Forged in Steel

Sometimes, I liked to sit and wonder. I wonder about things that are unimaginable. Of lives never lived, places never seen, or fates never explored to their deepest truest meanings. I also like to wonder what my own life could have been like if the world didn’t stunt me… If my mother, Queen Oliva was still alive and had my back through the harsh terrain like she would promise me every night before bed. If I was given a chance to prove my worth instead of being shut down every single day. I wonder how different of a woman I would be if I was at least given one small chance. However, that life has never been farther from my reach. As I sit in the back of a carriage going to a faraway land no Helm had ever gotten to, I know that the life I dreamed about as a little girl could never be mine. It was merely a dream… A sad unspoken dream. “Lillian, sit upright dear.” My father’s voice ordered while still masking it as a parent doing their duty to make their child look presentable. Yet as my eyes were pulled away from the outside scenery of late fall colors, I only saw the rough gaze of my father. His crystal blue eyes, dull from his years of ruling, fixated on me with a sense of displeasure behind them. I didn’t speak. I refused to. I knew nothing I said would convince him that I was anything better than what he already thought of me. “My dearest Nicholas, she’s never sat up straight enough. You know this! Such a sickly little girl never could…” A high-pitched female beside him piped in. Her beautifully long blonde hair and emerald green eyes made me envious with each and every passing day. Charlotte, my father’s wife. The only woman who deserved his love and would ensure no one else got it, including me. She was the one to rob me of my childhood, my father, and my family. When my mother passed away, Charlotte nosed her way into our lives and charmed my father with the skills she was taught as a young lady in waiting. She never stepped wrong, never spoke off, and was loved by royals and commoners alike in the Helm Kingdom. That was how she tricked my father, into marrying her and letting her carry his next child. A boy, my younger brother Alexander. It was also how she convinced my father I was not fit in my appearance and well-being to run the kingdom when I turned eighteen, so Alexander would have to be the one, despite the crown and throne going to the firstborn generations prior. My appearance was a stain on the Helm name, I was the only Helm in all of our family’s ruling to have paper white skin, matching my long soft hair, and my eyes were a sharp and unsettling red color. It contrasted heavily with the blue or green eyes many Helm royals sported, and the stunning dark brown hair and their olive skin tones… I wasn’t what many expected when I was first born, though I knew my mother loved me dearly nonetheless. It was assumed my appearance was caused by a gene on my mother’s side, unnoticed for many generations as no relative from her lineage sported my appearance either. Then again, my father would say many times how her family was never the strongest despite having high titles in our society. It was why she didn’t survive the birth of her second child, and why his first son was robbed from him as he too had died in the process. Though I was all that remained of my mother Olivia, paintings and remaining images of her I did see before they were all hidden somewhere to make room for Charlotte’s portraits and her happy family, I sported my mother’s softly shaped almond eyes, her sweet pink lips, and higher cheekbones. Though the hues of my features were not the same, I was a spitting image of her. I began to believe that was also what made Charlotte despise me. I was a constant reminder to my father of his late wife, and that was something I had to be ashamed of… And she wasn’t afraid to remind me, like now. As she smiled snidely to my father at her backhanded comment on how I was unable to sit up straight, I was flawed… Unfit to rule, and unfit to be a proper Helm. “Lillian needs to learn to be proper, especially now… We cannot risk losing this deal. It took months to orchestrate the Steels to even agree to meet and trade-off Lillian for the treaty of peace to be signed. The kingdom will rule in a new era, one of peace that will come with the rise of our son as the new king in just a few months.” My father told Charlotte with a gentle smile and kindness to her. Pride was restored to him at the idea that Alexander, his only son, would be taking over our land paired with peace after a century of war. It would be a prosperous time, and show the Helm family in the glorious light it lacked for generations… It would ensure name would remain to lead the kingdom for more to come. All it took was my father giving up on me. His firstborn daughter. Damning me to a life of either pain or torture at the hands of our greatest enemies, the Steel. The Steel Kingdom was the kingdom to our North, one our