by Alex Aguilar
“Apologies, m’lady,” Adelina mumbled, a hint of shame in her gentle tone.
“By the gods, woman, is apologizing the only thing that you know how to do?” the Lady asked, fairly coldly.
Adelina frowned and took another sip of liqueur for confidence. “Well,” she said. “I’ll have to ask for your forgiveness once again. But where I come from, we believe in kindness and generosity over self-pride.” There was a brief silence; Adelina instantly wished she could take back her words, out of fear of having insulted the Lady.
“How charming… And what of those who don’t deserve your generosity?”
“Especially to those,” Adelina remarked.
The Lady scoffed. “You clearly have more hope in humanity than I do.”
“I must… My family’s survived countless times on nothing but hope.”
Adelina expected another scoff, but the Lady instead raised a brow and gave her a half-smirk, as if silently approving of her response. It was subtle, but Adelina felt a good deal more relaxed. Much like her own children, the woman had always been a fast learner, and it didn’t take her very long to realize that the Lady Regent highly admired bluntness over bashfulness.
“Your children are adjusting well, I presume?” the Lady asked suddenly.
Adelina sighed. She realized then that she’d been so distracted thinking of John and Robyn and the attack on her farm to even consider how the twins were handling it all. “I do hope so,” was all she could think to say.
“They seem to have grown fond of the orc child,” the Lady added.
Adelina smiled. “Yes, well… children will be children.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Have you no children, Lady Clark?” Adelina felt comfortable enough to ask.
“None,” said the Lady as she lifted the bottle up to her lips for a good gulp. “Never had the time. Nor the inclination, for that matter. How many do you have?”
Adelina hesitated, a sour feeling in her gut overwhelming her all of a sudden.
Honestly, I don’t really know anymore…
“Four,” she decided to say. “I have a daughter of seventeen.”
“And where might she be?”
The discomfort in Adelina’s gut turned suddenly into dread.
“She, um… She ran off,” her voice became weak and shaky. “She was quite upset about John leaving. I just never imagined she would actually go after him.”
After a brief silence, the Lady sighed and threw Adelina’s exact words right back at her. “Children will be children…”
“Indeed,” Adelina nodded. She found that she was no longer overwhelmed by the bitterness of the liqueur, as if her tongue had slowly adjusted to it. She took another sip. “She was always the most distant,” she said, shaking her head gently from side to side. “Always so bold and stubborn… But the truth is she was the one who cared the most…”
“John’s the eldest, I take it?” the Lady asked, eyeing the woman from head to toe. “But you don’t look a day past forty. I take it you must’ve had him very young.”
Adelina hesitated again. She didn’t have half the Lady’s confidence, and she couldn’t bring herself to say that she didn’t wish to think more about it. Instead, she cleared her throat and simply said, “Quite young, yes.”
The Lady took a moment to properly respond. She stared intensely at Adelina as if trying to read the woman’s entire life merely through observation.
“Well you’ve done a remarkable job,” she eventually said, much to Adelina’s surprise. “Granted, I only met John briefly. But he seemed like a fine enough young man.”
Adelina smiled, suddenly thrilled to have been complimented by a woman of such great authority and regard. But then the Lady Clark narrowed her gaze and examined Adelina’s round hazel-colored eyes. “How strange,” she said, her words much less slurred than before. “He didn’t quite have your eyes, though… Nor your black hair… He must have taken after his father, I presume?”
Adelina sighed first, contemplating on the memories she had of John as an infant. She remembered the first time she held him in her arms. She remembered how unworthy she thought herself to be, a girl of only seventeen caring for a child. Realizing the Lady was still waiting patiently for a response, Adelina nodded and said, “You have no idea…”
Then the silence returned. Neither woman said anything more about John, and Adelina felt the sudden need to shift the focus away from herself.
“Will you be all right?” she asked. “With everything that happened out ther-”
“I said I don’t wish to think about it,” the Lady said coldly, closing her eyes as if it pained her to even remember.
