Bright sunshine greeted them as they stepped out into Manolia and were hit by a wave of warmth. Ryn sucked a big gulp of crisp, clean air into his lungs.
Mum. Dad. Cleasor. Find Vorr. Get Vorr. Kill Vorr. Get away from Nuthea.
Built onto the border wall on this side was a small stable. Here they were greeted by two more female guards wearing the same tunic and armour, with the same golden hair. Ryn supposed that Nuthea wasn’t that special after all.
Although they don’t wear that royal circlet. And their hair doesn’t shimmer quite like hers does. And they’re just not her… Argh, why am I thinking this? Shut up, inner monologue!
The guards went wide-eyed when they recognised Nuthea, though rather than peppering her with questions they then bowed their heads.
“Take me to the palace,” said Nuthea. The stables held yellow cochobos and golden chariots with golden wheels. Was everything made out of gold in this country?
They were able to fit four to a chariot, so they took two, with Kathuna and one of the soldiers driving two cochobos each, while the other soldier stayed behind. Ryn made sure to take a different chariot from Nuthea, and held on to the side of one with Cid and Vish as the soldier lashed the reins and the cochobos cawed and began to run.
And then they were galloping over the Manolian plains, plains of lush green grass, out of the shadow of the Pelnian mountains. The sun blazed down from a clear sky. It was definitely hotter here than in Imfis, but the breeze from riding in the chariots whipped at their clothing and kept Ryn cool.
White buildings rose in the distance. Ryn squinted. He could see the vertical lines of pillars, rounded domed roofs. Orma was built somewhat differently to the towns and cities he had visited on his journey thus far.
Soon the chariot wheels were clacking over streets of paved white stone. But not dirty, off-white like in Sirra. The road and buildings here practically shone, and almost hurt Ryn’s eyes to look at. He supposed that the stone must be quarried from the Pelnian mountains, but the Manolians seemed to take better care of it than the Imfisi.
Indeed, now and then they passed someone scrubbing at a wall with a brush or patch of paving with a mop, or lifting a sponge to clean a window.
That was when Ryn realised that all of the people doing these things were men. Men dressed in simple, dirty, servants’ clothing—brown breeches, overalls, or just rags. Cid hadn’t been joking when he said that the women were in charge here…
The women, for their part, appeared to walk the streets at leisure, and were dressed either in flowing white togas or, occasionally, the same tunic and armour that Kathuna wore. Some of them did double takes when they saw four foreign men riding along in a couple of military chariots. Some noticed Nuthea and gasped and muttered to each other, turning their heads to watch her pass and pointing after.
The chariot turned onto a broad road which led up a small hill to a domed palace.
Ryn knew it was a palace for its opulence and position. Three huge white buildings stood next to each other at the top the hill, sunlight gleaming off their many windows and their domed roofs, making the air above them shimmer.
Of course, the domes were made of—
Gold. Like Nuthea’s hair.
“Shut up,” Ryn mumbled to himself.
“What was that?” said Cid next to him.
“Nothing, sorry…” Ryn’s cheeks heated.
They drew up in front of the palace, and the Manolians reined in the cochobos right in front of its massive golden doors. Another pair of guardswomen ran forward and began to protest, but then Nuthea jumped from Kathuna’s chariot.
“Hush! It is I, Princess Nutheanna.”
“Princess!” the soldiers exclaimed at once, halting in their tracks and dipping their heads just as the others had done.
“What do you wish of us?” one of them said when she had re-gathered herself.
“That is more like it.” Nuthea gave a curt nod. “Escort my companions and me to my mother at once.”
The guards looked at each other, then at Ryn and her other companions.
“But princess, there are...men with you.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? You heard what I said!”
“Yes, princess!” the pair yelped in unison.
“Please, come this way!”
“The Queen’s council has just been in session, so you should still be able to find her in the throne room.”
One of them knocked a short, particular rhythm on the massive doors to the palace and a moment later they eased open.
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Ryn barely had time to take in the splendour of the palace’s rooms and corridors as they were swept down them by the guards in the wake of Nuthea, who paced through them like a woman possessed by some maddening spirit. The floors and walls were polished white stone; the ceilings held up by pillars of blue marble. As they ascended a curved flight of stairs, a huge, gold-framed mirror reflected the dishevelled forms of Ryn and his traveling companions back at themselves. They looked severely out of place. Several more guardswomen posted at key points frowned quizzically at the party as they approached but then inevitably deferred as soon as they saw Nuthea.
Eventually the princess shocked one final pair of guardswomen into letting them through another huge set of doors that opened into a large, oval chamber walled with the same white stone as the rest of the palace.
The room was huge, and filled with wooden chairs arranged before a tall stone throne on a raised, stepped dais. A second balcony level ringed the wall, built a little over half way up it, with rows of wooden benches and a guard-rail to stop people falling off.
Light fell into the room through high windows near the domed ceiling, concentrated by their positioning on the dais and throne that stood at the far end of the chamber.
Two more guards holding spears stood in front of the dais on either side.
On the throne sat a figure.
As big as the room was, it was hard to make out her features at first, but as Ryn walked towards it with the others, the sounds of their footsteps echoing around the vast, eerily quiet chamber, he saw more.
