you would know better than to question your father."
Elsie's hands that were clenching onto her night robe fall. She presses her lips together, licks them, and shuts her eyes close for a second to regain her crumbling composure. She can't raise her voice at her stepmother, she's a princess after all and a princess should, above all, behave.
"Right?" She asks.
"Yeah." Elsie nods, looking straight into her eyes. The corners of Kia's cherry-painted lips stretch wide as she nods her head back at Elsie approvingly. However, her smile falters too quickly, because the next moment the words that slip out of Elsie's mouth prove to have the power to wipe its existence off Kia's perfect lips.
"But, now I need to, even if it could offend my father." Elsie tells her, if she can't stand her ground now, when is she ever going to do that? "Pardon me for my insolence, father, but I would not marry the horrendous King of Lievca."
"Elsie!" Kia sneers, her long legs eating up the space between them in just two strides. Her pale face is so close to Elsie's when she says, "Better learn about the limited words that are allowed to flee your mouth, daughter. Princess or not, the one who does wrong would be punished either way."
Elsie's teeth bite into the inside of her cheek hard to not let out a whimper that bubbles up from her chest, shoulder hunched and head clasps low. Her omega curling in on itself at her alpha stepmother's angry pheromones packs up the space of the entire chamber.
"Kia, you don't have to be so harsh, she will understand." From her head between her shoulders, Elsie's eyes latch on his father's strong arm circling her stepmother's waist, pulling her away from crowding Elsie's space.
"I don't think she will, my King—"
"That's right, I won't. As in, won't marry the Godforsaken cursed King." Elsie cut off the Queen. She can sense the anger slowly crawling under her skin.
The King's icy gaze cuts to Elsie in a flash, she swears she sees a hint of red in the otherwise as gray as the stormy sea eyes of his father. "You will, it's my word."
"You cannot force me!"
"Don't make me."
"I can't marry him, father! Why would you want to see your own child's ruin?"
"I do not want to!" The King lets out, taking a step forward.
"You sure want to. If not, why would you want me to marry someone who killed his own wife?!" Elsie screams.
The king looks as if he has been struck by a violent bolt of lightning, his mouth parts and shuts as if in a silent gasp for air Then as if his brain succeeds at webbing the lies, he says, "He didn't kill his wife, Elsie. It's a rumor that haunts his Kingdom. How could he kill the love of his life?"
"Oh but, he very much did, Father! You knew, I know you know! We all know! That's why Lievca lacks the presence of a Queen, they lost her years ago. He killed her! Don't play dumb to sacrifice my life! Your own blood's life!"
Elsie's father stiffens visibly, eyes wide as he looks Elsie in her eyes.
Elsie takes a long breath through her nose, then exhales, and looks up. "How can you do this to me?" She asks her father, voice low and calm, unlike how she is really feeling, unlike the lava that boils inside her with the assurance of burning her alive.
As she looks into her father's stormy gray eyes, she can swear she sees a flick of pain glistening in those with an undertone of mistiness. The wrinkles fanning over his forehead deepen when his brows crinkle.
The king opens his mouth but silence is the only thing that leaves the gap, nothing else, no word. Elsie watches as he closes it back, tongue darting out to wet his dry lips. Then he's speaking, "Forgive me, my girl. There's nothing I could do other than giving the word for this alliance of a marriage."
"How can I?" She says those words before she can think through them. And the way her father cuts his gaze away from Elsie as if they slice through him does enough for her to be guilty about her curt words.
For a moment no one says a word, it's eerily silent in there that she can almost hear the snow fall and wood crack in the fireplace. Her father's eyes stay out the window, though, she can feel the weight of another pair of fiery eyes on her.
"You do as your father says, Elsie. If he says you'll marry the King, you will marry the King. Don't forget that you are bound to your duties by your birth."
Elsie's mouth goes dry at her stepmother's assertion, heart denies to continue its beating, and drops into the pit of her churning stomach. What? Does this mean she has no way out?
Elsie waits for her father to say something, say anything to ease her aching heart. But her father does or says nothing, he just stands there before her with a pained expression plastered on his antique face, eyes stuck on the window, they refuse to look her way.
"You can leave now." Elsie utter, swaying her hand toward her chamber's door all the while her gaze fixed on the wall.
She refuses to look at them.
"Well, very well, my dear. We must thank you for granting us your valuable time. We're so honored, and I would like to apologize if we overstayed our welcome." The taunting voice of Kia delivers chills down her spine. Elsie can no longer meet her burning gaze that threatened to scorch Elsie to ashes.
When her words are laced with humiliation and disfavor, her tone is as calm as a breeze. Elsie doesn't think she can stand this any longer so she says, "Tell Misae to run me a bath when you leave, I assume she's outside.
If they find it bizarre for Elsie to order them, they don't pick on it. Maybe, at least once they wanted to give her the power, or wanted her to mistake that she holds the threads of control.
Her father doesn't come close and presses a fluttery kiss on top of her head with the sweet utterance of goodnight like he always does.
They leave without a word to exchange.