Checkmate

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The women make way, cleaving before the Prince like the sea did for Moses. The son of the Emperor has a walk that looks more like a predator's stalk than a simple stroll. He prowls through them like a regal lion, broad shoulders cutting through the crowd.

My legs shakily propel my frozen body forward clumsily. It does not seem real; out of hundreds of these scantily dressed women, gathered from all across the city, and the Prince had chosen me to dance. Of course, this slow number will probably be one of many like it; still, there is something gratifying in the thought of the Prince selecting me.

This is my admit-one ticket to a better life. My resolve slams into place, as does my grim determination. If I win his heart or use his influence to entice another duke, then I shall be the one being served instead of serving my superiors. A shudder rolls down my shoulder blades at the thought of what awaits me if I dare fail.

The coarse men in my filthy town profanely work in the slums of factories and mills, scarcely returning home more than a few hours a day. The streets of Roanoke are clogged with ash and smoke chugged from the nearby factories, pollution forming walls and mountains in the forgotten alleys. Caught inside the unarmed boundaries that were built to protect us wander Genetics and disease. Waste is thrown straight from buckets to the sidewalk.

Woman, children, and underage men are left to grovel over the grunt household work. But the nightmare does not end there. When their husbands return, the women must submit completely and utterly to them like an accursed rag doll. When a woman's husband returns, her body is no longer solely hers.

I don't ever think about my parents, not really. My dad died in one of the skirmishes always breaking out between the churlish kingdoms. Never knew him. Never really wanted to. A dad who deceased when I wasn't even born isn't much of a dad, now is he?

My mother passed away when I was just a kid, dying of one of the many diseases in the street, leaving me in the incapable hands of my uncle. Cato, my mother's brother, would drink and drink until he saw a child as adult and a niece as prey. It did not take long for me to figure out how to escape his musty, unlocked tenement. It took me an even shorter amount of time to learn to kill a man.

But this... this is a chance to leave my past behind and become a queen among females. Dare I take it?

My feet stumble into an ungraceful halt, the feathery fabrics of my beautiful fiery dress pooling around my feet and brushing lightly over the scarlet rose petals littering the tiles. My chin is held high and erect, my shoulders squared with an air of fearlessness and dominance. I become more aware of the knife strapped to my thigh, the tight band of leather binding the cool metal to my lithe muscles. Sweat prickles at the back of my neck, saturating the scraggily hairs that I'd been able to do nothing with. It's everything I can do not to quiver as the Prince pulls into a halt, holding his head just as high as I.

I can taste the tension in the air as we study one another. The butler on the stage twiddles his fingers around the device in his boredom, announcing something about a waltz and slamming his machine into a case. The man fiddles with knobs and buttons on the closest speaker. I only focus on my partner, even when the lulling music begins. His spidery mask covers more of his face in the dark light then I'd been lead to believe while he stood in the spotlight; I can only just make out the gleam of his dark brown eyes, barely trace the slick lines of his black eyebrows, and almost see the curve of his contoured cheekbones. The Prince is undeniably handsome; since his father had a free pick of all the women in his immense kingdom, it would seem that the King had chosen the most attractive of them all.