Two chapters in one update. I know I don't have to say that but funny thing is someone will go down to say, update again, not appreciating that what I worked myself out on just now is two chapters put together 😅😅😅
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Still editing.
Chapter 67
Hu-go
Furia
Hu-go was not the eldest son like he would so like. Before him, a son was born to the woman his father was infatuated with.
His elder brother was one of the greatest generals, who understood military tactics and strategies quite well, after growing up in the military belonging to the greatest empire.
If the prodigal son became the next king, it would be good for Huticah and make Nevoria a little vulnerable to have someone who worked with them, now against them.
Hu-go was always insecure about that. As long as he had an elder brother, was his title as crown prince safe? And he overheard one of the officials that contributed to the royal meetings mentioning that his father had once imagined getting Le-anne back from the palace of Nevoria so as to marry her to his eldest son. To King Tobba, it seemed they would make a very strong couple.
But to Hu-go, it would be the ending of the privileged life he knew.
"Stand in order for Drago!" A female official announced, and everyone went to stand by their dining seat.
Hu-go was told he would seat by the head table, next to the queen, since he was to be the son-in-law.
The queen entered and everyone from Huticah held their breath. Most of them, it was their first time to meet the queen and rightly so, she was gorgeous more than they imagined.
Even in her old age, her beauty was bewitching. But it wasn't just the looks, it was the elegance, the grace, the boldness that women normally didn't carry. She was like a being that didn't live on earth.
What she put on was even more spectacular. A shimmering white dress with an open back and shoes Hu-go had never seen any woman wear in his time. They were of the same material identical to the dress, but with a pointy black heel.
It had to be painful to wear them, since she stood on her toes than any other part of her foot. Nonetheless, that you could not tell as she didn't show it.
Her maids carried in a fancy treasure chest and laid it at her daughter's feet.
Eleanor held her mouth in amazement and her mother laughed at her reaction. She then patted Eleanor on the head, kissed her on the cheek and whispered some words.
Eleanor wiped off some tears and hugged her mother in thanks. Hu-go still found it weird to see Eleanor without her wingers.
The first time they met, what drew him in to her were the glory of them flapping in the air, the color of them at their full potential. However, they were now gone.
It was rumored that the queen cut them off, but he wouldn't dare confirm that with Eleanor. They were not as close, and neither did anyone seem to care about it, except his father who still mourned over the fact that Eleanor couldn't be queen anymore and marrying her wasn't as beneficial as it was earlier on.
But what could they do? They were already in negotiations, backing out now would be a slap on the face for the queen. She would be enraged and vengeful.
In their original plan, marrying Eleanor meant they would have the future queen of Furia at their disposal, and they could merge Huticah and Furia into one.
Contrast to that however, the queen caught on and was clever in her retaliation. She simply disqualified Eleanor from the throne, protecting her nation in the process.
It was a checkmate in which the game had changed because only one queen was left on the board. The one they had taken for granted and left at the disposal of all the wolves, or could it be said in the hands of the "dragon"?
A good thing this person was still a plaything in his father's hands. Though that could change the minute she knew Huticah was nothing to her and she was in no way related to them. She would hate them and probably her reign would ruin Huticah if she decided to give them up.
Hu-go wiped off the sweat on his forehead with the back of his sleeves. He was not supposed to think too much because overthinking gave him anxiety, although he had a habit of letting his thoughts wonder.
After daughter and mother exchanged their pleasantries, the queen stood tall and announced, "Let the lamenting begin."
"Let the lamenting begin!" Someone screamed from the corridor, and from outside the castle, the order was repeated by another. Within the tick of the clock, women began wailing loudly.
It wasn't as loud because they wailed from outside but it was audible enough to tug on the heart of the one who listened. That night they were to dine with the lamenting in the background.
The nation was to weep for the princess they were letting go of, for to them it was like death in which they said goodbye because the princess would no longer exist to them as much.
The queen continued with her procession to the head table. Her dress had so many thread-like straps falling on her shoulders, with no sleeves, something deemed unacceptable on Hu-go's land and more of a taboo in Nevoria. A woman could not publicly show off her arms and feet. However, she was showing it all off. Her dress had a huge slit that came to her thighs, leaving some of her skin exposed.
