In the kingdom of Aeziris, a rebellion is rising, but its reins are not in the hands of its citizens. With a fine string entwining her heart with that of its chieftain, Esméralda must walk a knife-edge while navigating her way through a palace of ma...
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E s m é r a l d a A l b y
"Mr. Clark, have you ever seen the Prince?"
I wondered aloud, enjoying the jam scones he gave me that made my morning. I rested my face on my fist, and my elbow on his polished wooden counter, as I looked at his plump face expectantly. I had about half an hour to return home as my grocery shopping for the day finished early.
"Spawn of the devil!" Mr. Clark muttered angrily, keeping his pencil down. He averted his eyes from his sketch of a beautiful gown to me. "Never present for a measurement. The Queen shoves someone close to his size and I'm left with a thousand alterations. The last time I put a tape to his chest was when he was twelve, half his current age!"
"Uh-oh."
"Trust me when I say this, Kiddo—I was happier when he grew up than I was when I walked my princess down the aisle." Irritation was clear in his black eyes when he rolled them. "I finally have a constant size that he fits in."
"Spawn of the devil suits him then," my laugh quickly faltered to an anger ever present, "for the king is devil reincarnated."
"He wasn't always like this, you know?" Mr. Clark leaned back, eyes to the ceiling and perhaps, replaying a memory when the kingdom was flourished like a heaven on earth. "He changed when the previous whore of a Queen eloped with her lover without a care about the son and the husband she left behind. What is it that the king couldn't have provided her?"
"Love, perhaps?"
Everyone in the kingdom hated Queen Amaya, for her betrayal turned the king cold like a once warm lake frozen in a winter that lasted forever. King Darius once ruled justly, protecting and providing his subjects like they were his family. Now, the taxes breached the sky and corruption penetrated its roots deep below. Aeziris blamed Queen Amaya for its misery, loathed her so much that not even her name was spoken without a venomous hiss.
"King Darius loved Queen Amaya." Mr. Clark responded, spitting out her name no different than how anyone in the kingdom would. "I witnessed it everytime I visited the palace back then, Kiddo. That is why her departure left the king a new man with only his face as a tie to identify him for him."
"Maybe it was an act of his? Some politics?" I defended the previous Queen. "Maybe she wasn't really happy?"
To me, Queen Amaya was kind, as rare as finding gold in a mine of copper called the Royals. She used to visit her subjects more in a month than the current Queen does in an year. She actually used to talk to them, listen to their problems and take respective actions. I remembered stepping in front of her carriage, when I was younger than five, because my ball had rolled to the middle of the road. The coachman had to pull the reigns with all his strength to stop his horses from crushing me.
