Broken: Day 7

Word Count: 42,037

Summary of Events:

Emil found Arina and learned from her that King Sevastian was her stepfather — her widowed mother having become his second wife — and that he had cursed her to be a swan by day and a maiden by night because she kept winning the hearts of all the men he wanted to marry his daughter Isidora; determined to get her out of the curse, Emil pledged to marry her and find out from Samuil how the spell could be broken. Arina, overcome that she might possibly escape the curse — forget someday becoming the Empress to his Emperor — cried for some time in Emil's embrace . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Emil looked down at Arina, her head resting against his shoulder, the rest of her diminutive frame gathered into his lap, looking completely at rest in his embrace. He hoped this was a sight he would see many, many times, many nights, in the future, as he shared his life with her, his love with her, and gave Matushka her beloved grandchildren not at his expense, but at his pleasure.

He was sure Matushka would like her very much, for she was pretty, intelligent, and seemed to him like the perfect wife. He'd never dreamed he'd have met a maiden twice and become convinced she was going to be his wife, but, with how many women he met even in a night sometimes, he wondered if he wasn't expected to have found a wife at least this fast, and then to develop a relationship with her through courtship.

Admittedly, though, Emil wasn't sure he wanted to go through courtship. He didn't want to wait that long to marry her. He wanted to marry her now, but he was sure doing so would be a rash thing. They ought to give their relationship time to grow and show them whether their initial sentiments were correct.

Emil nearly shuddered to think that they could possibly find with the passage of time that their relationship would not be a good one, that they would not be well-suited to marry and live out their days together.

As much as he dug in his heels about meeting women who might make worthy wives, it wasn't because he didn't want to get married, but because people didn't understand or even respect what he wanted in a wife. They weren't interested in giving him a woman he loved, they were interested in him giving them a good sleep at night by fathering a son.

Everyone of any noble position in Severnaya had been seeking to get him married for these eight years because of what it benefitted them: grandchildren, an heir, his settling down into married life; they'd thought nothing of the fact that he might want some things out of the marriage that were different from what they wanted.

It had been a long eight years to get to this point, in part because finding a woman like Arina wasn't as easy as he'd hoped it might be, but he felt it'd been long even more so because everyone else had been in a rush to see him married too, and they'd been trying to match him up with women he didn't love or even find remotely appealing whatsoever.

But, finally — by himself — he had succeeded. He had found all that he wanted in a woman, even if she was half Charodeika, and he was going to marry her. Everyone would be satisfied — aside from maybe King Sevastian, but he wasn't worth pleasing in Emil's mind — and he would be happy. It was the perfect situation.

Pronunciation:
Charodeika: chahrohdyekah