The Queen Revealed

by A. R. Winterstaar

  “Your Majesty’s faith in me is an honor,” he said proudly and swept into a deep bow. His hat fell off and black curls spilled over his forehead. Grinning in embarrassment Benjamin picked it up and jammed it back on his head, pushing the curls into his eyes.

  Adele gave him a smile. He really was very charming.

  “You, boy! Belvoir Benjamin!” shouted Tilburn from the door. “If Her Majesty is finished with you, you must help take these trunks down to the carriages. I’m not waiting for those good-for-nothing Marchant footmen to help us. Such a sorry lot they are…”

  Benjamin looked expectantly at Adele, and perhaps a little too eagerly as his eyes flashed to the front of her exposed nightgown before returning to her face.

  “You had better do as he says,” said Adele. “He’ll only get louder and more insulting if you don’t.”

  “Your Majesty, I’m at your service.” Benjamin bowed a little less extravagantly this time and gave her a wide smile and the tiniest of winks.

  Adele upgraded Benjamin from ‘very charming’ to ‘incorrigible flirt’ and instantly felt less special. If she had been in a better mood, she might have been amused by the sharp word that Captain Lucky gave the messenger as Benjamin joined the other QGs. The Captain’s look said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t flirt with our Queen!” And Benjamin’s nonchalant shrug and grin said, “Hey, just because you boys aren’t up for it, don’t blame me for trying,” earning himself a clip over the ear from QG Owens. It was sweet how her Queen’s Guard protected her virtue. Sweet, but unnecessary, as her virtue had long since been given to Rainere.

  Adele pushed back her chair and headed out of the room to get changed, and prepare herself to do the one thing she wanted to least of all.

  She was leaving Rainere yet again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “The Unrequited Distance of Circumstance”

  As she walked out onto the front steps, Adele squinted in the sunlight bathing the Grey Palace. Their arrival two days ago had been in the dead of night during a dangerous snowstorm. But now, as they were leaving, the sun shone and the blue sky was studded with soft clouds, innocently scudding about in the breeze. Adele gave them a baleful glare. Though it was ridiculous, she felt completely betrayed by the weather. She would have been so much happier if the storm hadn’t broken.

  Adele knew Rainere’s eyes were upon her and she bit her lip to stop the tremble that would lead to the tears she couldn’t show. It killed her to see how tired and hollow he looked in the harsh light of day. Though he was standing upright and tall, Adele could see what his dignity was costing him in the tightness about his eyes. She had hurt him so much last night and she couldn’t forgive herself for it, though he had already said there was nothing to forgive.

  “Prince Rainere, it has been an honor and a pleasure to stay at the Grey Palace with you. We can only thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generous hospitality in our time of need, and I hope you will accept my open invitation to the Golden Palace whenever you have a chance to visit the capital.” Adele forced herself to be formal, but couldn’t resist stepping closer to Rainere, if only to search his face for the damage she did last night. She was relieved to see that his eyes had returned to normal at least. The whites were clear and the silver rings of Magic were spinning about his black pupils again. If only his cheeks weren’t so haggard and his face so pale.

  “Your Majesty, the honor has been all mine,” replied Rainere and bowed as low as he could without actually putting his forehead against hers.

  “I cannot tell you how much we’ve enjoyed ourselves…” Adele drifted off as she could hear her Guards muttering behind her. What she wanted to do was throw her arms around his neck and kiss Rainere, kiss him hard enough to make last night disappear, and give him all the pleasure he deserved without any of the pain she had inflicted on him. It was so wrong that they had to be apart after such an upsetting night.

  But it was impossible.

  Their gaze grew longer. Tilburn coughed politely.

  “Prince Rainere?” Natalie had pushed between them and was pulling on the Prince’s sleeve. Rainere knelt down on one knee so he could be closer to Natalie’s eye level.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” he said, a wisp of a smile pulling at his mouth.

  “I have a present for you to say thank you, and to say I want to come back here one day,” said Natalie as tears trembled in her voice. “I love your Grey Palace.” She thrust a clumsy little package at the Prince.

