Royal Blood

by Faith Soprano

  “That’s horrible,” Carla whispered.

  “Yes.” Elloriann stared at the ground, the weeds forgotten. “Everyone knows what had happened to her, but no one knows what to do about it. Our doctor tried herbs to sooth her nerves, but the effect is weak and short-lived.” She sighed. “I’ve talked about this to doctors in other lands when traveling with my father, but their responses were unhelpful, and sometimes outright ignorant and cruel. I’m afraid no one really knows what to do with ailments of the mind, and some people don’t even believe such a thing exists.”

  “I...” Carla stared down at a piece of grass in her hands. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Elloriann took one of Carla’s hands and squeezed it gently.

  “We can come visit her when we have the time. It’s not much, but she likes the company. She likes to show off her work. She used to have a lot of visitors at first, but life goes on, people get busy with their own lives and forget. Now it’s only Kay that spends any decent amount of time in the workshop.”

  “Yes. Yes, we should definitely do that. We should visit. Besides, it was fun listening to her ramble about inventions and experiments. I didn’t understand all of it, but I like listening to people talk about things they love so much.”

  Elloriann glanced at the castle, making sure they were out of view of the guards and the throne room windows, then she bent down and kissed the back of Carla’s hand briefly.

  “It’s settled then.”

  They smiled at each other, sadness still in their eyes, then went back to work. Carla thought of the extent of the damage the storm had done that she would never know, because there were so many people it had hurt in ways she could not even imagine. Elloriann wondered if their little resolution to visit Licky was doing more to help them feel better about themselves than it would really help Licky.

  Perhaps, when Elloriann would be queen and Evlirone would be in better shape, she could put resources into medical research relating to matters of the mind. Surely, there had to be healers in the land that were interested in looking into it. If Elloriann had to be queen someday, maybe she could at least put her power to good use.

  29

  It was a lovely summer night. The skies were clear and the air was pleasantly warm.

  Carla and Elloriann were walking through the woods on the edges of the castle property. No one could see them here, so they were holding hands, and would occasionally lean in to kiss, just because they could.

  “When is your birthday?” Elloriann asked.

  “I don’t know what my exact birth date is, actually.” Carla shrugged. “We’ve always celebrated the day when I was left at my parents’ doorstep, but I was probably born a bit earlier than that.”

  “So when’s your chosen birthday then?”

  “Next week.”

  Elloriann stopped abruptly, then moved in front of Carla, facing her, forcing her to stop walking as well.

  “We should celebrate!”

  “No, please.”

  “It’s no bother, I’m sure everyone in the servant wing will be happy to participate. It’ll be fun!”

  “No, Ell, please, that’s not what I meant. I just...I don’t want to.”

  “Oh.” Elloriann’s excitement evaporated as Carla’s words sunk in. “Why not?”

  Carla sighed, taking Elloriann’s hand and urging her to keep walking.

  “It’s just that my birthday is a few days before the day the storm happened. Celebrating it is my last vivid memory of my parents. Right after the storm I was enslaved, and I held on to that memory every time another year passed. Now I feel like if I start celebrating my birthday again, it will somehow...write over that memory, make it fade and recede. I don’t want that.” She looked down at her feet as she walked. “I know it doesn’t make much sense, but...”

  Elloriann leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on Carla’s temple.

  “It makes perfect sense.”

  They walked in silence for a while, enjoying the peace and the safety of being completely alone with each other.

  “So when is your birthday?” Carla finally asked.

  “In spring.”

  “Why haven't we celebrated it?”

  “I don’t really like to celebrate either.” Elloriann smiled sadly. “When I was little, my minders put on a celebration for me, because they had to. There was a feast, there was entertainment. But I didn’t have friends, my father would often be too busy or too unwilling to participate. The servants had not yet become my family, they were merely the people tasked with taking care of me. It was loud and supposedly joyful, but I felt more alone on those days than at any other times. My birthday became a chore to get through, not a day to celebrate.” She sighed at the memory. “When I was old enough to be listened to, I asked that we stop celebrating. My father didn’t even notice.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carla said quietly, squeezing Elloriann’s hand a little tighter.

  “It’s all right. I just acknowledge the birthday now, and Father will usually send me a meaningless gift that demonstrates how poorly he knows me, but otherwise, I try not to think about it.”

  “Aren’t we a pair?” Carla said with a small smile.

  Elloriann smiled back at her.

  “Perhaps we fit in many more ways than we know.”

  They stopped and kissed for a while, then continued walking.

  “Maybe we should celebrate the day we met,” Carla said a few paces later.

  “Yes. Yes, I think that’s a good idea,” Elloriann replied, bumping into Carla’s shoulder playfully. “It will be nice to have something to celebrate that’s just ours.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too.”

