Rosalea did not finish her skirt before she fell asleep. It was a dark brown linen affair with green leaves embroidered on it, but her emotions had taken a toll on her. Before she knew it, Genya was tucking her into bed shortly after she had eaten something more proper for dinner.
She awoke the next morning to Ulric gently shaking her shoulder. She felt her whole body go tight with a wave of anxiety, but she recognized in his face that he was not still angry, and so she relaxed a little. “Good work with this,” he held up the embroidered skirt. Guilt immediately gnawed at her insides. Genya must have finished it, she thought. However, Ulric continued before she could correct him, “I have brought you some breakfast, here.” She sat up with her back against the headboard and some pillows as he put the tray over her legs. It was a fried egg with some fruits and vegetables. She didn’t love either of those, but she liked eggs.
“Thank you,” she said, sipping some of the milk with it.
He nodded. “Today is an important day. Nashota and the council have… found someone,” he seemed hesitant to get right to the point - something that he rarely struggled with. His face went from calm to somewhat clouded. It made her nervous, why was he talking to the council leader so much? “Nerric is a Myradulian noble who is quite good with weather magic, even at his age. I am to teach you both, and one day, if all goes well, you will… marry him.” He cleared his throat. “So, did you learn anything yesterday?”
It was a lot at once. Rosalea thought only briefly about a tantrum to get out of answering any of it. Marry a person named Nerric? A foreigner? Why? It was already bad enough that people saw her blood as dirtied by Uryans and her appearance was sometimes cited as an ill-omen, and she was sometimes called “albino” whatever that meant. But, yesterday had still sobered her outlook on her own behavior, and she said, “Yes.”
“I accept your compromise,” Ulric said. “Let us have our lesson outside today. Dress nicely. I want a good first impression.” He directed the last half of that to Genya more than Rosalea, and the maid nodded.
Ulric took a deep breath, and then, in a serious tone, “Rosalea, it is time for you to take your duties more seriously. No more dodging your lessons and stop sneaking around. You are a princess. Very soon you will take the lead of this people, and we are looking to you to guide us safely as times grow still more perilous. Only two Ieshan castles stand after Ninevah fell, and Restorell is assailed frequently. If we lived there, you would be at risk of capture every time you snuck out to act like a little squirrel in the trees. I do not want you setting an awful example for this Nerric that would be our king if all goes well.”
Rosalea felt cold, and she didn’t look at Ulric, who she could feel was staring down at her. He was silent. She waited a moment, not speaking. He didn’t speak, and she knew he was waiting for her to comment. She swallowed, thinking about all the people she knew around the castle just… disappearing. Attacks happened here too sometimes. Ulric had told her many times about Ninevah; he had been there when it had fallen. “I understand,” she whispered.
She thought she could feel Ulric smiling, though she didn’t look at him. Maybe she just imagined it because she thought he would probably be happy that he had won her over. Silence stretched on for several moments more. He surprised her again with a clearly stated, if quiet, “Thank you.” He left the room finally.
Rosalea took a deep breath, and then breathed out, as if it would clear the sensation of Ulric lingering in the room. “Genya, did you see Nerric yet?”
Genya seemed considerably less reserved about the situation than Ulric, which cheered Rosalea up. “I have, I helped set up his room just dow’ the hall. He says he’s fourteen years old, jus’ a year or two older than you, ‘n’ he seems like a very nice boy. He’s very pretty eyes,” Genya smiled. It was hard to tell what she really thought when she was being so obviously upbeat like this.
“Are they blue?” Rosalea asked abruptly, remembering the boy that had come the day before.
The maid raised her brows, “Why, yes. How’d ya hear about that?”
“I… saw them when I snuck out.”
Genya tilted her head, put her hands on her hips, “Don't make Ulric grump at ya any more, he’s right about that sneakin’ bit. It is really dangerous.”
Rosalea nodded and sighed. But, her mood picked up. The Nerric-person was already interesting to her.
Rosalea’s study had been adjusted to include two desks, and Nerric was standing there. He was almost a full six inches taller than Rosalea, and his skin was almost as fair as hers. He had bright blue eyes, and he smiled in a big way and bowed in a polished fashion. She suddenly felt shy as she curtsied back in the Myradulian way instead of the slight half bow Ieshan women usually did.
“Nerric, this is Rosalea O’Lindir. Rosalea, this is Lord Nerric of Telren, a Myradulian province. His family has had friendly dealings with our people for fifteen years.”
“It is good to meet you,” Nerric said formally. Rosalea nodded. There was an awkward silence.
“Let us go outside and begin the lesson,” Ulric said, moving things along, and Rosalea was suddenly relieved he was there.
Once outside, they toured the castle. They started with the gardens, and they sat in the willow-throne shaped for Rosalea’s great-grandfather, who liked to spend time outside. Nerric’s eyes bulged a little as he regarded the intricately woven branches, “Vitae mages did this?” he would ask politely as Rosalea moved to sit in it.
