"You'll Marry Him in a Heartbeat!"
"You'll marry him, and you'll do it with a smile! In a heartbeat! Not willing, are you? Be grateful someone like him even agreed to take you as a wife! Flawed! Plain!" Queen Martena-White scolded me with a venomous edge in her voice.
"Exactly!" chimed in Queen Martena-Black, my mother, nodding in agreement. "If you play your cards right and please him in bed, he might even elevate you to White status." She cast a sidelong glance at her pale counterpart before adding, "Though that’s hardly the point. What matters is bearing his children! Once you do, no one will dare insult you or leave you to fend for yourself among the vishaps!"
Her Majesty Martena-White paled slightly at those words, but she clearly didn’t want to reignite their endless feud in my presence. As long as I could remember, the two queens had been at each other’s throats. Martena-White couldn’t bear children—whether due to a curse or some bodily affliction, I didn’t know—but it was her lifelong burden. Perhaps that’s why she had honed her skills as a seductress to perfection. And my father, Gerbish-White, naturally favored her over my mother, making Martena-White the first queen of the realm and the white half of his life.
Maybe that was for the best. My mother had always been a bit simple, likely incapable of fully handling royal duties, but she knew her place. She managed the palace, oversaw the household, and busied herself with minor kingdom affairs that Martena-White permitted her to handle. Yet she never let anyone walk over her! She always snapped back, her tongue sharp as a blade, armed with a arsenal of biting proverbs she wielded against her sister at every opportunity.
"They say he’s got a rough temper, so you’d better keep your head down and stay out of trouble! Cater to Prince Jonathan-White, flatter him, and make sure no scheming vixens get their claws into him!" my mother lectured, showing a flicker of concern for me, though she hadn’t taken much interest in my life for years.
"And another thing, Edelina, dress prettier, brighter, show a bit more cleavage, and bite your lips often to make them redder and fuller! Men love with their eyes!" Martena-White advised from her own playbook of feminine wiles.
"What nonsense!" my mother snapped indignantly. "Men love modest and obedient women!"
"Oh, please!" her rival sneered. "Men crave passionate, alluring women! They don’t want a lifeless log in their bed!"
And so it began! I’d witnessed these arguments between the queens countless times, so I quietly stepped over to the window and gazed out at the servants loading my belongings into the carriage that would soon carry me to the wild, godforsaken kingdom of Mixteya.
That’s where my betrothed hailed from—a prince who, after lengthy diplomatic negotiations between our kingdoms, had reluctantly agreed to marry me. I was furious, burning with rage like a beast on a pyre! I didn’t want to marry anyone, let alone him! Rumor had it he was cruel, barbaric, a brute in every sense. They said he beat women, humiliated them, and kept a harem of concubines! And his brother, Jonathan-Black, was supposedly just as bad! My maid, Karena-White, whispered to me that Karena-Black knew a merchant who led caravans to Mixteya, and this merchant knew a servant in the royal castle of a neighboring kingdom. That servant swore up and down that Jonathan-White and his brother even shared women between them! Perhaps they even hosted orgies!
Oh, it was probably just gossip, but the thought of traveling to a foreign land to marry a stranger, surrounded by such vile rumors about his royal family, made my skin crawl. Why couldn’t they just let me live my life as I wished? But no! My father was adamant: the marriage contract and alliance with the Mixteyan king had already been signed. The king of Mixteya was reportedly on his deathbed, and his twin brother had long been in the grave. The throne would soon be vacant, and the princes would become the undisputed rulers of the kingdom. Having a queen related by blood in a strategically important realm like Mixteya would be immensely beneficial to our kingdom. And no one bothered to ask what I wanted! Hmph, I understood that such was the fate of all royals: arranged marriages were the norm. But I refused to accept that this rule applied to me!
Still, I had a plan! There would be one stop along the journey, and I intended to escape during it. I had money sewn into the lining of my belt, hidden carefully. I hoped everything would go smoothly and I wouldn’t fall into the hands of that cruel, vicious, and depraved Prince Jonathan-White.
