"We should find you a fiance, Lia!"

As soon as those words left mother's mouth, father dropped his fork, Aiden spit out his orange juice and Seanna choked on her pie, while being the legend I am, I choked on air.

"No.", Aiden said as father started, "Absolutely not. Adailia is too young to get married."

"Oh please! I was engaged to you when I was sixteen." Mother retorted while I rubbed Seanna's back as she was having a coughing fit.

"Well, that was during the old days." Father tried to argue but mother glared at him, her eyes telling him to shut up and then looked at me expectantly.

"Uh-Well, " I started, looking at her shining eyes, "I thought you were trying to get me with Hayden, no?" I asked instead.

Two weeks had passed since our short trip to the island and ever since then, mother has been fixated on Hayden.

She even gave him permission to enter the mansion without prior notice whenever he wants to, going against father and Aiden.

And Hayden, he's been taking full advantage of it.

I thought I would've died of annoyance but I didn't.

Because he wasn't annoying me.

He was annoying Seanna.

Like a lot.

Five days ago, I literally heard Seanna curse at the top her lungs while chasing after a laughing Hayden with a pointed quill, which was an amusing sight if you ask me.

Seanna has been sad and lost in her thoughts majority of the days so I try to keep her company and lift her mood up but only Hayden succeeds in keeping her mind off the thoughts (by annoying the shit out of her) which has been depressing her all this time (and she won't even tell me about it).

Hayden still flirts a lot with me but has stopped invading my personal space which is a good sign and we can hold a proper conversation, which lasts max to max 2 minutes before he has to ruin it with his flirty remarks or stupid puns.

The three of us are together almost everywhere and he even started sitting with us at our lunch table since Raashid has stopped coming to the Academy altogether, or when he comes he has to leave after an hour because of some important matters he has to handle, which isn't a surprise cause there is only a week remaining till he is announced as the Emperor.

And I'm pretty sure I won't get killed cause the last time I checked, Raashid said I didn't deserve to die.

"Oh, he was just supposed to be a temporary fling." Mother said like it was obvious, "And, I have to agree with your father, the West Kingdom isn't somewhere I would want to send my daughter. Besides, Prince Hayden is just too flirty."

Aiden nodded, "I saw him flirting with the maids in the mansion. It's really common in their culture, I heard 80 per cent of the concubines turn out to be maids." He made a weird face. Even though Obelia Empire and the West Kingdom were neighbours, their cultures were very different.

In Obelia, nobody cares how many lovers you had before but as soon as you get engaged, even looking at someone the wrong way is unacceptable. And cheating is considered as a sin, loyalty is something the obelians are proud of and that's why they find unloyal people very repulsing. Other than that, lovers are usually of the same status, nobles with nobles, commoners with commoners, maids with servants and so on, relationship between two people of different status is usually opposed by the society.

In the West Kingdom, do whatever you want, fuck whoever you want, keep as many lovers you want, cheat openly on anyone you want, nobody cares. As long as you don't insult the royalty their, you're fine. I've heard that blasphemy against a western royal can get you exiled for life no matter how high your status is or which empire you belong to (that's exactly why I'm not throwing random insults at Hayden every now and then).

"So Lia, " mother started, "What type of man do you want?"

"Umm.." I hesitated a bit. I didn't know how Hayden would react to me getting a fiance. But I do want to get married, I'm 29, "Mother, I don't want a fiance right now...." I said making Aiden and father exchange glances with a satisfactory smirk, "..but I would like it in the future, maybe a month from now." I added and mother beamed. A few weeks from now, Hayden would have to return back to his kingdom, leaving me free to get married to whoever I want without igniting a war.

"Of course!" She said, making father and Aiden's smirk drop, "So what kind of a man?"

Now this conversation is going to be nice.

"Someone above 20," I said quickly, "Handsome and bulky." Mother cooed, "Brow-no blonde hair, " I quickly changed my preference, brown hair would probably just bring some unwanted memories, "slightly tanned skin" I could hear Aiden fake gagging.

"And the most important one, someone who is cute and hot at the same time." I finished.

"Oh my~ My daughter really knows how to choose men. I'll start searching from today!" Mother said excitedly while I heard father whisper to Aiden, 'Let's kill all the blond men in empire' and Aiden replied, 'and tan skinned too'. Then they nodded at each other before returning back to finishing their breakfast.

