by R. J. Price
Books, the books had done it. Focusing on that fact kept Av from rising to anger. A book was an annoying thing and sometimes ladies read stories that upset them.
This was not a story. Aren was upset because of something she read in a journal, something that had happened to someone who came before her.
He held her until her tears no longer came. He held her longer than that, as she sat pressed against him, too tired to cry any longer. It occurred to Av that he had never seen her cry. With all that had happened, with everything she had been through, Av had never seen Aren cry. She shouted, she even cursed, yet faced with certain death, attacked by a madman, Aren hadn't shed a tear.
“What's wrong?” he asked finally.
“Them,” she said, sniffling as she pulled away from Av. “All of them. They're all the same. They all thought they were going to live long, happy lives on the throne. They were all wrong and...” Av watched the tears well up again, still not understanding.
He picked up one of the journals and read the page it was opened to. The entry spoke of what had happened to the previous queen and was the assured language of someone who was certain they would sit the throne a long time. Picking up another, then another, Av read each one, and they all sounded almost the same. The throne moved to another. Each thought they were the one to break the long line of short-lived queens.
Each was killed by her mate.
Av felt cold. No wonder the others who sat the throne would become bitter after gaining access to the queen's rooms. No wonder Aren was crying, if she thought the journals predicted her future. Closing the journal in his hand, Av set it to the side.
“I'll have them burned,” he said.
“You can't, you can't do that and just deny the past.”
“Each of them probably wrote their little entry and then got curious and started reading the others.” Av motioned around the mess that was the library. “As made obvious by the disorder in here. None of these are dated, I haven't recognized a single name among them. What use is this information to you? What does it matter to you if,”—Av picked up a close book—“Umer kissed Kila under the lighted strand? Or,” he picked up another, “that the leaves on the trees fell, predicting a long reign? That one doesn't even make sense!”
“Av, please,” Aren said. “I don't care about who kissed whom. I care about...”
When Aren trailed off, Av finished the sentence for her. “How their predecessors died? I don't even see a linking name.”
Aren picked up two journals and slapped them into Av's chest. He read the first sentence of each. Kila came after Roe, who came after Lae. Nodding, Av set the journals to the side. Both the mentioned queens passed at the hand of their own mate.
Considering, Av picked up the second journal again. “Roe was mated to Yua. Those are both female names.”
“And?” Aren asked.
Her emotions were rising. Despite his effort to redirect the conversation, Av was making things worse. He couldn't understand why.
Yua had taken Roe's life, which meant Yua sat beside Roe as mate to the throne. It also meant that Yua could be the last documented female warrior. That fact alone made Av want to read Roe's journal, along with the journals that came before and after her. See if Yua wasn't mentioned again.
A female warrior might have existed at a time of weak queens because her bloodline produced only female warriors. If Av could find the line, he could find the female warriors, something the palace hadn't seen in centuries. Even male warriors didn't like trying females. Not because they were more dangerous, but because the males couldn't predict their moves.
And they liked going into battle in the nude.
Naked woman running towards him? Even Av was going to stop for a good long look.
He sighed. “I have no intention of doing such a thing.”
“That's probably what they said!” Aren shouted at him, leaving the library suddenly.
Confused, on the floor, Av considered his options. One of which would be to ask Aren what part of her cycle she was in, because perhaps that was causing some sort of instability mixed with the throne. Laeder had said something about the throne needing time to adjust to her cycle.
Another option was to simply give her a whack to the head and then tuck her into bed as if nothing had happened.
“When a woman gets crazy,” Av said, repeating his mother's words, “try to calm her and, worse comes to worse, give her the space to run.”
Sighing, he stood and moved to the bedroom where Aren had pulled on his shirt and was pulling open the wardrobe to look for clothing. Besides the furniture the rooms were empty. Her items had yet to be delivered.
“Aren, there's no clothing in—” Av stopped as Aren pulled on a pair of trousers. “Where did those come from?”
Aren slammed the wardrobe shut. “I will not be killed by you simply because you feel like it! I will not… not just… stay here waiting for my death to come upon me because the throne has decided that it's found someone better.”
Watching her, he felt his fear rising. She was being irrational, but stepping into the way of a queen to stop her was a dangerous idea when she was sane and stable. Given Aren's actions over the previous month, Av couldn't help but wonder if something else was spurring her.
“Aren.” He stepped into her way, hoping she would see him as harmless unless he demanded she stop. “Please, try to calm down. Think about the people who love you.”
“Who?” Aren asked. “Who would sing my prayers, who would put me on the pyre? No one loves me. Not even you.”
“Don't say that, you don't know what you're saying, Aren,” Av protested.
“You only use me, just like everyone else with your nonsense about owning me.” Aren marched to the door as Av gritted his teeth.
“You also claimed me,” he said, turning to Aren, who was crying again. “Please stop crying, we can talk about this.”
“No, no, I just need air,” Aren said.
Av crossed the distance between them, hugging Aren again. Even as she was in his arms, he felt her slipping away. Gritting his teeth, Av kissed Aren's forehead.
Then he let her go.
In the blink of an eye, she was gone. He didn't know where she was headed, he couldn't feel her out and knew that, should he be looking right at her, he wouldn't be able to see her.
Aren was gone.
Letting go of his careful control, Av sat on the floor and began to cry.
###
About RJ Price
RJ Price lives in Canada where she works and writes full time. When not doing either of those things she attempts to navigate social media and resists the urge to return to writing.
She has published novels in the fantasy genre and insists she is also a science fiction author, but has been too caught up in her Seat of Magic series to actually complete a science fiction novel for publishing.
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