  “That is very kind of you, Princess,” said the Prince formally but his eyes were clouded with an emotion that Adele didn’t recognize. “I – ah - I shall treasure it.”

  Suddenly, Natalie threw her arms around the Prince and hugged him with all of her might. “I love you!” she howled and started to cry in earnest.

  “Okay, Natalie, let’s just calm down, darling girl.” Adele was close to tears herself, but was aware of how strained the atmosphere had just become as her Queen’s Guard advanced back up the stairs to her and the children. Rainere kept his own arms open and free of the little girl so as not to confuse anyone as to whom was hugging whom.

  “Come on, darling.” Adele managed to pry her weeping daughter off Rainere’s shoulder and hugged her tight. “Come on, sweetheart, we don’t want the Prince to see us sad. He must know that we are happy because we got to stay at his palace and how much we enjoyed the lovely things he showed us.”

  “Okay,” sniffed Natalie, trying to be brave and looked up at Rainere with wet eyes. “Do you want to open your present now? I got it for your labor-atormy. Mummy said it is really, really special.”

  Prince Rainere looked down at the lumpy gift in his hand.

  “That’s okay, sweetheart, Prince Rainere can open it later,” said Adele flushed with her own barely contained emotions. She hustled Natalie down the stairs to the waiting carriages and almost threw her daughter in with the other children. They had to leave now before she copied Natalie and lost all self-control.

  As the carriages pulled away Natalie started weeping loudly again and Stella and Aaron almost fell out the window as they waved and shouted goodbye to the Prince. Adele peeked out and saw Rainere raise a single hand in farewell. She ducked back inside the carriage and hoped no one could hear the sound of her heart breaking.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “It Always Rains Here”

  Rainere stood on the top of the palace steps long after the royal carriages had left the Grey Palace grounds. He stood perfectly still, as if he had been carved from stone, and he watched and he waited for the impossible.

  But Adelena did not come back.

  Thin grey clouds crept across the sky over the Palace, dropping lower and lower until they covered the parapets and towers in a misty haze.

  All his joy had left with Adelena and there was no more sunshine.

  Fat drops of rain had begun to fall, splashing onto the ground before him, when Rainere felt Grotto’s light touch on his shoulder. “Master, come inside. Please.”

  Distant thunder trembled across the sky as Rainere slowly turned away from the road and walked back inside his palace, Grotto following a step behind wearing a worried frown.

  The Prince stood in the entrance hall and looked about as if he didn’t recognize the grey and black checkerboard tiles beneath his feet, or the suits of armor that lined the walls. He gazed up at the tattered pennants of his ancestors fluttering in the breeze from the open door. Just minutes ago the sun had warmed this floor and the voices of children had rung in the hallway, echoing with emotion, shouts of joy and sadness combined. Now silence had reclaimed this world.

  Rainere felt the loneliness so acutely that it almost made him gasp.

  Adele had taken all the noise, all the feelings, and all the laughter away with her. That was her world and it didn’t stay behind when she moved on.

  Rainere thought of Natalie’s arms clutching tight around his neck as she whispered “I love you” in his
ear. Her little arms had felt like twigs, so fragile that he had been afraid to hurt her if he had tried to pull them off. Her breath had been hot and swirled about his head, smelling of fresh bread and soap. Rainere looked down at the package still in his hands. He pulled at the rain-spotted paper and the stiff parchment sprang apart revealing a penciled image: a little girl wearing a crown was holding hands with a much taller man also wearing a crown on his head. Both figures had long dark hair and big smiles on their faces. Above the sketch written in a labored cursive were the three little words Natalie had professed with such passion: I love you.

  A distant memory awoke somewhere deep in Rainere’s mind and struggled to the surface of his consciousness.

