Morgan Rice - A Rule of Queens

“You never answered me!” Dauphine said.

“I’m sorry,” Alistair said, snapping out of it. “What was the question?”

Dauphine sighed in exasperation. “Weddings really do make brides air-headed! I’ll ask again: how do I know if he’s genuine ?”

Alistair remembered now. Dauphine had been going on about her new suitor, a famed knight from the lower regions of the Southern Isles, who had been wooing her intensely the entire past moon cycle.

“Last night, he took me on a boat ride beneath the moonlight,” Dauphine said. “He professes his love for me daily. And now he asks for my hand in marriage.”

“And why shouldn’t he?” her mother said.

Dauphine sighed.

“Why shouldn’t he?” she repeated. “It has hardly been one moon cycle!”

“Any honorable men would not need more than one moon cycle to know if he loves you,” her mother said.

Dauphine turned to Alistair.

“ Please ,” she implored. “Tell me.”

Alistair examined her, seeing how in love Dauphine was.

“Do you feel that he loves you?” Alistair asked.

Dauphine nodded, her eyes aglow.

“With my entire heart.”

“And do you love him back?”

Dauphine nodded, tears in her eyes.

“More than I can say.”

“Well then, you have answered it yourself. You have a great blessing.”

“But isn’t it all too soon?” she asked. “How do I know if he’s genuine?”

Alistair thought it over carefully.

“When the time comes you won’t need to ask the question,” she said. “You will know.”

“And will you accept his proposal?” her mother asked sharply.

Dauphine reddened and looked down.

“I… don’t know yet,” she replied.

Finally, Dauphine fell silent, lost in her own thoughts, and Alistair looked out at the countryside, enjoying the views of the vineyards and orchards spread out amongst the cliffs, the distant glimmer of the sparkling ocean. She could not get enough of this place. She felt her attendants wrapping the lace on her wrists and arms, fitting her perfectly, and she was getting more and more excited for the big day.

A sudden cool breeze wisped by, and as Alistair looked out at the horizon, she noticed a darkening of clouds hiding the brilliant sun, a shade passing over all of them, before the sun revealed itself again. Alistair didn’t know why, but in that moment, she felt something dark, a premonition, almost a vision. It had to do with her brother. Thorgrin. She suddenly felt him in a very, very dark place. And the feeling chilled her bones.

“Alistair?” Dauphine and asked. “What’s wrong?”

Alistair, still staring out at the horizon, shook her head quickly.

“It is nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

But Alistair could not stop watching the horizon. She sensed danger. She caught her breath, feeling numb with terror, as she sensed dark things on the horizon, and as she sensed her brother, Thorgrin, entering a land of death.

Loti’s heart swirled with mixed emotions as she labored in the fields with the others, using her long wooden rake to break up rocks and soil, preparing the Empire fields for planting. It was a monotonous and tedious exercise, one she had done nearly every day of her life, hoisting the long wooden rake high, the shackles around her wrists preventing her from using it as a weapon, and scraping the endless waste of the desert. As she brought it down low, the metal cut into her wrists, scarring them, as they had for years. She had learned to ignore the pain.

But that was not what pained her on this day; as she dragged her rake along the earth, she thought not of her shackles, her scars—but of Darius. She felt awful for having brushed him off the way she had, for not having been more grateful to him for saving her life. An entire moon cycle had passed and finally the shock of it over, she’d had time to process it all. She still could not believe what had happened with the taskmasters, how Darius had saved her from a life of certain hell and slavery and possibly even death. She owed him her life—more than her life. And she had responded with cold indifference.

Yet at the same time, she had been overwhelmed, unsure how to react. She had never seen anyone use a magic power before, and it stunned her to see Darius use it. Her entire life she had been taught by her parents and elders to view magic as witchery, something to be condemned in the strongest possible terms, the only real taboo in their village. It was magic, she had been told, that had led to doom for her people to begin with. And to see Darius use it—well, she did not know how to react. She had reacted impulsively, in a way her parents would have wanted her to.

But now, as she brought the wooden rake down again and again, dragging it into the dirt, she felt terrible for what she had done. She wanted to run to Darius, to apologize to him, to be with him, this boy who had overtaken her heart more than she could have imagined. She had always suspected there was something different about him, though she wasn’t sure what it was. He was indeed different from all the others, with his great ability. But even more so, with his big heart. His fearlessness.

Now she had thrown it all away. All because she was afraid, afraid of the condemnation she would receive from her parents and the elders if she were caught with him, if they discovered his power. She was afraid they would not understand; she was not sure she understood herself.

She had also been afraid during this last moon cycle that any day the Empire would arrive and round her and Darius up for having killed those men; each day she expected the bodies to be discovered. Yet that day never came. Perhaps they were so deeply buried beneath that avalanche after all that they would never be found. And as he fear was beginning to dissipate, Loti was beginning to realize, even more, that she had nothing to be afraid of, that perhaps she could even be with Darius—it he would have her back. Perhaps it was already too late.

Loti paused for a moment, took a break as she wiped the back of her brow, looked all about her and saw all the other girls stationed with her on this field, all laboring away. Beside her, she was most happy to see, was her brother, Loc. The taskmasters had added insult to injury by assigning Loc out here in the fields with the girls, and her heart went out to him. Then again, his entire life he had been slighted, all because of his injury, his one leg shorter than the other, and one arm misshaped and shorter than the other. He was even treated as an outcast in his own family, a house full of warriors, where his mother and father looked down upon him as if he did not even exist.

But Loti loved Loc with all her heart, and she always had. She was determined that her abundance of love for him make up for the lack of love he received from the others. Loti projected a tough image, she knew, and on the outside, she was tough; but on the inside, she had a heart of gold. In fact, she loved Loc more than all of her brothers and all of her family. All of them overlooked what she saw front and center in Loc: a big heart, a wide, gracious smile, and more joy and happiness than anyone she’d ever met, even with his circumstances. Loti aspired to be like him, to be as happy as he, to be as kind and compassionate and easygoing and as quick to forgive as he was. She would do anything for him, and she loved his company, so she didn’t mind that he was on work detail with her.

“You better keep working, sister,” Loc said to her, turning with a smile, “or they’ll see you.”

Loc picked up his rake with his one good hand and brought it down. His good arm was a strong arm, the arm of a warrior, like his brothers, making up for the other one; yet still, without good balance, it was hard for him. Loc was twice as slow as the girls, and it was hard for him to pull in a straight line, each pull taking great effort. But he never complained, and always set to his work with a huge smile.