She's only a girl. Young, sweet, with eyes that glitter like raw topaz, and you have not hated a living creature this much since the king who had your mother killed in front of you.
As you walk down the aisle, as the orchestra plays and the members of court all stand for your approach, walking the path to becoming queen as you have done so many times before, you realize that, for the first time since you can remember, all eyes in the room are not on you. You turn around, and look down, and there she is, nearly stepping on your train. Devil child. She stares back at you with innocence backed by nature's cunning in shaping her little face just so, adding a gleam to those bright eyes, a red to those bowed lips, a rosiness to her cheeks.
Now, she is only a child. But one day, she will be more. You think you will order her killed as soon as you have taken the castle but - no. No you won't.
You turn around again, delicately lifting the skirts of your dress and mounting the steps, and smile demurely at your husband to be, a man who will be dead by nightfall. You listen to the priest as he begins to speak, and you think, no. The girl will live. Because you can see potential where there is also threat. Beauty like hers is a potent antidote to the world's ills. One day, you will need it. You know it, though you don't know why. You know that her life will be important to yours, if you permit her to flower before you pluck her from the vine.