Velvet Ribbon by Emily Chadwick

From the bow of the ship, Princess Isabelle of Serukis gazed out over the roiling grey sea towards the land she had once called home. Serukis was hazy in the dawn light. A lonely fire burned in the top of the lighthouse, far behind them now, and the blue mountains loomed up out of the mist in a silent salute. Isabelle did not know when she would be able to see her homeland again.

She twisted the blue velvet ribbon in her hands, trying to ignore the twisting of her stomach. The blue was a deep, vibrant blue and brought to mind the gleaming sapphires that Serukis was so famous for. It had been a parting gift from her mother, something to remind her of home and to help her look pretty for the prince she had never met. She had been engaged to the enigmatic prince from Ilwyrika since before she could remember, but she had never really thought that the day would come when she would have to leave the castle’s safe walls.

Prince Kelaya had a reputation for kindness. At least, that’s what her mother told her, and it was advantageous for her mother that Isabelle believed. However, Ilwyrika was a frozen land of ice and snow, and Isabelle wondered how a man raised in such a cold place could ever learn to have a warm heart. She wondered how it was he could smile when the cold should have frozen his blood in his veins.

Isabelle looked down at the ribbon, twisted like a snake around her slender fingers. It was a girlish, frivolous thing, patterned with stars of silver thread. She scrunched it up in her hands with a frown – she was no longer a girl, but a woman. It would not do to wear such a thing at the Ilwyrikan court, with all the eyes of the Ilwyrikan nobility upon her.

It will remind you of home, her mother had told her, and yet she found she did not want to be reminded of home. She did not want to be reminded of the childhood that lay behind her, when she must take her first steps forward as the woman she must become.

She lifted the hand holding the ribbon high above her head. The ribbon whipped and fluttered in the breeze.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, and let go.

The ribbon swirled through the air for mere moments, writing like a serpent. Just as Isabelle began to feel the faintest pangs of regret, a wave engulfed it and swallowed it whole.