  They had no way of knowing how long they had before life would step in and remind them that they couldn’t go on like this forever. They didn’t know if they would find a way to keep each other, or if they’d get torn apart, causing the anniversary of their first meeting to become yet another day tarnished by loss and regret. But now they had a day when they could celebrate their love and the difference they’d made in each other’s lives. Perhaps it would even give them strength for the day when they would inevitably have to fight to keep that love.

  30

  The days between Carla’s birthday and the anniversary of the storm were never easy. Carla would often have nightmares, and even in the waking hours her mind was far from calm.

  She knew it made no sense, she knew those days were no more dangerous or stressful than any others, but they were nonetheless permeated with a sense of dread. It was as though she expected something bad to happen again. It didn’t help that she’d spent the 5 years immediately following the storm in slavery. Something bad happened almost every day when your life was not your own.

  Elloriann felt helpless. She wanted to make Carla feel better somehow, but there was little she could do. Still, she made camomile tea and held Carla tightly at night, hoping to make her feel as safe as possible.

  One night, Carla woke up with a start after a particularly vivid nightmare. An unpleasant sensation coursed through her body as she tried to calm down. She sat up in bed, staring into darkness.

  “What’s wrong?” Elloriann said sleepily.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Elloriann sat up next to Carla, wrapping her arm around Carla’s shoulders.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Carla shook her head. Elloriann nodded and said nothing else. Carla took deep breaths. When she finally felt better, she slid back down under the covers and pressed her head against Elloriann’s chest, sighing deeply as some of the tension eased thanks to Elloriann’s caring embrace. They lay in silence for a while, but neither could go back to sleep. So, at last, Carla decided to share the story of her most oft-recurring nightmare.

  “When I was at the earl’s estate,” she said quietly, “I worked in the windmill. One day, another slave got...caught in the machinery. Windmills aren’t terribly complicated, bu
t they’re also not very safe. I saw it happen, and I couldn’t do anything. He was...crushed. He screamed a lot, and then eventually he lost consciousness. I don’t know how long he remained alive after that. Some of the other slaves were ordered to carry him away. Maybe he was still alive, but no one tried to save him. A few other slaves and I were ordered to clean away the blood. It took us hours.” Her body began shaking slightly. “I just keep thinking I should have done something. Saved him.”

  “Even if you did save him, it would have only prolonged his agony,” Elloriann said, gently rubbing Carla’s back. “They wouldn’t help him, so he would die a slow and painful death from his injuries. You couldn’t have helped him, not in any way that would have made the situation better.”

  “I know, it’s just...I just stood there. I did nothing. I didn’t even try to help him. My mind has replayed it so many times, awake and asleep, and I keep thinking of what I could have done differently, and I don’t know. Nothing, probably. But I still can’t stop feeling like I’ve failed him, like I’ve just let him die because I was too weak and cowardly to do anything.”

  Carla began to cry. Only a little a first, but then she let go and began sobbing in earnest, while Elloriann held her and rubbed her back soothingly.

  “I’m sorry you had to experience that,” Elloriann said quietly, once Carla had stopped crying. “I’m sorry you have to carry all this guilt around. But there’s really nothing you could have done to help him. It wasn’t your fault that he died.” She continued to hold Carla close to her chest as the last of her sobs gradually subsided. “What was his name?”

  Carla slowly moved up to face Elloriann.

  “Hyro.”

  “Hyro. I’ll think about him with you, all right?” she said, wiping tears off Carla’s face with the back of her hand. “I didn’t know him, and I can’t pretend to understand what you’ve gone through, but I know the story now. So whenever the memories plague you, let me know, and we’ll think about it together. You don’t have to carry this weight alone.”

  Carla took Elloriann’s hand in hers. It was wet with her tears. She kissed it.

  “Thank you.”

  To Carla’s surprise, sharing the story behind her nightmares really did help. She’d been scared of talking about it out loud, because of the guilt and shame she’d always felt about what had happened. It had always seemed like sharing it with someone would make her feel worse by shining light on her mistakes.

  Instead, sharing with Elloriann caused the emotions connected with the memories to feel less heavy. The nightmares wouldn’t completely go away, nor would she stop thinking about Hyro’s death every once in a while, but sharing those thoughts with Elloriann somehow actually made them less painful.

  She had carried that weight in isolation, her guilt had been feeding on itself, because there was no one to look at the story from the outside and tell her that she’d done nothing wrong, that she couldn’t have done anything better if she tried.

  But there was another reason Carla felt good for sharing this story with Elloriann.

  Carla didn't know Hyro very well, she didn’t know what his life had been like before he was enslaved, if he’d had a family or friends. But she saw him every day for over a year, and then she saw him die. And that was it. That was the end of him. He was enslaved, then he suffered a horrible, unnecessary death, and then he was forgotten. It wasn’t fair that a person’s life could end so pointlessly and tragically, and no one would even remember. And maybe remembering him for nothing but his death wasn’t fair either, but it was better than forgetting him completely, as if he’d never existed at all.