Adelina thought before she spoke this time. The Lady certainly intimidated her, but she also appeared troubled beyond words. And it was in Adelina Huxley’s core to help ease pain when she saw it. She’d done it with Aevastra, with Evellyn, with complete strangers, even. And, at that very moment, her tongue simply could not hold back.
“None of us wish to think about anything,” she said. “It’s the burden of the mind. The more haunting thoughts are often the loudest.”
Lady Brunylda raised a brow. Quite shrewd for a peasant woman, she thought, and then eyed Adelina up and down again.
“All I’m saying is,” Adelina cleared her throat, “I am here to listen if you ever wish to talk. It’s the least I could do after everything you’ve done for us.”
The silence lingered for several moments. The wind appeared to be picking up, but it was warm enough that it didn’t cause them much discomfort. Lady Brunylda’s eyes began to swell and glisten, and she hoped that Adelina would shrug it off and blame it on the dust the wind carried.
But there was no way to hide it. The Lady was not at all in a good place.
Calm yourself, Brunylda thought. You didn’t shed a single tear when father died and you won’t shed any tonight. She breathed deeply. The last person she had opened up to personally was her own mother, and it had been well over thirty years. But there was something about the peasant woman that allowed Brunylda to lower her guard. And she suddenly found herself unafraid to speak vulnerably for a change.
“You know… ever since I was a young girl,” she said solemnly, “All I ever wanted to be… was queen.”
Adelina looked up, quite surprised at the Lady’s brute honesty.
“I’ve known Rowan for many years, you see,” she went on. “I knew him since he was just Prince Rowan, in fact. He was kind, caring, disgustingly dashing. Hardly the cantankerous thing he is today.”
They shared a brief chuckle together. Adelina felt so much calmer, she found herself sitting back in her chair, allowing for the warmth of the liqueur to fill her chest. They even sat quite similarly, she noticed, for two women of such drastically different upbringings. Their right leg rested over their left, one hand on their right knee and the other on their drink. It was enough to dim the intimidating image of the Lady that Adelina held in her mind.
“Did you love him?” Adelina felt comfortable enough to ask. And just as she expected, the Lady Clark scoffed again. But it was at least a much friendlier scoff than she was used to.
“Goodness, no!” the Lady said, forcing back a laugh. “Rowan? I’d sooner love a goblin than love him… No, I’ve never loved anyone, truthfully. Never saw the point of it.”
“That’s because there is none,” Adelina said. “It just happens.”
“Well I’m certainly thankful I never had the displeasure,” Brunylda remarked. “Love… Makes everyone stupid, is all it does.”
Adelina knew too well herself what love could do to a person. The day her husband died, she had lost the love of her life. And the heartbreak that soon followed had nearly broken her, had it not been for her children; they had since then become the love of her life. And she couldn’t possibly imagine what life must be like for a woman like Brunylda Clark, who had neither.
“Anyway,” the Lady went on. “Once Rowan was of age, he becam
e the most suitable bachelor in all of Gravenstone. Every girl in the kingdom wanted to marry him... Myself included, in fact. Not because I had any feelings for the old fool, but because I knew that it was the only way I’d have a chance to be queen.”
She hesitated, closing her eyes and sighing as if the words were aching her.
“But, as fate would have it, he fell in love with another,” she said. “And so I focused instead on what I knew best… Trade, commerce, managing my family’s debt… By the time I reached the age of maturity, I was far too valuable to be married off to some measly lord. Instead, Rowan swore me into his service… I had to sit there at his side, day after day, watching as his pretty little wife served him his wine… She was a kind and gentle thing, truth be told, but she was bloody useless at being queen. Didn’t know the first thing about ruling a kingdom, but she didn’t have to… Because she was pretty. And that’s all Rowan cared about. Frankly, I never saw the point of being beautiful if it’s the only thing you’ve got.”
Another silence, and this time the glimmer in the Lady’s eyes returned.
But, just as before, there were no tears. The Lady wouldn’t dare shed any.
