“No, not Mother,” she said. “I do not want to hear you call me that again. It’s long past time for the truth to come out. All these years, people have questioned my loyalty to the King, but never once was his loyalty to me in doubt.”
The murmurs that had whirled throughout the room died until she had every person’s attention. Mariana heard sniffling and stifled sobs from somewhere behind her but didn’t turn around to see who was crying. Probably Liliana.
“Your Majesty.” Raulin stepped forward. “This is not the time nor place for confessions or accusations. Perhaps…”
The Queen cut him off with a wave of her hand. “It is the perfect time. This…mistake…thinks to usurp the throne from my husband and my son. I won’t have it. I would see her dead before I would see her take the crown.”
“Mother!” This came from Ramone. “You can’t mean that. Mariana is your dau…my sister.”
“But nothing to me.”
“Alexandria, please.” The King reached for her hand. She let him take it, but Mariana could see she didn’t return the grasp. “We raised Mariana together. Can’t you think of her as your daughter, even now?”
“Never, Jonathan. I will not let my child, my son, be tossed aside because you couldn’t keep your pants closed.”
“Alex, please,” the King said. “Think of our children.”
“I am thinking of our children. Maybe that’s what you should have thought of before bedding the first pretty girl to bat her eyelashes at you as though I were nothing.”
“That isn’t what it was,” Jonathan said to Mariana. “It wasn’t like that.”
“But it’s true?” Mariana asked. “She’s not my mother?”
“I’m afraid it is true,” the King said. “I had been gone from the palace for over a year fighting to keep the port of Clearlea under Valborough control. It was a brutal war, and we’re still feeling the effects of it even now, twenty years later.” He shook his head.
“That’s a bit beside the point, sir,” Orlando said. “War doesn’t create Children of the Elements.”
Mariana flinched, but her husband pulled her closer to him. He kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, Mariana, but I know this as well as anyone.”
“He met some woman,” the Queen said, yanking her hand from her husband’s. “He’s a man, and I’m supposed to forgive and forget because he brought me a baby girl to love. Ha. I already had three children who were mine. Why did I need another brat? A reminder my husband didn’t find my attentions adequate.”
“Your Majesty.” Raulin stepped forward again. “I have to ask you, in the name of the Elements, to think about what you’re saying. Words spoken here could easily cause wounds that can’t be healed.”
The Queen spun to face her brother-in-law. “Wounds? What about my wounds? I did my duty. I did it all so one day I could see my son, my son, sitting on the throne of Valborough. I would be the Queen Mother, and the most powerful woman in the kingdom. That is not going to be denied to me just because this Daughter of the Elements thinks she can walk in here and prove she is more powerful.”
“Mother.” Ramone approached his mother and touched her arm. “The First Law is clear. Mariana is stronger than any of us. She should…”
“Don’t speak to me of should!” Alexandria shouted. “She should never have been born, let alone brought into this palace like she was a princess. I won’t allow her to take away everything I’ve worked for.”
“Everything you’ve worked for?” Mariana pulled out of Orlando’s embrace. “What about what you did to me? Keeping me ignorant of my true identity, making sure the whole kingdom knew of my ‘shame.’ Would it have been so hard to love me? You were my mother. I loved you and strove to be as much like you as I could. I knew I would never be Queen, but I wanted to live up to the standards you set. To be compassionate, generous, kind. And now I find out you couldn’t be those things to me, who you raised as your daughter?”
“No.” The Queen shook her head. “I was careful in that regard. I never called you my daughter, I never said I was your mother. In order to keep the kingdom from suspecting what your father did and forcing him off the throne until Ramone was ready, I lived with accusations that weren’t true. To this day, there are people in the kingdom who believe I was the one who was unfaithful.”
“That’s true,” Traren murmured.
“Not helping,” Orlando said.
“Maybe we can start over.” Ramone took a deep breath. “It’s all out in the open now. We can be a family. We can end this all peacefully. Mariana can be Queen, and you can still be the Queen Mother.”
“That could work,” Liliana said. “Mariana is our sister. No one need know anything else.”
The Queen glared around the room, and slowly shook her head. “None of you understand the sacrifices, the pain, the humiliation I’ve gone through having her in my house every day. Watching the King shower her with love he wouldn’t give my daughters, all because he thought he fell in love with someone who didn’t know he was the Cognate Prince of Valborough.” She laughed, a harsh, angry sound.
“Well, I burned that port to the ground to make sure she could never come back here, claiming to be the Progenna’s mother and try to wrangle her way into court.”
“Alex, no.” The King tried to take his wife in his arms. “Don’t do this. Haven’t you hurt our children enough?”
“Our children? I haven’t done anything to our children.” She jerked out of his embrace, and she had his ceremonial knife in her hand. “I will fix this problem like I always have.”
Mariana stared at her mother, wondering if the Queen had finally lost all sense of reality. “Mother?”
“I told you never to call me that again. Don’t you know how it made me want to be sick every time I heard that word from your lips? A Daughter of the Elements, walking around the palace, pretending to be a princess.” She spit on the floor. “You were my humiliation, and Chaos take me if I’ll see you on the throne that should be my son’s.”
