Purpleland: Chapter 11

I held on to my anger as a drowning man will clutch at a piece of sail cloth. I was determined to revenge myself on Marcus and immediately my mind was occupied with how best to do that. I was the son of the king so you would think that I could take away his lands or throw him in a dungeon. But as prince I had very little direct power and Marcus was one of the most powerful of the northern lords. In fact he was descended from It was then that fate took a hand in my affairs. By merest chance at one of the countless formal functions I had to attend I met the woman who had rejected Marcus years ago. Her name was Aria el Jamus. She was very beautiful and very different from Alena. She had grown up in the southern country and was impulsive, robust, and with long red hair very beautiful. The outdoors was her love and I have never known a better rider.

It is hard for me to write this next part for, of everything I have done, I believe this to be the worst. You will already have realized that this Aria was your mother. How she became such was my worst folly and blackest sin.

At the time when I met her I was like a man imprisoned deep within his anger. I thought only of my hatred for Marcus and was blind to everything else.  And so the idea came to me that if Marcus had taken my first love from me I should take his first love from him. I did not stop to think that he had clearly moved on. I did not think how cruel it would be to marry for revenge. I did not think at all.

Aria was, as I have said, Impulsive. I convinced her that I loved her and I think she fell for me in earnest. I knew my father would not approve a marriage to her as she had no connections to any of the major lords, who I needed on my side once I became king. I convinced her to marry me secretly and two weeks after we met again we were married.

As I came to myself I began to see what a fool I had been. It was doubtful that my marriage to Aria would have any effect on Marcus other than an admission of weakness. I was desperately ashamed and terrified that either my father or Alena would find out. I decided to take Aria somewhere we would not be known or recognized to make what I could of our ill started marriage.