by E. Hibbs
As long as there is a King... or Queen... to speak for Her.
*
“Have you begun to make your preparations for the Rise?” Dylana asked later on.
The moon had long risen, and every Asræ in Zandor was now awake and at their business. But most of that business was concerned with the Rise. The full moon closest to Midsummer was only a few nights away. One hundred years since the last Rise, it was always an event that was eagerly awaited and celebrated. But a shadow hung over this century’s merriment for Merrin; and as always, Dylana saw straight to the bottom of it.
“Well?” she said.
Merrin glanced at her as the two of them drifted through the great corridors of the Palace.
“Of course,” she answered. Too quickly.
Dylana nodded once. “You are afraid. That is to be expected. I, for one, do not envy you.”
“I am not afraid!” Merrin replied, sharper than she meant. “I am sorry.”
“Do not apologise, my girl. Again, I do not envy you. It is a mighty mantle which you must take up on that night.”
For as blunt as Dylana could be, Merrin enjoyed her company; and although she thought that Dylana didn’t always approve of her decisions, it was a relief to share thoughts with her.
Merrin believed that Dylana found comfort from her in another way: they both shared power. All Asræ were great Sorcerers, but she and Merrin more so. Dylana was a Necromancer: a being with the strongest magical ability any living thing could hope to ever achieve. Merrin was her pupil – still a Sorcerer, but with a little more knowledge than others.
Dylana looked over at Merrin expectantly, waiting for her to say something – anything – in response. Her skin was wrinkled and blanched, and her fingers were puckered like those of a human’s who had lain in the water for too long. The greenery of her hair was tinged with black at the tips. She was old, and it showed. But she had her wits about her, as sharp as a reed-leaf; and her eyes sparkled with so much age-light that it was as though she carried the moon itself behind them.
The end of the corridor flashed as trout sped through one of the great windows to Merrin’s right.
“I am not afraid,” she said eventually. “I am anxious.”
Dylana was the only one who understood the difference between the two, and she nodded.
“Tell me what is truly troubling you, Merrin.”
“You know already.”
“But it will help you to voice it.”
Merrin sighed, and closed her eyes. Reading her pain, Dylana steered her into a side-room – one which had managed to retain its ceiling better than others – and sat her down on a large boulder. She hovered in the water, her hands over Merrin’s.
Merrin’s fin flickered gently in sorrow. Do as she says. Say it. Let it out. No-one will see save for one you trust.
“I have no desire to be Queen,” she whispered. The weeds on the floor waved closer to listen, but Merrin knew they would say nothing against her, so she let them.
Dylana stayed quiet. She knew there was more, even before Merrin did.
You may be powerful for your age... but age is what she has. You do not equal her yet.
So Merrin said, “I wish to use it to atone for my frivolity; but for my whole life, it has been Father’s position. I do not feel ready.”
Dylana’s thin lips formed a smile of understanding, and the depth of it brought more relief than Merrin could have hoped for.
“Firstly,” she said, with the quiet voice of one who had seen much and allowed everything to leave its mark on her; “you are young. Frivolity, as you put it, is permitted.”
As she spoke, Anula and Lailes’ faces swam into Merrin’s mind, carried on her own inner current as they chased her through the water.
“Secondly, you are as ready as you will yourself to be,” Dylana continued. “Nobody feels ready to take up a weight when it comes down upon them; it matters not whether it is expected or not, or is a gift or a burden. You make of it what you will.”
She looked up, her shining eyes finding a shoal of chaff. Merrin watched them gracefully sliding above, dancing in dizzying red darts against the backdrop of blue water and fluttering bars of moonlight.
“Do you think for a moment that a newly-born chaff, without mother or father, and swimming alone through a strange new world; ever pauses to berate themselves or lament of their loneliness and insecurity? Of course they do not. They take life and live it, and they survive.”
“Not all of them.” Merrin dragged her eyes back down. “That is why so many of them are born. Because less still will survive.”
“Ah, but in turn, we – you – have something they do not,” Dylana says. “Years. Centuries. You will turn one thousand and seven hundred years old this coming Rise. Despite its youth for Asræ, it is still a great age among any living creature; you know this. You are almost four times younger than me, and yet even you remember the oldest trees in Delamere as mere saplings.”
Dylana grasped Merrin’s chin gently in her fingers, the thin webs pressing over her skin, and looked deep into her eyes. She tried not to buckle.
“You will be a wonderful Queen, Merrin. It does not matter that you are the first after two great Kings. I understand your burden, to follow in their footsteps and become the voice of the Lake; but you must believe in yourself. You have much still to learn, but you shall learn it well – if I have anything to do with it.”
At the last part, a sly smile formed on her lips, and drew one out from Merrin like an eddy of water sweeping the weeds.
“I am the youngest ruler in our history,” Merrin muttered. “The first Queen in our history...”
“It does not matter, are you listening to me? You do not even have the title yet and already you are building doubts in your mind. Stop it! You are a strong one. Despite your past frivolity, that much is clear to us all; more than you know, my girl.”
She drew back slightly, and her hair wrapped around Merrin gently. “But you must release your past grudges if you are to become the most magnificent Queen that you can be.”
