(Sorry it's a bit short!)
For a few minutes, the hall was still in complete silence, except for the shuffling of guards outside the hall. Everyone waited patiently for the princess to arrive, their eyes fixated on the grand doors ahead of them.
Sythaeryn was watching the doors too, though not with excitement like the others. He could only dread and hope it all went wrong, that the princess wouldn’t even arrive, having decided not to marry him after all.
He could hear Sierra’s deep, grunting breaths next to him, and the two glanced at each other every few minutes. Sythaeryn was scared out of his wits. He didn’t care if the princess was ugly or beautiful, nice or absolutely awful, he just hoped and dreamed and wished that she’d at least let him go off peacefully, and maybe they could even be friends. “Just friends” would probably not be good enough for his kingdom though, and he slumped even farther into his chair, glancing over at his father and mother, who were still staring patiently at the doors.
Sythaeryn sighed and sat back up, feeling Sierra’s hand resting roughly on his shoulder, and he knew, whether he was thrown from the castle or not, that he’d still have Sierra and Arcaena to keep company.