Chapter 1
Malachite Palace, Lysannum
On the occasion of Princess Jade's twentieth birthday, King Steven sent invitations to the other kingdoms of Etherion, to send suitors for the Princess' hand in marriage. Within months, seven suitors had arrived, all being princes of their respective nations.
Prince Jan of Esphobel was a massive young man, so much so that he waddled from side to side as he walked, though his bulk was all muscle. Amongst his retinue was his personal trainer, and a set of weights with which he exercised three times each day. He habitually wore armour, as if expecting to be attacked at any moment. He was an accomplished weapon master, and while Princess Jade also attended self-defence classes regularly, Prince Jan outclassed her considerably in both skill and strength.
Prince Tigh of Boletia arrived next, and was almost the complete antithesis of Prince Jan. He was a short, slender young man who wore a monocle whenever he needed to read, which was most of the time. He never seemed to be without a book -- an assassin might have trouble killing him if only because of the protection that all the paper that he kept within his vest afforded him.
Prince Arthur of Radsarnum was particularly handsome, even for a prince of Etherion, with a tall, lean body which was muscular, but not excessively so. He apparently prided himself on his grooming and fashion sense, as he never seemed to have a hair out of place either on his head, his goatee beard or his handlebar moustache, and always wore the latest fashions. He was also charming, attracting the attention of a bevy of serving maids within hours of his arrival.
Prince Kael of Kelvortyne was an older man of distinguished appearance, with iron-grey hair, a facial scar which ran from forehead to chin through his right eye, and a black eyepatch covering that eye. He seemed to have a perpetually grim expression and never seemed to laugh or smile.
Prince Robin of Vertellan was a fop who wore elaborate, effeminate clothing, and he had a nervous disposition. He was reputedly interested in the propagation of exotic flowers, and he always wore a fresh flower in his buttonhole.
Prince Earle of Ardthalen had a pugilist's features, with a nose flattened as a result of his love of fisticuffs. He had unsteady hands which seemed to shake constantly. He was consistently cheerful, and had an immense capacity for strong drink.
Prince Silvermark of Harquen was an enigma. That he was a prince, no-one seemed to dispute, yet he was short and almost ordinary in appearance, dressed less like a prince and more like a merchant, seemed to be almost completely without the physical skills expected of a prince, and when he spoke, always seemed to be laconic or noncommittal. However, he moved quietly, and seemed able to appear and depart unnoticed. In conversation, however, he consistently demonstrated that he must have in-depth knowledge of almost every subject that came up, while needing only a few words with which to give that impression.
Princess Jade was slightly disappointed that Prince Ranier of Mensalia had sent only apologies. He had apparently married Princess Alyssa of Cyloniae in Radsarnum, who was a cousin of Prince Arthur, only days before the invitation had reached him. Princess Jade had never met Prince Ranier, but by repute, he had been the only unmarried prince of Etherion who shared her passion for hunting. Since Jade knew from meeting the girl a couple of years before that Princess Alyssa of Cyloniae was unenthusiastic about hunting at best, there must have been other reasons... possibly having something to do with her excessive bust measurements and her fondness for excessively tight corsets beneath dresses with an almost scandalously low decolletage.
While Jade had been given a year in which to assess her princely suitors, she had really only needed a couple of months, if that. Prince Jan, while as accomplished in the skills of horsemanship as any other of the martial arts, was a hopeless hunter. He regularly got lost, couldn't tell a fewmet from a furball, had the excessive muscles and deficient brains and personality of an unthinking myrmidon, and worst of all, didn't even try to conceal his disgust at having to participate in such a boring activity as hunting. While he was obviously very interested in Jade, he expressed that interest by trying to challenge the other princes to a duel, until King Steven had stepped in and had forbidden the princes from fighting amongst themselves, on pain of instant banishment from the kingdom for all involved.
Prince Tigh was a good rider and a mediocre hunter, and at least tried to appear to enjoy hunting... but physically he was a wimp. Prince Jan could almost literally have (and had threatened to) tear his arms off like plucking the wings from a fly, and he was shorter and slighter than Jade herself. Jade didn't think that she was all that fussy, but a man who had to look up to her just didn't inspire her, and he was way too deferential to her.