Merrin pressed her lips together, a cold weight in her chest flaring as Dylana spoke of it. The chaff glided away, and left the two of them alone.
Chapter IV
The Tomb Garden
M errin stared at her eyes in the ancient mirror. Large, and of the richest purple, they rested deeply beneath a high and elegant forehead. Sixteen sparkles shone from within them, for every Rise since her birth. At the next, two weeks away, another would join them, for seventeen centuries.
It seemed like an eternity since Dylana had spoken to her. The Rise was coming so quickly that Merrin had found herself losing concept of time. For the most part, she had watched the preparations and let them pass by as though separate from her. She felt like the very Lake Herself: ever-watchful, but never interfering.
However, she continued her own plans for the event, because she knew that she couldn’t be too prepared for what she was going to do. She had rehearsed the Coronation more times than she cared to count with Dylana; Dramil, the High Priest of Lacudomus; and Penro, the Royal Family’s head advisor. The actions and words required of her were now so ingrained in her mind that she wouldn’t have been surprised if she started speaking them in her sleep. But still she practised, determined to not make a single mistake. The sting of her many past follies were still fresh, and although innocent and childish, they were mistakes nonetheless.
The little troublemaker getting ready to become a leader, she thought. What a turn of events. But, you always knew that this would come, Merrin. Why else would you be said troublemaker in the first place?
She blinked, and the identical girl in her reflection copied the movement without hesitation. A gown of flowing white gossamer flowed about her body, inlaid with minnow scales, the thinnest plaits of weed, and brilliant magic. Styled and swirling green hair pooled in the water. Behind all the glamour and the same high, delicate features of her people and her great father..
. the girl in the mirror looked so small. A frightened child, quailing in the shadow cast by her predecessors, and in the light beckoning her forwards, into the life of a Queen.
Queen...
Merrin decided that she didn’t trust mirrors. No-one could know what lay behind them.
She tried to crush all she must atone for, to uphold the face and name of a dynasty. She reminded herself that she still had Dylana: her mother figure for so long. And then there was Penro, with his wonderful smile; and of course, Lailes and Anula.
“Merrin?”
She glanced up to see who had spoken, and stared. “Penro?”
He was hovering at the entrance to her room. There were no doors in the frame: deep in the Lake, any doors that there may once have been had long since rotted away.
Speak of the pike, and he does appear, she thought sarcastically.
“May I enter?” Penro asked. His rich voice filled Merrin’s ears and she pressed her lips together.
“Yes.”
He inclined his head in thanks and gently drifted over, coming to a stop behind Merrin. She turned to face him.
“What is it?”
He smiled. “I noticed you were out with your cousins today.”
Merrin lowered her head slightly. “Yes, I was. A simple game of tag, and they requested I join in. I know that I should not have gone.”
“I have not come here to scold you, Your Highness.”
Merrin shot a glance at him and held his eyes. “Do not call me that. Please. I am not Queen yet.” She paused, and then added grudgingly, “at least not officially.”
Penro’s friendly smile shifted to one of sympathy, and he gently rested a hand on her shoulder. She instinctively tensed. She liked Penro – and knew he liked her. At one point she had even overheard her father discussing the possibility of him becoming her Consort one day, but even Merrin wasn’t sure about taking things that far. Even with Penro – who she had known since her earliest nights – what others might deem as love had no place for her. Not now, and not ever.
But still, he spoke, and struck her sorest spot with his words. “I am so sorry about your father.” His voice was as soft as breeze-ripples on the Lake. “I feel for you. But I have faith in you.”
Hidden behind composed lips, Merrin bit her teeth together hard. “Thank you.”
Go on, Merrin, a silent part of herself urged. Talk.
“Why did you come, then? If not to scold me, as you describe it? I know it was frivolous behaviour, I have no excuse for it.”
“You do not need an excuse, although I would rather see it as a reason,” Penro replied. “Every one of us must not be serious all of the time.”
Merrin turned away and looked at him again in the mirror. “Even a Princess?”
He smiled, and she fought to suppress a shiver. “Especially a Princess.”
Honest flirting, I suppose you could call this. Kill it whilst it is young, Merrin.
She cleared her throat and straightened up, letting her fin flicker gently. “Well, do you require me for any business, Penro? Or Dylana?”
He paused, cut short – and slightly taken aback, Merrin supposed – but she would also have supposed that he’d be used to her remarks by now.
“No, neither of us have any official business. I merely wanted to tell you that you need not worry about allowing yourself to act your age. It does not matter what is coming at this Rise. You are still young.”
Merrin swallowed. “But old enough to be sensible.”
Penro dropped down to her height, looking at her over her shoulder in the mirror. “Why do you hide this way, Merrin?” he asked, lowering his voice softly. “Why do you feel as though you must?”
“Because I must,” she replied, but it wasn’t as curtly as she would have liked. “You know yourself. When I was a child, I was a pest. But now responsibility has caught up with my games and fun. There is no place for them now. I must prove that I will be adequate.”
Penro’s eyes hadn’t moved from hers. His hand still rested on her shoulder.
