Uprising

Chapter One: Katerina

Chapter One: Katerina

While I'm sitting on the edge of my bed waiting for Zuri, my thoughts cloud my mind. Papa told me I was to marry into a treaty. I don't want to marry anyone. I am barely of age, only a few more weeks until the wedding night. Monarch Hadrian of the British Empire. He's twenty-one, marrying a almost seventeen year old. Freak.

I give up on trying to sit; I am too anxious for any kind of sitting. I pick up a hand mirror and look at myself. I would say I am beautiful with my pale face, but I do not look sickly. My lips are a ruby red, but they do not look like I drained another's blood. My eyes are gray, and they are the only part of my face I hate. They hold no interest to me. Like they are there just for the sense of teasing me.

Zuri walks in carrying my stupid, white wedding dress. It's a lace thing. It's my mother's, but some modern designs were put in for me.

"Well it's. . . white," she says. I glare at her; I slouch and sigh.

"A perfect white, nothing less for the Monarch of the British Empire." I mock, and she giggles.

"You never know, he could be hot." she smiles; I know she's trying to make me feel better. She actually looks at me, "Kat, everything will be fine. Your brother is talking to them now, isn't he?"

"Alexei isn't going to change their mind; he's a coward. He couldn't change a fly's mind." I walk over to my vanity, and I sit to brush through my long, blond hair. I will get married to that...that freak, but I will not go down without saying my thoughts.

I look at the dress through my mirror, and somewhere in my mind I quietly think-as if someone would be able to hear me- I want to marry. I will be able to sit upon my own throne. I will kill for the chance. I wave at Zuri, "You can put it on the bed. Can you fetch the maids to help me put it on?" I ask. Of course she will. She has too. She is my Champion. Which means she went to school for the beginning of her life to serve and protect a Monarch, like me.

Zuri looks at me directly and says, "Alexei can do a lot more than you give him credit

for,"

Then, she snaps on her heels to get the maids. I takes the time alone to think of a come

back.

I'm turning into my mother, married young, to a man I never met before. I will be sent to a place I do not know. Then that night, after my marriage, I'll sleep with a foreign man, and I will bear a heir. Then, I have the boy ripped from my grasp, sending him away to learn how to fight and how to act like a king. Never really seeing him again. If I'm lucky I'll have a girl first to have another chance, before the public decide to cut off my head. Like the British did to many queens before me.

I'm scared, and I'll never admit that to anyone; my fate relies on how well I can lie and talk big. But I don't know how hard I can bite. I take a deep breath, and for once I'm glad not many people come to visit me. Usually, no one comes to see me. They come when they think it appropriate. They go see my brother, Alexei, often though. I can hear the maids talk about how friendly he is. As for me, I'm scary. I act like the heir, and I wish I was. My brother has the attitude to stand quietly in the background as a woman should; as I want to take charge. Standing as a shadow has no point for me. Women should be able to take charge. We mean so much more than men. We bare children to repopulate the world.

Women should have more power as men. Once upon a time ago, they tried to give women and men the same equity. When no one taught the kids of the new generation, that future was shot down.