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“Rishe Irmgard Weitzner.
You are a vile woman. A malicious creature unworthy of the crown prince.
As of this instant, our marriage is annulled. You are hereby exiled from Galkhein. This will be carried out by midnight tonight, upon penalty of death.”
Arnold’s voice rang out, blanketing the hushed throne room with its chill.
Rishe swayed, almost staggering forward as a terrible déjà vu, multiplied by seven times, caught her off-guard.
She had heard nearly those exact words. So many times before.
Always they had come from the same person.
Never had they been after marriage.
And the one who had just spoken them… was someone she thought never would.
Arnold?
A pang flashed through her heart, and she barely suppressed a gasp from the sharpness.
Her eyes bored into those of the man sitting casually on his throne, head on his chin as if he were ordering a trivial change in the guard rather than his wife’s sudden exile.
Her stare was a silent plea for understanding, a yearning to know what he was thinking, planning.
His eyes—were cold. Nothing more.
They looked upon her in a way she had seen only a few times before—but never at her—not in this life.
This has to be a dream—a nightmare.
She pinched herself hard, willing it to be true, and flinched when she nearly broke skin.
What?
So it had to be real.
She couldn’t accept the implications of that.
Rishe took a deep breath, willing her composure to stay just a little longer, even as it begged to shatter.
“Your Highness…?”
He gave a sneer, “That is my final word. Any excuses from you are futile.”
She couldn’t help gasping at that, and finally thought to gaze around at the members of the court surrounding the spectacle that was their crown prince and now-ex-princess.
Everyone stared back. Some with pity. Some with confusion. Others with smug satisfaction.
She caught the eyes of a few of the guards stationed about the walls. They averted theirs.
No help from anyone. And he won’t let me speak. Does he actually despise me after everything?
The thought went against everything she knew; yet what other explanation was there for the scene unfolding around her—happening to her?
It hurt.
Determined not to let anyone be privy to this sentiment, however, Rishe took a steadying breath and straightened.
She leveled another glare at Arnold, projecting a coolness she did not feel, “As you wish, your Highness.”
His lips might have twitched in a smirk—eyes might have softened in a flash of sadness—or both might have been a trick of her eyes.
This added to Rishe's confusion even as she discounted it.
Sea-green eyes narrowed, sharpening her glare.
If this is a joke, I might actually hit him. Yes, anger was good. It would get her through until she could be alone—away from all of these people staring at her. Better yet, the absurd hope that this was all part of some plan of his would be enough to keep her from breaking until she could be alone.
Arnold directed two guards to escort Rishe to her chambers—she didn’t recall meeting these two before—after he listed the details of her banishment.
His words jumbled, swirling around in Rishe's head as she walked between the guards down long hallways and through the palace gates.
Rishe had been given a short time in which to ready herself to leave the villa—their villa—forever.
Something broke inside her even as she desperately clung to the possibility that Arnold would explain this to her. That it would be alright.
That he wouldn’t send her away.
At midnight, Rishe was to be taken to a carriage that would transport her to a ship awaiting her at the nearest harbor.
She would then be escorted onto said ship, which would carry her to—some country—she didn’t catch the name but it must have been Hermity
Rishe had been too busy fighting against the thoughts and memories, the confusion and hurt that threatened to break her right there in the throne room, to hear most of what Arnold had said clearly.
It was hard to breathe.
Rishe fought to clear her thoughts, willed them to slow enough to be coherent.
Now at her chambers, Rishe strode faintly to her desk. She gazed at the blank paper left there, waiting for her thoughts to take form and be spilled onto it.
Rishe had never needed to write in order to clear her thoughts.
But it did often help.
After a final deep breath, a last moment of helpless panic, Rishe reached for her pen and pressed the inked tip to the top of the page.
~~~~~~~
Rishe estimated that about an hour remained until midnight.
One last line…
Quickly folding and sealing the letter, Rishe gathered up the pile she had created, stepping towards the knights who had watched her since she had begun writing.
I didn’t write my plan down…too risky…but this should be more beneficial. If I need it…
Rishe set about packing what little she needed for the journey into a wooden and leather chest, completing the task quickly.
The soon chest neatly closed and in the middle of the room, Rishe looked up at the guards.
Truth be told, the entire time she had been in there, every slight noise or shift in the air had her convinced that Arnold would walk in and explain everything. Still did.
It appears I can’t rely on that, though. I need a backup plan.
Scooping up the stack of letters, Rishe turned to the guards with a sweet smile.
“Would you kindly arrange for these letters to be delivered to the individuals listed on the envelopes?”
