by J. Kirsch
"You just knew?" he echoed with disbelief. It was the kind of disbelief when you couldn't believe someone could be so amazingly crazy or stupid.
"Do you still want to marry me?" I said, smiling as if this were just an ordinary day. "Because if so, I suggest less whining and more moving. We don't know if there might be a few stragglers. I'm guessing if we circle back we can find a gap in the patrol and sneak our way over the bridge, assuming we didn't kill everyone."
"We?" he asked. Blood and gore covered every inch of his armor like a madman's mural.
"I did help," I protested. "I was the brains. You were the muscle. Deal with it." I hadn't meant to be so harsh, but constantly being on the run had stretched my humanity to a breaking point, and after surviving the battle at Drake's side whatever shyness I'd felt toward him had vanished.
He shook his head, muttering curses as we moved to let the forest enfold us in deeper shadow. It took the rest of the afternoon, but we finally maneuvered back to the bridge and kept watch long enough to determine that we'd destroyed the force guarding it. Before darkness fell we had crossed the bridge. I was entering the Kingdom no one had ever told me about as a child, the Kingdom I first knew existed only by listening to hushed whispers. The Black Kingdom.
Chapter 8
The Black Kingdom, Eleven Months Later…
Bronwyn smiled at me. She did that often now, and it wasn't the 'Poor, breakable friend, I hope she's okay' smile that Bronwyn had used for the first few months we were in the Black Knight's Kingdom. It was a smile just happy for me, no undercurrents of worry.
And that made me even happier as I hummed and readjusted my sword belt. I had a training sword tightened at my waist. Today was sparring day. At my request Drake was teaching me new sword fighting tricks. By all accounts I was a quick learner. I would soon be besting him.
"What do you think? Will the distraction help?" I twirled like a total girl, the cream-colored tunic cut low, revealing bare shoulders and tantalizing cleavage.
"Najika! I'm shocked. Really. Would a princess like you stoop so low that you'd use the lushness of the feminine form to distract your opponent? That hardly seems fair!" Bronwyn cried.
"A win is a win, sister, and I'll take it however I can, thank you very much."
Just then Drake strode in, his sparring tunic hugging his muscular shoulders nice and tightly. We both melted into giggles as his eyes widened at the shirt I wore.
"Do you plan to fight in that?" he said, mystified.
Bronwyn mouthed goodbye and slipped out the back. She had a new horse to train, which always made her giddy. Meanwhile I put my hands behind my back, thrusting out my breasts and torturing Drake just because I could.
"Why? Is that going to be a problem for you?"
"It is if you want to spar today. I might simply surrender before you strike the first blow," he replied, rushing forward and taking me in his arms. I grinned as he kissed me, his hands roving down my back and cupping a certain curvaceous area.
When he drew back, though, his gaze had grown serious. Too serious. My eyes narrowed.
"What? Is something wrong?" We'd been cautiously treating one another as each other's betrothed for more than six months, but it had all remained unofficial. There was a time when I hadn't known where I'd end up, when I'd only accepted the Black Knight's hospitality until I could figure out where I wanted to go next.
"Yes, something is very wrong. Princess Najika, daughter of the White Kingdom, I have a very important question for you."
My heart stilled. Drake had purposefully not pressured me these past several months. He'd been patient with me. He'd won me over just because of who he was as a person, not because of his power, influence, or anything else. I'd learned that the myth of the evil Black Knight was just that, a myth.
My hand went to my face, covering my gaping mouth as he drew out a ring. It was studded with gems—emeralds, rubies, amethysts, sapphires—and a sparkling diamond was now giving me its knowing wink.
No, Naji. He didn't. He…no, he can't be asking this. I refused to cry. It was absolutely not an option.
"The one thing I can see wrong in the world right now is that you are not my wife. So I have to ask the most beautiful, kind, brave, and amazing woman I know one simple question: Will you marry me?"
