THE FATHER

“Who is the father?”, her father yelled angrily. He had every cause to be angry. She was his lucky prize, the one he planned to sell in marriage to the Slavcans but now she was pregnant…

Kaliyah bowed her head as her father kept ranting. No, she didn’t bow her head in shame, she was trying to hide her facial expressions. As dire as the situation was, she couldn’t pull off that remorseful look that her father wanted.

“Kaliyah! Are you even listening?”, her father screamed.

Just then, her stepmother walked inside with a concerned expression on her face. Kaliyah scoffed, she knew better.

“Your Highness”, Kaliyah bowed to greet her, the queen.

“Shut the door”, the queen ordered the guards at the door of the courtroom. She then turned to the king, like Kaliyah never greeted her.

“My king, I’ve been hearing rumors about Kaliyah getting pregnant, tell me that is not true”, she questioned. When her father didn’t reply, she turned to Kaliyah, “Kaliyah! How could you do this? Who is the father?”

“I don’t know”, Kaliyah replied stubbornly.

“Brenna, we have to cancel her engagement to the Slavcan prince, I’ll have to see if he will pick Kenna instead”, the king said and left angrily. He was not ready to deal with Kaliyah’s stubbornness.

When the king left, Queen Brenna turned to Kaliyah angrily, “You witch, are you happy now?”

“I’m not even started”, Kaliyah replied with a smirk on her face.

“You should have died with your mother”, Brenna spat

Kaliyah gasped, pretending to be shocked, “Not bad still, Kenna would have gotten married to the Slavcan prince instead”

Brenna cooled down, no matter how much she hated Kaliyah, she had to be on good terms with her to be able to convince her to get married to the Slavcan prince. She would never allow her daughter, Kenna to be the one to get married to him and her husband really wanted a marriage alliance with the Slavcans.

“you say you love the people but don’t want to make this sacrifice for them, you of all people know how beneficial the marriage alliance with the Slavcans will be”, Brenna started with her attempt at convincing Kaliyah.

“Too bad that Kenna will be the one to show her love for the people”, Kaliyah said with a knowing smile.

“Do you know who the Slavcan prince is? You will get a status far better than what you have now”, Brenna attempted again.

“Then the better it is for Kenna”, Kaliyah replied again, “If you have nothing to say again, I’d love to leave”.

“You prefer to have a bastard child than to get married to the  Slavcan Prince?”, Brenna asked. She sure never understood Kaliyah.

“is my child going to be a bastard child?”, Kaliyah asked with her usual smirk that was irking Brenna, “you never know”. With that, Kaliyah left the courtroom. She frankly couldn’t be bothered with the queen right now; she had more important things to take care of, including how she would contact the father of her unborn child. She found out about her pregnancy in the most absurd and random way. She went for her routine checkup and instead of her physician coming to her directly with the results, he went straight to her father probably expecting a reward or something. She smiled as she thought of it, she’d surely give him his reward.

Meanwhile, Brenna was in her room with her maid and her daughter, Kenna, thinking of ways to make sure Kenna does not take Kaliyah’s place.

“My queen”, her maid started, “I think the only way out is to make sure Princess Kaliyah gets married to him”

“How? But how?”, Kenna whined, “The Slavcan royal family will never accept a pregnant woman”

Brenna suddenly stood up from her bed, “I have no choice”, she turned to her maid, “Get my horse ready and take it to the second castle gate”.

They all looked at her with shocked expressions.

“Mother, what are you even thinking of doing?”, Kenna asked.

“It's getting dark my Queen”, her maid replied.

Brenna rolled her eyes, “Do as I’ve told you. I’ll be at that gate in 20 minutes, I don’t want to look for you there”

“Yes ma”, the maid replied and dashed out of the room.

Brenna removed the veil which was on her neck and replaced it with a dark cloak.

“Mother, where are you going?”, Kenna asked worriedly.

“I’ll be back by dawn. If your father asks of me during dinner, tell him I slept early. Make sure no one knows that I left the castle, and don’t worry, I’ll be safe”.

“It wouldn’t hurt to tell where you’re going?”, Kenna replied.

“Just know that I’m going to save you, " Brenna replied, leaving her room.

She quickly went to the gate after smartly avoiding some guards, the ones she couldn’t avoid, she just told them whatever lie came to her. She met her maid with her horse at the gate, bid her goodbye, and rode into the dark.

Kaliyah was sitting by her window. Her room was the only room whose windows faced a palace gate. Brenna didn’t think of that. Kaliyah smiled as she saw Brenna going out, she wondered how Brenna was able to pass the guards but of course, she was the queen. Kaliyah slowly sealed the letter she just wrote and called in Rhaegal.

“I want this to go as a royal letter of course to the inn close to our borders”, Kaliyah ordered.

“To the inn?”, rhaegal asked like she couldn’t believe her ears.

“Yes please, to the owner of the inn. I’ll brief you once the letter has been sent”, Kaliyah said with a sigh. Rhaegal left hurriedly, not because she wanted to complete the errand fast but because she couldn’t wait to hear the reason why Kaliyah was sending a letter to the inn.

She came back as soon as possible, making Kaliyah chuckle.

“It’s not that serious”, Kaliyah said in between her laughter and then she became serious, “I met the father of my child there”.