“Oh... I’m not really sure. I mean, my uncle suggested it, but I wasn’t really motivated. I don’t know much about the King, and the little I do know is scary! I think he hoped the King would be a bit nicer if he had a nice queen... You would make a very nice queen, Cessilia! Will you seriously take part in the competition?”

“...Yes,” muttered Cessilia, her heart picking up a fast rhythm again.

“That’s good!”

“Nana, what is the c-competition like?”

“Oh, not much! They call it a competition, but it’s just having all the candidates over in the castle, and there are three ceremonies where they can showcase their talents. It can be anything! Then, the King just decides on his Queen, and that’s pretty much it. I know the Council can give their opinion, but they don’t decide. Although, I’m worried it might get a bit nasty...”

“N-nasty? How?”

“Well, candidates can’t give up, but they might be forced to; if they are heavily injured, if they commit a crime, or if they are proven to not be virgins. I think those are the rules, and there are already rumors that some candidates won’t play very fairly... Ah, not me! I just heard it from the people in the kitchens. I don’t think it will get too bad, though. If they attack other candidates, they’d be committing a crime too, which would disqualify them. Maybe it’s just me being too cautious!”

Cessilia didn’t feel like Nana was exaggerating, though. From what she had seen earlier, at least a couple of her competitors would be very fierce in the race to the throne... It would be better if everyone was like Naptunie, but she highly doubted it.

“The first ceremonial banquet will be in two days, so don’t worry, we will have plenty of time to prepare! We can still order you a dress by then, and we can go do more shopping tomorrow and the day after too! Oh, can I look at your dresses later? I mean, I don’t want to be too, uh, curious, you know, but I’m really, really curious about what you brought from the Dragon Empire! Is it true that everyone wears gold there? And only the Empress can wear purple? I have tons of questions already!”

Cessilia smiled. Of course, she did... For now, though, she had to get ready to go have dinner with the Counselor, and Tessa should be coming home soon too...

Just as she thought so, the doors to the suite were opened with a bang, and Tessa walked in, visibly furious.

“T-Tessa?” asked Cessilia, worried.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” grumbled her cousin, diving onto the large bed without even taking off her clothes.

She buried her face in the pillows and stopped moving. On the other side, Krai stared at the young woman on the bed, then directed its red eyes at Cessilia, letting out a short growl. Cessilia sighed. Their love lives were not going to go as smoothly as they had hoped...

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 6

“T-Tessa?” she gently called out. “I b-brought you some d-dinner...”

A muffled grumble answered from under the covers. Cessilia sighed, leaving the plate on the little table. Her cousin had moved from above the covers to under it, so she couldn’t tell if she had even washed her face or anything... She moved to the bathroom after grabbing her nightgown from their still-packed belongings. The dinner with Counselor Yamino and Nana had been pleasant, and they were both unbelievably chatty, so Cessilia only had to nod, and squeeze in an answer from time to time. She was still a bit shaken up about the earlier events and worried about her cousin too. Tessa was rarely this down... Krai was gone, probably to visit more of the Eastern Kingdom by night.

The suite was even more beautiful at night, Cessilia thought. The moonlight was shimmering on the quiet sea and giving the white nacre of the room a beautiful halo. The Cerulean Suite had now drifted to dark shades of blue and white, with the waves’ gentle sounds as a background lullaby. Once she was clean, changed, and her hair undone, Cessilia slowly moved to the bed, combing her long locks a bit more. Her cousin’s figure could only be seen as a big bump in the sheets, not even a hair sticking out. Cessilia put the comb on the bedside table, and sat on the other side of the bed, patting the bump. She knew Tessa wasn’t asleep yet.

“D-do you still not want t-to t-talk about it?” she asked softly.

An unintelligible mumble answered her, probably a negative answer. Cessilia sighed, and slipped under the covers to join her, the room definitely a bit chillier by night. She moved until she could feel Tessa’s body under the covers, and grabbed her hand. She smiled.

“It’s like when we were k-kids.”

She held her cousin’s hand for a few minutes longer, in silence, staring at the ceiling. It was the first time she slept in a place that didn’t belong to her family... but the room was truly beautiful. If this was the most beautiful room in the castle, she wondered what the others were like.