Orlando jumped in front of Mariana, a sword in his hand. Mariana didn’t know where it had come from, but the look in Brother Raulin’s eye gave her a hint.
“Stop right there, Your Majesty,” Orlando said. “I don’t think any of us wants this situation to turn violent. You are still my Queen, but I won’t let you hurt my wife.”
“You silly fool. As though you could stop me.” A gale force wind focused on Orlando, lifted him off his feet, and threw him into a nearby wall.
Mariana rushed to her husband’s side. He was alive, but he was unconscious. Raulin and Kylan knelt next to him, and Mariana whirled on the Queen.
“Stop this now.” She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat, and she pressed the wind back. The Queen staggered but found her feet again. “Don’t do this. We can settle this without anyone getting hurt.”
“I want to see you hurt.” The Queen raised her hand, and suddenly, Mariana felt as though her head had been thrust under water. She couldn’t breathe and dropped to her knees.
“Mother, stop.” Ramone said as he and Liliana rushed to Mariana’s side. Both of them were Water and Air Sensitives, and immediately Mariana’s breathing eased. “You could have killed her.”
“She is my daughter.” The King approached and stood between his wife and daughter. “This has gone too far. I didn’t want to lose my children to keep the throne.” He took the Queen in his arms, and said to Kylan, “I will give Mariana the crown.”
“No!” Queen Alexandria screamed and wrenched herself out of her husband’s arms. In an instant, she was on her feet and leaped at Mariana.
Ramone lunged toward his mother, and Mariana felt a rush of power wash over and through her. As her mother raised her arm to plunge the dagger into Mariana’s chest, the knife spun out of her hand.
Mariana stared into her mother’s eyes. Gathering all her anger and fear into one ball of force in her mind, she pushed it into the other woman, forcing the Queen against the wall. She st
ruggled against it, but Mariana held her tight.
“You have done enough,” the Princess said through gritted teeth. “You lied to me my whole life.”
The windows in the ballroom shattered and several pieces of glass imbedded themselves next to the Queen’s shoulder. Alexandria paled.
“You killed my mother, and tried to kill me and my husband.”
One of the chandeliers fell, and Ursula screamed. No one was standing under it, so that was only a reaction to fear.
“Mariana.” Adindira touched her arm. “You’re not going to kill her, are you?”
Not taking her eyes off Queen Alexandria, Mariana said, “She deserves it, don’t you think? She hates me and wants to see me dead.”
“You’re not her.” Orlando spoke weakly from the other side of the room. “She’s nothing now. She can’t hurt us anymore.”
Ramone went to his mother’s side. “It’s over, Mother. She’s the Queen, by Law. Let it go.”
Tears ran down Alexandria’s face. “All my plans. All my work. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
He turned to his sister. “Let her go, Mari. I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“I will take care of her.” Jonathan stepped up. He seemed older than Mariana had ever seen him, and it broke her heart. He looked at his wife, love filling his eyes. “Come, Alex. Let’s start over. Come be my wife again.”
Mariana released the hold and the Queen collapsed into her son’s arms. Liliana and Ursula followed as the former King and Ramone took Alexandria out of the ballroom.
Mariana dropped to her knees. “I destroyed it all.”
Adindira and Honoria knelt next to her and put their arms around her.
“You didn’t destroy anything,” Honoria said. “You just brought all the secrets to light. None of this was your fault.”
“Then why do I feel like I’ve lost my family?”
“Maybe there is a bit of damage that will take some time to fix, but trust me, it’s never too late to start again.” The Sahdess patted her shoulder. “Trust me on this.”
“And you still have us,” Dira said. “I don’t know what it’s like to be the sister-in-law of the Queen, but I’m eager to find out.”
Epilogue
A month after the challenge, Mariana and Orlando stood in the preparation room of the Royal Chapel of the Elements. Today she would be officially crowned Queen of Valborough.
She peeked through the curtains to look into the Chapel that had taken a week to prepare for this event. Eight separate alcoves, one for each of the Elements, were decorated with flowers and banners in the appropriate colors.
As part of the ritual, she would visit each one, accompanied by Raulin and two other Elemental Priests, say the ceremonial prayers, and take a flower. By the time she approached the main altar of the chapel, she would carry a bouquet symbolizing her service to all eight and, by proxy, all the people of the kingdom.
The seats were filled with both nobles and commoners, and as she had requested, Adindira’s family was seated in one of the front pews, next to her own siblings.
The rest of the rebels, or at least those who wished to come, sat right behind them.
“I wish my mother and father could be here,” Mariana said as she released the curtain. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she dropped into a nearby chair. “I did do the right thing, didn’t I? I feel like I’ve let them both down. If I hadn’t—”
Orlando placed a finger over her lips. “You did what you had to do. We all did, and it doesn’t do us any good to talk about what might have been. The Queen wasn’t well. You saw that. Her obsession with making Ramone the King had warped her mind.”
She nodded, stood, and took a deep breath to settle her stomach. “Isn’t it strange? After everything that happened, I still think of her as my mother.”
“I know, and I’m glad.” Orlando put his arms around her and held her tight. “It shows you have compassion and did love her. At least, we have the knowledge she is getting the rest and help she needs.”
