Past Promises

The Owner

The wedding ceremony will be held a month after the selection process however, I was so busy and dragged around the Palace almost every day.

I had my body measurement taken for the wedding robe, ceremonial robe, to enter Main Hall robe, to visit the Queen and the King robe, and few other types of robes.

I had to learn the words to address each of everyone in the Palace, to learn how to make few deserts of the Crown Prince's favourites, too many things to learn that when it was a day before the wedding ceremony, I finally got to rest.

Therefore, I decided to go to the flower field, to take a breather.

I sat and leaned against the tree.

"Ah, this is nice," I said. I didn't realise I had fallen asleep when someone tapped on my shoulder.

"You had slept the whole day," it was the Crown Prince. Since the day I found out he was the Crown Prince we had never met after that.

It was already dusk, I hurriedly stood up and greeted the Prince. We slowly walked back to the Palace.

"How are you taking everything?" He asked.

"A bit tiring," I said.

"Don't worry, it'll will be over tomorrow," he said. "Well, you will still get busy after the wedding as well but not this busy," he smiled then added, "you will get used to it."

It was suddenly silent so I tried to ask him something to break the silence.

"So, Your Highness is the owner of this field?" I asked, I remembered the day he introduced himself as the field owner.

"Oh, that," he laughed softly. "I do really am the owner of this field. This was actually a barren field so I asked His Majesty to give it to me if I manage to make it alive," he picked a flower and handed it to me. I blushed by his action.

"Every day, five years ago, I brought people that have knowledge in plants to cure the land but to no avail. Then, the Former Queen planted a flower near the tree and after a year, the field miraculously filled with flowers." The Former Queen was the Prince's birth mother, it was told that she died due to unknown illness that no physician in the nation able to cure her.

"What about the tree?" I pointed to the only tree on the field.

"It was always there," he answered short. It felt like there was something more to the story.

"Why is the gate closed?" I asked another question.

"I don't want people to enter the field as all these flowers are frail and I couldn't make sure that they won't pick the flowers," he said and I looked at the flower in my hand.

"That's for you," he said as he saw my expression changed.

We arrived in front of the small entrance on the wall. The Prince went to climb the entrance first and held out his hand to me. He took my hand, helped me climbed the entrance and he didn't let go of my hand until we arrived in front of the Crown Princess Consort Residence.

He let go of my hand slowly. "See you tomorrow," he said with a smile.