ONYX

Chapter One

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                        O N E
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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

                         —Dr. Seuss
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"Don’t be afraid."

Queen Elizabeth had gotten what she wanted—a chance to raise her only child, but it came with dire consequences. For one, she couldn’t conceive. Elizabeth found out the hard way when she suffered several miscarriages a year after Alessandra was born. Physicians were baffled by the number of times she’d become pregnant and not even special remedies could save the child. It pained Elizabeth to see her children taken away in a cloth and set a flame knowing they’d never had a chance at life. She blamed herself many times over, but she couldn’t change the past. She’d acted in the way any mother would when faced with the decision to leave their newborn child or die.

For many years she waited for the day that Hades would return, but he didn’t. Within that time she’d started to enjoy the company of her daughter because she’d been the only one who’d known what she had to do to come back to life and see her child again.

She would take that secret to her grave.

No one would believe her if she’d told anyone. So, she suffered in silence as she watched her child grow into a beautiful young woman. Elizabeth had made it a rule that before bed and before any ceremonies or events that they would attend, she would be the one to dress her daughter because the deal with Hades only allowed her to touch Alessandra after she turned thirteen.

Elizabeth could never forget the bargain. When her daughter turned thirteen then she would activate her curse. Anyone who touched her would die upon skin-to-skin contact. Elizabeth doubted that such a thing was real, but she was proven wrong when Alessandra’s appointed nurse and caretaker had mysteriously died over night in her sleep.

It’d been so sudden and strange that a woman who was barely in her sixties and fitfully healthy had passed away in her sleep. To the people, it was a mystery and they wanted answers, but Elizabeth would never tell them that Mary made the mistake of touching Alessandra on the day of her thirteenth birthday. Elizabeth was so traumatized that she quarantined her daughter in her bedroom for the rest of the day much to the surprise of the king and anyone else who wanted to celebrate the princess’ birthday.

The King.

He hadn’t been intimate with his Queen for years. There was talk of a mistress that’d kept the King busy, but even then he’d grown restless. With the pressure of producing a male heir, he’d started to become irritable. He hadn’t made much contact with his daughter or even acknowledged her during public outings when they had to act like a royal and loving family in front of their people. He withdrew from his Queen and stopped visiting her bedchamber.

That’d suited Elizabeth just fine. She couldn’t bear the thought of finding out she was pregnant just to lose the life before it even had a chance. A total of four children had died in her womb and yet she couldn’t mourn them because their bodies were immediately extinguished with fire.

At night she prayed for every one of her children because she knew that one day—very soon—she would meet them again. However, she tried not to think about dying because she had a duty—a right to see that her daughter’s life remained prosperous. She’d gotten Alessandra the best teachers, even though she had to supervise each of their visits when she turned thirteen so that none of them made the mistake of touching her. She taught her daughter elegance and the grace of a royal princess and tended to her every need that a servant couldn’t.