Jonathan and Alexandria, now called Royal Sahdeer and Sahdess, had moved in with Ramone and Victoria in the Cognate Prince’s estate to the north of the capital city. Kylan and several physicians were helping the former Queen get over her anger. Jonathan was also working with Kylan to learn how to deal with the loss of his Abilities.
Mariana and Orlando had visited them several times, but Alexandria said she didn’t want to attend the coronation, as it was still too painful for her.
Ramone had offered to move off the royal estate since he had no claim to the throne, but Mariana didn’t want to make any great changes to the way her family lived. Too much had already been drastically altered.
“This marks the beginning of a better Valborough,” Orlando said, smiling at her. “You will be a great Queen.”
She sighed and tried to smile back. “I hope I will remember all the things Kylan and Liliana tried to teach me. At least they and Ramone will be here to help me.”
Brother Raulin came into the room. “Are you ready, Princess?”
“Everyone asks me and the answer is always the same,” she said. “How can I ever be ready for what awaits me?”
“A wise answer,” her uncle said. “If you always remember you are a mortal called to do a deity’s job, and never start thinking of yourself as the deity, you’ll be fine.”
“And I have people who love me who will help.” She took a deep breath and slipped her arm through Orlando’s. “Brother Raulin, can you give me about two minutes? I have something I need to say to the new Grand Prince.”
The monk bowed. “Of course, Your Majesty.” He quietly closed the door as he left.
“What is it?” Orlando asked.
“This last month has been so busy with instruction and moving our things from your house to the palace, we’ve barely had time alone.”
“We’ve never had time alone. I will never get used to the idea your attendants have to sleep just outside our bedroom door every night. It’s made our private moments less than I could hope for.”
“As soon as that crown is on my head, I will change that.” She giggled. “I’ve been a little shy lately because of it.”
“Is that what you wanted to tell me, because if it is, I’m thrilled but we didn’t need to banish Raulin for that. I suspect that man wasn’t always cut out to serve the Elements.”
“No, he probably dallied a bit with serving wenches or something in his youth. He seems to know a lot about what goes on between a husband and wife.”
Orlando gathered her into his arms. “I’m wishing you had asked for more than two minutes right about now.” He kissed her to show her exactly how much he wished it.
“My darling husband. You made me complete, literally. You gave me my powers and helped me defeat my father. You have my heart and my life. I love you more than I thought possible.”
“My life.” He picked her up and swung her in a circle. “I am the luckiest man in Valborough.”
“We both are lucky,” she said.
Raulin knocked. “Princess, it’s time.”
“We should go,” Orlando said, leading her toward the door. “We will finish this later.”
“Of course we will.”
Mariana held her head up high as she walked toward the chapel, where hundreds of her friends, family, and new subjects were gathered to see her become their Queen.
About the Author
Nancy S. Brandt is a stay-at-home mother of two children, a daughter, 25, who is an appointment's clerk at an orthopedic clinic and an editor and book reviewer; and a son, 12, who studies karate, and wants to be either an historian or an artist. Nancy's husband, Steven, is also an author and an adjunct professor of computer science at Louisiana State University.
In about sixth grade, an English teacher gave an assignment to write a descriptive essay. Nancy's was all about a wonderful cave filled with diamonds, emeralds and other precious gems. From that experience, she
walked into every English class hoping to get to write something, and she learned three things:
1. The difference between stalactite and stalagmite,
2. That fantasy was probably the genre she should concentrate on, and
3. Never end a story with "It was all a dream."
Nancy is a kidney transplant recipient (her husband was her living donor), a thyroid cancer survivor, and an Army veteran. She is currently working on the sequel to Pigsty Princess, called Questionable Queen.
Also from Nancy S. Brandt
Chapter One
The bedchamber on the top floor of the mountain hermitage was dark, and he was overwhelmed by the heavy odors of incense and lemon weed. Several monks of the Tinaldor Order, charged with caring for the dying and unwanted, hovered around the opulent bed, praying and waving smoldering sticks over the woman lying there.
Prince Varian, ruler of Tellan, entered the room and stared at the thin, weak figure.
His illusory disguise slipped a little when he recognized the face of Princess Violetta Eugenia Francine. As grief and regret dumbfounded him, the minimal concentration required for the spell was disrupted. Fortunately, the monks attending her were not looking in his direction when it happened.
As far as they knew, he was Emory, Duke of Wellsbury, an elderly relative of Violetta's from Andarnnon.
He grabbed the doorframe to steady the trembling that shook him. The urge to turn and leave this place was strong, but he had to talk to her, had to find out why she'd left him, why she'd stayed away and let him think she'd died.
Memories of seeing another wife, and an infant son, lying dead in their bed were still fresh in his mind. His heart ached to escape, but Varian wanted to be as strong as possible to hear whatever she had to say.
He took a deep breath and pulled himself together.
"I am gratified you came, Your Grace," Violetta said in a weak, breathy voice as he walked farther into the room. "There is much we need to discuss before I go to my final judgment." She attempted to sit up straighter in her bed but collapsed back onto the pillows, coughing.
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