I didn't cry. Tears don't count until they drip off the bottoms of your cheekbones. Everyone knows that. He kissed me then, and I realized that I was going to be okay. I was no longer the Princess of the White Kingdom.
I would be the Queen of the Black Kingdom. It was us against the world, and the dreams I'd been having included Drake in my life, for better or for worse. For as long as forever might last.
End of Part One
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Chapter 9
"Naji, you're trembling."
Weddings weren't exactly my cup of chicken broth. At least not since the night I'd killed my first husband. Nerves weren't the only thing haunting me as we stood by the finely carved altar in the ancient grove. Ever bigger circles of the Black Knight's guests watched us from all sides and every angle. Among them stood one ambassador sent from each Kingdom, here to confirm the 'good will' and new relationship between the Black Kingdom and the Kingdoms of all the other colors. Just then I had thoughts of my father, the Knight and lord ruler of the White Kingdom, and a shiver turned my spine into one long icicle.
At about the same time a wave of nausea churned my insides. What little breakfast I'd dared to eat now offered to make a return appearance, and it took every scrap of strength to force it back down.
Drake was doing this all for me, and I hated it. I hated that he was willing to risk his whole Kingdom to marry me. The baggage I'd brought to our relationship was the size of a mound of ogre dung and just as difficult to ignore.
Do you really deserve this, Naji…after what you've done? I'd killed the Red Knight and left the Blue Knight in a poison-induced coma. Somehow I thought my chances for winning the princess-of-the-year contest had slipped through my fingertips. The same fingertips that seemed so capable of murder.
"Take my hands." Drake's hands reached out, enfolding mine. He and I both knew that these were not the wedding day jitters of an ordinary woman marrying an ordinary man. The memory of my first wedding to the Red Knight bled into my thoughts like a reopened wound. I remembered the aftermath of that first wedding ceremony. The Red Knight's fists on my body the moment we entered the bedchamber. The sadistic triumph in his eyes each time he landed a blow or a slap calculated not to leave any obvious mark…
My muscles tensed like an animal needing to run. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just away from the here and now. The similarities didn't help. All of the men and ladies dressed in their finest, looking expectantly at me. The officiating monk in his ivory-fringed shawl, his tonsured head nodding as he handed us the rings and began the vows. The polite, veiled looks barely concealing disdain or outright hate that came from the ambassadors from across all the Kingdoms of Arkor.
"Do you, Princess Najika of the White Kingdom, renounce your status and swear your undying love and devotion to this man, Sir Drake, Knight and overlord of the Black Kingdom?"
I forced myself to look into Drake's eyes and see nothing else. I found steadiness there and pretended the rest of the world didn't exist.
"I do."
"Do you, Sir Drake, promise to take Princess Najika and place her on the throne beside you as your Queen, to rule as your equal in all things and to adjudicate in matters of justice?"
My chest swelled. Now this part was quite different than my first wedding. In all the Kingdoms of Arkor, among the Knights of all the other colors, a Queen might have powers and privileges, but she never shared in her husband's status. Not really.
But the Black Kingdom was not the rest of Arkor. I looked into Drake's storm-grey eyes, lit up with possibility at the very mention of me as Queen, and it melted my heart. My breathing calmed as we finished the vows together, our fingers entwined through the whole ordeal. The t
onsured monk finished his various head bobs and mutterings, none too soon for my liking, and finally…finally we were allowed to exit down an aisle lined with brightly painted marker stones.
As the trees of the forest draped their arms around us, my nerves finally released their death grip on my brain and body. I walked quietly in my glossy black gown, mesmerized by the rubies studded around my belt which winked here and there under the dappled moonlight.
"A tent has been prepared for you," the chamberlain was saying. I saw it some ways off, fringed with tapestries, all puffed up in self-importance. Garlands of flowers heaped as high as my hips surrounded it like a moat. Drake's younger brothers, Ecthor and Fraey, gave their elder sibling a sly wink and a smile.
Other important people crowded around, solemnly congratulating us at the entrance to the tent before joining us inside.