The Queen stood. The first thing that struck Ryn about her was how big she was. Even as they approached her throne from across the hall, Ryn could see that the Queen was exceedingly tall—a good seven feet, he reckoned, much taller than Nuthea.
She wore a floor-length white dress interwoven with patterned gold thread, much like Nuthea’s dress had looked before it had been torn, bloodstained and bespattered with dirt, mud, river water and all manner of other things on their journey.
The Queen’s white feet were bare where they peeked out from under the hem of her dress. Her hips were very wide indeed. Her bosoms were gigantic underneath her dress. Her shoulders were broad.
He had expected her hair to be golden, like Nuthea’s and apparently everyone else’s here, but instead a waterfall of straight, dark hair fell down her back, stopping at her waist. She had the same unapologetic beauty in the lines of her nose and cheeks as Nuthea, only it was a more taut, strained beauty here; a crueller beauty.
On her head she wore a simple, shining, many-pronged golden crown.
In short she was majestic, and Ryn was utterly terrified by her.
As they arrived in front of the dais the Queen fixed the party with two piercing blue eyes with crystals dancing in them—those eyes were almost exactly the same as Nuthea’s—and Ryn felt as though she was looking directly at him.
Silence, for a time. Nobody announced them. Sweat moistened Ryn’s forehead. He couldn’t meet the Queen’s gaze. He wished she would stop staring at him.
As if hearing Ryn’s thoughts, the Queen transferred her gaze to Nuthea at last. Her expression was hard, her mouth a thin line. She drew in a deep breath.
“Why?” the Queen said in a clear, proud voice that was deeper than her daughters, and had a very slight tremor in it.
It was an odd sort of greeting. The silence lingered on a moment longer.
“Mother, I am so sorry.”
Nuthea suddenly broke into a run towards her mother’s throne, moving as if to climb the steps, but her mother held up a hand, and the two guardswomen stepped forwards and crossed their spears in front of her.
“Stop there, child,” said the Queen. “Do not presume to so easily approach my throne.” Her motions and speech seemed stiff and controlled, as if she was dealing with some great inner conflict or holding some force of emotion at bay. “You had the favour of this throne once, Princess Nutheanna, but you discarded it carelessly, and your actions... have had consequences.”
“Mother; I am so sorry for the pain I have caused you.” Nuthea’s own voice trembled a little. “And the Alunas. But I couldn’t marry Vivenna. I didn’t love her. And anyway, that is not what I have come back to Orma to talk to you about. Mother, I have important information to share with you regarding the Primeval Jewels—”
“Speak carefully!” Was the Queen shaking? Ryn could not say why, whether it was from anger or some other emotion. “We are in the presence of servants and...foreigners.” She glanced at Ryn and the other members of their traveling party, then looked back at Nuthea.
“We can speak freely in front of these people, mother. They are my friends, and they know everything that I have to tell you anyway—well, most of them know almost everything...” What does that mean? “They helped me to return here.”
“Yeah,” said Sagar, “about that—some of us were promised a reward--”
“Not now, Sagar!” Nuthea snapped without even looking at him. “You will get your reward in due time!”
Sagar turned a very pleasing shade of purple.
“Why?” said the Queen again. “Why did you come back?” Ryn couldn’t read her. Was she cross, or sad, or afraid, or all those things at once?
“I had to come back,” said Nuthea, “after I was captured by a Morekemian officer.”
The Queen inhaled sharply. Tension radiated from every line of her body. “You were already… you were captured by the Empire? How did you escape?”
“That doesn’t matter now, mother, what matters is what I have to tell you.”
“Say what you have to say, and take care over your words.”
“Mother, I am so sorry. An Imperial Officer called Vorr captured me while I was traveling in Imfis after I ran away when I inadvertently revealed to him my knowledge of the Primeval Jewels. I told him where we keep the Lightning Crystal, and I told him where the Fire Ruby was hidden. He captured me and took me with him to Efstan to look for the Fire Ruby, which he...” Her eyes flicked to Ryn and back. “Mother, the Morekemian Empire have the Fire Ruby. I’m so sorry. The One forgive me, I’m so sorry...”
Silence.
The Queen’s face remained tense, but unmoved, her eyes on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Nuthea said again after a while. “I know I made a mistake. Many mistakes. I know I let you down. Please, say something mother!”
The Queen lifted her eyes to regard her daughter with such an intense stare Ryn wondered if lightning was suddenly going to leap from them.
At last she spoke in a hushed voice, tremor now barely concealed. “Is that all you have to say to me, child?”
Huh?
“Yes…?”
The Queen’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
From the way Nuthea lifted her face and smiled sheepishly, she seemed relieved too. “At least I didn’t tell them where the Earth Emerald was hidden.”.
“NO!” yelled the Queen, high and shrill, face turning bone-white. “DO NOT SPEAK OF THAT! YOU ARE IN DANGER!”
Something fell from above like a diving swallow and hit the Queen in the front of her neck. She fell forwards at once, making a horrible choking sound, and writhed on the dais, clutching at the arrow that protruded from it.
Ryn looked round in horror.
The arrow had come from the balcony, where a score of black-armoured Imperial soldiers holding crossbows looked down on them.
A deep, sadistic laugh rang out through the throne room.
From behind the throne, where he must have been all this time, stepped General Vorr.