by Mira Zamin
***
Following nearly a week of travel, during which we rested at inns every night so that I could nurse Talia in peace, we entered Nyneveh on a muggy, overcast day. The fog rolled off in waves from the Menander River. The town was quiescent, with no outward sign they knew that their queen had been away for nigh on two weeks. I was thankful. A part of me had feared that the city would be in fearful revolt, thrown into a frenzy by the advent of civil war and the departure of their ruler. At the very least, the latter was no common knowledge. I pulled my hat low.
We rolled up to the Alhazar, the tiled domes and thousand minarets reflecting the heavy white light of the day. Although I had delighted to return to Aquia, the golden threads in my chest, remnants of the Coronation, hummed with anticipation. I was Queen of this place—and the wider kingdom—but my queenship was felt most powerfully here. For the first time since my coronation, I felt properly Queen of Ghalain, returning home to my patrimony, not just a jumped up marquise turned governess turned emira.
Before I could hop down, we were swarmed by servants as well as Liem, Kershid, and Avera, who wore identical expressions of relief on their faces. I was surprised by how much the sight of them and their concern warmed me.
Kershid pulled me down, hugging me fiercely, before I was grabbed away by Liem and Avera for matching embraces.
In a loud voice for the benefit of the surrounding servants, Kershid declared, “Your Majesty! You should not have gone off into the city, even if it was for a morning ride, without informing someone! More quietly, only for my ears, he added, “We were so worried. When Kay in Aquia sent word you had disappeared, and then you did not reappear, we feared the worst. Seasons bless you for returning, but what possessed you to flee so heedlessly?”
“Childhood habit,” I replied flippantly, fighting free of their arms. Thinking of how I had left Aquia, I inquired, “Was there anything else mentioned?”
“Only that the Lord Farzal had left your service,” Liem supplied.
I nodded, relieved that Kay had remained silent about Auralia. I would see him handsomely rewarded for his discretion.
A servant opened the door to help Oelphie out and I took the warm bundle that was Talia into my arms. She squirmed fluidly against my breast, but did not cry. She was a peaceful, mild baby, so much like her mother.
They fell quiet.
Finally, Avera ventured, “Who is that, Selene?”
More forcefully than I intended, I replied, “She is my daughter, Talia.” Oelphia came to my side, squeezing my elbow supportively. I glared at them, daring them to gainsay me.
However perplexed she might have been, Avera’s large blue eyes were pacific as she said, “Ah. A lovely child. Congratulations, your Majesty.”
Liem and Kershid echoed her sentiments as we reentered the Palace. It was strange being back after my spate of adventures in Aquia and Carez. As I thought of Carez and Auralia, a cold shadow enveloped my heart, but I thrust it away. Hiding her from the world was the best course of action, although a part of me did wonder how that mysterious true love, that djinn key to reversing the Pari’s curse, would come to her. Only through me, I decided. I would take no chances again and with only great difficulty, I suppressed my guilt. I had set it right in the end and Auralia need never know of it.
“Have people realized that I have been away?” I asked, drinking in the Alhazar. “This is the Alhazar,” I whispered to Talia. “And I have not told you this, but your mother is Queen! Fancy that!”
She snuffled warmly in my arms. I thought my heart would shatter for love of her.
Kershid peered at us, his dark hair shading a quizzical brow. No doubt he was trying to determine where I had found this new child—and by what means. Vaguely, I wondered where they thought I had found Talia, but whatever their curiosity, they were too well-bred to ask. “We have merely announced that you are sick. Nothing serious, but the doctor had advised you to keep abed due to the child.”
I nodded in approval. “Very well done. I cannot thank you enough. And now, I return to you, prepared to devote myself to Ghalain.”
Liem interjected, “As it should be, your Majesty. The other generals have arrived here and they have been strategizing for days, waiting anxiously for your return. General Niara will tell you more of it, but Quenela and Hadil are on the move; her army has been fighting some small battles—and successfully. Niara has already begun mustering more troops. Had you not come home by this evening, we would have had to send out search parties for you.”
Civil war was on our doorstep then. One nudge, and the whole nation would fall into years of chaos and violence. And I have been off in Aquia and Carez. And the guilt of the thought sickened me.
Avera offered, “Shall I summon them then, your Majesty?”
Adjusting Talia in my grasp, I said, “Yes. Command Niara, the other generals, Corrine, Idrees, Ferdas, Fyodor, Aunt Lyra, and yourselves to meet with me in the Room of Mirrors in an hour. Enough time has been wasted. Also, be sure to have the kitchens send up a luncheon.”
Curtsying, Avera hurried to discharge the tasks assigned to her.
Although I was loath to part from Talia—I had not yet been away from her since her birth—I knew a child could not accompany me where I was going next. Gingerly, I placed her into Oelphie’s arms. “Take her to my rooms and wait for me there. There is a bell by the bed to summon servants for a bath and I have numerous books hidden around the room—including a diary from when I was fourteen. Don’t worry—I’ll hire a proper nurse soon enough.” I wished it could have been Beya.
Oelphie shook her head, brown ringlets brushing her shoulders. “Do not fret. Talia is an easy enough child. Now,” she added, laughing, “if she had been prone to tears and tantrums, I would have suddenly found myself unable to help.”
