LUNA
“Happy twenty-first birthday to me,” I muttered under my breath as I stared at the ornate double doors hiding the Great Hall from view. I shifted from one foot to the other, the carpeted floor absorbing the sound of my footsteps as I waited in the empty hallway.
Even the guards had made themselves scarce, giving me a moment of privacy before my life would forever change. As if that would help calm the nerves in my stomach. For all my preparation, all my research, nothing could have actually readied me for this moment. I was really being sold into marriage.
Somehow, it hadn’t seemed real until now. I wasn’t sure why, because I could vividly remember standing shell-shocked, my hands running down the front of my favorite sky-blue gown, in front of the Council of Lords two weeks ago when they informed me I would marry the Prince of Darkness on the night of my twenty-first birthday.
Apparently, the “auspicious circumstances” of my birth were a sign. According to them, since I had been born beneath an eclipse that only took place once every eight hundred and forty-six years, I was the perfect candidate for being sold into this marriage.
Auspicious.
As if the scientific movements of the sun and the moon were enough reason to send me to my probable death. Everyone knew that along with not being able to go into the sun, the vampires were especially cruel towards humans. It was fairly probable that I wouldn’t survive the week.
Since receiving the news of my engagement, I read as many reports about the vampires as I could get my hands on. Not only that, but over the past two weeks, everyone I knew—and some people who were little more than acquaintances—had delighted in sharing every last terrible detail they ever heard about the people of the Northern Kingdom.
I could sum up everything I had been told in two words: blood and death.
Unfortunately for me, the word of the Council of Lords was law. Unlike the other three kingdoms on this continent, Ipotha had no ruler. The council was, for all intents and purposes, the ruling body. One did not argue with them, especially with something like this.
Still, my marriage hadn’t felt real. Not when the Council of Lords had informed me of the union, and not a week later when I visited my younger brother Marius and promised to write to him as soon as I arrived in Eleyta. Not yesterday, when I supervised the packing of my trunks. Not even this morning, when I woke up and watched the sun crest the horizon for the last time.
But it was real. All of it was real. The sun was setting, and tonight, I was marrying the vampire prince of Eleyta. This would be the last time in the foreseeable future I would see these stone walls, the worn carpets, the paintings of my family. The last time I would be with my family.
Footsteps came from behind me, and I turned as Papa approached. Dressed in a white ruffled linen shirt and velvet breeches, he extended his arm.
I slid my hand into the crook of his elbow. My lips brushed the stubble on his cheek and I whispered, “Hello, Papa.”
“Lulu,” he said warmly, somehow managing to make me feel like a child again with that one word. Patting my hand where it rested on his arm, Papa smiled. “You look like a princess in that golden gown.”
I glanced down at myself. He was right. Somehow, that made this even worse. After tonight, I would be a princess. But what good was being a princess when it meant you had to give up everything else?
The moment those double doors swung open, I would lose everything. My home, my studies, and even my family. Other than my clothes—most of which I wouldn’t be able to wear in the snowy north—the only piece of Ipotha coming to Eleyta with me was my maid, Julieta. The Light Elf had been my constant companion since my first stepmother Kinthani died, and she was more like a best friend than a maid.
Even with Julieta’s comforting presence, tonight was still changing everything. Twenty-one years of life in Ipotha, and all it took was one marriage agreement for none of it to matter. No one had asked me if I agreed to marry the prince. My opinion didn’t matter. Not about this.
I was a female, born for this very purpose.
Marriage had never been my dream. Especially not an arranged marriage to a vampire prince.
But this was not the moment to say that to my father. After tonight, I did not know when I would see him again. If I would see him again. So I cast out all thoughts of doom and gloom and focused on the present. Leaning towards Papa, I whispered, “Thank you.”
“Did you sleep well last night? I know you were having some trouble…”
His voice trailed off, and he glanced at me.
“I… not that well,” I said evasively, shaking my head and avoiding his gaze.
Three, maybe four hours of rest a night did not count as sleep. The ticking of my clock had kept me company these past two weeks, ever since I found out about this match.
How could one sleep when all their dreams were dead?
Looking back on it, it had been fanciful of me to think that as my father’s last daughter, I would be safe from the call of “duty.” I should have known this would happen, but for some reason, it still took me by surprise.
Foolishly, I used to think that if Papa forced me to marry, my husband would probably have been a kind, hopefully young,humanlord. After bearing him a few children, I dreamed I would retire to academics where I could spend my days in sunny libraries and laboratories.
But my dreams did not matter.
Papa’s lips tilted down. “I’m sorry to hear that, pumpkin. Maybe tonight you’ll find some rest.”