They appeared reasonably startled. One spoke up, “If I may—”
“Oh, they are simply farewell letters to everyone I won’t be able to see before I go. I will miss them dearly, and did not wish to leave without some form of goodbye.”
This earned her a look of pity from the both of them.
Good…
After a moment’s hesitation, the one who spoke up before reached a hand out to take the stack from Rishe. “Of course,” he replied.
He is kind, she realized.
I do hope he doesn’t fall into trouble from this.
Rishe was betting on his kindness to get the letters to where they needed to go—preferably, without being opened and looked through on their way there.
The second guard checked his pocket watch—those had become standard for high-ranking knights after the months in alliance with Coyolles—and nodded to his companion.
It is almost time.
Rishe spoke up before the guards could address her, “I apologize for the added trouble, but may I take one last look around the room to remember it by?”
There was that pity again.
They nodded, and Rishe made her way around the room, caressing the top of her desk, sliding a hand along the wall, and gazing at everything intently in a sad determination to remember everything fully.
While this did serve her purposes, it was not an act.
Rishe came to her bed last—the place where, on occasion, she and Arnold had slept together. Despite being married—although only for a short time—they had never consummated their marriage; true to what Arnold had said all those months ago.
No, they had just—held each other. Kissed a few times, perhaps… But the memories of his warmth pressed against her, folded around her, were the sweetest to her.
And were too much to bear now that she might never feel it—feel him—again.
Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, Rishe ran a fond hand over the silken pillow next to her. The one Arnold had rested his head on the last time he had come to stay with her.
Her other hand slipped a sleek object out from beneath the softness.
Another deep breath.
Turning to move back to the doorway—she guessed her time was up—the object was slid inside her left sleeve.
“I am ready,” she faced the guards squarely, steadily.
Something like awe swam across their faces.
~~~~~~~
She didn’t see Arnold when she exited the villa.
Nor when she came to the courtyard with the waiting carriage.
Rishe sighed.
What are you doing?
She walked straight, every step bringing her closer to the carriage.
To the taking away of everything she held dearest.
But she wouldn’t leave without seeing the one she still held most dear.
I wish I could just politely ask to see him. Or at least apologize to these kind Sirs first…
But that would ruin her advantage.
Only a lightning-quick glance to her right—where the quieter guard kept pace with her—could have warned the two of her attack.
The dagger was out of her sleeve, still sheathed, but vicious all the same as Rishe slammed it into his stomach, gaining a sickened grunt and a yell of shock, respectively, from the both of them.
The guard’s kind companion got over his shock rather quickly, jumping towards Rishe with his sword sheathed.
Bruises were exchanged, but not before at least twenty other knights sprinted towards them from the shadows of the courtyard.
Rishe fought them all off for as long as she possibly could.
But these were no mercenaries hired for gold.
These were Galkhein knights; every one of them trained by Arnold.
And she had never been able to best him.
Two of the knights held each of Rishe's arms, her dagger lying pitifully on the hard stone.
All of them were wheezing—though none as exhausted as Rishe.
“Please—” she finally deigned to plea through her own panting, “I just want—to see him. One—last—time.” Her breath refused to return to her, fleeing before her increasing despair.
Most of their faces bore sympathy. They knew who she spoke of.
But they were loyal to their crown prince above anyone else.
She would get no help from them.
The kind one spoke their refusal, gentle even after their fight. Her heart broke a little more from the gesture, already feeling too much.
~~~~~~~
Head sagging against the rumbling window of the carriage, Rishe let the despair envelop her.
Why didn’t he come to see me?
Out of all the questions spinning through her head, this was the one she couldn’t stop thinking of.
She had fought to see him, too.
Fought with a ferocity she perhaps never had before.
Yes, she had held an intense fierceness when she fought to protect her royal charges so many lifetimes—or was it just one lifetime?—ago.
But the one that had just spurred her was a different sort of fire—a different layer of desperation.
And she now realized that it was likely that very desperation that had decreed her defeat—or at least the rapidity of said defeat.
Perhaps both times.
This time, however, the failure felt sharper, more terrible.
~~~~~~~
Rishe didn’t see Arnold.
Not when she was given a hand out of the carriage when it came to a stop at the docks, misery in the form of a ship already awaiting her.
Not when she walked up the gangplank, steps determined to be strong, yet waning in strength.
Nor when she waited at the railing, pathetically hoping to see a head of midnight hair somewhere in the crowds milling about the dock.
Not when the sails were unfurled and the ship began to move away from the dock.
Not when the dock faded from her vision, replaced by a vast ocean.
Not even then.