The World of Twins
I rode in a well-appointed carriage, having received a mix of useful and utterly useless advice for my future married life from my mother and aunt. My father embraced me briefly, offered a few words, but he was preoccupied and merely instructed me to behave and always remember the interests of our kingdom before hurrying off to his affairs. Oh, and he didn’t forget to mention grandchildren—how he eagerly awaited them and all that... I barely restrained myself from snapping back. I knew how to throw barbs when I wanted to.
Accompanying me, besides the coachman, were two guards and two maids. The guards were twins from a respected family that had served the royal house loyally for generations, so the king felt assured of my safety. One guard was a powerful fire mage, while the other, his brother, was a skilled swordsman. I knew the maids well, as they were Karena-White and Karena-Black, who had served me in the palace and were now traveling with me to Mixteya by order of the queens. They were whispering to each other, peering out the carriage window and ogling the brothers riding alongside on horseback. I wondered which of the twins had caught their eye. Both men looked identical, like two peas in a pod, and the mark distinguishing White from Black was hidden on their shoulders, out of sight. Dressed identically in dark green travel attire, it was impossible to tell which was the elder of the pair.
While the maids flirted with the guards through stolen glances, I pretended to doze off, though my mind was heavy with bitter thoughts about my half-lived life.
In our kingdom, called Ferania, power and authority rested firmly in the hands of men. Every citizen of the land had a twin—a brother or sister. But don’t assume that, for instance, twin brothers would meet twin sisters and each marry one, forming neat pairs. Not at all!
For women, it could be said that each had one husband. But a man, by law, was required to marry two women, as he must wed both sisters—the White and the Black.
At birth, twins were given a shared name, but distinguished as White and Black halves: the firstborn was named White, and the second to emerge from the womb became Black. Each was marked on the shoulder—a white crescent with tips pointing right for the White, and a black crescent with tips pointing left for the Black. This was how one could tell the halves apart in a pair of brothers or sisters. But in my opinion, the treatment of women was unfair, wrong, and degrading...
It was widely believed that twin sisters always shared one fate, one love, one husband... The same couldn’t be said for men, who, despite being White or Black halves of a pair, were each considered independent and self-sufficient!
Oh, how it infuriated me! You can’t imagine! Of course, I kept all my thoughts and opinions to myself. Sigh, I had read too many ancient, forbidden books about a time when the world was different. Back then, though twins still existed, everyone lived independently as they pleased, married whomever they chose, and lived as they desired...
Because nowadays, a man who married twin sisters—whether he was White or Black—had to establish his own separate household, with a home where the three of them lived together: the man and his two wives.
Things varied. Though the law and morals of the kingdom forbade sharing a bed as a trio, some families did so anyway. If word got out, it was reported to the authorities immediately. Morality was strictly enforced here. However, it wasn’t forbidden for a man to have two separate quarters in the house and visit his wives alternately. So, tell me, where’s the morality in that? It’s just a thinly veiled form of debauchery.
Well, perhaps I’m exaggerating! Not debauchery, exactly, but... well... injustice, maybe? Because the wife he favored would be happy, right? But what about the other? She must feel sad, suffer, and be consumed by jealousy. Or perhaps she doesn’t even love the man her elder White sister set her sights on, yet she must endure because the law demands it. Just like my mother has endured all her life. I don’t know if she ever loved my father. It’s obvious that my aunt does—her feelings are plain to see. But my mother seems like some sort of appendage to the marriage. Though it was she who bore me for the king, not Martena-White. Oh, I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to live like that all your life!
I always had our royal family as an example before my eyes, where my mother constantly suffered because her sister spent nights in my father’s chambers while the king rarely called for her. No! I would never allow such a thing to happen to me!
If I had a twin sister, I wouldn’t let myself be treated the way my mother was! I’d leave, or better yet, refuse marriage altogether! It was rare, but it did happen. In such cases, one sister stayed with the husband, while the other entered a convent and lived there for the rest of her days, becoming what our kingdom called a Gray.