  When Carla was a slave, she was always aware of the fact that when she died, no one would remember her. Her parents were dead, she had no siblings or close friends. If she were to die in slavery, it would be like she never existed. She knew that was the case for many slaves.

  So Carla was glad that she told Elloriann about Hyro, because now there was another person in the world who would remember him.

  31

  On the day of the storm there was...well, a storm.

  Not the kind that had all but destroyed Evlirone 6 years prior. Merely some rain with thunder and lightning. But it didn’t fail to make everyone in the castle uncomfortable and more than a little scared.

  Elloriann had loved thunderstorms as a child. She didn’t know why, but she’d always found them fascinating and comforting. In truth, she still did. She still enjoyed seeing lightning, and waiting for the inevitable arrival of thunder that followed. But now she couldn’t quite admit to this adoration for what was believed to be bad weather, because of what it had done to her land and its people. She felt guilty for finding comfort in something that had caused so much pain, and that everyone around her hated and feared.

  Carla was sitting by the window in the servant wing dining hall. She looked out over the garden that was currently being watered by rain. Every time lightning lit up the sky, her body would jerk slightly, and she would close her eyes and wait for the thunder to come.

  She liked the darkness that came with rain clouds, but the potential for destruction that thunderstorms possessed unsettled her deeply. So she sat and looked out of the window, hoping that the storm wouldn’t get any worse.

  “Is the garden going to be all right?” Elloriann asked, coming up behind Carla and placing her hands on Carla’s shoulders.

  “I think so. The rain isn’t too heavy right now. If anything, it’s just doing our work for us. As long as it doesn’t get any worse than this and doesn’t go on for too long, it should be fine.”

  “Good.” Elloriann stood behind Carla, slowly rubbing the back of Carla's neck with her thumbs. “We should visit Licky. She doesn’t do too well during thunderstorms.”

  “Yes, we should,” Carla said, her head dropping forward. She let out a sigh, enjoying the massage Elloriann had suddenly decided to give her.

  “I wonder if we could get everyone to have dinner at Licky’s place tonight,” Elloriann said, excitement creeping into her voice.

  “We should probably ask Licky first if she’d be all right with that.”

  “Right. Good point.”

  They went to the workshop first to ask for Licky’s permission to relocate dinner to her room that night. Licky was glad to oblige, even if she felt a little strange about the idea. She wasn’t sure if pity had caused Elloriann to come up with such a plan, but she decided not to worry about motivation in favor of simply enjoying the pleasant surprise. It had been a long time since Licky was in a crowd of people and she missed it. Whatever the reasons, a dinner with everyone sounded like a wonderful prospect.

  When Elloriann brought her idea to the inhabitants of the servant wing, some were apprehensive because they didn’t like being in the workshop, but most were happy to give it a try. Almost everyone felt uncomfortable on the day of the storm, especially with an actual storm raging outside, and a break in their usual habits would be a great distraction from the thoughts of all the bad things that had happened and of those that still could.

  When dinner was ready, everyone was given something to carry, and they walked to Licky’s workshop through the maze of the main castle hallways.

  Licky had cleared a large table for dinner, some extra chairs were carried in from the servant wing. Finally, everyone sat down to eat.

  When the meal was done, they talked for a long time. Elloriann brought some wine from her quarters for those who wanted it. They held a moment of silence for those who died on this day 6 years before, then drank to their memory.

  Eventually, people started leaving for their own bedrooms, but some stayed behind to talk, drink, and play card games. A few of the visitors were so drunk that Licky invited them to stay the night. She didn’t have enough spare mattresses for everyone, but that wasn’t a problem, as a few of the guests fell asleep on whatever bit of furniture they were already occupying.

  The rain had mostly stopped, but there was still lightning and thunder well p
ast sundown.

  Almost everyone who had stayed in the workshop for the night was now asleep.

  Licky stood by the small window and watched the subsiding storm. She felt cold, and her body felt a little alien with fear, her fingers tingling and her breath uneven. Yet she forced herself to stay by the window for a little while longer.

  Elloriann joined her after making sure that Carla was comfortably asleep on the sofa.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “No,” Licky replied simply.

  They stood together and watched the storm for a while.

  “I feel ashamed of it now, and it feels strange to say, but I love thunderstorms. They’re just so...fascinating,” Elloriann said quietly.

  Licky turned away from the window to look at Elloriann.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” Elloriann lowered her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, no, don’t be. You’re right. They are fascinating.” Licky let out a shaky sigh as another clap of thunder ripped through the air. “Ever since the storm, I’ve been thinking about it. When lightning hit that shed, even as I was surrounded by fire, I couldn’t help but think of all that power. Can you imagine if we could control that power?”

  “Of lightning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “No. In fact, I’m almost certain it isn’t.” Licky groaned as another bolt lit up the dark sky. “I think the more we meddle with nature, the more we try to take from it, the more it will hurt us in return.”