With a clearing of the throat and a rapid blinking of the eyes, she took another sip from the bottle. “Anyway,” she said, much less solemnly this time. “A brief year, their marriage lasted. Then the poor girl died… And Rowan never got to see his child…”
“I remember,” Adelina said, a sudden sadness in her tone. “I was just a girl at the time, but I was there when she fell off the balcony. Really makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Wonder what?”
“About… the curse?”
The Lady chuckled and shook her head. “The curse… What a load of rubbish.”
“Do you not believe it’s true?”
“The world isn’t a fairytale, Huxley. There are no such things as curses.”
“Perhaps,” Adelina’s voice softened. “Still, one can’t help but wonder. Specially after three wives and no heir?”
“No son,” the Lady corrected her. “He’s got an heir…”
Adelina nodded. That is true. And yet… He may have lost that heir, for all we know…
They heard footsteps approaching from the other end of the courtyard. A figure dressed in armor walked through the gardens, holding an elegant silver box in his hands. As he stepped towards them, the light from the lanterns illuminated his face. Like the Lady Brunylda, he looked tired and worn out, yet his appearance remained graceful and pleasing to the eye.
Adelina figured it must have been a family trait. Even at their worst, there was an undeniable elegance there; their sharp cheekbones and their black hair, thick and polished like a stallion’s mane, and even the brown tone of their skin were all traits that made a member of House Clark recognizable to anyone anywhere in Gravenstone.
“Good evening,” Darryk said with a nod. “May I have a private word with you, my Lady?”
“No,” Brunylda scoffed. “But you’re going to anyway, so you may as well sit.”
Feeling as though she didn’t belong, Adelina rose to her feet. She glanced at the Lady one last time with a smile, and then she lifted the goblet to her lips and finished what was left of the liqueur.
“Will you look at that?” the Lady chuckled and glanced at Darryk. “She handles her drink a lot better than you.”
Darryk smiled uncomfortably, realizing the Lady was far beyond sobriety.
“Thank you, m’lady,” Adelina bowed and set the empty goblet on the table. “Should you need anything, you need only ask. Anything at all.”
And then the Lady did something she hardly ever did unless it was in a scornful manner. She smiled… A genuine smile that one would only share warmly with a friend…
Adelina retreated to her room to sleep, leaving the two nobles alone in the gardens. There was an uncomfortable lingering silence, as Darryk took the empty seat across from the Lady and leaned back. He sighed and stared into space much like she was doing, resting the box in his lap as if it were treasure.
“I imagine you must have questions for me, my Lady.”
He had an entire speech prepared, truth be told, but Lady Brunylda stopped him before he could continue.
“What in all hells were you thinking, boy…?”
He hesitated, swallowed back his modesty, and instead fought to hold his ground. “What exactly do you mean, my Lady?”
“I told you to wake up,” she said with a sigh of frustration. “I told you to stand up for yourself… to go out there and do your duty, and y-”
“I know,” he interrupted her, as gently as was possible. “And I listened…”
She eyed him up and down. For once, the man didn’t look entirely like a lost child. He looked more confident, more sure of himself, as if replacing the Regent crown with his armor had brought him back to his true nature.
“My duty, as King Rowan declared it, was to do what was best for Val Havyn,” he said. “And that is precisely what I did.”
She said nothing, only stared at him, trying desperately to figure him out.
So strange, it was, to know that he was her nephew and yet not know a single thing about him other than his name. She watched as he gently opened the box’s lid; the silver crown glistened beneath the lanterns’ light, brighter than any star in the night sky. His shivering hand was only inches from the silver, but he seemed reluctant to touch it, as if he didn’t find himself worthy of it.
“This is quite a beautiful crown,” he said, his voice weary and melancholic. “Normally, I believe there’s a ceremony when it gets passed down to someone, but… considering the circumstances, well… I don’t believe I was ever worthy of wearing it, much less passing it along…”
He placed the opened chest gently on the table and turned it so that it was facing her.