I, too, am a Gray. It’s both my curse and my blessing. My twin sister died during childbirth; she didn’t survive, though she was the firstborn, the White. I was born second but lived. Still, I’m considered incomplete, with a fractured fate—a Gray, in short. But my father loved me dearly and refused to send me away to any convent. As king, he could make or break any law he wished. When I ended up the only child in the royal family, he passed a decree that in families of royal blood, a Gray—whether girl or boy—would be considered equal to twins, fully legitimate and on par with others.
And so it was, though only on paper, I’ll tell you. You can’t change centuries of ingrained beliefs in people’s minds... I always felt incomplete, always alone. How would you feel if everything in your life was doubled before your eyes? My mother and her sister, my aunt, always together, identical as two drops of water. Ladies-in-waiting in pairs, servants in pairs, even my so-called friends... Though I never had true friends... just acquaintances. Sometimes it irritated me that they came in twos. I wanted to befriend just one, but the other would always tag along, and often I didn’t like her at all. So, while I played with other children in my youth, as I grew older, I found myself more and more alone... always holed up with books in the library. Of course, I still attended royal receptions, danced at balls, and knew and performed everything expected of a princess...
Oh, I almost forgot to mention clothing. Those who were White always wore light, bright garments to emphasize their primacy, as if they were superior to their Black halves. Conversely, the Black halves wore dark, muted colors. And me? I always wore gray, as decided by my mother and her sister, who couldn’t agree on where I belonged. Born as the Black, yet living as the first, the White. So, I became gray in clothing as well.
Everything in our kingdom is steeped in duality. A world surrounded by twins shapes such a perception.
My father’s twin brother, Gerbish-Black, serves as the king’s first advisor in Ferania and also has two wives, twin sisters. In royal dynasties, the throne always passes to the firstborn son, the White, while his Black half becomes the first advisor or minister, assisting in governance but without royal regalia. Our grandfather also had a brother who aided him in state affairs, but now both have retired with their wives—my grandmothers, so to speak—to royal residences by the sea in southern Ferania.
That’s how we lived. But in the history books I devoured, I often read horrifying accounts. Things varied. Sometimes brothers turned against each other for the throne; other times, they reached peaceful agreements. I’ve read enough historical chronicles to know that if a White king has no sons, the throne passes to the sons of the Black king...
And it’s uncertain whether my father will have any more sons. I’m his only daughter, and a Gray at that. All his hopes now rest on male grandchildren—my children. I’m not foolish; I understand this well. But I refuse to sacrifice myself, my life, and my happiness for the kingdom. I feel like some sort of animal, valued only for the offspring I might produce, while I myself am of no interest to anyone.
Look, my father’s Black brother has sons—let the eldest take the throne... Our kingdom won’t crumble or disappear if I vanish. So, in time, the throne will likely pass to my cousin, the son of King Germish-Black—Marian-White. Unless, of course, a great miracle happens and I bear sons... But I’ve never loved anyone, and I don’t want to marry.
And then, out of nowhere! It turns out my father had long prepared a marriage contract with this Jonathan-White. He only told me yesterday, knowing full well I have an independent streak and would never agree to it. I didn’t argue or resist much—I knew it was pointless; it would happen as the king decreed. So, I decided to take my fate into my own hands. I’d escape, settle quietly somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and be my own master. I’d tell everyone my sister died in a tragic accident... I’d come up with something; my imagination is quite vivid!
As I rode in the carriage along the dirt roads through the fields and forests of our kingdom, I mulled over all this. I also thought about how things were different in the kingdom of Mixteya. Not like here. There, they didn’t settle matters amicably as we did; often, they fought to the death for the throne. Whoever claimed the throne first—whether by defeating their brother in combat, killing him, or striking a deal (that happened too)—would ascend as king. The current king of Mixteya, who had reigned for a long time, was rumored to have poisoned his twin brother. As for his sons, I knew little, aside from whispers of their various depravities. But that’s beside the point.
Jonathan-White was the primary claimant to the throne, and I doubt his brother was thrilled about it. But who knows how things are with them? Maybe they’re close and have already agreed on everything?