“...I wish we could go back,” suddenly muttered a voice from under the covers.

Cessilia turned her head toward the covers, where she knew her cousin to be. After a few more seconds, Tessa wiggled her body until her head finally popped out. She hadn’t cried, but she still looked pretty sullen, and her hair was an absolute mess.

“Everything was so simple when we were kids,” she sighed. “We could run everywhere in the palace, see each other all the time, make the aunties laugh, and hide at Grandma’s when they were mad at us...”

“I miss G-Grandma too,” nodded Cessilia.

“She’d always take our side,” chuckled Tessa. “The only woman scarier than Auntie Shareen... or my mom.”

“I miss my b-brothers and sisters a b-bit already,” muttered Cessilia.

“Yeah, I miss my pest of a little sister too. I guess it’s because it’s our first time so far from home...”

Tessa let out a long sigh, and rolled onto her side, holding her head with her hand and staring at her cousin with a complex expression on.

“Cessi... Are you sure we came here for a good reason? A really good one?”

Cessilia sighed, her eyes on the ceiling again. The hundreds of little polished pieces of seashell were glowing like large stars in the sky... Deeply thinking about her cousin’s question, she thought about everything they had seen today. It was true they were far from home, in a place which, for the first time, wouldn’t care about who their parents were, where no one would protect them. They had a dragon, but... in those corridors, Krai wouldn’t be of any help.

Yet, when her thoughts drifted to her short interaction with the King from earlier, Cessilia’s heartbeat accelerated a bit. She remembered that kiss, like a gentle warmth on her lips, and that look in his eyes. Without thinking, she began smiling and pinching her lips, almost as if she could taste it again... Next to her, Tessa grunted and dove face-first into the pillows again.

“Don’t make that face,” she grunted. “I’m not happy at all right now.”

“D-did something happen with Nana’s b-brother?”

“No, nothing happened, that’s the problem. The first man our age I don’t want to fight in a while, and all he’s thinking about is his weapons, his job as a guard, his duty... Every guy but him was staring at me! I don’t understand guys. He said he wants a homemaker!”

Cessilia grimaced, feeling a bit sorry for Tessa. She was anything but a homemaker... In fact, despite her beauty, Tessandra had been born with the personality of a tomboy, probably shaped a lot by her mother’s short temper. She had always been eager to train with her cousins, get new weapons, and had a sharp tongue, a trademark for women in their family. She had never learned anything that would make her a homemaker either. In truth, Cessilia had always imagined Tessa would find herself a gentle, capable, and understanding man like her father, so she could become a warrior as she had always dreamt of...

“...I th-think it’s fine,” she finally said, still smiling.

“What is? You think I should move on?” frowned Tessa, lifting her eyes from the pillow.

“N-no. Just make him like g-girls like you. If anybody can d-do it, you c-can, T-Tessa.”

For a couple of seconds, her cousin remained speechless, completely taken by surprise by Cessi’s words. Then, she jumped without warning to hug her, giggling and smiling from ear to ear.

“T-Tessa!” she protested, completely crushed under her cousin’s sudden attack.

“Oh, this is why I love you, Cessi! You’re the best! I love you the most!” squealed Tessa, ignoring her and kissing her cheek repeatedly until she laughed too.

The two girls kept laughing and fighting playfully for a while under the covers, tickling each other until they were exhausted and out of breath. When they were done, Cessilia was lying on her back again, staring at the ceiling, but her cousin’s arm was over her chest, Tessa lying on her flank right next to her. She could feel her cheek on her shoulder, and her heavy breathing as they were both trying to calm down a little.

“It’s just like when we were kids,” chuckled Tessa. “Do you remember? Our moms would always find us sleeping in the same bed, stuck to each other... My mom used to say we should have been born as twins.”

Cessilia nodded, a smile stuck on her face too. Of course, she remembered, because they were so close in age, it felt like she and Tessa had been together their whole lives. The times they had to spend apart had always been hard, and she remembered counting the days until she could see her cousin again... Tessa’s family lived in the Capital, where they had their business, while Cessilia’s lived in the north, in the isolated Onyx Castle. She had never been so bold as to go alone to the Capital, like her younger sister who frequently escaped.

“Cessi?”

“Mhm?”

“...Can you read something?”