Much had changed in Raej these days. The Queen was absent, and the Court was trying to rule in her stead. Why the Province Queens hadn’t stepped in to fill the gap was beyond Isabelle, but she was so very grateful that they hadn’t. It meant that she and her Sisters could go about trying to find a new Queen, and keep Raej from being torn apart by the greed that had permeated them for generations.
There was a newer, more personal, change however. Well, several of them. The first being the astounding enmity that Isabelle was receiving from her elder brother - the Steward. He’d once been her strongest ally, and now he was her greatest enemy. To make matters worse, Isabelle had fostered a viper in her own home. Henrick, battered and tormented, who was in turn battering and tormenting her.
Today, she’d had enough. She paced, and struggled, and wept, and cursed. The threads of her lovely life were falling further into disarray, and panic was setting in. How was she going to fix this?
The familiar old street was new, and Isabelle stared at it as though she didn’t know where to go or what to do. She balled her fists into her skirts, the Tiger Eye at her throat flaring and sparking. A Prince ran into her, and she hissed - nearly as crazed as her ragged Warlord Prince himself. The male read the challenge for what it was.
Isabelle couldn’t have known it would happen that way. She’d never sought to harm a living soul a day in her life. It was she who ended up in the gutter, her nose bleeding freely and her skirts absorbing filth. It was her first fight, and she felt like a child. Like a pitiful wretch. Helpless, trapped within an uncooperative body, set in a useless mindset.
Perhaps Henrick had a reason for his uncontrollable outbursts. She’d certainly found her own.
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