Princess Esme's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Princess Esme had obeyed her whole life. She curtsied, she smiled, she learned six dances and three languages. Tonight her mother wanted her to pick a husband from a room of strangers, and for the first time Esme did not think she could do it. She sat on her bed with an open book. The lovers on the page had met in a garden and known each other for years before they wed. Esme touched the words with one finger. Outside her tower window, torches lit the courtyard of Aurelia Spire Castle. Carriages rolled through the gates. Every one carried a prince she had never spoken to. The door opened. Queen Margaux swept in, her black hair pinned tight, her gold-laced sleeves brushing the floor. She was the woman who had kept Esme inside these walls since she was a child. Esme both loved her and feared her quiet, certain voice. "Tonight we have invited every eligible prince to meet you," the Queen said. "You will dance. You will choose." She laid a new gown for Esme on the bed. "Your father has waited long enough for this, you should have been wed at eighteen, you’re twenty two ." Esme closed the book. Her hands shook. "Mother, I don't know any of them." "You will know them by morning." Queen Margaux smoothed the puffed sleeves flat. "I did not know your father either. I learned to love him. That is how it is done." "That is not how I want it done." The words came out before Esme could stop them. She had never once argued. The Queen turned, her dark eyes wide, as if a chair had spoken. "Esme." "I want what's in my books." Esme stood. Her voice grew steady. "I want to choose a man I already love. Not a stranger you picked from a list." For a moment neither of them moved. Downstairs, music began to play. Queen Margaux studied her daughter's face. Something in it made her set down the gown. "You will come down," the Queen said at last. "You will dance with every one of them.“ Esme let out a breath she had held for years. "As you wish Mother" The Queen did not turn around she simply left Esme. Esme looked down at the gown on the bed. This was not what she wanted but she had to try.