Cornered, that is how I feel at the moment in my thoughts.

Hands currently massaged their way through my hair as I relaxed my head backward allowing myself to succumb to the numbness of being spoiled.

Was this right?

'No.'

Was it necessary?

'Yes.'

I released a long stress deflating sigh from my lungs. I told myself I never want to speak of it again, but yet my thoughts want to scream out loud.

"Oh dear, that sigh didn't sound like a happy woman who just got engaged. It was more an exasperated sigh of a woman who's trying to forget her ex-lover." Zara concluded while she held up a towel signaling my bath was over.

I giggled warily at her statement and lifted myself from the tub. "Well, I wouldn't know much about those kinds of sighs. After all, I am only 17 and I have never had a boyfriend because of my status. Meaning I have also never had an ex."

I heard at least 5 gasps after those words left my mouth. "What?" Britney's sandy hazel eyes were so wide I thought they'd fall from her head.

"You've never experienced love and heartbreak?!" Xophie exclaimed, her turquoise hair fell from its messy bun as she wildly shook her head in disbelief.

"You've never even had a crush?" It was sweet little Zoey this time that questioned me, but all I could do for them was stare like I did nothing wrong.

"We're preparing an angel for a devil," Zara said while groaning in what sounded like dread.

I felt my eyebrows crease, but Clara's laughter cut my words before they formed. "More like a saint who enjoys her bible study, for an atheist who takes pride in seducing the whole Illuminati."

I scoffed not believing the amount of effort they were including in this drama. "How so?" All around me heads were bobbing up and down with sad looks plastered on their faces as they agreed with the fantasy of a scenario that just left Clara's mouth. "Hello?!"

"She is the true virgin, Mary," Zoey stated, ignoring me.

"No-no, she is Queen Elizabeth the first. We shall call her 'The Virgin Queen'." All around the room, they harmonized a chorus of ooh's and aah's, nodding and high-fiving each other.

'They were bloody ignoring me!'

"Can one of you start making sense, please? If you don't I will take it as if you just blatantly disobeyed my direct order." They froze staring to me to see if I would carry out my threat.

"Well, you see... Master Fabian has been abstinent for two years, and he's been very adamant about his... Frustrations. In short, you're like a juicy lamb being hovered in front of a carnivorous lion." Zara said as she toweled me down while the others busied themselves with their work. I really wanted to react but I didn't feel offended by anything they previously said. Once again I found myself resigning to my fate.

"Well, I commend him for at least respecting the procedures here in The Sceptors. At least it reassures me that he respects my father's name." Everyone around me paused staring at me sympathetically.

"We did no-"

I raised my hand to silence Zara before she dug herself deeper into her guilt. "I know all of you were concerned about my behavior from two days ago. I apologize for making you all worried, it wasn't my best moment as a Queen." I looked at all the beautiful women who I had the honor of calling my stylists. I looked to each of them who adorned a ring on their left ring finger and became reminded of all my duties. "I apologize for acting as if my happiness would be any less substantial within my privileged arrangement than your own dutiful unions. After all, my family made and implicated these laws for the betterment of humanity..."

'Who am I, to protest against the rules that keep us safe?

The Queen?

Who is a Queen who cannot take her own word seriously?

Who would be the people to follow her so blindly?'

Zara came and placed her arms around me. "You're a 17-year-old girl Ambrosia. Most of us didn't have to take that leap until we were halfway into our twenties. Even though Fabian is a man with a rich house; that ensures the longevity of any house he marries into, it doesn't make him any less of a royal pain in th-."

Xophie pulled Zara from me and gave her a stern stare. "What Zara was trying to say! Is that we understand why you did it and we would love for you shout to the heavens about it. Because anyone that marries Fabian Vector The Third," Xophie got down on her knees and put her hands together in prayer, "May we pray for her sanity and health."

The room burst into the girly sounds of playfulness and laughter. My heart felt lighter and for the second time since my arrival, I enjoyed a laugh in my new home.

            I listened to Charlie whistle a happy tune as I sat in the back of what I now liked to call my black chariot. "Are you excited?" I looked out the window peering upon the school building of blue marble and glass windows.

I despised all of it, but I turned to Charlie giving him a refreshing smile. "I hope I can make some new friends."

Charlie let out a hearty chuckle. "Yes! Please don't forget to invite them over, it'll be rude not to."

