The Reason for Marriage - Chapter 1.2

Iveca replied stiffly, unwittingly nervous in such a strange situation. 

“…I don’t really know. Truthfully, I haven’t had much chance to get to know him. When I came to my senses, after the wipe, they told me I have a fiancée. That was the first I really knew of it.”

Daniel looked at her as if he heard something funny.

“It sounds like it’s okay to marry anyone.”

Iveca cocked her head ever so slightly. 

“Not for me. Surely you, my King, know better than anyone that being born into a noble family means an arranged marriage.”

“And that suits you? Working at the Bureau, an arranged marriage. There’s not a lot to look forward to there, is there?”

Iveca recoiled at the suggestion. She might not have been born smart enough to avoid a job at the Bureau straight out of college, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t her own woman. And sure, her chosen path had not exactly panned out. But she could live with that, because it was her choice and her consequence. 

“There are things you can enjoy as a noblewoman” she replied, “I just have to fulfill my birthright, that’s all.”

Anriq’s face still remained unchanged behind the King, and Iveca waited for Daniel’s reply with her head tilted down slightly. The King smiled, unseen by the two he was surrounded by.

“If that’s so…”

As the King spoke, Iveca raised her head and looked into his eyes. Her reflection shone in the pools she found there, down to the last detail of her brown, unflattering Bureau uniform.

“…How about marrying me?”

Iveca didn’t respond, such was the scope of her surprise. He was joking. He must be joking, right? When his face remained the same after a few moments, she whispered back. 

“Pardon?”

“You don’t really know your fiancée from the Telsey family, am I correct? How different is it that a King you don’t know is asking?”

The smile never left his face. Iveca studied him as intensely as she had ever studied anyone before, looking for the joke so it could be revealed to her. But that perfect face revealed nothing. His glittering blonde hair was unmoved, his statue-like face untelling. And those eyes; blue eyes as clear as water. Looking into them, she felt like a bug trapped under a glass. Finally, Iveca was able to muster a reply, which tripped its way out of her mouth like a mouse on stilts.

“Your Majesty… my marriage is not my decision…”

The King interrupted without a trace of malice. 

“I was originally thinking of speaking to your father, Count Esselburn, directly. But it seemed more polite to talk to the person involved first.”

The situation had stopped making sense several sentences ago. Iveca felt like she had been hit in the back of the head, and as she felt her mouth gape open and closed, she knew she must have looked like a fool.

Then she realized; he truly was being serious about taking her thoughts into consideration. Had he just gone directly to her father, she’d probably already be in a wedding dress by now. Count Esselburn had no reason to not give his third, unmarried daughter to the king. There was no room for her opinion in his mind. Just as her engagement with the Telsey Family. But he had come to her directly to make his proposal.

But still, nothing about this made sense.

“I’m glad you are not in love with your fiancée,” the King spoke, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

“Your Majesty…”

Iveca’s eyes flitted between the King and Anriq behind him, searching for some truth and reason to this madness, but Anriq did not look at her and remained as stoic as he had been the whole time. She lowered her head and spoke quickly.

“Why me, your Majesty?”

“Ask Count Esselburn why. I am sure you will know soon enough, however.”

That settled it then, thought Iveca. It’s political. If it’s a reason that she needed to learn from her father, it had to be a political intention. Count Esselburn was a neutral representative. Iveca, therefore, had ties to real power. And through marriage, she was there to be taken by the highest bidder.

“Although…” the King spoke again, turning his eyes from her.

“What is it, your Majesty?”

“I’d like to ask you something. A favor, if you will.”

“A favor?” Iveca was too stunned to argue the point.

“I would ask you not to quit the Judicial Bureau once we were married.”

Iveca’s mind went into overdrive, the last sentence from the King breaking a barrier of confused numbness in her head. Of course, she didn’t want to quit the Juridical Bureau just because she was married. But in her heart, had already given up her job, because as soon as the engagement was decided, she needed to quit her affiliated agency once again. But now, she was being given a chance to stay… 

“A hundred years ago, it said that Queen Evena also continued to work in administration.”

Iveca knew this; but also knew the intentions behind it. She remained at work to keep the King’s favor in the Bureau. Which meant she was to do the same. Could she do that? 

Her head was twitching, seemingly full of revelation but full of nothing all at once. The King wanted her for her unique position, that much was for certain. He needed support from neutralist aristocrats and someone to do specific work in the Judicial Bureau. She could do both. Some fairy tale romance, she thought.

“Do you have anything else to say?” he asked. He was smiling again now, looking at her. Blue on violet. Even though it was spoken politely, it was shown from his expression that no further dialogue was needed. The decision was made.

“Wonderful. The news about the engagement will be broken today, and soon the national marriage will take place.”

“Soon?” 

It was starting to get too much for Iveca to even think again.

“In ten days.”