land had been locked in battle with since even before my father was born. What started out as a dispute over land on our borders became a declaration of war. Since both kingdoms had their strengths and weaknesses, neither had been able to grab much land from the other. It was a constant trade of one territory for another. All that was lost were many soldiers, and resources to the common people. With this treaty, both kingdoms could back away with whatever they had earned and be able to repair. Ensuring the people remain happy and ushering in a new age of rebuilding and prosperity. Though I wasn’t even a part of that deal… I was collateral for the Steel so that my father could merely enter the kingdom and sign the treaty with their king. I was never going to be spoken of in history as a martyr to save both kingdoms, I was most likely going to be forgotten. Left behind in the Steel Kingdom, never to see my family and home palace again, and to be wed to King William Steel’s first and only son, the heir to the throne, Prince Landon. A man often spoken of in the Helm Kingdom as the Prince of Blood. The prince of the Steel fought in many of their recent battles, and those who came back alive yet wounded spoke of how he showed no mercy to those who sided with the Helm. He even took pleasure in ending the lives of many. It made him a hero to his homeland, and a haunting nightmare to the people of Helm. I remember Alexander taunting me before I left, telling me that I should beg on my knees before Prince Landon for my life if I wanted a quick and painless death. How he probably wouldn’t even allow us to be wed, and instead take pleasure in ending one more Helm before the end of the war. Or worse, he would merely order me to be a servant in the castle or send me to one of their farms or mines to work until I died. I didn’t allow Alexander the right to a response, pretending as if I ignored his words but that was far from the truth. His words haunted me, I feared that would be the truth… And if it was, my father didn’t care. He only cared about Alexander now, already acting as if he was his only child. It wouldn’t be hard to leave me behind and forget. Charlotte smiled at my father’s words and let out a lovely laugh, one that charmed him every time. “Of course, our dear boy will be a shining beacon of hope for all of Helm. Lillian should be proud of her own little brother. Smile more, Lillian. Aren’t you excited about Alexander’s soon-to-be reign? I am already planning the wonderful ball that will occur on his eighteenth birthday after his coronation. That and it will allow your father and I to have more time for one another and our own joys.” She looked back at me with a devilish smile, taunting me once again with a life I wasn’t allowed to have by her own standards. “I… I am happy for him.” The words passed through my lips in a quiet tone, slightly hoarse from not speaking during the entire ride by carriage to the Steel Kingdom. The reply seemed to please my father though as he sat back a bit more into his seat and kept a steady smile on him. Charlotte on the other hand clearly still wasn’t done spewing nonsense. “Exactly! I mean, imagine if you were crowned Queen… You poor thing, you can’t speak any higher than a mouse’s squeak. Oh, and two years ago on your eighteenth birthday, you were so sickly, coughing and bedridden. Imagine if your coronation did take place! How that would look on you as a ruler… This is truly for the best.” She insisted with a nod, to which my father didn’t stop her and instead hummed in agreement. “Alexander is a much more welcoming figure. Tall, strong, the perfect image of our family… I worried how the people would react to you, Lillian. How frustrated they would be if their new Queen was one like her mother. Bound to die if the wind blew wrong.” Their words about me were nothing new, I knew I was never meant to be strong. Born to a sick mother and have struggled with illnesses all my life. I didn’t weigh much more than a bag of flour worth of what my own mother had been and my height wasn’t up to par with others in our lineage. While Alexander matched my father’s height, I only came up to their chests in height. Even Charlotte was only a hair or two shorter than my father. I could never compete or argue against them for not letting me rule the kingdom like I was once promised… All I could do was simply let the world melt away, and understand that they wanted someone strong to ensure that our family continued ruling. I was not that heir… “I understand,” I told them, turning my gaze back out the window with a glazed look in my ruby eyes. “That’s good, we should be reaching the Steel’s Palace soon. The air here is certainly more fridged…” My father changed topics as he spoke with Charlotte over little things. All I could do was continue to gaze out the carriage’s window and let the moments tick by. I wondered what fate would await me, and the time of finding out was fast approaching.