Violet Shadows

What Wish So Haunted Excerpt (10)

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"I'm not beautiful!" Clara said again, striking his hands away. The rainfall poured as heavy as her tears. She was never enough for her parents. The swordplay was only meant to be a distraction, as were other things, until that distraction consumed her life like disease. She didn't want to be a princess. She wondered how many adventurers veered their lives at the fulfillment of a conquest. Slaying the dragon, winning the war—that's what she wanted. Not cold courts and pretty gowns, forced betrothals and heavy crowns.

But that's all she was. A waste of royal blood.

"Don't say that," Nicol said, brushing a tear away with the bare skin of his hand. "You are lovely. You are kind. So much more than—"

"You're wrong." Clara shook her head. "You don't know anything—"

"I fell in love with you the moment I saw you." He admitted, baring himself as had she. "The moment you suggested the engagement, I knew I loved you. That's why I couldn't let you go. Why I refused to break it."

She was beyond words. "I... didn't know that."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Nicol drew his jacket around her, soaked with water, but she felt no difference within the rain.

He was right. She hardly knew him. He hardly knew her. Yet, the parts of herself meant to be guarded weren't. It was open, vulnerable. And she loved it. It was a thrill, all of, running around with Nicol and fooling the world in this horrible kingdom. Even the rain mellowed out the burning in her chest.

But the rain would end. Her tears would dry. And she supposed that once that happened, they would no longer be fooling the world anymore.

-Lisa R. Hopkins. Excerpt from What Wish So Haunted, Year 2017 Edition.

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