Chapter 16: Engagement Announcement

Aldous had gathered the royal court to the throne room. The crowd of nobles chattered as they awaited Aldous to arrive. It felt strange standing among them, as a lady as well, sort of. Ignatius came up to me. “Any idea what is going on?” He asked,

“Urm, somewhat. No need for panic, so could you maybe help Duke Narcissus with his breathing.” I pointed over to him.

Ignatius brought Narcissus over, he gently pat his head. “There, there now. Amice said it’s going to be alright. It better be.” He snapped his head over to me.

“Well… it could be a lot worse.” I shrugged.

“You are being very vague, and I don’t like it.” Ignatius narrowed his eyes at me.

“Have any of you seen the twins, I can’t find them. I get scared when I can’t find them.” Camillus suddenly appeared.

“They are with the king and their mother.” I answered him.

“Oh good, they are supervised.” He sighed in relief. “So what is going on?”

“Amice won’t tell us.” Ignatius relaxed his stance as he watched Aldous enter.

The room went silent as Aldous sat on is throne and spoke. “I’m going to spare you the boring blah blah blah nonsense and get straight to the point. I’m implementing concubines for myself. I am also here to announce that I am now engaged to Lady Harriette of the Ofenjen clan. When we are married, she will be my concubine.”

“What!” Ignatius and Narcissus exclaimed together, just loud enough for me to hear. “Is there another woman?”

“There better not be.” I growled.

“Know this, she may not be your queen, but she will still be my wife, and if any harm is to come to her or her children, I will kill whoever harmed them myself, slowly and painfully.” Aldous declared. “Am I understood?”

“Yes, my liege!” The whole room quickly responded.

Aldous then smiled, becoming somewhat giddy. “We don’t have a date set yet for the wedding, but when we pick one you all will receive an invitation.” He stood up. “That is all, you can leave if you like.” He then walked out of the throne room.

“That was it?” Camillus asked us.

“Oh my goodness.” Ignatius rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We need to go talk to Lady Harriette.” That is just what we did.

When we arrived at Harriette’s room, Cloelia was standing there. “Ah, there you three are.” She cawed. “Dukes, each one of you get on either side of me for the apology.” She then turned to the guards, “You morons didn’t hear nothing, got it?”

The guards straighten their postures. “Yes your ladyship, nothing was said here!”

They then let us in, Harriette sitting at her desk, the twins were playing on the floor nearby. Harriette turned around. "Oh hey... why are there so many people coming into my room?"

I took a couple of steps to the side. Narcissus and Ignatius fell to the ground, Cloelia gave a small bow. "We apologize for King Aldous' decision on making you his concubine!" All three spoke in unison.

"Huh? Please get up, why are you apologizing?" Harriette asked.

The dukes got up as Cloelia explained. "You see, my son, despite his love for you, still sees you as a threat.” She cleared her throat. “Know this, he doesn’t have any other lovers, you are the only one he loves romantically. He is just scared that if you become queen, you will gain too much power, he both admires your loyalty and hates it.”

Harriette thought for a moment. “He…is scared of me?”

“Yes.” Cloelia nodded.

“Why? He has so much power, even if I become queen, what could I do against him?” Harriette asked.

“You by yourself, not much, maybe nothing. Do you not see how much the people of Bugalas look up to you?” I asked rhetorically then continued. “If you gave the order, half of Bugalas’ people would walk straight into the ocean. You are the only one that has been keeping the peace, without you, the human duchies would have begun attacking. You already hold so much political power already, if you became queen… do you see where I’m going?” Harriette nodded. “On another note, he could have just made you sign a magical prenup.” I shrugged.

“What’s a prenup?” Biff asked as he tugged on my skirt.

“Oh I forgot you were here. A prenup is an agreement a couple makes on how everything is divided up if they get a divorce.” I explained to him.

“What’s a divorce?” He followed up.

“Yeah, what’s a divorce?” Ignatius also asked.

“Oh… do you not have divorces in this world?” I counter questioned.

Cloelia was the one to answer. “We have murder.”

Later on, we were having dinner with Aldous. Everyone was happily chattin. Aldous then spoke to Harriette. "My sisters are on their way, all of them. They want get to know you better before we get married."

"Id like to get to know them better as well. I've only met Vivian and Victoria briefly. I can’t wait to spend some time with them and meet your other sisters.” Harriette chirped.

Aldous turned to the twins who were on his right. “You know, you two are going to get five more aunties.”

Their little faces lit up. “Ah! Really?” Biff grinned.

“Yep, you’ll meet them in about a week. They will be staying with us for a while so you will have plenty of time to play with them.” Aldous smiled back at his soon to be son.

“I can’t wait!” Biff squealed.

“Alright.” Aldous took a bite of food, swallowed, then spoke once more. “Unfortunately, I need to bring up some business. That annoying little lord in the dungeon.”

“Trockalon, yeah, what about him?” Harriette asked.

“Well, I’ve been in good spirits, I’d like to release him, we are getting married, everyone in the kingdom should have new beginnings, not just us.” Aldous took another bite of food while he waited for answer.

“That sounds like a splendid idea.” Harriette agreed.

I raised my hand. “Why can’t we just kill him?”

“Amice no!” Harriette squawked at me. “That would be a political nightmare.”

“I shall have him released in the morning then.” Aldous announced. “Harriette, we should pick a date for our wedding.”

“We can’t yet.” Harriette answered.

“Why not?” Aldous questioned her politely.