  He must have been tiny, as his father’s desk had seemed as big as a mountain. The few steps to stand next to the old man’s knee took forever. He had worked hard to reach out and touch his father’s leg. A large white hand had come down to cover his baby one. Dark purple splotches of ink had stained his father’s fingers as he wrote letters at his desk. He felt joy at the thrill of his father’s green-eyed gaze and being lifted high and held to the warmth of his chest. “My son,” and his voice filled Rainere with a fierce pride. He belonged to this man, he was a sun…

  The Prince’s mind travelled back to the present, and focused on the simply wrought sketch of himself and Princess Natalie. He cast a glance at the little wooden box that had been wrapped in the paper. Coconut wood by the look of it. He pushed it down inside a pocket and wandered up the stairs. Last night had been hard, but this morning—watching Adelena walk away—had been worse. He needed to give his heart a moment to recover from everything that she’d done to him. Today he needed the Blue Tonic to take away the pain.

  * * *

  Grotto remained standing in the entrance hall for a minute after Rainere had left. Shaking himself out of his deepening panic, Grotto forced himself into motion, slamming the great front doors shut. The boom reverberated around the entrance hall and shook the tapestries on their ancient strings. He lay his forehead against the back of the lacquered wood and pressed his lips tightly together to prevent a scream of sheer frustration from escaping.

  The Prince had let her go! He had let the Queen slip right through his fingers and only watched her as she drove right out the front gates of the Grey Palace, and out of his control. After all Grotto’s shouting and all his warnings, the Prince had let the Abomination go free!

  Grotto banged his head against the great door causing green sparks of energy to flash and burn him. He moaned in despair.

  Now the Queen was heading even further out of their grasp to the cursed Belvoir Estate. No Magic could be worked within the boundaries of Belvoir, none at all. Not even a creature of powerful Magic, like the Spider Empress, could survive for long on those cursed lands. The Queen would be untouchable there but she would also be in a different kind of danger. Her kind could not last long within the boundaries of Belvoir as the Curse forced her Magic to turn on itself, corroding her from the inside out. This was the very reason the Marchant Kings of the past had created Belvoir Estate. It had been the site of neutrality where the various factions of the Family could meet and never fear magical attack from each other or the Entities which used to roam Evendaar freely. Even Immortals were rendered Human again, as the Curse prevented even the most powerful of spells from working.

  If only the Old Masters knew how their cursed Estate would be used to protect those unworthy and weak in Magic from the Marchant Prince who should be their King by right of The Blood. Grotto’s lip curled in disgust as he thought of the sacred halls of Belvoir being used to house the impure Belvoir Family. Those who were once serfs and vassals, now play-acting as Princes and Lords. The wrongs of the distant past needled Grotto like they had just happened yesterday.

  We have only six days to put my Prince on the Throne, thought Grotto, as anxiety melted his insides like acid. Why would my Master have lessened the storm to allow a messenger through? Why would he have let the Queen escape to Belvoir when he had her in his bed, all tangled up in her appetites.

  Grotto’s stomach turned at the memory of finding the Prince in the laboratory with the Queen. The Prince, with his arm wrapped around her, his other hand doing something unmentionable in her trousers. The expression on his face had been ecstatic, and he had smiled as he had kissed the Abomination. He had smiled…

  Grotto’s hand flew to his mouth in shock. No, it couldn’t be! His Master couldn’t have let the Queen go to Belvoir on purpose. Was he really preparing to sacrifice himself to the Spider Empress? Because when the Empress found out the Prince had betrayed her no one would be safe from her fury and Rainere would have given his precious life for nothing.

  Grotto shook himself into action a second time and raced up the left staircase following the Prince. He headed straight for the Great Library, cursing all the while. Instinct told him that the Prince would have sequestered himself in the only room in the entire Grey Palace that Grotto couldn’t enter.

  The door of the Great Library was open just a crack and through it Grotto could see the Prince slumped in an armchair, a small bottle filled with blue liquid hanging from his hand, gazing into space. How did Grotto not notice how hollow his Master’s face had become? How did he not see the Prince was on the verge of collapse? She had done this to him! The Abomination had sucked the life right out of him. Grotto had seen it too many times before with Rainere’s father to not recognize the symptoms of a wasting of the spirit now that it was staring him in the face.

  What Hell was this life that he now had to do the thing that would hurt his precious Master the most?