My cheeks reddened as I saw the sumptuously laid bed sheets, probably made with fabric softer than a baby's bottom. I looked at the chamberlain and then back at my new husband. Then new flames leapt to my face as my mother-in-law, Lady Vaela, entered with her usual elegance.
"It is tradition, Naji, for the Promisekeeper to bless the marriage bed," Lady Vaela said, trying to soothe my obvious displeasure. Monks didn't deserve to have such a lofty title as 'Promisekeeper,' but I let it pass. I'd strangle the little imp and shave what hair he had left when this was all over. I also gave my mother-in-law a look which promised slow, painful torture before death.
She returned me a placid smile before politely watching the monk say his blessings.
"…And so we pray that an heir is conceived this night, assuring the future of this Kingdom and its people…" I blotted out everything after that. By this time I was seeing red. Why was it that the very man who probably knew the least about the act of conceiving had the sacred responsibility of blathering on about it?
After what seemed forever and a day, the monk graced us with his departure and the guests filed out, one after another, until it was just Lady Vaela, my new husband, and me. My mother-in-law looked at me calmly before giving her son a pointed look.
"May I speak with your bride alone for a few moments?" The words might have been phrased as a question, but the tone was iron. Drake was about to wade into battle for me despite it all, and I loved him for it, but I could fight my own battles.
"That will be all right, Drake. Really. A private blessing from your mother can do no harm, can it?"
Drake heard the strain in my pathetic attempt to sound natural, but he quietly bowed and left. Sometimes I regretted ever being born a princess. Why couldn't I have been born a normal girl, met a normal boy, and led a normal life without the impossible pressures of the world around me? When I'd been condemned for killing the Red Knight, I think part of me had been glad to finally have relief from the royal stage. Now I'd escaped the fire only to land promptly in the pit.
I turned to my mother-in-law. She was shorter than me, but you'd never know it from the way she carried herself. It was disgusting how unflappable she could be. She had blue eyes that somehow always came across as calm instead of icy, even when she was furious. Still, in the past eleven months and counting she'd made it clear that she didn't trust me, that she thought I'd probably committed the crime I'd been accused of…and that if I ever did anything to cause her son hurt or pain, she would make sure that I would suffer for it.
So, yes—I guess you could've called her a typical mother-in-law.
Lady Vaela pursed her lips. Was that a flicker of hesitation in her eyes? I gave her a confused look. I had expected a nasty warning. Certainly not this.
"If your goal is to kill me with anticipation, it's working," I said.
Vaela's pained expression only deepened my puzzlement. She made a shooing gesture with her hand. "Let's get this over with. I need you to take your clothes off. The spell won't work otherwise."
I made sure that my heart was still beating and that the words coming out of my mother-in-law's mouth were in a language I understood.
"I'm sorry. You'll have to repeat that."
Vaela's blond hair was piled atop her head like a royal crown. She sighed, a hand creasing her forehead before running up the curls as if an earthquake had embedded itself there.
"Has my son not told you that I am a sorceress?"
I nodded, blood thundering through my veins. My breathing quickened. What did this crazy, weird woman want?
"He told me that you have healing powers. You go out to the villages and sick people become well. But I am not sick and this…this is sick. I suggest you explain yourself."
Lady Vaela looked at me then, truly looked at me. I saw mistrust drain from her eyes for the first time. Instead there was this sympathy in her expression. It was like I was seeing a different person.
"It was not so long ago that I was standing where you are now, Najika. I can do other things…not just healing. Spells of protection. Warding. Passed down to me from my mother, and from hers before that. The point is, Najika…" Another heavy sigh. "If you do not want to become pregnant with child just yet, I can give you that protection. It is my experience that getting to know your husband and learning what it means to be a Queen is hard enough, even without a child on the way. It is my belief that you owe it to yourself to know who you are, and who you and my son are as two people joined—before a third enters the fray."
