1711, Kestramore City

          "Julian !"

          "What have you done ?"

          "Mama, he would never do such a thing!"

All sorts of muffled voices surrounded him, some angry and some remorseful. His head was throbbing with pain, and with difficulty, Julian opened his eyes.

The first thing that Julian noticed was that he was not in his room. The bedsheets felt rough and scratchy against his skin, and the mattress was awfully stiff and lumpy.

He tried to shift around to relieve his aching back, and that was when his fingers brushed against a soft, warm person laying down next to him.

In an instant he jolted awake, and slowly, the faces of his mother, father and sister began to clear up.

  Thank God little Marcus is not here too, Julian thought. His younger brother Marcus was an exemplary erudite who prided himself in being inquisitive and relished in asking questions, and there was no way that Julian would be able to explain his way out of this.

              "What is the meaning of this, Julian ?" his father, the King Guillaume asked calmly, but his mother quickly cut him off.

              "He soiled the poor young girl! That is what happened !"

Frowning, Julian turned around and saw Eleanora, half-naked and trembling underneath the covers, eyes streaming with crocodile tears.

               "You !" he shouted, standing up from the bed in disgust, now fully awake. "You framed me !"

Demitria quickly stepped forward and grasped her brother's hand, distancing him from the Finleys, her eyes wide open in a state of constant vigilance.

Her little brother was nowhere to be seen during today's breakfast, which was odd since Julian was an early riser. 
          However, before she could even take a bite out of her orange pudding, Dinah Finley stormed into the dining hall with tears streaming down her cheeks and hair disheveled like a madwoman.

               "You must come with me!" she had shouted. "Come and look at what the Prince had done to my poor daughter!"

It caused quite the ruckus, and all eyes were on her. Everything was so perfect, from her outfit to her intonation, even the time chosen. It was too perfect, and Demitria, never a trusting person, felt as if it were rehearsed beforehand.

At the present time, Dinah held her daughter as she cried softly into her mother's bosom, and the devastated mother would pat her daughter's bony shoulders with her fat, pudgy hands every now and then while holding back sobs.

If Julian indeed forced Eleanora to sleep with him, then Demitria would extend her sympathies to the mother and daughter duo, but she knew that he would never do so.

                "Your acting is quite impressive, Lady Finley," she sneered. "But you can wipe away your tears now. The Julian that I know would never do such a thing."

                 "With all due respect Your Highness, that is the Prince as you know of ! What about the side of him that you don't know ? The side of him that broke into this room in the middle of the night and threatened my Nora with death if she did not sleep with him ?" Dinah wept.

Queen Isabel, the loving mother, immediately tensed up upon hearing this. "You disrespectful boy! By God, I will beat you up! You disobedient ingrate !"

The King, who had never been properly introduced to the Finleys before, was horrified by his queen's blatant bias towards them.
          "Let the boy speak for once, Belle. How can you judge him based on accusations by this woman who you brought in from the middle of nowhere ?"

              "I don't care !" the queen screeched. "I am his mother, and I want him to marry Eleanora!"

               "Julian does not belong to you, Belle," the king retorted coldly. "He belongs to the kingdom, and any match that he makes must be in the kingdom's interest."

The queen went blissfully silent, but then Dinah began to panic.

       "Then what about my daughter, Your Majesty ?" she cried out, dramatically dropping on her knees at King Guillaume's feet. "No one will marry her now, oh my poor Nora!"

For the past hour, she had been talking about how sad and pitiful her daughter was, and  she had to think of new phrases to soften the King and Queen's hearts. Then, she remembered it. The choosing ceremony.

             "Let her participate in the choosing ceremony, Your Majesty ! Let her prove to everbody that she is a worthy candidate !"

Demitria let out a peal of laughter. "As if Julian, nor anyone, would ever choose her." Her mother glared at her venomously upon hearing this, but the princess calmly ignored her.

              "She will participate," Isabel exclaimed loudly before Guillaume could even utter a single word.

At the very last second, her love for her maternal family prevailed over love towards her own son, and the queen of common origins had become obsessed with putting those with the same family name as hers on the throne.