Why am I even thinking about this? I have no intention of marrying that Jonathan-White! Look, I can already see the tavern where we’re supposed to stop for the night before crossing the border into Mixteya. That’s exactly where I planned to make my escape. I had a maid’s outfit hidden in my travel bag. We’d settle into our rooms, I’d change, grab my money, and they’d never see me again! That was my dream, but as the saying goes, tell Saint Euphemus your plans so he can have a good laugh... Things didn’t turn out as I’d hoped, not at all...
Death at the Tavern
Dusk was settling in as we arrived at a roadside tavern, where the upper floors housed rooms for overnight stays. I had a private room, as did the maids and guards, who were paired up in theirs. The coachman stayed in the stables, where there was a designated area for grooms and drivers near the horses and carriages.
My maids quickly brought dinner to my room, as it was deemed improper for a princess to dine among common folk. Though, truthfully, I was glad to be out of the royal palace, where I felt suffocated by the weight of it all. I longed to be free, independent, like the heroines in the novels I read—strong, brave women who defied the society they lived in, faced countless adventures, and found true love. Yes, I loved romance novels, too. But only up to the part where the beloved couple was joined by the heroine’s sister! She’d linger in the background throughout the story, then suddenly—bam!—they’d both marry the man of... one of their dreams. It felt unnatural and wrong. At least, that’s how I saw it. I thought to myself: if I ever fall in love, I’ll never share my beloved with another woman! And if he wants such a thing, then he doesn’t truly love me, does he, if he desires someone else by his side... Isn’t that right?
After dinner, the maids went to their room, instructing me to lock my door securely. The guards came by as well, reminding me to stay safe. They said they’d check on my door periodically through the night to ensure it was locked.
I nodded and agreed, though inside I was itching with impatience: I couldn’t wait to escape!
I waited a long time for the noise from the tavern below to die down. Even through the walls, I could hear the drunken shouts of patrons and the clamor of a group celebrating something, as they didn’t disperse to their rooms until late. Finally, silence fell. Already dressed and disguised as a maid, I stood by the door, waiting for the right moment to slip out of my room and down to the first floor.
I wasn’t worried about my guards or maids. As a token of gratitude for accompanying me, I’d gifted both Karenas a box of delicious cookies—laced with a bit of sleeping powder I’d enchanted. I knew the girls loved sweets; they’d be fast asleep by now. As for the guards, I’d given them a bottle of light wine, also with a little secret ingredient. In short, I’d put my companions to sleep and was ready to flee.
Late in the evening, I mustered my courage and cracked open the door to step into the corridor, when suddenly I heard a noise. Through the narrow opening, I saw the shadow of a figure moving down the hallway at this late hour. My gaze dropped to the floor, and I noticed a pair of fine brown boots with square silver buckles, but the man passed by so quickly that I couldn’t catch a glimpse of his face. All I saw was that he was tall and wore a black cloak. Ugh, I’d have to wait longer! Probably just some late-night reveler who hadn’t yet made it to his room. I was about to close the door and wait for him to pass when I heard the faint voice of another person approaching, likely from the other end of the corridor.
"How long must I wait?! I was starting to think you’d changed your mind! Let’s hurry!" a man’s voice hissed impatiently, almost right outside my door.
Thankfully, the crack in my door was so small it was barely noticeable, because what I heard next made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
"My roommate just wouldn’t fall asleep. I had to get him a bit drunk. Now he’s snoring like a madman! Finally, I managed to slip out unnoticed," the second man explained, his voice rough and gravelly. "Money upfront! I know how these tricks work!"
"Dear Saman, a deal is a deal! I have no intention of deceiving anyone, especially in a matter this important," the other retorted indignantly. "Here, take it," he said, and something jingled—likely the sound of gold changing hands.
