"Don't leave."

"Elijah, I have to go. Too much has happened, and I need to go back to being normal. You have too much on your plate and I have a little girl's death on my conscience—"

"It wasn't your fault, you know you don't need me to tell you that."

"Fine. Everything happened according to how destiny planned it," She said with a tinge of disgust and steadily looked up at me. "But I won't stay any longer. We had an agreement, Prince Elijah."

I softly grabbed her arm, pulling her to me. "And the agreement was that you would stay until my coronation. I don't see anyone calling me the King of Yandestine yet."

Her eyes swayed from side to side, unlike her breaths that chose to stay locked in one place. "You're getting married. Does that not mean anything to you?"

My grip on her arm helplessly tightened. "The engagement to Princess Rhea has been called off. Word has already gotten around, so why are you pretending to not know about it?"

Zyanna scoffed and shook her head with disapproval. "This pretence is better than seeing you actually believe that us being 'together' is possible in any sort of way."

"What did you say?"

The one blink said it all, but I needed to hear it from her.

"No, say that again." I stated with a quiet whisper.

"Every truth... wherever it lives, wherever it comes from - hurts. I just want to go before everything becomes so much more painful than this. So please, don't stop me." Her eyes regarded me with a gaze held faraway, but something told me—

Something told me she was struggling, just as much as I was.

And maybe even a little bit more.

I nodded and let go of her hand, her nails grazing past my palm. "Leave. I'll have some of my soldiers escort you to your place."

"Eli—"

"You're right. Trying to extend your stay is childish on my part, and truth be told, there isn't any real reason for you to stay... is there?" I questioned with a harsh pause, starting to turn away.

What did you expect, Eli?

The silence filled the remains as she adjusted the strap of her little bag over her shoulder, prepared to set out.

There wasn't anything left to say.

"Goodbye, Zyanna."

I hesitantly stepped away, tiredly dragging my eyes away from the darkness of her shadow.

"Excuse me? I'd like to swoop in and say that no one's really allowed to depart right now."

I faltered back in surprise, caught off-guard by Lia's entrance. "Aaliyah, where in Yandestine did you even come from?"

"Oh, me? I was just standing around the corner, waiting for your conversation to finish." She beamed, giving both of us a thumbs-up.

"Is that what overhearing is called nowadays?"

"No, it's called not wanting to interrupt, Eli," She clasped her arms behind her back, her expression suddenly becoming serious. "We've been summoned. The kingdom has announced a full royal meeting outside the palace."

"I'll be there right after sending Zyanna back to her abode."

"No." Lia uttered, giving me a tight-lipped smile.

"No?" Zyanna and I both questioned at the same time.

"I want her there with us today."

"With all due respect, your highness—" Zyanna grimaced, almost gnashing her teeth together.

"I said what I said. No questions until the end." Lia retorted and spun away on her heel.

"The end of what?" I shouted out to my sister who was already leaving our presence.

She didn't respond.

The unsaid answer - whenever the end was coming, it wasn't very close at all.

