Chapter 36: The shocking news!

The next morning, she was dressed in plain pheasant clothing which Caro had sent to her through an attendant and she was waiting patiently at the hall for his arrival. He seemed to have a lesson planned for today which involved having them go deep into the village and Selena was nervous about meeting the citizens of his kingdom.

As she waited for her supposed mentor to arrive, she shifted her weight from her left to right leg nervously as she remembered the hot kiss she had shared with him just yesterday at midnight. Her face flushed bright red just at the thought of it and found herself grinning like a fool, recognizing that he genuinely fancied her and was doing all this for her because of that and not because of her parent’s orders.

Caro soon entered the hall, dressed in plain, mundane village clothes too and Selena ran a sharp eye through his outfit, wondering how the hell could anyone look so good in plain clothes?
Caro, catching his future bride- to= be checking him out openly, raised an eyebrow challengingly at her, and she immediately blushed furiously and darted her eyes away from him and to elsewhere. Caro found himself vying for an opportunity to make her flustered as her blush was quite endearing and cute.

“Shall we?”, he asked and Selena nodded at him and said, “Yes, Your Highness, please lead the way”
Caro frowned at her as he realized that she was still distant from him even after the kiss.
“You don’t have to call me ‘Your Highness’ anymore. Please feel free to call me by my first name, Caro”


Selena shot a distressed look at her fiancé, suddenly tensing up, and she said in a timid voice, “How can I just call you by your fist name? That’s both impolite as well as disrespectful. You are a vampire who are more than century older than me and top it all off, you are an original vampire. Such disrespect towards you would land me in grave trouble with the other orthodox families. Besides, we aren’t married yet to start calling whatever we prefer for our spouse.”

Caro narrowed his eyes dangerously at her and he said sternly, “I thought I had made my intentions perfectly clear last night? Even if the king himself breaks our engagement, that still won’t stop me from taking you as my lawfully wedded wife. Don’t tell me, do you still have some inhibitions on our impending marriage?”

Selena let out a sigh, then after making firm eye contact with him, she continued on politely, “It isn’t that I dislike you or something but I am too young to be married and restrained. I just got out of one prison and I don’t want to be trapped in another one so soon. I am too young to bear the responsibilities of a married life. I want to be free and travel the world.”

Caro scoffed at her in indignation as he replied to her ridiculous statement, “Do you really think ascending the throne as Queen of Valyria would make you free to roam around as you please. No! you would be surrounded constantly by guards. Stop dreaming that foolish, idiotic, childish dream of yours and start acting mature enough for your age.”

Though, Caro defiantly had valid points in his statement, Selena found herself flushing red out of indignation. This was precisely the reason, she believed it would never work out with Caro. Their age difference! It wasn’t that she was such an ageist. It was their difference in beliefs and ideology that rubbed her the wrong way. And there is also another fact to be considered that Caro most probably might have something do with the disappearance of Demetri’s family and she didn’t want to build a relationship with a man who might have had something to do with wiping out an entire clan.

Selena opened her mouth to make her argument, but found herself closing it firmly when an attendant rushed to the hall with a panic stricken and terrorized face. Seeing the pale faced attendant, who looked scared out of his wits, she found herself wondering what exactly had happened because this attendant wasn’t one of Silva’s. Judging by the uniform he was wearing, he was a royal attendant from the court of Valyria.

Seeing both Selena as well as Caro Silva together, the attendant bowed deeply to them.
Caro narrowed his eyes at the attendant and the attendant stated the purpose for which he had travelled so long and interrupted their rather tense conversation.

“Greetings, Your highnesses. I deeply regret to inform you that the king is on his dying bed and he has requested to see his daughter one last time before he passes away. According to the royal doctors, he has only one day left till the poison eventually reach his heart.”

Selena gasped out loud and eyed the attendant warily. Her father had been after all been spending the last few weeks, trying to find a cure but there was no cure for a black ivy poison.
She found herself bothered all of a sudden as even though she hadn’t been familiar with the man before or even if she weren’t fond for his dictatorship or his attitude towards her twin sister, he still was her father, after all.

“So, the fight begins!”, Caro muttered to himself, tensing up and Selena caught on to the meaning behind his words.
The bloody battle for succession was about to commence and she wasn’t prepared for it at all. She still had a long way to go to gain some allies and impress the Council of elders.

“This is quite a tricky situation. We have to go to show the king our last respects but the royal concubine would probably grow more desperate and there is a high chance that we might never make it into the palace in the first place.”

Selena frowned at him, seeing his point. She tensed up, sensing that soon everything was about to change and a civil war was about to take place. This is going to be such a dangerous time for both Valyria, their royal family as well as their citizens as the succession battle would always be ugly and she knew it was never going to be a fair fight. Knowing the royal concubine and her mother, she knew several under handed and dirty tricks were going to get played for the throne of Valyria.