The First Queen (Currently Being Updated)

Chapter 9

I took an alternative route back to the palace different from the one I took before. Judging by the angry growls in the distance, I had the upper hand in this chase. I'm such an idiot, I kept telling myself as I continued to run, picking up my skirts to lessen the drag. I'm a queen! Queens do not climb trees and pull pranks on people, let alone a king who has already gotten my nerves! Wait - okay I see the French doors, I'm almost there.

I opened the doors without a problem, making a sharp right into my quarters, but I wasn't out of the woods just yet. Stopping quickly to catch my breath, I bent down, putting a hand over my corested belly that was too tight. Just as I rose back up to continue my trek, my body went cold when I heard from about a yard behind me, "did you really think you could out run me, Queen Eleanor. You are a woman of many talents, falling out of trees and ruining my image, but trying to win the chase is not your forte."

I turned sharply, nearly wincing at the pain that went through my abdominals. "Francis," I breathed. "I know what I did was childish, and stupid, but please, put this aside. We are rulers!"

Not having noticed I had been backing away from Francis as I spoke, a look of fear was on his face and he shouted my name, but before I could yell, or turn, or do anything, a sharp pain - a dagger, pierced my lower back side. I gasped in pain, in clear shock as my body responded to the attack. It wasn't until the perpetrator sharply twisted the lodged dagger that I screamed, crumbling to the floor as the weapon as taken from me.

"Long live the king," whispered a vile voice in my ear before I felt its owner behind me leave. I heard Francis try to go after him, but the culprit had disappeared. Right now, I was paralyzed, the only thing I was fully aware of was that my lower half of my body was now in a pool was something warm. My eyesight was beginning to blur as I felt my upper body being held by two familiar arms, a hand going up to my chin to tilt my head a bit.

Francis' deep blues were pouring into my brown eyes with so much worry, anger, and fear. He alternated between calling for help and trying reassure me that I would be alright.

"Eleanor, please, say something - no, do not close your eyes, you hear me! Guards, guards," he shouted with fearful eyes, holding onto me as if a strong current was about to take me away.

Before the darkness took over, I remember whispering one thing: "Hryre sy andett" - death is glory.

***

Sweetness.

There was something intoxicatingly sweet.

A soft essence was against my face, and it seemed I was laying on my stomach against it. Opening my eyes wider, I saw that I had slept in a bed of red flowers and that I was dressed in a snow white gown. Sitting upright, I observed my surroundings, seeing that I happened to be upon a hills of red flowers, and in the distance was a sight that made me still. The burial mounds of Alendarian rulers - my final resting place when my time came. Had it come now? Am I dying? Or am I already dead?

I came to stand up, blinking a bit to make sure I was seeing correctly. The sights to me were now familiar - Mount Andett, the sacred mountain and the final resting place of my ancestors. I began walking towards the burial mounds that were basically small grass humps on the already grassy fields of the mountain range. Each of the mounds that I passed by started with the largest, that of King Michael the Just, the first king of Alendar. Then King Edward I, Edward II, Justinian I, Roland I, Henry I, Charles I, Justinian II, Gregory, Edward III, Charles II, Edward IV, Henry II, Roland II, Charles III, and then finally, my father, King Richard the Wise.

My trek came to a halt as I looked at my father's tomb, his coffin engulfed in the earth. A large limestone laid at the head with his name written in the ancient language.