"Hmph. I hope everything’s here and you’re not trying to swindle a poor self-taught alchemist," the man’s voice carried a mocking tone, though it soon turned serious. "Here, take this. This poison works instantly! You can add a drop to a drink, or rub it onto the pages of a book that Jonathan-White loves to read. He’ll wet his fingers turning the pages—and that’s it... Or simply dampen his handkerchief with it and let it dry. He’ll wipe his face or forehead—and it’s over! I’ve disguised it as ordinary perfume. It shouldn’t raise any questions at the border. It smells and acts like perfume to everyone except Jonathan-White. The poison is magical, tailored specifically to the prince. I achieved this by meticulously working with the glove you provided me. Also, the poison only activates around the face—people most often touch their nose or cheeks there... And if it’s perfume, they spray it on their neck... You’ll need to... Well, why am I teaching you? You’re probably an expert in such matters!"
"Mind your own business!" the other man hissed, and I saw a brief, bright flash in the corridor, followed by the sound of a body collapsing. The man, the alchemist who had handed over the poison to the stranger, fell near my door. Through the crack, I stared in horror at his lifeless, contorted face, frozen in shock. He clearly hadn’t expected the buyer of his poison to take his life. I clamped both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming in terror, praying to Saint Euphemus for strength.
Then, presumably, the killer dragged the unfortunate Saman away, as the alchemist’s head slid across the floor and out of my line of sight. There was a faint rustling sound...
Oh, had I just witnessed a murder? My body began to tremble. My hands instinctively moved to slam the door shut and lock it tight! But I stopped myself. What if the door creaked and the killer heard? He might still be nearby...
I don’t know how long I stood there by the door, straining to hear any sound from the corridor. It felt like an eternity... But it was quiet... The murderer must have long since disappeared with his victim. Finally, I mustered the courage to carefully close the door and slowly slide the heavy bolt into place, locking myself in...
Only then could I breathe a sigh of relief and begin to calm down. My ability to think rationally returned. I sat on my bed, cradling my head in my hands, and started to process everything...
So, what did I have? I’d witnessed a murder. And there was no helping the unfortunate alchemist who had tried to make money through a vile, dishonest deed... He was dead. Some man, intent on poisoning Jonathan-White (my betrothed, no less!), had likely commissioned the poison here in Ferania from this alchemist. The tavern where we were staying sat right on the border between the kingdoms: half an hour, and you’d be in Mixteya; five hours’ ride to the capital, practically a stone’s throw away.
What should I do? On one hand, I could simply forget this incident, pretend I hadn’t heard or seen a thing. I could calmly escape from the tavern, carry out the plan I’d devised... In an hour, I could walk to the nearest town we’d passed on the way, wait until morning, and board a stagecoach heading to the farthest settlement...
Besides, Jonathan-White’s death would even be to my advantage, wouldn’t it? If he’s gone, there’s no marriage! No groom, no wedding! Let them sort out their mess in Mixteya—I’d have nothing to do with it!
Oh, of course, I could escape, and I desperately wanted to, but I felt I wouldn’t be able to. Not this time, Edelina. Because I could prevent someone’s death! I had to warn the prince about the assassination plot against him, even if I didn’t know who was behind it or when it would happen. That didn’t matter. He’d be aware and on guard.
Ugh, why am I so upright, honest, and principled? I could just turn my back on everyone and everything and run...
Of course, I knew I couldn’t escape now; I had to help... Well, fine, I’d escape from Mixteya instead... Yes, disappearing from a royal palace I’d never even seen would be harder than slipping away from this tavern, but I’m clever. I’d figure something out! The main thing was to warn Jonathan-White about the danger, to tell him everything I’d heard and seen tonight.
With these thoughts, I took off the maid’s dress and hid it back in my travel bag, then lay down in bed. I tossed and turned for a long time before falling asleep, my mind fixated on the killer in the boots with silver buckles. He was ruthless and merciless, so easily taking the alchemist’s life... Clearly, he’d stop at nothing to use the poison against the prince. Or perhaps he was just a middleman? Maybe someone else had commissioned these ‘perfumes’ from him?
In the morning, as I boarded the carriage that was to head toward the border, I kept scanning the boots of every man I saw around me. But I didn’t spot any silver buckles. Perhaps the killer had left the tavern in the dead of night...
Half an hour later, we safely crossed the border into Mixteya, and after about half a day, we entered the capital of the neighboring kingdom, which bore the grandiose name of Heroic Bridges.