My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER FIVE

v. the princess and the queen

mother
// eyes as hard as stone, and skin as smooth as silk. her voice is her weapon; her words are her blades. she is authority. she is fear. she is hate, but the child calls her love.

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Every day following your father's announcement was one of preparation. Your mother ordered the servants to ready the castle for King Orelus's advent, and so every morning of the five weeks it would take for King Orelus to arrive they would rise to meet her demands. Some days you would catch glimpses of them, rushing through the halls, washing and dusting and ensuring no crack or crevice was large enough for an intruder to slip through.

But most days you didn't see them at all. Most days you were too busy following your mother's directions on how to act proper and queenly and listening to her chastise your lack of exceptional qualities to pay much mind to the servants.

In the morning she and you would gather in her sitting room together—just like you used to when you were younger. When you were just a girl and Idryla was just your sister and Didi was just a child. When your greatest worry was being able to satisfy your etiquette tutor's demands.

When you were just another princess, and Adalleth was just a guard's son, and the worst trouble you ever got into was stealing pastries from the kitchen with him and Isil.

But Idryla was married now. Didi was grown now. And now your greatest challenge was trying to learn how to satisfy a king—to present yourself in the most redeeming of lights. Because you needed him to want you. You needed him to think you would make a good queen. A good subordinate.

Because tyrants did not have partners. Tyrants did not have equals. They sat at the head of the table, and everyone else fell below them. Everyone else bowed to them—kissed their feet and hailed the ground they walked upon. Everyone else made themselves smaller so the tyrant could be large.

Everyone else sat so the tyrant could stand, and if they didn't—if they tried to make themselves his peer, his equivalent, then he would kill them.

He would kill their people.

You didn't want to die.

You didn't want anyone to die.

So you woke early every morning, and you walked with Isil to your mother's sitting room, and you bowed your head to her, and you did everything you could to make her happy with you. Proud of you. But it was hard to sit there quietly and nod your head to all that fell from her harsh, frowning mouth. It was hard to walk to her sitting room with Isil every morning.

It was hard to look him in the eye after what he'd said to you after your father's announcement. When your gaze met his—when you greeted him in the morning—the memory of his proposal would surface in your head like the bloated body of a drowned man floating up from the bottom of a dirty river.

Marriage—he'd offered to marry you.

Marriage to save one from just that.

Why? Why had he given you such a chance—such an option? It was cruel. It was kind—far, far too kind. A way out—an escape from this terrible situation. From this unfortunate present and the otherwise inescapable future it promised.

You loved him for it.

You hated him for it.

He was selfless, to offer it. He was selfish, to think you would take it.