(A/N: So Eliyn's dead... sorry about that ^.~)
Chapter Twentyfive~
I was still. I was un-moving. I was dead.
Well- I wanted to be.
The covers of my bed strangled me and I tangled myself between them. Maybe if I stayed here, maybe if I didn’t move, they would forget I existed and Miranda would take the thrown.
It’d been but a week since Eliyn had lost her light and I had done nothing but lie here and weep in self-pity.
How could I be a queen to a kingdom that I’d only been living in myself for a few months? How could I fight a war I didn’t understand? How could I tell people I‘d never met what to do?
No one but Miranda had come entered my room in those seven days. And she didn’t speak to me; she just smiled and gave me my food.
I think she was afraid, I think she was afraid of what I might do and how I might react.
I bet they all thought I was fragile and mad. I bet they were talking about me now, I bet they were mentally scowling at me for ignoring my role as queen and finding comfort in the layers of my bed instead.
They saw me as breakable. They saw me as weak.
I bet they didn’t want a queen like that.
I was just now starting to realise Eliyn’s elegance. Her power was so un-deniable; no one in Myllic would ever think to defy the queen. She was amazing, and the people wanted to follow that.
She had been what she had had to have been to be queen. It was the only thing she could’ve done to keep her kingdom believing they had hope.
But now she was gone. And so was the hope.
I couldn’t rule a kingdom. I could hardly rule an army of one. The army of me.
But how could I let Eliyn down?
How could I do that to my own mom?
This was her kingdom. I was not going to let it crumble. I was going to do what I had to do to win this war. And then I would go peacefully and leave the kingdom in the careful hands of Miranda.
I threw the sheets off me and jumped to the door. I would show them I wasn’t weak! I would show them I could rule like my mother! I would rule in my mom’s legacy, I would rule like she would’ve done if she was still here!
Miranda was just opening the door as I was exiting it.
She jumped back in surprise but then frowned at my appearance.
I looked down at myself. I was still in the same dress, and apart from the showers I’d rarely taken it hadn’t been removed.
“Maybe I do need to polish myself up a bit before I reveal myself to the public.” I said, trying to be as powerful as Eliyn. Miranda was shocked at my speech but smiled and nodded, happy to welcome a queen.
She swung open the wardrobe and started to chatter non-stop about the dresses I could wear now I was a queen. She was trying to pick out the good things in this… I loved her for that.
“Actually, I was thinking… could I have a look in Eliyn’s wardrobe?” I asked. Miranda turned around in shock but nodded and led me to an even larger room down the corridor.
If I was going to be queen now, I would be as elegant as her. If that meant playing dress up in her old clothes than I would do it.
“They might not fit that well… she was a bit taller than you…” Miranda said thoughtfully as she hung the dress up to me. I tried to push all the times I’d seen my mom wear that dress out of my head.
“Would the seamstress be able to fix it?” I looked at the gold glitter fluttering in the light and knew I had to be seen as a queen for the first time in this dress.
“Of course!” Miranda grinned at my signs of life. I guess me being cold was better than me being half-dead in the blankets of my bed.
She scurried me back to my bedroom so I wouldn’t be seen in my state and she told me to wait for the seamstress to come to my room.
While I was waiting I took another shower, avoiding the shadow of a girl in the mirror.
The hot water used to be a comfort, but now it was nothing but cleaning me. I usually thought about so many things while in the shower, maybe I’d sneak in a little sing-song but today, today was full of emptiness.
I stood and cleaned myself mindlessly, thinking about nothing else but what was happening. I didn’t want to think too much, I knew it’d end badly.
After coming out of the shower I caught my reflection in the mirror. The girl was holding a towel around her fragile body like it was the only thing that could keep her safe. Her eyes were shining gold, but apart from that she might as well have been dead.
I scurried past the mirror, careful not to delve further into the thoughts I wanted to keep out.
I sat at the end of my bed in a silky dress from my wardrobe. It was to wear while I waited.
After I’d had enough of sitting and staring at the wall I stumbled towards the large window across the room.
I knew there was a war going on, I knew it like heck, but what I saw was not what I expected.
Outside the castle gates were rows and rows of homeless people sitting in a clustered group, protecting each other. The Trys soldiers were closing in on them, squishing them right up to the castle doors. I saw Thif himself throw a ball of fire at the front row of weak defenders.
That’s it! I thought angrily. The people of Myllic had nowhere to go and the people who lived in the castle were ignoring them like they were common pests!
I was about to run out of my room and go and do something stupid when Miranda emerged from the door carrying my dress.
The screams began to be audible from inside the castle. I looked at her with a desperate look on my face.
She closed her eyes and handed me the dress. “Don’t do anything stupid. Remember, you’re the queen now.”
She left with that, sweeping her way out of my room and leaving me with the dress that dazzled under the light of the window.
I took the dress in my hands and sucked in a tight breath.
“Come on then. Let’s go be a queen.”