“Good observation, yes. It was formed so he could hold court out here. Rosalea has in common with her great-grandfather a love of the outdoors.” Rosalea nodded, and it made her feel that much better after her comparison to her mother yesterday. Her great-grandfather had been an excellent ruler. It was just that his children had not lived to be successors to the throne when Ninevah fell and took his children with it. She could almost feel that he had forgiven her for yesterday.
“Rosalea, this will be the focus of today’s activities. I want you to identify the benefits of magic in our daily lives, and I want you to be able to classify it as Nerric did. How did Nerric know it was vitae magic?”
“Because the willow tree is still alive and would not have grown naturally this way,” Rosalea answered readily.
Ulric nodded, “Good. What else in the garden is influenced by magic?”
Nerric looked at Rosalea, waiting to see if she would answer first. “Many of the plants are imported,” Rosalea said, “because you cannot find them normally in the desert. They live because we can give them water that nature cannot. Plant-based vitae mages work the garden to keep them healthy and rotate plants by season.”
Nerric added, “I can see that the water in the irrigation lines,” he pointed to the shallow ditches, “has been enchanted to flow that way. An imber mage must have worked with a terra mage to get the water to flow in such a manner consistently.”
Rosalea looked down at the water, and realized she had never noticed that it flowed slightly uphill in a few spots. She looked back at Nerric with some appreciation.
From the garden, they were taken around the castle. Flagstone, it turned out, had not been a wholly hard enough rock for the walls and foundation. It was, Nerric remarked, a pretty stone, he said everything at home was gray and black, but here the reds, browns, and even purples were lovely to look at. Rosalea had always found the brown sandstone as tedious as the brown landscape that stretched for miles around the castle, so the compliment interested her. Was Nerric genuine, or was different to normality just appealing to everyone? If she was to visit his home, would she find the gray and black stones pretty? Ulric made them study the walls until they could find the joints fused by terra mages to repair it.
After the wall and the garden, they were taken to the orchard and vegetable gardens, where some vitae mages were at work accelerating growth among the plants and harvesting from them… and a Myradulian slave with imber magic was moving water in a continuous stream among the plants. Nerric explained to Rosalea, “They can extend their imber magic outward around the water in a field, and then charge the water to disperse it. Once it is built like that, it is fairly easy to maintain because water likes to be with itself. I hear in a year two, you will organize your magic.”
“Ulric says that,” Rosalea agreed, but she often thought about breaking the rule. Yet, her magic would show clearly who she was most like magically - an Ieshan who could use that magic as soon as it was accessible… or a Uryan who must wait for an animal familiar called a liana. The idea was too big and scary, and she was afraid that she would find her magic as dirty as her heritage. But Nerric obviously knows magic already, so I wonder why Ulric is even pretending that this lesson is for the both of us.
“Ulric continues to say that,” he said, and moved them toward the stables and livestock area. “Because of Uryan attacks, and also occasional Myradulian raids, everything must exist within the walls,” he explained to Nerric.
The conversation turned instantly boring. Nerric was also obviously a well-trained noble, even at his age, and he asked a series of questions about the frequency of attacks, the logistics of sieges, and even how the desert landscape around them might play into visibility.
Rosalea had already heard most of what Ulric shared with Nerric about that, so she was rapidly bored by it all. She tried to change the subject. “Nerric, I have heard that Myraduil has dragons that control sections of it. Is that true?”
Ulric seemed pleased she was taking an interest, but Nerric’s answer was direct. “Yes. They have a council and several towns within the country that belong to them. I am from a human noble family, and we have maintained our own land for years. However, because of… certain pressures,” he looked to Ulric, and did not specify what those were, but Rosalea felt she knew what the look meant, “there was talk about ceding land to a dragon. They are very good at building towns with perfected layouts, even in odd areas. They foster a lot of wealth and prosperity, but the cost of having one is also very high and not of a type any one wants to pay. So, a different treaty was reached, and I am happy to be here.”
Rosalea tried to get him to keep talking to her. “Have you met a dragon?”
Nerric shook his head. “No, and I would not want to. They are the most powerful creatures there are.” He looked to Ulric and asked a question about whether or not any of the animals were taken to graze at all outside the walls.
He is here because they had to make a treaty with us or resort to a dragon. They did not want to resort to a dragon because it must be true that they take sacrifices. She wrinkled her nose. Was an orderly town and wealth worth a cost like that? She was glad that the people of Tellryn had decided it was not. She listened to them talk for a while, and grew bored again as Ulric explained what animals could and could not be trusted within the desert landscape - especially when plant-vitae mages could grow food as needed. It was actually more feasible to use the land around them for hunting, especially when there could be a Uryan attack at any time.
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She opted to move up to the fence. Several cattle and goats came right up to greet her. There hasn’t been a Uryan attack in my lifetime, not since the Ieshans learned a technique for blocking mental communication of Uryans with their liana. She rubbed and scratched itches for any animals that got to the front against the fence as several begged for her attention.
