🔥Flames🔥 (read description)

Prologue

1....2....3. 4 seconds pass. The queen is dead. The king is no where to be found. The kingdom is a river of over exaggerated tears pretending to care that their lives are falling apart. 1...2...3. 4 days pass after the funeral of the queen. The king is locked up in his chambers again. The kingdom is ignoring the fact that they can not survive for much longer. The king reminds himself once more to get up and leaves the warm embrace of his chair. The air is colder now. The days are darker now. But only his air and his days. One step forward. The last beat of  the other half of his heart. Two steps forward. Her last words. Three steps forward. Her last breath. The constable is missing. People are being killed by murderers who can't be caught. Silent murderers who can not be seen. They take pleasure in their mysterious essence and slowly kill. They kill. And kill. And kill. Four steps forward and he wishes he hadn't taken these four steps.

The law stated that he must have a queen to rule at his side. Young women were being brought to his throne room as he was taking 5 6 7 8 9 10 steps forward. They were being carefully lined up as he took 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 steps forward. One hundred steps later the king arrives in his throne room. He inhaled an walked down the line. Stopping before every woman.The first woman was beautiful. Selana, was her name. Piercing green eyes with long long long black hair and a tiny tiny tiny waist. The second woman was short. Her name was Deidre. Freckles consumed her face. The third was named Volotov. She was so tall so very tall and had the largest very largest nose. Her dress was too short too short her hair was pulled back too tight. The fourth was named Ella. Small, but not to small. She had the most golden golden hair cut just below her ears. He stopped in front of her and when he did she smiled so big so big. Her eyes were a mud brown with the smallest so small hints of green near the center. Her dress the green of her eyes her eyes her eyes and it stopped at her calves to show worn out boots and he couldn't. Look. Away. At her eyes her eyes her eyes. He moved on. The rest were variations on the uniform that society told them they had to wear to be beautiful. Wearing dresses to small for them to show off fake curves put there by surgeons and corsets pulled to tight. Pounds of makeup disguising the people that didn't want to show their faces so wore a mask instead. But he couldn't stop thinking about the eyes the eyes the eyes. The eyes belonging to the girl who didn't conform to the fake dress code. He chose his bride. They were to be wed the next week.

The woman went home with a sparkle in her so brown eyes to her 3 year old daughter. 1 step through the door. Charlotte looks up. 2 steps through the door. Charlotte comes running up to her with a hug that squeezes her mother's heart as much as it does her body. 3 steps into the house. She pulls out the rations from the fridge and her and her daughter eat the tiny scraps of food they have with a glimmer of hope just behind their eyes. 1...2...3. 4 days later Charlotte clutches the doll her mother made her and sits on her mother's bed as her stomach rumbles with an unhealthy mixture of hunger and illness. She watches her mother as she packs her few belongings into a bag she's never seen before. She packs Charlotte's clothes in with hers and they clean the house together. 1...2...3. 4 hours later a car comes and takes them to the palace. Charlotte looks out the window as the palace sneaks up on them and she smiles, smiles so big.