To finish it all off was her crown, which was a hefty one with huge glittering stones, they called diamonds. Rare jewels, indeed, they could not easily be shaped and produced as a crown, but Furian had it as that. They in all likelihood used magic for extraction of the jewel.
Queen Elora continued to walk confidently, without wavering, that you could not tell she was nearing her death. Not when she was that beautiful.
The queen relied on her wings for strength as they would repeatedly spread out in the air, imitating a peacock showing off its grandeur, though it helped in taking off the pressure on her legs.
When she got to the head table, she sat on her elevated seat by fitting her wings between the vertical gap on the back of the seat. It was really articulate how the wings came together and squeezed between the gap, then flared after passing the gap. This way she could sit against the chair like everyone else.
Wings were hard to control. They were said to be stubborn and rebellious, thus if a Furian could control her wings, she could control everyone else. Mastery over wings was the hardest thing to conquer as it required a lot of practise and discipline.
"Seat, everyone," her voice wasn't whiny but was solid with a slight base, though still womanly.
Hu-go sat and tried not to fidget. He was uncomfortable in the clothes that were not his free-drappy clothes of the desert, but the Furian tunic and trousers they were told to put on if they wanted to be in the queen's presence.
Maids strutted in with huge dishes of food they lay on the centre of the table.
"How do you do, my queen?" His father greeted from the opposite side of the table in his Hutican language.
"King Tobba, you chose to greet me using your language in my castle?" The Furian language was the same as Nevoria's but differing in dialects as the two nations used to be one nation, decades before.
"Greetings, my queen." His father changed to her language.
"Don't forget to avoid biting the hand that feeds you." She picked her cutlery. "You may all start eating."
Hu-go wished he had worn something warm under his tunic. He was freezing already, not because it was cold outside, but when a Furian queen was not in a good mood, the room could get cold. When they were happy, they could have the place warm too. It went like that.
That was why heavy negative emotions caused them to age fast, it's because it took a lot of their strength to be sad and worried, something that was simple for humans, whilst for them, their mood was always supposed to be in tune with the laws of the earth.
The earth was positive in nature, tweeting birds, blooming vegetation and bristling wind. Thus when they were negative, they were in conflict with the environment, fighting against their surroundings that in the end it took much of their strength to just feel sad, causing their lifespan to wield away in the process.
"Hu-go is your name?" The queen addressed him.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Queen Elora was the exact mirror of Le-anne, as if they were twins. The only difference was their age. It was intriguing.
"Eleanor is childish, spoilt, immature and still not ready to marry. How do you plan to solve this?"
"Patience is the virtue I possess, Your Majesty."
The queen grunt.
Hu-go kept his head lowered, trying to eat the food he didn't quite enjoy. The main diet of Furians were vegetables, rarely meat, while his diet from home was the opposite.
"Elora had a crush on you," the queen stated matter of factly.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
She forked a spoonful, chewed on, taking her time, before adding. "Could you guess what I told her when she told me about you?"
The queen stayed with Elora under the goose of being her mistress before Mistress Ki was appointed. It came about after she demanded time with her daughter and that she would pull out of the agreement she had with Huticah over Le-anne if King Tobba did not concede.
Kind Tobba then let her act as Le-anne's mistress, who was to teach dance and many more of the arts Furia was good at, such as singing, poetry, sewing.
Afterwards, when the queen had to leave, King Tobba insisted on faking her death since he deluded that Elora could run away or not accept her new mistress if it wasn't the case of death. This part however, was unknown to the queen as it was after she left that the pretense was played out for Le-anne, who was left heartbroken, thinking her sick mistress was stuck in the burning house that quarantined victims of an epidemic, her being one of them.
Hu-go swallowed on his dry thought and responded to her. "No, Your Majesty."
"I told her you were not worthy to have her because she is above you." She then coughed into her tablecloth. It was a sore cough that indicated her weakness in health. "And neither are you worthy of Eleanor."
That hit a chord in Hu-go. "Yes, Your Majesty, but with all due respect, I see myself to be a better fit than the emperor."
