Black Pearl

Chapter 32

The next morning, I was awake before my sisters. By the time Amaya and Oceana awoke, my hair was brushed out, the remaining kohl had been scrubbed off my face, and my wedding dress laid in a heap while a new gown hung softly over my shoulders. I only felt a little bad for mistreating such an expensive garment. 

"That was the most incredible night," Oceana said through a yawn. "But I never want to leave this bed. My feet ache." To be fair, she didn't look like she wanted to leave my bed either.

Amaya groaned, massaging her back. "At least Willow let you sit down for a few minutes. She kept me dancing all night. I have no idea how Archer keeps up with her."

"And you?" my mother piped up. She snuck into my room so silently, that I had barely noticed her presence. But while we were all glowing with remains of the party, she seemed heavier than she had when she arrived. "How was your wedding night?"

"It was wonderful," I sighed dreamily. It certainly wasn't a story fit for a fairytale- a makeup streaked maiden and a drunk prince- but the way he looked at me in the moonlight, how he held me, it was all so amazing. Just thinking about it now made my cheeks heat with blush and my toes curl.

"So you have completed your marital duties then?"

I stared at my mother through the mirror, blinking unknowingly. What duties? surely drinking wine was not a duty, but a privilege.  

"You completed your marriage?" she pressed at my silence. 

"Oh!" I spun around on the little chair, grinning. "No. We spent the majority of the night talking actually. Leo did bring it up, but he told me that he would wait."

I expected my mother to nod her head, maybe to smile. In my mind, she should have been contented. With all of the evil and frightening men she had witnessed, she could return home knowing that I would be respected, if nothing else. But she almost appeared angry.

"So your marriage is not complete?" she asked.

"Well, no, not technically."

Her thumb and her forefinger pinched the bridge of her nose and she let out a low breath. "Ember, it is your job to forge this alliance. If your marriage is not complete, the prince could use that against you. And what's worse is that he was obviously testing you, to see if you could actually be a dutiful wife. Not even a day in and you have already failed massively."

"But, Leo-"

"You don't know humans, these are the games they play."

I wanted to argue with her, tell her that Leo wasn't like that. But he was. The entire journey to Willow and Archer's kingdom had been a test. Asking me to participate in something I wasn't prepared for. And because of it, I had been dumped in icy water, woken with a sore body, and embarrassed myself time and time again. I could only clamp my mouth shut and pray that I had time to fix it. Maybe I was a fool and this needed to be corrected immediately.

The bitter taste remained in my mouth as I wished my sisters a safe journey home. It seemed a little comical that my sisters and mother would be traveling on a boat when they could get home in less time if they only swam. But it was all about keeping up appearances, keeping the humans ignorant. So I hugged them all and wished them well. And while I wished that one of them would tell me that everything would be okay, they only asked for more gifts.

But, my mother was the only person that I knew who had any experience with my next task. When she left, the only other option I could think of was the queen, so I requested an audience with her.

"Ah, Princess Ember," she greeted when I curtseyed in her drawing room. though she was a dainty woman, I briefly had a flash of a fat pig in my mind, seeing her splayed out like that, drowning in clothing, eating foods that others could not afford. "What can I do for you?"