And the King, never one to argue, nodded curtly and said, "Then so be it."

       That afternoon, the King and his close friend, Lord Ormanno d'Augustine, the Prime Minister went through the list of names that Queen Isabel had procured, and his right-hand man, Lord Abel Mercer began to write the invitation letters diligently.

               "I see that the daughter of Count Olivier is among the chosen," Ormanno let out a chuckle. "My boy Alessandro said that she has quite the personality."

                "Is that so ?" the King asked anxiously.

The matter about Julian's marriage had bothered him for quite some time, and he was afraid that Julian would make the same decision as he once did-- marrying for love.

      While he indeed loved Isabel, he could not deny that she brought Ravaeryn no advantage whatsoever.

Vince Olivier, Count of Levere was one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, and a match between his daughter and Julian would undoubtedly be advantageous.

               "For all the wrong reasons, Your Majesty," Ormanno sighed, and his steely blue eyes glanced the next name on the list. "Oh, have you heard ? The le Princes are almost bankrupt now."

Guillaume let out a hearty chuckle. "All thanks to you, Elliott !" he exclaimed.
A man laughed in return, and slowly, a figure rose up from the chaise near the fireplace and slowly made his way to the King and the Prime Minister.

At forty-one years old, Elliott de Fontaine, Duke of Lorewell was still strikingly good looking, though his jet black hair was flecked with a bit of gray. "With all due respect, we all knew that the le Princes would become bankrupt soon anyways."

Only twenty years ago, the House le Prince were on the top of the world, and their wealth was unsurmounted, even by the royal family. But now, their shops have closed down and the le Princes are forced to sell their belongings, and they can blame it all on one man, Elliott de Fontaine.

Coming from the previously obscure, destitute House de Fontaine, he and his younger brother Evain changed the kingdom forever when they established their own business, de Fontaine Trading Company, and slowly but steadily, it began to oust House le Prince's businesses.

Piercing black eyes, the de Fontaine signature, were glancing down at the name list in Guillaume's hands. A frown dipped his forehead when he saw his own daughter's name at the very end of the list.

             "The Queen wants me to send my daughter ?" he questioned warily.

He never thought about marrying his daughter to the Prince, and frankly, he did not want her to enter the royal family either.

The seasoned Duke knew all about the treachery that happens behind closed doors, and he would rather have Catarina marry a commoner than marry the Prince.

              "Each house must send one daughter to participate. As for me, I have no daughters so I won't be sending anyone. Unless Alessandro wants to join, that is," Ormanno jested, but Elliott remained serious.

              "Catarina shall not participate," he said sternly. "I don't want her to suffer, to be caught in a power struggle."

The King immediately tensed up. "I know what is going on inside your head, Elliott, and I understand perfectly. But it is different now, and Julian's position is under no threat whatsoever. I had him named as my heir, and no one could refute that."
 
             "So was Maximillian," Elliott retorted harshly. "We all thought that he was invincible until he ended up with an arrow through his chest."

               "It is not the same !" the King shouted exasperatedly. "Don't you want us to become in-laws, Elliott ?" he asked, this time in a softer tone.

Elliott de Fontaine was firstly his best friend, but secondly, he was the richest man in all of Ravaeryn.

He had established businesses all over the kingdom, from the southern Beaummiers and up to the northern Devereaux. And his only child Catarina was the heiress to all that great wealth.

                 "If Julian were not this kingdom's Crown Prince, I would gladly agree," Elliott answered regretfully.

The King glared at his friend of over thirty years, and the piece of parchment in his fingers had become crinkled due to him crushing it. "I'm afraid I cannot be lenient on you," he eventually said.

                  "What ?"

                  "Catarina will participate. And if she is fated to become a queen, then so be it," the King said resolutely.

At that moment, Lord Abel Mercer finished writing the final invitation letter and sealed it with red wax before placing it on the King's desk, atop of all the other letters.

              "Here," the King said, holding it out for Elliott to take. "For your daughter."

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