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Thrushfield Heartman was a prince who had one job that was significantly more important than all his other princely duties. He was supposed to find a wife. You might think that would be easy for a strong, handsome prince to do, especially when he can build tables, is an expert marksman with the bow, and raises small rabbits in his chest of drawers, but Thrushfield had two problems.
One, he was already in love.
Two, she did not love him back.

Eudoria Sailor was a princess who had something like ten thousand jobs and none more important than the others. She looked lovely in blue, lived in her own floor of a palace—with seventy different bedrooms, was a whiz at tennis, and had known Thrushfield since they were three.
Thrushfield was a poor tennis player.

They had always been friends though. And that was something that was never supposed to change.

At the ripe age of eight, as they sat—or rather, hid—underneath the lilac bushes, they crossed their hearts and shook hands over a foolish promise. Eudoria's oldest brother had recently taken up the crown and entered into an extremely loveless and extremely important political marriage, and his small little sister and her comrade from the neighboring kingdom had been the witness to many an argument between the husband and wife in the garden.
"Let's promise never to marry each other and only be best friends forever," Eudoria whispered to Thrushfield as pale purple buds littered her hair when her brother slapped the branches under which they were sheltered from sight while he yelled at his wife about the current border lines.
To be fair, Thrushfield didn't really have a chance to think about the proposition before agreeing. And he was quite biased about all of it anyway. They were, after all, only playmates at the time, smuggling plum cakes out into the garden to gorge themselves on as they listened to the newest rulers of Eudoria's kingdom come at each other's throats over shipping lanes and prestigious commanding officers. And when you're an eight year old prince, it's not exactly easy to imagine the girl sitting beside you with the mousy brown hair and the constellations of freckles across her face and shoulders becoming the beautiful creature that she would in five years time.
So he agreed.
As the young queen's voice reached a pitch Thrushfield wasn't even quite sure was human, he and Eudoria crossed their hearts with their pinkies and then shook hands in childish desperation as they made a pact to never belong to one another in that way.
It was then, stifling laughter as more lilac buds rained down upon them and plum juice was sticky sweet on their chins and noses, it was then that they swore.
It was then that they swore they would never marry each other.

Eudoria never forgot that moment. It was her favorite, and she lived like that pact was a code of honor, and oath, never to be broken, even under pain of death.

For Thrushfield, it was his pain of death, daily.