Royals

The Queen of Royals Chapter 2

Every day after that, he found her lodged exactly in the same place, exactly at moonrise. She settled for the time after all the people who cleaned had finished the dusty shelves and left the library. That way she could be alone.

It became a habit for him to intercept her at the library. Each time he arrived, she would become unbelievably tense, always pausing whatever she was reading and then relaxing once he settled down. Regardless of Lale's work in the day, he found himself suddenly visiting his library each night to observe his curious wife. She never appeared at breakfast in the dining hall to eat with him and the other warriors. She didn't even eat with the common folk in the smaller halls. Not once did Lale even catch glimpse of her in the daylight, as if she only belonged to his house at night when his people were asleep. Supposedly they were her people, too. Sooner or later she would have to appear. Whether or not that would happen in the next five years was truly up for debate.

They did not talk too much when they were alone together in the library. Lale would pick up books to read with her, but he liked watching her more, and she tolerated his presence. Lale learned a lot about her simply by observation. In a week she had ploughed through several books. Flora and fauna were favourite topics, he realised, but he was pleasantly surprised to see her with books on Mairan history and languages. In fact, eventually her entire reading list became languages. He noticed when her pile of books suddenly shifted to Mairan idioms, to dialects and grammar and rhetoric.

"Brushing up?" he called over once.

"More or less," she replied. She continued reading without a word. "Clipped formality doesn't become you," he told her in a straightforward way, but surprised her by doing so in Embremese. Mairan tongue was dominated by consonants and hard vowels, while Embremese was light, lilting, soft tones lacking soft palate work.

Colleen's eyes widened and her stare tacked onto him.

"What?" He chuckled. "I speak this, too. Have you quite forgotten?"

"Quite," the girl grumbled, though she looked hesitantly at him. "You are fluent, my lord?"

Her voice was well suited for Embremese. Colleen sounded pleasant; her voice was naturally soft, warm, and melodious in a way, so light Embremese sounded good passing through her lips. He was glad she had a decent voice. "In Aethaharan, as well." He responded in said language, switching gears again, though considerably slower. Aethaharan was his poorest language. Mair and Aethahara were historical allies, so there was always very little need for him to visit the wild and forest-dominated country on the other foot of the mountain. Mair took up the mountains, Emberem the good portion of field lands and coast, while Aethahara - neighbour to both - dominated the elevated forest areas on the rest of the continent. He swapped languages to gauge her proficiency only, being rather uncomfortable with it any other day.

She smiled at him, which caught him off-guard. "Ah," she responded, and he realized that her pronunciation of the language was as accurate as her Mairan or her Embremese. "It is surprising, sire, that you are able to mimic the curls so well. Mairan and Aethaharan are very different."

Here was a bold statement, questioning his fluency. But he grinned at her, and replied slowly, still in Aethaharan, "You surprise me, as well. How is it you speak like a native?"

Her eyes flickered to the side. "We have many Aethaharan servants back... Back home. I was raised by them."

That piqued his interest. He switched back to his mother tongue, enjoying this sudden little mental exercise. "Raised?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"What of your mother?"

"Nobles do not raise their own," she responded.

"But your mother was a concubine. Not nobility."

She stiffened. "That is true. But my mother passed of illness when I was nine. Care was delegated to Lor-... To the servants." He could see her tension palpably. "As such, she could not really raise me."