            Charlie got out of the car and came to my door before holding it open for me. I stepped out of the car smoothing out the white dress blouse that I paired with dark blue slim-fit jeans and nude-colored booties.

"Ah, You made it! Right on time, I see." I looked up into a pair of chocolate brown eyes that gave off a motherly air.

"Hello, Mrs. Gulding." Charlie hugged the grey-haired woman as if he were hugging an old friend and she beamed at him when they came apart. "Ambrosia this is Angela K. Gulding; wife of Andrew Gulding, and she is your new school chairman." I extended my hand to give her a handshake, only to have her erupt in laughter.

"Young lady if you don't give me a hug and quit that military way of greeting people. I think I may have to teach you some manners." Charlie coughed in an exaggerated attempt to cover his howls of amusement but wasn't fooling anyone while I promptly gave Angela her hug. "Oh, I see I will like you very much." She gave me a large smile before turning into the school.

"Go on then." Charlie waved to me while giving me a reassuring smile before I stepped through the doorway. My mouth came unhinged, it was like I just walked into a museum of rare artifacts. The blue marble from the outside bled into the inner walls of the school. The floors below us were immaculate white ivory. There were crystal chandeliers hanging from impossibly high ceilings above us that looked to be made of faceted glass. I watched the throngs of distorted figures walking above us creating a kaleidoscope of shadows.

I heard a giggle and turned to see Mrs. Gulding smiling like a three-year-old child that had been caught causing mischief. "I take it you like it?" I nodded in agreement. "Well, this is the glass hallway, and unfortunately not all the rooms are like this one. Apparently, the whole place would always be in danger of lighting everything on fire or whatever." Angela rolled her eyes and made large hand gestures showing her clear annoyance of the fact she couldn't have a complete glass castle, and I erupted in genuine laughter at her prowess.

The woman looked at me as if I were ludicrous and had lost my mind, but to her disappointment it only made me laugh harder. I felt tears form in my eyes and my stomach began to ache but her stare had laughter bubbling out of me from even from my darkest depths. "I-I apologize." Another line of giggles escaped my mouth as I wiped away a tear. "Your face was so priceless I couldn't help it."

"Well, I am glad you're done!" I gave her a small sympathetic smile; one that always helped me get out of trouble, but Mrs. Gulding narrowed her eyes at me rendered me warned. "Now! As. I. Was. Saying... This is the glass hall and it is the only type of its kind in the school. You will find your classmates having small music performances or dances here often. There is always some sort of activity taking place here." She snapped her neck toward me, her eyes still narrowed as if checking to see if I even cracked a smile.

In my defense I was not smiling, I was grinning.

'It's two different things.'

Angela gave me yet another stern look before turning down the hall.

             The hallways began to wind, and I saw more and more students. I quickly noticed that this was indeed an all girl's school. The discovery made me frown; for I was a known tomboy and my own gender found me quite odd at times, knowing they would now surround me made me pout even more.

             We made several turns and saw several rooms, I noticed I had already received several strange looks from various girls we had passed. We stopped in front of a staircase and Angela turned toward Charlie. "Don't you think you can wait for her... While in your car, to ask her how her day was? Instead of being here to ruin the surprise?"

I was about to ask if he could stay but Charlie boomed with laughter before giving a curt nod and dismissing himself without another word. I pressed my lips grim with worry. Mrs. Gulding giggled like a two-year-old. "I assure you he was weeping all the way back to the car, but if you think he should come back, we can always call him." I don't know why, but her tone felt mocking and the questioning smirk she was giving me was taken as a dare.

"I think it will be fine." She half huffed and half scoffed while her mocking smile continued.

"Well, I am glad the new royal baby doesn't need her sitter." I stood up tall quickly realizing my new girl welcome was now over. Mrs. Gulding began waltzing up the stairs. For an old hag, she sure was nimble.

"Your first class is history, here is your schedule." Angela handed me my schedule and shuffled her way back down the staircase. Once departed from Angela I made my way to my history class. I was grateful then for Angela's long tour on how to read the hallways signs properly. Otherwise, I would've been lost in this grand estate quite quickly.

I stood at the door of my history class and held my breath.

"Please enter the class we don't have all day." I turned to the voice behind me and froze. She was slender with white platinum blonde hair and blue sapphires for eyes. She reminded me of my new mother-in-law Elaine, but a much smaller version of her. Her lips were full; pretty in pink, and her eyelashes were long and coated in a thick layer of mascara that made them look to be the texture of moth wings.