“This is yours, my Lady,” he said. “It always has been…”
And with that, Sir Darryk Clark rose to his feet and retreated to his chambers for the night. Lady Brunylda sat there quietly for a moment, her eyes fixed on her nephew. She watched him until he disappeared into the shadows of the halls. And then she glanced all around, making certain that she was indeed alone. There was darkness and silence all around, nothing but crickets and night owls humming in the distance.
It was then that she glimpsed down at the silver crown.
It belonged to her…
At last, after 40 years of dreaming, the crown belonged to her…
It wasn’t a queen’s crown, but it was the closest she would ever get to it.
She lifted a trembling hand and touched it for the first time. She was never one to believe in magic, and yet she swore that when her fingertips touched it, she felt a spark.
And then it happened. She could hardly believe it herself.
A tear gathered at the edge of her eyelid…
The first tear she shed since she was a child…
XIX
The Voyage Continues
Sir Viktor Crowley had never been the type of man to have a drink in the mornings. He was hardly the type of man to drink at all, in fact. Luckily for him, he was no longer Sir Viktor Crowley. He was just another mercenary traveling with Sir Percyval Garroway’s troop, if the man even had a troop left.
Nearly half of the king’s soldiers had been sent up north before dawn.
The remaining half were starting to clear the camp, leaving Percyval’s recruits wandering about without a clear answer as to whether or not they would be joining the fight. The rumor was that the campgrounds of Balthazar Locke’s army had been spotted. And so King Alistair’s plan was to attack the camp from both east and west. Naturally, he needed to make certain there would be no surprises, and so he’d sent half his men a few hours ahead to clear the path for the rest.
Not the best tactic, considering how outnumbered they are, Viktor thought silently to himself. Then again, King Alistair knew the land of Halghard better than Viktor did. For a moment he felt a hint o
f jealousy, reminiscing on the days he would advise King Rowan before a battle and knowing very well that he may never have a chance to do so again.
He thought briefly of his old friend Jossiah Biggs, first about the many times they’d fought side by side in a battle and then about the simpler times, the times when they were merely young soldiers in the royal guard. They would get drunk together at Nottley’s Tavern after a long journey or during a day of festivity in Val Havyn. Jossiah never had a particularly warm reputation but Viktor would be lying if he said every memory of the man was a bad one. There was a time when they were as close as brothers, in fact. Or at least it felt that way, seeing as neither Viktor nor Jossiah had any brothers.
With a sigh of frustration, Viktor shook the thoughts out of his mind. He figured it wasn’t worth getting angry over things he had no control of. In fact, there was a chance he would never see Jossiah again. The man could be dead for all he knew.
When the soldiers asked him to clear the wooden table so that they could chop it up and feed it to the fire, Viktor moved and sat on the back of a nearby cart. He heard footsteps approaching and for a moment he hoped it was Skye again. He hadn’t seen Skye since the quarrel with Zahrra and was worried that he had offended the elf. When he glanced over his shoulder, however, he saw that it was Percyval Garroway who was coming to speak with him.
“Well,” the man said, climbing onto the cart and taking a seat next to Viktor. “If it isn’t the Golden Eagle of Vallenghard, drinking his pain away… Careful now, I could hardly tell you apart from a peasant.”
Viktor smiled. Though it was early morning, he could tell by Percyval’s breath that the man had also been drinking. “I could say the same of you, Garroway.”
“Any word of your companions?”
“None,” Viktor said, a sudden sorrow in his tone. “If I’m being honest, I… I’m not sure they even made it out of the Woodlands.”
“Lighten up, Sir Crowley. Have some hope.”
Viktor chuckled. “Any hope I had left in me died when I left Val Havyn.”
“Ah… don’t say that,” Percyval placed a warm hand on Viktor’s shoulder and gave it a mild shake. “There’s always hope. Always. Even when the whole world appears to be turning its back on you, the gods are always watching over you. It’s all part of their plan, my friend.”