It was just the goddamn beginning.

~~~

The bells shook and rung as the little clappers clashed against the waist of the bell three times.

"Camare."

It meant begin.

Everyone stood up, bowed down to one another and came together to collectively bow at my father - haphazardly coordinated.

A crooked breeze of tension was suspended in the air, as a colossol assembly of thousands of villagers, sub-rulers, and royal members had gathered together outside the palace - every group fixed in their own distinguishable positions.

My parents both were seated on heavily adorned chairs placed above the array of grey concrete stairs, as they looked down at the numerous people filling every spot from the very entrance to all the way below the stairs.

The palace gates closed.

The bell chimed one last time as my father returned their sign of respect with a slow, singular nod. He raised his fist and placed it near his chest, calmly unclenching it and let it flutter back to his side.

Two seconds of poor, doubtful silence.

A group of voices carefully spiked up out of the crowd. It only took moments for others to gather the gut to raise the cords in their throats along with them.

And before we knew it, the massive crowd's questions metamorphosed into pronounced statements; fluidly jumped into shots of screams, coming to circle us with a vehement explosion.

They wanted answers.

They wanted the truth.

I wanted so much more.

"Come back down to your roots! The kingdom will not counter a stage of uproar - quieten at once!" The Queen's voice thundered through the crowd, shaking some people into silence but not all.

The King sharply raised his forefinger high into the air. "All will be answered, but nothing is possible if we hear too many at once. You will have to let each other speak to remotely achieve anything."

It was partly rough, but it worked.

A plethora of huffs and grunt-filled sighs spewed out though they knew it had to be done.

They had to be patient, even during a time like this.

I nodded at the gathering, gesturing a sign that meant they could start questioning.

A villager came forward, with his hands clutching his shirt and legs that were almost rattling.

Fear or anger?

"Greetings to the King and Queen of Yandestine. My name is Arnold Taint Lindor."

I furrowed my eyebrows at that. Lindor. The family name of the deceased royal advisor.

"Greetings to you too, Arnold. What have you stepped up for?" My mother asked, and judging by Lia's dubious glance, she was also confused as to why our mother hadn't acknowledged him properly.

Arnold rubbed his arm tensely, struggling to keep eye contact with her.

"My b-brother - Rayson - he, h-he was the royal advisor here. And, he's, as everyone knows, not alive anymore."

My father sternly nodded, not giving away much, though I could see from behind him how his shoulders subtly stiffened.

"Well, nothing is clear at all, your majesty. My family doesn't know where to start or finish. I just want to know what happened to my elder brother."

The King cleared his throat and leaned forward on his chair. "Your brother was kidnapped. He was given a brutal death, but you should know that he fought till his last breath, in whatever way he thought would be frutiful. Clearly, his case was dismissed."

I immediately coughed and added, "We offer you and your family our deepest and most sincere condolences, Arnold. We truly did try our best to save him with the little time we had."

"Do you mean that, your highness?"

A pindrop silence knocked everyone down to unsettlement.

"Beg your pardon, Arnold?" My sister intervened, standing next to me.

"The King said my brother was kidnapped. He didn't tell me who it was, why a royal advisor was kidnapped out of everyone here, when it even took place, or how someone so important was just taken. The Prince simply gave me his sympathy. I deserve something more, your highness. My brother deserves so much more."

A second villager proceeded to the front, mimicking Arnold's tight stance.

"He's right, your majesty. All of us deserve better than just being kept in the dark in the name of peace. In fact, we demand it too."

Strong nods of agreement spread across every face, and it was clear they were reigning in the urge to let roars and screams rule their senses.

My father briskly stood up, marched down, stopping just before last stair.

He looked down, sending the last stair below him a black glare that was so intense, as if it was the last string threatening to slip out of his fingers.

"Jena Hayati Valentine."

I drew in a sharp breath, just as shocked and silenced by his words as everyone in the crowd.

Hayati.

I remembered that.

But, how does he know her actual name? She never mentioned it in any of the letters.

"The dancer?" I questioned aloud.

He shook his head, still facing the crowd. "That's only one definition. One that is mostly inaccurate."

Arnold released a quiet breath, tilting his head while his fingers shivered too much to stay in one place. "Who is that, your majesty?"

The King stepped forward, onto the final stair, his distorted shadow a step ahead of him.

"You want to know who exactly kidnapped your brother, Arnold?"

He fervently nodded, but as every trace of second flittered past, he seemed like he was losing hold on the ambition.

"Jena Hayati Valentine - warrior of the females, found first at the battlefront. Would you like to know where she's from?"

He haltingly brought his feet to the gnarled sand, leaving the stairs entirely.

"The Kingdom of Mayarvi."

Three villagers fainted, on the spot.

Six members of the royal council violently flinched back, their hands flying to their chest and throat - desperately meeting the suffocation before it devoured them.

The heads of twelve soldiers shot up, and they threw their swords to the ground with a twisted wildness, and dashed out through the palace gates.

My mother - the Commander and Queen - pulled in a dark breath, and took a step back.

The Kingdom of Mayarvi.

"Oh, fuck."

Both Zyanna and Aaliyah whipped their heads in my direction, mouths abashedly dropped open.

"Elijah—"

"Do not breathe." I spoke, the bones in my fist strangled between a clench and a tremor.