She was pretty looking and could easily be mistaken as innocent but I knew better than to judge a book by its cover. "I apologize; it's just that, it's my first day here and I'm a bit nervous... My name is Ambrosia." I extended my hand in an effort to greet her but was met with nothing but a frustrated wide-eyed stare.

"Ambrosia, as in Ambrosia Vignette, the future standing Queen of The Sceptors?" I was shocked she knew my name. My identity had been deeply classified amongst the common folk of The Sceptors for my safety. Though I did recall Charlie mentioning to me that this school was quite elite.

"It is a pleasure to meet you... Um?" My hand faltered as I struggled to pin her face to a name and she was clearly fuming at my ignorance.

"Thalia Gulding! Eldest daughter and heir to the third most technologically advanced house in your kingdom!" Thalia smacked my hand so hard my engagement ring slipped off of my finger. I held my hand in silence not daring to bow my head before her to retrieve my ring. A defiant cruel smirk sprawled upon Thalia's face as she realized I would not bow to her. "This is The Queen of The Sceptors? This is the woman Fabian had to marry, excuse me, has been married to since someone pulled her from her useless mother's corpse."

I flinched but it didn't matter to Thalia who bent over to pick up my engagement ring from the floor. "You care about your pride as Queen so much you dare not pick up the one thing that the lot of us would kill for. Why do you even deserve this?!" Thalia held the ring to my face taunting me to take it from her but I stood my ground and stared at her silently as she ranted. "Nothing? You have nothing to say in your defense? Tuh, I have to say I am not surprised in the slightest. After all, you aren't known as the absent Queen because you have a voice. Oh, that's right, it is because you're too busy living a mundane life of carelessness and reaping all the rewards of being Queen."

Thalia let out a cruel but unamused laugh. "All because everyone pities the fact that your parents died an unfortunate death. Pity, A real shame. Tell that to the diseased and people who come here because they met real misfortune." Thalia placed my engagement ring on her finger and admired it as she looked solemnly upon it. "You do not deserve this. You're nothing more than a mute, absent, orphaned Queen that nobody wants. Let's also mention that the only reason why you had this, is because of your dead parents!"

Thalia pushed passed me and several other girls followed behind her, all of them ignoring my presence as if I were air. I truly wanted to feel something as she placed my engagement ring on her finger, but could I feel nothing. It was almost as if she had just removed one of my many shackles and claimed its burden as her own. Like a fool unknowing to what she truly was tying herself onto, she exuded utter victory in her act of defiance.

'At that moment she was the jester to my royal court, and she was fully in character.

She knew so much of what it meant to be Queen and she wanted it so badly.'

I walked into my history class not bothering to introduce myself seeing how everyone was already aware of my presence and my titles.

'Such is the presence of being Queen.'

The teacher was unbothered by the spat that just occurred outside his door. Clearly, before I even had the chance to pretend as I could exist here it was told that I should not. For no one was going to stand to my defense.

'Such is the repercussions of being Queen.'

"Following yesterday's reading on the history of The Sceptors, I would like one student to answers today's burning topic... Do I have any volunteers?" The weathered salt and pepper bearded history teacher looked to the room and landed on Thalia's decorated left hand.

"Mr. Bendaracle why don't we ask Ambrosia. Even though she didn't read last night's reading, the burning topic for today would be best answered coming from a diplomat. Even better answered if it came from our future leader don't you think?" Thalia was far too coy for her own good.

Mr. Bendaracle struggled to find a response to refuse Thalia's clear and bold dare toward me, the fear was evident in his eyes. I stood, "To answer today's burning topic of, 'Why arranged unions was implemented as a mandate in The Sceptors?' we would have to touch base with why The Sceptors are even necessary. The simple answer is, we are careful to not recreate the catastrophe which maimed us of our freedom to go where we please on this planet we call home. Though the real answer would be, our fear of the unknown horrors of the disease outside our safe walls. We rather sit here and put shackles on our fingers; playing power games, to continue our hold over the right to control everything and everyone."

I turned and looked Thalia in her sharp blue eyes. "We rather our name and house to be known to be pure and wealthy rather than to be forgotten and questioned. The reason arranged marriage was implemented, is so that I can maintain the thin balance within these Sceptors walls and what is beyond them. Without this security blanket, everyone would fear everyone." I turned back to Mr. Bendaracle and sat back down in my seat.

'Such is the knowledge of being Queen.'