  “Master,” pleaded Grotto, panic coloring his voice as he pressed his face to the gap in the door. “Master, you have to get the Queen back! We only have six days left to fulfil the Prophecy. The Hidden Child must have you at her side at the time of the full Moon. The throne of all Unisia will be yours if you just force her to marry you...”

  “And what will happen if I don’t, Grotto?” Rainere’s gravelly voice was low and barely carried to Grotto.

  Grotto ripped his hands off the door and blew on them. The runes that protected the sanctity of the Great Library were burning him. He took a moment to order his scattered thoughts. Now that he had Rainere’s attention he had to make his words count. He thanked the Goddess that Rainere had yet to drink the blue opiate in the bottle.

  “Master, there is no telling what will happen if we do not follow the words that the Goddess Serena herself passed down to us. ‘Only the Hidden Child shall restore the Glory of my Chosen Ones to the Throne of my Kingdom’,” Grotto quoted. “You yourself have spoken with the Goddess, Master. She brought you back from death and she saved you for a reason, did she not Master? Master?”

  The Prince did not answer, but his head rose off his chest.

  Grotto pressed his lips to the door and ignored the burning runes. “The Goddess Serena favored you above all others Master for you are the very last of her Chosen Ones!”

  Grotto became excited as he saw Rainere rise and walk unsteadily towards him. Finally, he was listening! “It is your sacred duty to follow the words of her Prophecy. You must stand by the Queen, Master, and take her throne for your own. It is the only way that the Glory of the Marchant family will rise again.”

  Grotto’s eyes were wide and lit by a fierce hope.

  Rainere opened the library door wider and stared into the face of the servant who had raised him since he was a baby, the servant who had trained his infant Prince to become an adult King. He saw the twisted belief that had shaped Grotto’s whole life up until now. This Prophecy had tainted his mind as it had tainted the Spider Empress and the Wizards of the Golden Court.

  In that moment Rainere realized that Adelena would never find any peace in the world of Evendaar. He could let her escape to the Belvoir Estate for a time, but without his protection Adelena would simply fall prey to the Wizards of St. Lucidis and be pulled back into the fray of this imaginary war. R
ainere pulled the door open and such was Grotto’s distraction that he almost stepped over the threshold to grab the lapels of his Master’s jacket in relief.

  “Please Master. Get her back! I know a priest. He does not live far from here and is recognized by the Crown. He will marry you and in six days, you can show the Spider Empress her will has been done. Your Oath to her will be fulfilled and the Prophecy will be complete.”

  “I will bring Adelena back to the Grey Palace, Grotto, but I will only ask that she marries me if she would wish it. I will not force her to do anything,” growled Rainere in a warning tone. “I will not make my love unhappy for all the Thrones in the world. If the Spider Empress tries to…”

  “All will be as you say, Master,” interrupted Grotto hurriedly. “Now, please go and chase the Queen down.”

  Rainere frowned. “On what pretext? Don’t be a fool, Grotto. Her men would not let her acquiesce to me, even if I found her outside the Belvoir boundary.” Rainere stepped past Grotto into the hall. “No, I have a better idea. Send a letter to Prince Bertrand II of Belvoir, telling him I will be attending the Racing Carnival. I will prepare the horses tonight for the journey and we can travel by portal as soon as I recover my strength to make one big enough.”

  “But Master, the Belvoir Curse! What about your Immortality Spell?”

  Rainere shrugged and leaned against the wall as though the effort of the small movement was too much for him. He looked exhausted. “I can sacrifice a few days of my endless life if it means that Adelena will be safe from the Empress while I convince her to see this marriage through. She promised me…” Rainere drifted off uncertain then shot Grotto a defiant look. “I truly believe she loves me, Grotto.”

  Grotto bit his lip until he tasted blood. The coppery tang filled his mouth and made his stomach turn over. He tried to think of practicalities and not the Prince’s words. Rainere would need something to recover his strength, and there was nothing else that would aid his health more quickly than the thing Rainere hated most. “Master, I shall fetch the Gift of Life for you.”