"Rest in peace, all the blond and tanned men in the empire." Seanna, who also heard the conversation between Aiden and father, said with a sarcastic tone, making me giggle while mother gave them a stink eye.

"It was father's idea." Aiden quickly said making father glare at him while mother whacked him on the shoulder.

Damn, I love this family.

__

____

The next day, the designer, Mrs Shamal came to design my outfit for Raashid's coronation. And this time, I specifically mentioned the colour I wanted my dress to be with the design.

And on the same day, something unexpected happened.

"Adailia!" Seanna came in bursting through my room with a golden envelope in her hand.

"You're invited to be Raashid's partner on his Coronation!" She exclaimed and I dropped the book I was reading.

"WHAT?!" I exclaimed as I dashed towards her and took the envelope from her hands, examining it. It only had a royal emblem, falcon, meaning it was from the Royal family, while at the back of the letter a stamp with leopard print was printed meaning it was for the Perinius family.

"Who gave you this?" I asked.

"Raashid." She said simply, a bright smile playing on her lips.

Wait...Raashid gave it to her? Then why is she giving it to me? And what's this invitation for anyway? And what partner?

"Umm...what is this invitation for? What partner?" I asked.

Then Seanna explained it to me.

On Raashid's birthday, he would be announced as the emperor.

He'll first have to go through a number of rituals for the crown to be transferred to him, bath with holy water and stuff.

Once the throne his transferred to him, he'll first present himself in front of the awaiting commoners outside the palace and take his oath.

In the afternoon, he'll have lunch with all the nobles.

And in the evening will be a special performance in the Royal Auditorium, presenting acts on Imperial history, especially for the new Emperor and his fiancee and all the young nobles of his age group will be invited to watch. The auditorium was built in such a fashion, where nobles had to sit according to their ranks, the higher the rank the higher the seat and at the top a special podium was built where only two people can sit, Emperor and his fiancee.

And I am supposed to sit there?

What's the meaning of this?

I understand that Raashid can invite whoever he wants since he doesn't have a fiancee till date, but why me? Why would he invite me, a friend, instead of Seanna, the one he loves?

Then a theory struck me.

"But why did Raashid give it to you? Couldn't he just have handed it to me, since this invitation is supposed to be handed down personally?" I asked Seanna. She did explain me a few days ago that all the invitations for the play were delivered through eagles, all except the one meant for the Empress seat. It was supposed to handed to the invited person personally by Raashid.

Her smile faltered for a second as her eyes looked at the ceiling and she rubbed her arm, "He was going to give it to you but uh...he was just so....busy..ya..really busy. So he just handed it to me when we met in the library...totally by chance! And told me to give it to you...and.... YA! That's it!"

She's lying.

"Where's yours? Show me?" I asked and extended my palm.

She nodded before leaving my room and coming in again with a similar-looking envelope only this one wasn't golden. It had a similar leopard print stamp on its backside.

I looked at both the envelopes before saying, "I don't see my name written on it. That means this- normal invitation could be meant for me. And this- golden one, for you." Her smile dropped.

"No. Raashid himself gave it to me and told me to give it to you! Besides, you know writing names on the invitation is not in our culture, we use stamps." She retorted.

"But Raashid didn't give-","- I told you he was busy!" Seanna exclaimed cutting me off.

My theory was correct.

My intervention with the plot has resulted in delayed relationship development between Seanna and Raashid. Raashid just became bold enough to ask her out for the feast. As far as I've read the book, Raashid was really shy at the beginning of their relationship (he got super bold later on though). He would be afraid of rejection and became nervous around Seanna. He should've been bold enough by the time this novel reaches the feast, but he didn't because of me acting so un-Adailia like. Now, he barely managed to ask her for the feast and the same could be said about the invitation. However, Seanna doesn't reciprocate Raashid's deep feelings for her as in the novel because of something I did or maybe another reason, so she's trying to give me the invitation instead.

Hah. That's sad...but I'm gonna fix things right. Seanna's the one supposed to sit on that seat. Not me.

And my mind started forming a perfect plan as to how I would make the plot's flow right again.