I thought back to Beya’s story of the curse, her description of Auralia as a quiet baby. “Yes, she is like her mother in that,” I murmured. I turned to Liem and Kershid. “Take me to Gwydion.”
Their ochre eyes narrowed simultaneously, but they acquiesced.
“What do you want with that bastard?” inquired Kershid venomously.
“To do what I should have done months ago,” I answered, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
I had never been to the dungeons before, but they guided me there with the quick easiness of those who had been raised in the Alhazar. Deftly answering and deflecting their questions about my trip, I traversed across the marble and glass halls of the castle, gloomy in the heavy grey light. Servants and nobles, seeing me walking after a long absence, bowed and called greetings, clasping fists to their hearts. Inwardly shaking, I returned their greetings with smiles of my own. It still startled me when people yelled, “Your Majesty!” or “Long live the Queen!” but my discomfort with the trappings of royalty was hardly the most pressing of my problems.
At the end of a long dark hallway, illuminated only by the inconsistent light of torches, we reached a guarded door. Seeing me, the sentinels bowed and allowed us entry. Down a spiral staircase of stone, I could hardly make out the steps in the dark, despite the guttering torch in Kershid’s hand. Although the air smelled damp and my boots slipped more than once on a felt carpet of moss, the dungeons were clean, void of the telltale skittering of rats.
We passed numerous heavily barred doors and every so often, a guard standing prepared. Finally, at the end of the hall, Kershid gestured grimly. His eyes flashed, but he did not voice his anger. He handed me the torch. The wood was warm from his grip and the heat of the light warmed my face comfortably. From a ring he wore at this waist, Kershid produced the key to unlock the door.
I raised my eyebrow. “That is hardly proper procedure.”
He flushed, replying in his mellifluous voice. “I would not permit the key to fall into the hands of an easily-bribed guard.”
Trying not to think of whom he believed would be willing to bribe a guard, I answered gently, “I understand.” More well than he cou
ld ever know.
On the cusp of stepping into the door, Liem touched my shoulder. “Would you like someone to go in with you?”
I thought of the heavy door, from which no sound would escape. Although there was a small window to let in some modicum of light, the room was draped entirely in darkness. I thought of Gwydion, as he had been in the beginning, with his violence, his rages, his violation of my sister. Yet, that fear which had shaken me deeply in the early days of our marriage was gone. I knew he could not harm me. He had done his worst, and I had proven myself to be greater than his assaults.
“No, milord.”
I slipped into the cell to see my husband for the last time.
The torchlight cast exaggerated shadows, creating gaping craters from the pockmarks on the surface of the stones. Shading his eyes against the sudden influx of brightness, Gwydion raised his head. “Selene?” His hair and beard were longer than I remembered and he was distinctly gaunter although by no means starving or ill-treated. My heart faltered at seeing him before me. A bouquet of rage and disgust rose in me, but something else wove through it, a thin thread of affection and fondness that was almost powerful enough to dissolve the other two emotions. Almost.
He stood and said with a rueful shake, “My thanks for leaving me to rot down here. Have you come at last with my order of freedom?” He could not disguise the eagerness, even behind a thick layer of irony.
Silently, I started at him, this man that I could have loved. For a moment, fragments of a lost future fluttered and rearranged themselves before me, ones preceded by a past not marked with irreparable missteps. Those lost futures saddened me more than anything.
“Did you rape Auralia?” I demanded.
His face fell, his hard green eyes tightened. “What?” He licked his dry lips nervously.
“Our first night in Aquia. I refused you and you left. Where did you go after that?” I asked roughly.
Mouth curling into a sneer, he replied, “It was not as if she had not said ‘yes’ before.”
That revelation was like a punch in the stomach and I was hard-pressed to school my features into repose. “But that night she was comatose. You cannot...”
He shrugged. The casualness of his gesture incensed, as if what he had merely stolen a basket of bread from the kitchen. “I did not see it that way.”
I could keep calm no more. “There is no other way to see it!” My arm had grown numb from holding the torch aloft and the light trembled dangerously with my anger.
I had allowed Gwydion so much. His kidnapping, the bruises that had marred my face. His violence against me had been an unforgivable offense and yet I had still made my peace with him, over and over again. This, this assault of my sister’s sleeping person, defended by a flimsy excuse, very likely a lie, was not something I could forgive him.
Opening the door, I told Liem and Kershid to enter and summoned a guard as well.
Seeing me flanked by the three men, Gwydion licked his lips. “What are you doing?”
Focusing on him one last time, I declared, “Before these three witnesses, I announce that you, Gwydion Aperine, are no longer my husband. I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.”
The words hung heavily in the air, falling with their full and immense weight from my tongue. He flinched with each pronouncement. “Don’t…” he pled.
I had been too afraid to divorce him before and then far too busy with the politics of Nyneveh and then only too ready to excuse his evils and try to find some redeeming goodness to him. And I had. I could not deny that a part of me yearned to be with Gwydion, but the mere thought of Auralia silenced those voices to a mewl. Ignoring my suddenly blurred vision, I walked out, back straight, pausing at the door only to say, “You can rot in here until you die.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine