Ch. 26: Salila and Uriah

Amanda read the letters for the fourth... maybe fifth time, biting her nails in frustration as her eyes scanned the page. 

Newly minted as Queen of Salila not two weeks ago, and the 18-year-old girl was already dealing with a mountain of once-in-a-lifetime issues beyond the scope of anything that her late mother'd ever had to deal with.

First, she had to sort through her mother's various works of art. She intended to sell them all off, more or less, but her mother had been an avid collector. In fact, her death had been during an auction. She had been appraising a statue when it had fallen on her, striking her in the temple. The old woman had never even seen it coming, to Amanda's misfortune. Currently, her mother owned three large estates, filled from top to bottom with priceless works of art, bought and guarded with the people's tax money.

Though Amanda hadn't exactly worshipped her mother, due mostly to the fact that she hadn't deigned to call off Amanda's arranged marriage after her father, who had made the initial arrangement, she'd never realized just how much money the woman had begun to spend on useless pieces of trash until she'd been forced to go through the budget. Now, Amanda cursed her name from behind the desk that she hadn't left in weeks.

Another source of Amanda's headaches came from the west. Particularly, the large country of Illreya, with which Salila and Uriah both shared a border. Uriah and Illreya had very similar numbers, both population-wise and landmass-wise, and the two were always taking potshots at the other. This had been going on for centuries, and Salila, a long-lasted ally of Uriah, had been on Illreya's hate-list for quite a long time. The fear of reprisal from Uriah had kept Illreya in check up till now, but Amanda was beginning to get reports of small-scale skirmishes on the border. War seemed to be looming on the horizon, and the dumbass king of Uriah clearly couldn't see a big enough picture to be wary of it.

That fact brought Amanda's mind back to the letters in her hand. They were both from the Urian royal family, specifically the king and princess, respectively. Frankly, the contents of both were revolting in their own ways.

The king's letter centered around Amanda's 'betrothal' to his son, Adrian. While Amanda and Adrian got along well as friends, neither of them actually held any romantic interests in each other. As a result of this mutual disinterest, they'd been corresponding via letters for months about when and how to officially break off their betrothal. Amanda becoming queen had finally given her enough political power in her country to annul the marriage from her side, allowing them to finally publicly pursue their chosen romantic partners.

Amanda really wouldn't have minded marrying Adrian back when they first met, at the age of five. The young boy had been so energetic, quick witted, and mischievous back then. He'd pretty much instantly swept the young girl into a lovesick trance, teaching her all sorts of things and earning her so many scoldings as she followed in his footsteps. But he hadn't been capable of loving her. 

He'd treated her with respect. He'd been gentle, caring, an amazing friend, but the more she'd attempted to steer him towards romance, the more repulsed he'd seem to be. It'd culminated in her first, innocent kiss, she'd stolen from his lips. He'd immediately pulled back... before vomiting in her lap. A few hundred apologies later, and the lines between them had become very clear. But she'd still loved him. Until he changed.

At the age of seven, something had happened. His personality, the thing that differentiated him from the rest of the noblemen that had courted Amanda simply disappeared like a gust in the wind. Even the skills and relationships with the castle staff at Uriah that the boy had cultivated had entirely disappeared. He became this 'perfect prince,' his entire identity somehow changing to revolve around following in his idiot father's footsteps as a 'good future king.' From a boy unmatched in the blade, who'd climb the castle walls in the middle of the night to donate parts of his extensive wardrobe to charities that would help the poor, he became an 'okay' swordsman whose only concern was dancing for the people around him, like a puppet on a string.

Disgusted by it, Amanda had stopped visiting Uriah as often. As she'd grown up, the letters that they'd exchanged had grown closer to the boy that she'd loved, but something had fundamentally disappeared from his life. There was no true passion between his words anymore. Just his job. Then, she'd met the man that she eventually fell hopelessly in love with. A page in her own castle, apprenticed to the chief knight himself. His name was Gayle.

Gayle had been everything that Amanda'd loved about Adrian and then some. He'd take her on walks, he'd listen to her, and he'd tell her about his day, all the meaningful, stupid things, he had no compunctions about sharing all of their burdens. On top of that, he was smart and creative, constantly showing her a new way to see the world that she lived in. She absolutely loved it. Even if the old Adrian that had been her first crush finally returned to her after all these years, declaring his undying love for her, Amanda would have refused him with a smile. All because of Gayle.

Naturally, as an old friend, Amanda had shared her feelings for Gayle with Adrian long before they'd actually developed into anything serious. In fact, the Urian prince had been the one to tell her to attempt to start a relationship with the page in the first place, reminding her that neither of them actually wanted the marriage to happen in the first place. That correspondence had been the beginning of their plan to annul their engagement, so that the two of them could finally find their own loves. Unfortunately, with Adrian now gone, his father had finally pulled out all of the letters sent between him and Amanda, exposing their plan.