Lilith

Her hazel eyes never left the dancing couple as she noticed that Ellsie's eyes were glued to crowned prince's partner. Finally she broke her focus on them, looking around to all the jealous stares from the young, single daughters of every noblemen there. An evil smile spread across her as a red glow closely appeared around her hands, she felt a cold hand on her wrist as she was about to cast the spell.

"Lilith, it's so good to see you." A woman with grey eyes and golden blonde hair, smiled at her with an expecting look. "I wasn't expecting to see you so soon."

"Marissa?" Her eyes ran up and down the woman in front of her.

"It's Mara now." The duchess lowered her voice as looked her cousin in the eyes. "How about a walk." She lead Lilith to the abandoned balcony, and filled her in on the last 20 years.

"Oh you devil Marissa you really do take after our fathers." Lilith gave a psychotic smile, as she glared at the prince, "But you're not aiming high enough, you think she's ruined it, but why have the dukedom when you can have the whole empire."

"But he's not the crowned prince."

"Oh Mara, Mara, Mara. I'll let you in on a little secret, Jonathan never makes to emperor." Lilith menacing smile and killer eyes, glued to Jonathan. "But perhaps we can give him a helping hand."

~ ~ ~

The music stopped and the second prince, his fiancée and all the other couples stopped dancing giving each other a polite bow before heading back and socialising. Ellsie went to a lot of effort to avoid Loretta and Jonathan as she knew this was not the time nor place to make accusations, especially not this publicly. While Ellsie was distracted she didn't notice the unknown lady in the back talking to her stepmother. There were whispers of gossip going around the ball that night. Everyone who was invited were glad they were and would most definitely be rubbing it in the faces of those who weren't invited.

"Ellsie!" a sweet voice echoed through the crowd of noblemen, a small, young woman whose strawberry blonde tresses complimented her light pink gown and drew attention to her emerald-like eyes making them dazzle in the light of the ballroom.

"Violet?" Ellsie was pleasantly surprised to see her cousin running towards her, behind her walked a man just taller than her, his sandy blonde hair shone in the light and his dark brown eyes looked lovingly at his wife who was excitingly running towards the guests of honour. "Violet what are you doing here?" Ellsie was shocked to see the overly excited Baroness and her husband.

"Well I couldn't miss your engagement party." Violet wrapped her arms around Ellsie, while shocked she was glad to see her older cousin. Violet was Ellsie and Eric's cousin from their mother's side, Emily's brother Adam was eldest of the three children and took over the Rubeus family dukedom, Violet was the second child of Duke Rubeus, therefore was allowed to marry for love, Violet fell in love with Samuel who's a Baron from a small neighbouring kingdom.

"Who told you I was getting married?" Ellsie gentled pulled away, then politely greeted Samuel.

"Your father sent us an invitation saying you were getting engaged but wouldn't say to whom. Now I see why." Violet's emerald eyes wandered over to Lucian and quickly back to her cousin. "Would you mind introducing us?" She whispered.

"Oh right..." Ellsie laughed at herself nervously. "Darling, this is my cousin from my mother's side Violet Claywood and her husband Samuel Claywood, Baron and Baroness of Westron in the Kastorine Kingdom. Violet, Samuel this is my fiancé, Second Prince Lucian Creston of the Empire of Creston." As Ellsie introduced them, they bowed and curtsied to one another politely, being that they were representing another kingdom here Samuel and Violet were on the best behaviour, but also took the opportunity to make connections within the Creston Empire.

"It's lovely to meet you both, I am so happy you could be here to help us celebrate, finally finding each other." Lucian looked down at his fiancée lovingly.

"Excuse me if I'm wrong or misunderstood, but the Duke gave me the impression that you and Lady Ellsie have known each other your whole lives?" Samuel seemed perplexed by the statement Lucian had just made, this caused the other three to laugh, Violet wrapped her arm into her husband's as she smiled dotingly at him.

"Oh darling you really are a treasure sometimes." Violet smiled happily at her husband.

"What she means is that, while yes Lucian and I have known each other for our whole lives, our love has been newly founded." Ellsie smiled at her.

"While it's always been there, we've both been every much in denial about it all until recently." Lucian continued her sentence, as he slipped his hand around her waist.

"Oh I understand." Samuel nodded. While he now understood what they meant, he did not seem to understand why they would be in denial about their feelings for one another, he found love was a wonderful thing.

As the four of them engaged in pleasant conversation, Violet became distracted and her eyes became locked on the person heading towards her.

"Violet." The girl's grey eyes glared at Violet in disgust.

"Clarissa." Violet's tone was filled with revulsion and here look in her eyes seemed to tell the same story.

As Clarissa walked by the four, her eyes fell on the handsome stranger standing between Violet and Lucian. She sent him a flirting look, only to be responded with a polite, yet overly fake smile, as he pulled Violet closer, to indicate that the woman she was so rude to just a second ago was his companion that evening. This irritated Clarissa as she honestly believed she was entitled to whatever or whomever she wanted.

~~~

Lilith and Mara made their way around the ballroom and Mara introduced her to people as her cousin's daughter. A lot of people accepted this, but realised afterwards they didn't know much about Mara's family, while she'd lived in the kingdom her whole life, she'd lived with Rubeus family for the most part of her childhood.

"Who is that?" Lilith's hazel eyes widen in horror as she stared at a couple talking to Jacob and Eric.

"Lilith what are you talking about that's Emperor Demetri." Mara looked at her rather confused, Lilith had met the Emperor himself many years ago before he was even crowned.

"Harrr," Lilith sighed rolling her eyes at the aged duchess. "I recognise that fat pig, I'm talking about the blue-haired woman beside him!"

"Wait you don't know who that is?" Mara seemed shocked. Lilith was a powerful seer who had been put into a frozen like state for the last 20 years to avoid a catastrophe. "That's Olivia Lightheart, she became the Empress after the first Empress died in childbirth." Shouldn't Lilith know that?

"No... no..." Lilith seemed dazed and shaken, Mara escorted her outside into the fresh air.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's not right!" Lilith's eyes widen, her face had a crazed expression as she gripped Mara's shoulders and pulled her closer. "The Emperor was supposed to grieve alone and sad for the rest of his life. He wasn't supposed to remarry!" Lilith had lived a long time, centuries in fact, and never once had she seen a future change. If she was wrong about this then what else could she have been wrong about? What if everything she did to avoid the catastrophe wasn't enough anymore.

"WHAT!" Mara was just as shocked as she knew the power of Lilith Silver, she had been the head of their family for centuries.