My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

xvii. the princess and the queen

bride
// they adorn her with jewels and clandestine hope. they clothe her in silks and rich, vibrant trust. in her, they invest their desperate wish, and through her, they realize their greatest desires.

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The air was made of cloth—thick, heavy cloth, woolen and rough and as weighty as stone. It was cloth that stuck to the skin, that dragged at your arms and legs—pulled at them like a set of bulky iron chains. You heard them grind; you felt their weight: the hum buzzing deep within the metal as it scraped against the ground.

The sound followed you down the halls, trailed you like a servant, or a wolf—a hunter, stalking prey incapable of running. Prey with wings clipped and legs bound, set firmly upon a path far more honest and selfless than the ruins of its own designs.

You stepped along, and the fine cloth manacles shackled to your wrists and ankles and neck dragged and clawed and scraped against the floor. The grating sound they made was low and rough: a bitter, angry growl rumbling in the chest of a shadowy monster—a beast so hideous and cruel that even the daylight hesitated to fall across its face.

Then you came to your destination, to the horses and carriage and servants that would deliver you into the arms of a tyrant king—the embrace of a strange new home—and the shackles fell quiet, silenced by the sun's glare. But though the growl rumbling against your skin faded in the light of the day, in your bones the hum of such a threat still lingered, buzzing like a fly in the thick, yellow flesh of your marrow. It was in your head, in the thick of your skull, drumming its prickling beat into the soft space behind your eyes—pressing uncomfortably at the hard material of your mask.

Yet around its nettling hum, you coerced a tentative smile—drew it careful and hesitant into the shade cast by your veil. Upon your lips it sat, delicate and sickly, trembling despite the warm cloth that embraced it. Excitement: you should call it excitement. But such a word tasted awfully sour against the flesh of your tongue, and in the back of your throat, the bitter dregs of its sound pooled and twisted into a creature slimy and crooked.

In the pit of your stomach, you felt it settle, cold and ugly and tucked up against your spine, but you swallowed the shiver clawing at your neck and lifted your gaze to your mother—your father and sisters and brother. To the persons to whom you would be forever indebted, the men and women whose sorrow was your despair and for the provision of whose joy you would most gladly relinquish your own.

They watched you approach, and their stares pressed like fingers at your mask—hands, touching and pulling, tugging at your lips and grazing your eyelids.

A smile brighter than the most fervent of suns curled your father's lips, and its brilliant light colored his cheeks and eyes, warming his skin and grinning in his pupils, so bright it nearly burned. "My, don't you look wonderful." His voice was light and intense—lively, like the first flower of spring—and the warmth that colored his tone was not burdened by the pale chill of courtesy or fear, of uncertainty in the face of strange and powerful men. "The loveliest bride I ever did spy."

The paleness that had for so long invaded the flesh of your father's cheeks was now far gone from the planes of his face, and in its absence, a familiar, delightful color softened his lips and eyes. It was a shade not unlike certainty—a hue reminiscent of virtuous confidence.

The warmth in your father's voice was honest and firm, but when it grazed your ears the slimy creature pressed up against your spine hissed and shrunk away, forced back by the threat of heat, of bubbling, blistered skin. The man's words were soft and yet burning—scorching like fire, like an iron brand—and their sound left the flesh of your ears a hot, blistering shade of red.