“You do not truly believe that?” he said.
“Now you sound like Dylana.”
“Merrin, just because you wish to rule well does not mean that you must deny yourself the pleasures of life.”
Merrin’s mouth tightened. “There is no place for them,” she said again. “Now, Penro... I am terribly sorry but I am tired.”
He paused for a second, and then nodded before moving away and heading towards the door. Merrin kept her eyes fixed on his reflection in the mirror. He glanced back just before turning the corner.
“I bid you good day, Your Highness,” he said, and disappeared.
Merrin lowered her head in shame, and yanked her hair free from its plaits. The reflection’s eyes – usually steely and blank – mellowed for the smallest moment, before throwing up their old shield once again.
*
The familiar hallways and arches of stone and silt were like their own ghosts as Merrin made her way silently towards her father’s room. In her home of so many memories; both the fond and the terrible, it was almost as though she was tracing a path that had already been laid out, ready and waiting until that moment. Invisible tears, immediately lost to the water, formed in her eyes.
She paused in the doorway, but it wasn’t long until her father noticed her hovering, and he beckoned her over with a frail hand. She bit her lips together nervously.
“Merrin,” he called, and the sound of his voice – strained and quiet – was like grit in her chest. “Merrin, come here.”
She braced herself and approached, grasping his hand. He was lying on his bed, a thin sheet covering him from the waist down, and the veins were standing out in his neck like taught cords. His eyes found Merrin’s, and she quickly laid her head onto his chest in the closest gesture to an embrace she could risk with him. Nothing held a hand tighter than a dying man clinging to life.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
Merrin screwed her eyes shut. How could he ask her that? Was it not so obvious?
“Do not leave me.” The words were so quiet, she wasn’t sure if he heeded them. “Please.”
He shook his head, and any doubt in her mind was erased as to whether he had heard. His other hand gently smoothed her hair.
“Worry not for me,” he replied. “I have led a long and full life. When it is my time then I must go, as must everybody else when the night comes for them. It is not something to be feared. Merrin, look at me.”
She did, trying to keep her face straight. The tears were beginning to hurt.
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “You will do just fine,” he said, immediately knowing what else was on her mind even though she hadn’t voiced it to anybody. “You are strong. You are a wonderful Princess, and you shall be a magnificent Queen.”
Merrin’s breath shuddered, and like the opening of a floodgate, she couldn’t hold back the despair any longer. She collapsed onto his chest again, her tears flowing freely out of her eyes before they could even reach her cheeks.
“I cannot do it without you!”
“You can. And you shall, my daughter. Do not fear.”
He held her as tightly as he was able with his failing arms; those arms which were once so strong and so great. In the grasp of his old age, and readying to meet death like a good friend, he slipped further and further away. A life without him was something that Merrin couldn’t imagine, and time for Asræ passed no faster than by one day at a time, as it did for every other living creature upon the Earth. To awaken on each of them, and not be greeted by her wonderful father, who was so loved by all of their people and not just by those closest to him? Her Father, the extraordinary King Zephyr.
Things would never be the same without him. This she knew as certainly as the dawn.
“But you must let go of your old demon,” he said. “You must do this. It has been too long. Do not let it destroy you.”
Merrin opened her eyes and stared blankly into
the middle distance.
“Penro!”
She jumped at the sudden increase in volume of a voice that she has presumed could only grow quieter by the night. It was still the deep, rich tone that she had always known, and she tried to sink into it, to become enveloped in its colour and love, and to never let it go.
Penro entered the room. “Your Majesty?”
The words that Merrin heard next from the King chilled her with dread.
“Penro, remove the Bands from my wrists.”
She felt them taught around her sleeping body, and jolted awake. Her bedchamber was silent and still, the water wonderfully cool on her skin. She looked up through the window and realised disdainfully that she had barely slept at all. Dying moonlight still streamed down from above, dancing on the Lakebed. It caught the scales of a shoal of darting minnow and flashed off their sides. Everything was crystal clear to her Asræ eyes.
The dream lingered in her mind, laced with a deep agony. She subconsciously stroked the Bands around her wrists. They wrapped halfway up her forearms and were woven elaborately, inlaid with sparkling magic that she had cast herself. Since she had received them, they had felt so wrong and out of place. She had never worn anything around her wrists – nobody was permitted to unless they were the Monarch. And she had never had anything so tight around her body.
Well, Merrin, that is not entirely a whole truth...
She quickly forced that memory from her mind with a stab of anger. To distract herself, she pulled down a portion of hair floating above, waving in a tiny current. The thin green strands wound around the tip of her finger as she twirled her hand in a gentle circular motion. She let her eyes relax and the colours blend: the green of her hair, the jade base of her skin, the shimmering interlace of light that forever ran across it in a thousand different patterns.
Father...
Merrin pushed herself away from the bed and let the water take her, suspending her above the floor for a moment before she wove her way out of the window. Although the sun hadn’t risen yet, she took care to keep close to the wall as she swam down its length. The Surface distorted the light enough to not do the Asræ harm – providing they didn’t venture too close – but Merrin let her old habits die hard, even at night, when she was safe.