The Dark Prince’s Chosen Bride

A Sorrowful Departure

The summons had been very specific. Emilia’s family was to send a messenger to the palace at once with a copy of Emilia’s birth decree, to confirm she was of marrying age, and a list of her dress measurements for the court seamstresses. She would have a week to prepare before a horse-led coach would be sent to collect Emilia and her parents. Eleven other women of marrying age and noble birth had been issued a summons. All twelve would be brought to the palace and housed in the guest wing with their families for a night before the Dark Prince would arrive and choose his wife.

Each woman had been ordered to pack a single chest. Each woman should pack carefully, because if they are chosen they will leave directly from the palace once the choosing is done. When they pass into the Dark Realm, they would never return to their home.

It had been a century since the last Dark Prince had come to claim his human bride, so long that no one living in the duchy of Lan was old enough to recall it. Little was known about the Dark Realm. Even the open trade routes between the kingdoms ended at small trading villages only a few miles beyond the borders.

Seldom did a fairy of the Dark Realm stay longer then a few hours in the Human Realm. And humans that dared go far onto the magic-soaked soil of the land of the fay rarely came back.

Emilia’s family each tried to cope with the summons in their own way.

The Duke became sullen, lost in his thoughts. The rational part of him took comfort in the fact that Emilia only had a one in twelve chance of being selected. But in the shadowed corners of his mind, he pictured his daughter swallowed up by a wall of black magic, lost to him forever. If she is selected, he would never see her veiled in white at her wedding to a respectable man or watch her blossom beneath the mantle of motherhood. He would never bounce her children on his knee or spend lazy summer days teaching them how to ride ponies or pick strawberries in the meadows.

The King would have everyone believe it was an honor to have your daughter chosen. The bride and her family would be marked in the history books as selfless servants of the realm, upholding the treaty and ensuring peace. But the Duke didn’t feel like this was an honor. It felt like a burial.

The Duchess, usually an even-tempered and patient woman, became sharp-tonged with her house staff and lashed out at the slightest mistake. When she wasn’t berating her maids for scuffed floors or wrinkled linens, she laid in her bed and wept. The kindness that lived in her heart had been replaced by the scalding rage of a helpless mother.

William was too young to grasp the depth of the king’s summons, but he could tell from the somber tone in his once joyful home that something horrible was happening. He tried as best as a ten year old could to cause no trouble and mind his manners. Behaving to ease the pain he saw etched in his parent’s faces.

For her part, Emilia tried to remain calm. She pored over the leather-bound history texts in her father’s study, trying to learn what she could about the Bride Selection. She sat at her little writing desk and made a meticulous list of all the things she would want to pack. She wrote long letters to her father, her mother, and little William. She sealed them with kisses and tied sprigs of dried rosemary around each one with cornflower blue ribbons before putting them in her nightstand.

She knew she would probably be coming home. The letters would be taken out of her nightstand and burned in the hearth her first night back. She was the unpolished daughter of a country duke, not some great lady of the courts. What a fay prince would find in her, she couldn’t imagine. But…if somehow she was chosen, she wanted her family to know how much she loved them.

The day before the coach would come claim her, Emilia and her mother packed her solitary trunk. Though her eyes were red from crying, the duchess swallowed down her sobs. This may be some of the last few hours she spends with her daughter, and she won’t spoil them with tears. Surveying the items that had been set out to bring, she couldn’t help but grin.

“Such practical things you’re taking, my dove. If I didn’t know better, I would think you are packing to go study in the royal archives-not be presented as a potential princess consort.”

“You know I’ve always had simple tastes, Mama. It makes no sense to bring fine silks and jeweled hair-combs when what I would long for most would be my books, a sack of candied nuts,and of course, my Gallant.” Emilia smirked at the dog, loudly snoring at the foot of her bed.

When Emilia asked if she was allowed to bring him, her father assured her the hound could accompany them to the palace. Gallant had been by Emilia’s side, loyally shadowing her since the day she was gifted him on her birthday two years ago. The Duke would not abide his child being separated from her pet and the little comfort he would provide.

Now, the hour had come for Emilia to leave. She checked her hair in the mirror, making sure none of her unruly curls had escaped the pinned coil at the nape of her neck. She looked travel- ready. Her cream damask tunic was tucked snuggly into the waist of her heavy, olive-colored travel skirt. The only jewelry she wore was a pendant on a gold chain, a small imprint of the crest of Lan.

She gave quick hugs to her maids, and gave her brother a kiss on his forehead. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “goodbye”. It wasn’t until she stepped out of her front door for the last time and saw her chest being loaded into a pristine white coach that nerves began to claw at her stomach.

Her parents stood in the doorway, giving final kisses to William and final instructions to his nursemaid. Once they finished, the duke helped his wife get seated before returning to help his daughter.

“Wait!” William cried, running to clasp his arms around Emilia’s legs.

He pressed into her hand something small and soft. The miniature felted lamb that he had slept with since he was a baby.

“You can keep him until you come home,” he whispered.

Trying to keep the tears from her eyes, she stroked his round,rosy cheek.

“You truly are the sweetest boy. I’ll take the best care of him.”

Hours later, while her mother dozed on the shoulder of her snoring father, Emilia finally allowed the tears to fall. For days, she had forced herself to be calm, made herself numb. But now her heart was breaking, shattered by the memory of her brother’s small, worried face watching her carriage pull away from her home.