"Vera. How many days are left?"

  "I believe you have but a fortnight, my Lady."

  "And my dress?"

  "Her Ladyship has ordered the most beautiful dress for you from Madame Seraphia. She is the best seamstress in the land, after all, so no doubt you will look as beautiful as an Astros sunset!"

  Skylar sighed and looked at her hands in her lap. These answers should have made her happy, but they only filled her with dread.

  "And has the Cook finalized the menu for the day of my sacrifice?"

  Instead of an answer, the doors to her chambers burst open. Skylar stood immediately. Her temples pulsed with an inevitable headache as there was only one person who would ever barge into her chambers unannounced; her Ladyship of Astros, Saira Velcourt, who also happened to be Skylar's mother.

  Saira sauntered into the room, already dressed for the evening's ball. Her skyblue dress tailored from imported silks was mesmerising. It cinched at the waist, and the skirt flowed elegantly down her form. Fluttering behind her was a dark blue cape embroidered with golden thread, and her favorite gold jewels flashed at her throat, ears and fingers.

  "How many times must I tell you to stop calling it a sacrifice?" her mother said, her voice already displeased.

  "What else would you call it?"

  "It is a blessing." Saira's shoes clicked against the polished floor, and she did not stop until she stood before her daughter. "It is a wonderful union of our two houses, one that will help our people."

  Skylar said nothing. Even her father, Lord Cardinal of Astros, Alfred Velcourt III, would never dare to enter his daughter's room without announcing himself. Alfred would be humble enough to knock, or one of his servants would declare his arrival.

  But her mother had never believed in privacy.

  Skylar had seen more of her mother in the past three months than she had in the entire year before. The wedding preparations were responsible for making her mother incredibly overbearing. She was always close by, her presence, inescapable. On the other hand, Skylar saw very little of her father. He didn't visit her very much. And it was Skylar who was responsible for that; she was refusing to talk to him.

  It was her own vow of silence, one she had failed to extend to her mother. It was like muscle memory with her; speak when spoken to, sit up straight whenever her morher noticed she was slouching, or to falsely smile when the courtiers all cheered upon hearing the fate of their young Lady Skylar.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "I believe there is no other word that fits my woes more perfectly, Mother," Skylar said quietly.

  Saira's eyes narrowed; she did not agree. She opened her mouth and continued to correct Skylar, and remind her of all the reasons why the marriage must happen.

  "King Iramund has abandoned Astros, Skylar, and he has forgotten your father, the Champion who helped him win the Long war. If this union helps your father regain the influence he once had, Astros will surely prosper again."

  The tone of her voice, each syllable, each reprimand, felt like the sting of a whip that had struck Skylar many times before. Skylar wanted to get away, but only her mind could flee. It escaped to the glass doors that led to her gardens outside. There, her fruit trees and flowerbeds waited. And the giant fountain, home to a dragon carved from jade and marble, water spilling from its mouth.

  In spring and summer, she picked the fruit herself. Pears and peaches. Lemons and figs. Sweet cherries that stained her hand red.

  She'd wash and sort the fruit, and then collect it all in a big basket and walk through the castle, sharing with anyone who crossed her path. From servants, guards, stablemen, to the gardeners, cooks and even her tutors. Visiting courtiers who looked at her like she was wonderful, and surely whispered once she turned her back. And of course, her parents.

  Her mother would frown at the unseemly sight of her stained hands, at the giant basket lying in the middle of the Great Hall like common produce. She'd say that Skylar should let servants handle such things, or allow the cooks to serve them properly. And yet, her mother never declined the sweet cherries and the figs from her daughter's garden.

  And her father…

  Skylar's chest tightened with longing. Alfred enjoyed the peaches the best. The two of them would sit together, juice running down their mouths and wrists with each bite.

  Skylar suddenly longed to speak to her father. She had never gone this long without speaking to him; even when Alfred was away, travelling across roads and oceans to faraway lands, Skylar wrote him a letter every single day he was gone. She couldn't even remember the last time Alfred had called her his 'Sunrise', the name he had given to her the moment she was born, at dawn, of the first day of the new year.

  "Skylar, are you listening to me?"

  Her mother's voice snapped her back to the present. Two handmaidens stood before Saira, each presenting a necklace to her Ladyship. Saira took one, a silver necklace embedded with glimmering blue sapphires, and held it up to the light.

  Skylar stayed silent and waited. She knew what came next. Her mother and the handmaidens were choosing the right adornments for the evening ball, and she would have to stand still as they worked around her. It was then Skylar remembered that she had still not seen the dress that her mother had picked out for her.

  She did not spend too long thinking about it, as the thought of her father consumed her with guilt. It rushed through her and weighed down upon her chest. It tried to warm the ice of betrayal around her heart but Skylar pushed it away. She refused to let the guilt excuse her father's crime.

  After all, it was her father who had condemned her to the cruellest fate of all; to never matter.

  When Lord Cario Everus had proposed the union between their Houses, Alfred did not take long to accept. Her future, hers to shape and build, was taken away from her. Even though her father raised Skylar to dream, to believe she would do great things to rebuild Astros and return it to the mighty realm it once used to be. And soon, with but a fortnight to go, it would no longer be her home. She would have to leave Astros, sentenced to move across its border, to Xoras.

  A cold and stern nation. A prison. And yet, Skylar had committed no crime. She was simply born a Lord's daughter, with no control over her own fate or the politics of realms.