The Exiled Gem

Ophelia

This is the first chapter of Book 2 - go ahead, enjoy :)
The whole story's being published in The Lost Gem - a seperate book.

301 B.C. - Idgard

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
- Chinese Proverb

Ophelia's day was going good.

As the seventeen year old Heir of Vedessa, "good" days were not something she often saw. Unless of course, she had one of those private meetings with her father, to look forward to.

All her life, Ophelia had been thrilled by the amount of similarity she wore to him. She didn't disclose this fact to anybody. Ophelia acted quite normal, calm and composed. But secretly, she was rather pleased with her physical features.

And the Idgardians had already begun considering "Amber Eyes and Dark Hair" as the necessary features in a heir: ever since Ophelia had been announced one, a month ago. Those who had seen the iron hand of Queen Cassandra, swore that the lady had been born wrong - that she should have been born the King of Vedessa. Ophelia was told that her grandmother had expired long ago, with severe health ailments. Nonsense. Ophelia didn't believe it one bit.

But she had no interest in finding out, either. Ophelia knew what she was supposed to know, would come to her in its own time. She wasn't one to fret over the secrets and demand the truth. Or spend her time trying to dig it out.

She remembered her younger days clearly. And for all she was worth, Ophelia had loved to spy. Eavesdrop, more precisely. But "spying" sounded much more enigmatic and dangerous, so that was what she went ahead with.

The first time she had been caught, was when she had been nine. Everybody had thought it was the first time and she'd received a good chastising from her mother, for that. But Queen Alexandra hardly knew that Ophelia was sneaky as a rat.

She had been spying since she was five.

The first experiment had been on the gullible Nurses. But soon, that had grown boring. So at seven, she had gone ahead: spied on common Idgardians and learnt what they said.

One thing that had always been allowed for Ophelia, was going out on the streets, roaming around - but, with a few concealed guards and only till the Muriel's Fountain, which was a dazzling, glittering stone fountain a few miles from the Palace. It marked the end of the Palace controlled territory, being the last sight within reach of the barracks. So be it. Ophelia knew how to make the best of everything.

She saw her parents in different lights too. Queen Alexandra was liberal and open-minded. But more-often-than-not, she had her head in the clouds. And Ophelia knew as much - once, somebody could have a dig at her father and get away with it. But at mother...? The Queen would simply rip the person to pieces with her own, sweet comebacks. Queen Alexandra lived in the moment. She praised the smallest of everybody's achievements, had a palpable liveliness and a slight craziness in her. A craziness, that Ophelia feared having inherited.

Queen Alexandra knew how to be herself. She didn't pretend to know a lot about side-stitches and silver embroidery, just to please women. Instead, she told them how important self-defense was and what the precarious, international politics was like. Unsurprisingly, in the end, it was one of her topics that everybody got engrossed in.

The people were right. Ophelia's mother was rather liberal, but she was the best queen in the history of Idgard.

Alexandra.

Ophelia loved that name. A powerful, warrior-like and commanding name. And the way Father pronounced it, with the blended love and respect... Ophelia was pretty sure that that was the correct way of pronouncing "Alexandra".