The Curse of the Moon

One

I’d been imagining my wedding day for as long as I could remember. The white and pink roses, flower petals scattering the aisles, my best friends dressed in cotton candy coloured gowns, and of course, the perfect groom. The connection between us would be so full of love that the entire room could feel it in the air. Never had I imagined my wedding would end up like this; an arranged marriage to the prince of a neighbouring kingdom.

“Maybe a little bit higher on the neckline,” my mother offered her input once again to the hard working seamstress. For the third time, her dainty fingers reached for the pins on my neckline to adjust them. Believe it or not, this dress had already been altered and today was just supposed to be for final viewing. My mother’s anxiety was getting the best of her though, as she nit-picked every detail of this wedding, no matter how seemingly insignificant it was.

“Mom, it’s okay. The dress is beautiful,” I tried to assure her for the hundredth time as I shooed the seamstress away from my chest. While she desperately tried to make sure every detail was perfect, it was hardly what I’d imagined my wedding would ever look like. This day couldn’t be more imperfect in my eyes. I’d always thought I would marry for love, but instead I was going through with this wedding for the good of my kingdom.

In the distance, the trumpets sounded, indicating the arrival of our guests to the kingdom grounds. My mother’s pleasant smile was wiped clean from her face, her skin turning as white as a ghost. “They’re early,” she mumbled, and if I thought she was panicking before, I was gravely mistaken. She had reached a new level of panic entirely. “Oh my goodness, they’re early!” She spoke a little louder this time, grasping the sides of her skirt to pull it up as she took off in a run. In only moments, she had hurried out of the room in hopes of beating our guests to the main hall.

I let out a sigh, meeting eyes with the seamstress. “Apologies for my mother, she’s been very anxious lately.”

The seamstress nodded her head in agreement, “this is a big weekend for the both of you,” she added. I shrugged my shoulders. It didn’t feel like a big weekend, not really. Or maybe, it just wasn’t what I had expected.

The day I was born, came the first attack of the wolves. My birth, igniting a lifetime of war between the humans and the wolves under the veil of the forbidden forest. So it seemed only right that it was my fate to resolve the war, a fate that my parents had prepared me for my entire life. I trained harder than anyone else, I studied more, I attended every royal gathering and worked to build relationships with everyone around me.

I’d followed my parents every instruction in full support since the day I was born. So when they proposed their grand solution to the war, a union between the Eastern and Western kingdoms through marriage, it seemed only right that I accepted. Which meant, instead of becoming the logical and strong ruler I always thought I might be, I was becoming a wife. I was marrying myself into an alliance in hopes of gaining an edge over the wolves in battle.

It didn’t make sense to me, why this alliance required a marriage. You would think the Western kingdom would agree to the alliance just as a way to strengthen their army. While our kingdom may be closer to the forest, and our men suffered the greater battles, it was only a matter of time before the war reached them as well. Our men would only be able to hold off the wolves for so long. I was impressed we’d been able to hold them off this long.

It had been 21 years since the war first began in the Northern lands. They’d held them off for nearly a decade before their kingdom fell. When the wolves started moving towards our territory though, we were prepared. We knew they were coming, whereas the Northern kingdom had no idea, or at least that’s what they said. I’ll never understand though, how you could build a kingdom so close to a forest and never know what’s happen beyond it’s borders.

An entire pack of vicious wolves had been lurking through the woods, preparing for attack, and the kingdom had never even expected it. Although, I guess my kingdom was in the same boat, building our castle bordering the forbidden forest. There hadn’t been a time in my life when it wasn’t forbidden, but I’d also only been alive during war time. Supposedly, it was once full of blooming flowers, gardens, hiking trails, a place where people went to clear their minds and connect with the nature. More than anything, I wished I’d known that time.

As I left the seamstress’s shop with my wedding gown slung over my shoulder, my eyes flickered to the edge of the forest. The long grass lingered beyond the border of tree, and if you looked any deeper all you could see was darkness. Tree branches where the light never hit, paths never worn into the ground, weeds overrunning the land with no one to take care of it.

A chill ran down my spine as I turned my attention back to the busy streets ahead. The whole city was excited for the wedding this weekend. Shops and restaurants had opened up for extended hours, preparing for the influx of tourists as people visited from neighbouring kingdoms.

For the first time in a while, the kingdoms had something to celebrate, and my mother had predicted that this would be the event of the century. My father, held other hopes, marking this as the event to turn a century. It would be the end all for the war, the beginning of a happier time. It wasn’t my business to say, but deep down I had this feeling like this was only the beginning. This war has been going on for decades, it wasn’t going to stop just because of a wedding.

I waved to the guards as I reached the gates of our castle, both of them giving me a firm nod before allowing me inside. Behind the castle walls, the hustle and bustle of the town was finally quiet, but the crazy energy remained. Inside, my mother was already greeting our guests, whereas I was sure my father was getting ready to retire to his study to greet the men with some whisky. Everyone was so predictable here.

“You know who is here,” Joelle, my lady’s maid and best friend greeted me at the front door. Her eyebrows wiggled across her forehead as she joked with me about my soon-to-be husband’s arrival. She knew exactly how I felt about this wedding. Even though it was my duty as the princess, I was hardly thrilled to be marrying a man I’d never met. “He’s cute,” she was quick to add as she took my dress from my hand, but then again, she thought everyone was cute.

I’d seen photos of the prince in the past, and I had to nod my head in agreement. He wasn’t bad to look at, and he had a nice smile, but that still didn’t win me over. “A man can have a good smile and still have a bad heart,” I reminded her.

“Yeah but he can also have a good smile and a good heart,” she argued with me. “Now stop being such a negative nelly,” she smoothed her hand over my shoulder then side, disappearing the wrinkles of my dress before ushering me forwards to the grand hall. With a sharp inhale, I stepped inside to face my new fiancé.