Lady Vaela's smooth face seamed with a wistful smile. She reached out a hand to catch a wisp of hair which had strayed from the simple ponytail I'd insisted on for the wedding.
"You…would do that for me?" I was pretty much speechless. That I could say this much was impressive.
My mother-in-law nodded. After a shudder and a sigh even more epic than the last, she finally spilled the beans.
"I know we got off to a rocky start, Najika. But I haven't been completely blind over the last year. I see the transformation in my son when he but looks at you. I also see the mettle you're made of. I've watched you train with my son and learn to fight as the seasons have turned. I may be stubborn, Najika. I may be protective of my son. But I'm not a senile old fool."
The suspicion in my eyes must have evaporated, because I found myself reaching out to clasp one of her frail hands in two of mine. I brought her hand to my lips, kissed the wrinkled skin with a tenderness I'd never felt towards her before, and then slowly let go.
"I do love your son," I said simply.
Lady Vaela nodded. "I know that now."
"Only took you, what, 340 days or so to figure that out?" I replied, trying to keep the acid in my voice at a teasing notch.
The crunch of footsteps abruptly sounded at the tent flap. "Can I have my bride back?" came Drake's impatient rumble.
"No!" came our replies in unison. It made me jump as a smile curled on my lips.
We waited until the crunching of boots faded, and then she gave me another impatient shooing gesture.
"Clothes. Off."
I couldn't believe I was doing this, but my gut telling me that someone I'd considered a mortal enemy now wasn't…well, that overrode embarrassment.
Chapter 10
The tent had become quite warm, at least in the bed we shared. The sounds of night creatures drifted through to us, but it was as if they were creating their symphony just for us. I couldn't claim this wasn’t sentimental stupidity talking in my newly married, love-addled brain, but there it was.
I straddled him, and his eyes roved over my breasts.
"A bit distracted, aren't we?"
"What you call 'distracted' I call worshipping with my eyes. Have I ever told you how gorgeous the glow of a lantern's light looks on certain parts of your body?"
I had to stifle a giggle. These weren't exactly the undying romantic declarations I'd been taught to expect on my wedding night. Drake reached up, gently holding the breasts apparently so worthy of attention, and I watched his eyes slowly soak in the sight of my nakedness as if the most precious gem in the world had just slipped into view.
> "Your body is every bit as beautiful as your heart Naji, and it's all mine," he said with a sly wink.
I bit my lip, giving him a sultry stare as I glanced down at what to me was just as beautiful. I saw the planes of his muscles fan out like a legendary map I wanted to read over and over again. I looked straight down, admiring the need in him.
"I'm yours, am I? And what of this? To whom does this belong?" I said with a teasing quirk of eyebrows.
In a flash we were what I might delicately call horizontal. I was gasping, Drake's body covering me like a blanket, moving in a pattern with mine. I hadn't known what to expect this night to be like…And this may not have been the graceful lovemaking the bards sang about in tales, the two of us fumbling and eager, tangled in the bed sheets. That’s why I had always wanted to wait until marriage, though—and not the hastily arranged kind with the Red Knight I hardly knew. True marriage after coming to know who the other person really was. The awkwardness I'd first felt when Drake and I entered the tent wasn't crippling, and it didn't promise guilt after the fact. We knew each other, we'd committed to each other. Around Drake I felt safe. I trusted him and he trusted me, and it meant that ultimately nothing else could get in the way of that. Even the anxiety I knew was hammering through both our hearts.
I guess I should have known that my life was going too well, too blissfully for fate to leave me alone. Something intruded on the perfect moment. A pale stripe of moonlight snuck into my eye, putting me on edge as a faint sound—not of nature—hissed between tent flaps which parted conveniently for an unseen breeze.
Except there was no breeze. There were two men covered head to toe in gray who had lifted the tent flap wide while a third partner raised his crossbow and fired. The bolt punched through the pillow where my head had just been. Luckily I'd tensed and rolled us clear of the sheets not a moment too soon.