She nodded. "Definitely, you are. Nevoria is disrespectful, arrogant, noisy and very bothersome. They treat women like their slaves. Talk about the many women Huizhong has in his harem. Never can I have my child go through that. She won't marry him while I'm still alive, this I have sworn."
Hu-go smiled, feeling relieved. As long as Le-anne's heart was free, he had a slight chance with her in the future. But looking at his father, he was puffing like a frog, in disagreement. To him, Le-anne was supposed to be empress in the end.
"When I tried negotiating with him for better terms concerning our agreement, he wouldn't relent to anything, yet still his people terrorise my kind, they are bullies and definitely impetuous, while the emperor and his governance act as if they don't see it and it doesn't exist. It is ridiculous. Men who think they can rule women are what I detest the most."
The more the queen ranted to him, the more Hu-go felt comfortable around her. She was not attacking him as long as he kept her thoughts hung on the emperor.
On this part, his father gave him an eye of approval that she was accepting him. It made Hu-go feel proud of himself and ecstatic. His father's approval always made him grow a pair.
"The Qi clan from Nevoria still has been stealing your people for breeding purposes, isn't our queen concerned?" His father slid into their conversation. On the silent table, it was only the three of them who spoke among the audience of attendees, the wailing outside and the clutter of cutlery.
"Emperor Huizhong is despicable. The last time we spoke, no progress was made. He states that according to the law they should not commit that felony but he can't control all of his people as it is a huge empire." She sarcastically laughed. "If his people are not behaving, wouldn't it be because his laws are ineffective and should be revised? If it's the land that is too much, let him give up some of it, but instead he keeps attaining more."
Everyone wanted a Furian wife. Even Hu-go was proud to get a Furian beauty, who wouldn't want one? He had always been thrilled by them, thus he visited the land regularly as he grew up.
However, marrying one was difficult due to different cultures. A Furian raised in her land grew up with a 'worship me' mindset. The men in Furia lived to serve them, looked after the household, looked after the children and all the women did was take on the role of making money, being an official, merchantess, politics. The roles were basically reversed.
That was why if an outsider married one, it wouldn't work. She would expect to be the head of the family, and that was also why the queen and his father didn't last. She was a head-strong woman, the same way his father was, thus they were two bulls in the same shelter.
Nevoria wanted the women for their lustful desires but according to their culture. To satisfy their greed, they kidnapped Furian men and women, then forced them to sleep together and have children. These children would be raised abused and with a broken will, thus when sold as a wife to a Nevorian, they were a suitable respectable wife afraid of the man, just as they liked it.
A Furian woman could only have a maximum of two children or she would die within 10 years after having more than that. Furia grew slowly due to that amongst the other reason being, Nevorian people who intentionally kidnapped more of them as one woman could only bear 3 or 4 slaves for them before dying.
Queen Elora looked at Hu-go's plate and took on a look of disapproval. "You don't enjoy our food, the same way I don't enjoy Huticah marrying my daughter, it's not too late to change your mind."
He shrunk under her icy glare.
"My queen, do you not miss your Le-anne?" King Tobba rushed in to save him from her attention. It scared Hu-go to have her so near and her talking to him.
"Elora," she corrected the king.
"I will call her whatever, my queen."
A wind of coldness blazed through in the room and Hu-go thought it would snow. He was holding tight not to shiver.
Queen Elora ignored his father's provocative words. "Why would I miss her, I have sent someone to get her."
King Tobba's eyes bulged, matching the size of his big lips. "You have no right. We agreed she is my daughter now."
"That was then, when I thought you were the father."
King Tobba drank his wine from the gold goblet and laughed. He did that whenever he was nervous. "You thought then, what do you think now?"
"I'm not thinking anymore. I know for a fact Oren is the father."
"My queen, Le-anne―"
"Elora."
"Elora has been raised by me. It would hurt her to find out now, why don't we discuss this privately?"
"Oren is her father. I have nothing further to discuss."
Again, his father faked a laugh. It was making everything awkward.
"No problem, my queen. Let's take it as us exchanging daughters."
Queen Elora looked to the door where Eleanor sat. "You can have her, but for a fact I know she will be back soon. She just doesn't know what she has as a privilege, and has to learn the hard way to grow up."
S.V