“As part of tradition in my clan, we can not pick a wedding date until we have a sacred duel at the Divine Arena. By my clan’s laws, we are only partially engaged, we will be fully engaged once you defeat me.” Harriette explained.

Aldous clapped his hands together. “We can go do that tomorrow.” He smiled.

“Oh crap!” I blurted out. “Mavis.”

“She is still alive!” Ignatius yelled as he slammed his hands on the table.

“Of course she is, she is like an angel or something. Well, she was still alive, oh wow, has it really been two years?” I looked to Harriette.

“Hmm, yeah, just barely. What exactly do you two have against each other anyway?” Harriette pried.

“Creative differences we will say.” I don’t want to tell the dukes of dumbness about Biff and Esmee being reincarnations yet, not that it is my place to say anything. Tonight, I will tell Harriette the truth. Mavis had wanted to begin guiding Biff to take on his destiny, but I stopped her. She has hated me ever since, because I broke a divine order. By that logic, I am to blame for everything, but the fate of the world should not be left in the hands of toddlers. They are too young to take on the task of cleansing the land of evil.

“Wow, I haven’t seen her in centuries. I still hate her.” Ignatius thought out loud.

“I’m sure the feeling is mutual.” I stated right before I took a sip of water.

Narcissus then asked a question. “Why are you so sure that Mavis will be at the Divine Arena?”

“She lives there.” Harriette answered. “She is the one who looks after the arena when she is guiding Prince Ronald. She is one of two who can change the settings and activate the power of the arena. The other is Amice. So if Mavis refuses to let us use the arena, we have a back up.”

“If she tries to stop us, I’m sure that we can overpower her.” I declared.

“I’d like to see how she likes being sealed for a few centuries.” Ignatius remarked.

“Hey, I don’t hate her that much.” I put my hand up to stop his thoughts there.

“Ugh fine.” Ignatius pouted.

The sun set and all was peaceful in the castle. Narcissus was tucking in Camillus when Ignatius and I climbed up the tower and entered his room. “Huh? It’s late. What are you two doing up here?” Camillus asked while wiping his tired eye.

I sniffed the air. “When was the last time someone cleaned up here, it smells terrible!” I ignored his question. Ignatius and I each presented him with a bag filled with pearls. “You won the bet. Six months, just like you said.”

“Really?” He took the bag Ignatius was holding and peered inside.

“Yep, rumor has it that Amice rarely looses bets, so you just won against the odds. Congratulations!” Ignatius exclaimed.

Camillus then took my bag. “Wow, thanks.” He then stared at us for a moment. “How are things going to change when Lady Harriette and the king get married?”

“I’m not sure.” Ignatius sat down on the boy’s bed. “I don’t think things will change a lot. They are already living with each other.”

“Why do people get married?” He asked another question.

“To show their love and devotion to each other.” Narcissus calmly explained.

“Do you think I’ll ever find love?” Camillus looked so sad asking.

“I’m sure you will someday.” Narcissus pet Camillus’ head to comfort him.

Camillus wasn’t convinced. “But you and Ignatius haven’t found love yet, and you two are thousands of years old.”

“Well, we live longer, so it takes us longer to fall in love. We just haven’t found our person yet.” He brushed off the child’s concern. “Get some rest now, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

I too went and got some sleep. In the early morning, we met out by the back gates. Aldous gave us twelve hours to return to the castle. Harriette led the way, we headed towards Ofenjen city. Many civilians stared as we passed them on the roads. We circled around the opposite way as the graveyard, riding clear around the city. We traveled on until we seemingly stopped in the middle of an empty field.

“Is this it?” Aldous questioned as he looked around for anything resembling an arena.

“We have to climb the stairs.” Harriette told him as she dismounted. She grabbed Esmee and took a huge step upwards into the air. A translucent blue staircase appeared, stretching into the sky.

Confidently Harriette climbed the staircase. I went after her, struggling with each step because of my small stature. Aldous grabbed Biff, following close behind. Narcissus took Camillus, while Ignatius traveled without carrying anything. Cloelia simply used magic to float above the stairs. After awhile of us climbing the stairs, apparently Ignatius got tired of my struggling and picked me up. He carried me under his arm like a sack of potatoes, it was quite embracing. We finally reached a landing, the stairs turned to out left, they were only about a meter high. There stood before us, the Divine Arena. Ignatius let me down, we ascended the final flight of stairs, and there stood Mavis, her pupiless white eyes angerly staring at us.

I threw my ghost knife. I lodged into the center of Mavis’ forehead; she didn’t flinch or even blink. “Hello Amice.” She pulled my knife out of her head and threw it back at me, I caught it in between two fingers before putting it away. Mavis turned her full attention to Harriette. “This is balsamy, you have tainted the sanctity of this place by bringing demons here. Why have you given up the location of the Divine Arena?”

“I need to duel my fiancé.” Harriette met Mavis’ eyes with utmost seriousness.

“Fiancé? You found love? Where is he?” Mavis questioned. Harriette motioned to Aldous. “Him? The king of all demons?” She then approached Aldous. “What have you done to her?”

“Propose.” He answered.

Mavis turned around walking away before turning back to face us. “I can not let you marry him.”

“That is not your decision to make.” Harriette set down her daughter as she marched up to Mavis. “Let the gods be the judges, if it is not meant to be, then I will win and the engagement will be called off, but if we are to unite in holy matrimony he shall win.” Harriette declared.

“Amice must duel me first, if she wins, she can set the conditions for you to duel… him, but if I win, you must give me custody of your son Biff.” Mavis set her conditions.

“Deal.” Harriette agreed to the terms.