Prince Arthur seemed to be a leading contender at first. Physically, he was everything that she was looking for, except that he was a lousy hunter, and a compulsive womaniser. The latter didn't actually concern Jade greatly of itself -- sharing her husband with other women was little different to sharing them with Xenia -- but Xenia had sampled his charms within days of his arrival, and had needed to go to a healer within days of their tryst. The man had given her the clap, and in this age of modern healing magic, what decent man of even meagre means allowed himself to go untreated for such an easily treatable disease, and pass it on to his partners? Apparently, he had started something of an epidemic amongst the serving women and married ladies of the court. As the final deal-breaker, while charming, Arthur was also a bit too interested in his own pleasure, and try as she might, Xenia had been unable to inspire him to be dominant at all... his idea of intercourse involved letting his partner get on top and do most of the work.
Prince Kael remained too much of a mystery. He refused a tryst with Xenia. Apparently, he disapproved of slavery and said that should he marry Jade, Xenia would be freed and sent away to live her own life, and he would not consider Xenia's desire to remain Jade's slave, since in his opinion, wanting to remain a slave was just laziness. As Jade came to know Kael, she began to realise that the man had the soul of an accountant. He seemed almost entirely passionless. Everything that Jade asked him seemed to have a price if she wanted an answer, a commitment for her to make to him, before she even had the answer to her question, before she knew if it was an answer she liked or loathed. Before long, it seemed that the price was too high almost before Jade asked him her questions, and so, eventually, she had stopped asking.
Prince Robin was easily ruled out. By his own private admission, he preferred the company of men, and had only come because his father and mother were not ready to accept that their son and heir was homosexual.
Prince Earle was a thug. Cheerful, yes, but a thug nevertheless. He loved nothing more than to feel his fists slap into flesh and bone, and, lest he be called a coward or a bully, it must be said that he was perfectly happy to take a pounding as long as he could pound upon his opponent in return. Many men who enjoy boxing would never hit a woman, but Xenia could attest to the fact that Prince Earle was not such a man. He hit Xenia when the faun and he had been fucking, apparently liking the bruise that he had put upon her cheek a great deal -- "Now you're perfect," he had said right afterwards -- but he had also encouraged Xenia to hit and scratch him. Upon hearing this, Jade mentally crossed him off her shortlist. While Jade dreamed of being dominated, enslaved, even humiliated and, on occasion, punished, she didn't want to be hit just so that her bruises would make her more attractive to her husband.
That just left Prince Silvermark. Jade wasn't even certain that his name was truly 'Silvermark', since that was the generic name for a silver coin weighing one ounce, a term in use across Etherion, not just in Harquen. He was only a little taller than Jade, mildly handsome -- all princes of Etherion were handsome, the magic of the land saw to that -- but as far as princes of Etherion went, he might as well have been ordinary in appearance. His short-cropped hairstyle, clean-shaven face and choice of clothing only served to reinforce this impression. He didn't talk much at all, though he had a sharp sense of humour, and could make a whole group of people burst out laughing with a single, perfectly timed and chosen word. He had fucked Xenia when the faun had approached him and according to Xenia, was the best lay of all the suitor princes whom she had fucked. However, Princess Jade had -- for no reason that she could name -- the uncomfortable feeling that there was something untrustworthy about Prince Silvermark. Maybe it was his way of appearing and disappearing without anyone noticing, or the fact that even the palace servants lost track of him on these occasions, when it was their job to keep track of important guests... and he would never explain himself afterwards. He was no hunter, and not even much of a rider, but he tried, and had improved noticeably over the course of the year.
Of all her princely suitors, Jade might have picked Prince Silvermark, had he seemed a bit less untrustworthy, or Prince Arthur, had he been a bit less concerned with his own pleasure, a bit more dominant in bed and a lot more responsible, or even Prince Tigh, if he had been a teenager with the potential to mature both physically and mentally, and not a grown man in his twenties who would always have the build of a jockey.
Late in the evening of Princess Jade's twenty-first birthday, after the feast and ball in her honour had finished, the king came to visit his daughter in her personal sitting room as Xenia was finishing helping her undress and put on her nightgown.
"You know what I've come to speak to you about, don't you, Jadie?" he asked, as Xenia retired unobtrusively. He didn't speak to the faun, but his fingers touched hers momentarily as she curtsied and passed him.