The fact had just come close, and truly, no one appeared brave enough to allow a breath out.

"T-That's the criminal we have prisoned in the palace dungeons?" One of the sub-rulers - Rince Micah - managed to crack out, holding his daughters close to him.

My father somehow kept himself straight as a pillar amidst all of it, and crossed his arms with a nod.

Rince Janion gasped and ran forward, almost knocking down the females near him. "Your majesty, please excuse my language, but why the living hell do we still have that woman breathing within our borders? We have no idea who's with her, how many people from her kingdom are near us—"

"Actually, we do. There was a good number of men that accompanied her when she invaded the palace a night ago." My father serenely replied, his focus seemingly stolen by something else.

Rince Janion instantly looked around him, subtly blending back into the crowd with his wife and three sons latched onto his arm. "Are they... are they—"

"Disappeared into hiding. Not a single speck since she became restrained."

They were definitely not hiding.

If anything I've heard about them is true, the bastards were waiting.

We were in deep, irreversible, shit.

"But, why? Our kingdom has maintained peace with everyone for the last seven years, and now this? What did we do wrong?" A royal advisor in training voiced out with perplexed concern.

Lia's body next to mine suddenly straightened, and she went forward.

"Or what is it that you did wrong, Father? What did you do?"

He turned around, raising his eyebrows. "Is that an assumation or an accusation, Princess Aaliyah?"

"You tell me. Do you want to explain or confess?"

His features hardened while Lia folded her arms across her chest, both parties unwavering.

Noises of discussion and bewildered mumbles glided across the flustered crowd.

My father turned back around to meet the aghast crowd. "The Kingdom of Mayarvi wanted something more than longlasting peace. They wanted an amalgamation."

"A union? Of what?" Rince Micah visibly recoiled.

"Marriage. Between Prince Elijah and Jena Valentine."

What?

"What?" My mother breathed out, pressing her nails into her fists.

"Your majesty, please pardon me if I'm wrong, but the sudden engagement between Princess Rhea and--"

"Yes. The engagement between my son and Princess Rhea, it was announced only to protect Yandestine from Mayarvi's advances."

All eyes flew to Rhea and her mother who had cornered themselves behind us, near the palace doors - Rhea trying her hardest to hold her mother up, while the King of Raglezia was still nowhere to be seen.

"Can I assume you rejected the marriage proposal from Mayarvi when you declared the betrothment between our highness and the Princess of Raglezia, my King?" Vladmir, one of the many soldiers that had enough courage to remain in their spot, asked.

A steady silence was returned to Vladimir.

"I would never sacrifice the values of Yandestine like that. I know that, you know that and my people know that." My father's armored stance promptly wavered and broke in the next few minutes.

"Do they, Father?" Aaliyah left the close proximity of me and Zyanna, walking down to meet him face-to-face.

"What?"

"Do they know that?" She repeated. "Do they truly believe in you, trust you, as much as you think they do?"

I chose to walk to the front during that second, going to stand next to Lia.

"We thought we could trust you, Father. We thought you believed in us, too. We thought you would never hide something like this from us. How could you expect something so priceless from our people, when you never showed an inch of that trust or belief with us?" I opined, trying not to let my voice sink into a fierce rupture.

"Elijah, we can talk about this somewhere else, just, please—"

"No." Lia sputtered, turning to face the crowd.

"People of Yandestine, we apologise for the darkness the King of Yandestine has kept you under in the name of peace," She strongly nodded to the villager standing next to Arnold, and continued, bringing an unbreakable fist to her chest. "But, you don't need an apology. You deserve something so much more. And we will give you that."

I narrowed my eyebrows at her.

"The kingdom has decided to put their trust, their belief, and their every droplet of certainty and honour in no one but their own people. You are what we want. You are what we live to protect. You are who we are willing to die for."

Grains of pure sand slipped to the pull of a sudden gust of wind.

"And we know, we believe, that you are in this just as much as we are. Battle or peace, we fight together. We stand together. Before this kingdom grants you what you deserve, I want to hear it from you," She banged her fist against the place of her heart and pointedly raised her head. "Are you with us, Yandestine?" She bellowed, her voice storming across every ring of people; blending their circles together as every villager, every sub-ruler, every human in the vicinity came together with roars and screams.

Roars and screams that ruled their senses. Shoulders sharpened and eyes flitted to scarring gazes - all directed at us.

Lia spread her arms and closed her eyes.

My mother was shaking her head, and she hurriedly began to march towards my sister.

What is happening?

"Then hear it from us. The Prince of Yandestine does not need to be protected in the form of an engagement to some royalty from another kingdom. Our swords won't cower away from war like that. Because, we have you. We trust you, and that means we will go as far as having one of our own females - royalty or not - become the future Queen of Yandestine."

My mother stopped, locking her clenched fists.

Earnest heads leaned forward, while every breath became prisoned in their lungs.

"We welcome Zyanna Samaria Karas to the throne of Yandestine, as the future Queen and Bride to Prince Elijah Dorian Maguire."

We welcomed war.

***
  🎶"I'll be there for you, because you're there for me too."🎶

I just started watching Friends, so yeah, got that stuck in my head and I blame no one. Thank you, Netflix.

And I'll be there for everyone who need me. Thank you for being here, supporting me, and for all the love.

Stay blessed and be there for yourself too,
OceanaCamerons 🌹🌹🌹