Before then, Uryans had always had advantages because their liana were with them. The animal familiars were supposed to be descendents of forest gods or something, and it supposedly gave the creatures power to see and speak only the truth. This apparently had allowed them to see weaknesses in the Ieshan defenses. She rubbed a white baby goat with blue eyes as she felt anxiety settling in the center of her chest again, But if I organize my magic and learn to use it, and it turns out that I am an Uryan… then I will not be Queen. And they will not consider me an Ieshan any more.
Ulric had tried to reassure her that if that happened, she would just have to have a kid, and that would be all right, Nashota and the council could wait for a rightful heir, but…
It still scared her and she was still afraid of what would happen if she stopped being an Ieshan when her magic revealed itself. She winced as the goat tossed its head as a cow pressed in for her turn and the head toss squished Rosalea’s fingers temporarily against the fence rail.
It smarted a little, but she went back to petting the animals as she tried to tune the two men out. All the same, a voice seemed to nag, You can’t avoid the truth forever, and there are plenty of reasons to know you will never fit in.
Rosalea ignored the inner worry and looked out at the barn, where some Ieshans were struggling with holding down a ram to stitch up one of his injured legs - he must have gotten hung up in a fence or in a scuffle, because he was bleeding pretty thoroughly on his chest, but he didn’t understand that the humans were trying to help him by hurting him with the pricking needle. Rosalea empathized with him, it looked really painful, and she hoped it would be over for him soon enough. She gave attention to another goat that had shoved her way up to the front of the fence.
Ulric and Nerric had come up behind her, and so she edged down the fence a bit more, not in any particular mood to deal with them and their technicalities, and also bored with the lesson just a bit. Obviously terra magic was of the earth, imber of the water, caelus of the air, vitae of life, and essa for the essence of magic. What good did it do to harp on it when Nerric already knew it, and Rosalea could not use it for at least another year or more? They were outside, but Ulric was as boring, repetitive, and awful as ever.
The situation at the barn escalated. The ram Rosalea had been watching suddenly tossed his head up and brained his handler against his horn and skull, who staggered back and let him go, hand covering a bleeding lip and nose.
The ram had more than enough of people restraining him and touching his injured leg, so the moment he detected that he was free, he bolted forward to escape. He lowered his head so he could batter his way through the fence and really get away from the humans that he did not understand were actually trying to help him. Rosalea realized almost sluggishly that he was coming right at her. The other livestock had already started to move out of the way. She knew in case the fence did not hold, she should move out of the way.
Rosalea was only just starting to take her first steps backwards when a heartbeat and a half later, there was a crash as the stubborn beast slammed his way right through the fence. The loud noise and the proximity of the animal sent her staggering back, but she found herself losing her balance from her heel catching her skirt behind her in a now futile effort to escape the situation. The beam of the fence shattered against the beast’s skull as she struggled not to just fall on her back in front of him.
Ulric reacted much more quickly than she had. Maybe his magic had cued him in that something was about to go wrong, and he had perhaps sensed the ram’s desperation to get away from his handlers. He had already come up behind Rosalea and grabbed her about the shoulder and pulled her in against his body. He put his other hand out and it connected squarely with the charging ram’s side as he yelled out some sort of chant.
Rosalea felt his magic somehow. It felt and appeared red in some abstract way as it was sliding through her in a dizzying fashion as he both held onto her and used his magic. The red magic forced the beast into submission, ultimately taking him straight into a state of unconsciousness. He hit the ground hard and slid along the grass.
She felt like she was going to faint: Ulric was obligated to smash her even closer to his body to keep her on her feet as he backed up. She was aware of him yelling in a distraught way at the other shepherds that rushed over to contain the break in the fence and to retrieve the limp ram.
Nerric was at her elbow, holding her up, “Hey now, you all well, my lady?” Ulric let her go then and showed his black temper to the two handlers. He also raged at the goats and sheep coming near the fence, perhaps also with his magic, because it sent them scattering back into the pen to get away from him.
Rosalea was barely conscious of it. There was a weird buzzing sensation in her brain that didn’t feel quite right. She tried to stand up and stop leaning on this strange boy, but her knees were so wobbly that she nearly tipped over again. “I… want to go inside now.”
Nerric glanced over at Ulric who was still tirading, and he nodded. “Certainly, yes. Please let me help you.” He put her arm over his shoulders and stooped down a bit to get more on her level and helped her make her way back to the castle.
The dizzy feeling didn’t fade though, more than once she almost fell forward, except that Nerric steadied her.
Before they had even reached the front stairs, Genya had already been summoned and was immediately reacting to the situation. “Ya’re so pale, what happened?”
“I think a ram scared her when it tried to flatten her,” Nerric explained, and Rosalea nodded. But it wasn’t that, it was this odd sensation of buzzing in her head after she’d felt the magic in her. Had Ulric accidentally used a little on her, and so she was fainting similar to the animal?
Before she knew it she was in bed, drinking from a partially full cup… she finished the water, and she was just so tired, it took her only a moment to fall asleep.
The dreams set in earlier than normal… and they were different somehow. She couldn’t say how.
She watched a woman with long black hair look back over her shoulder at something right before she shape-changed. Rosalea knew that face, the long black hair and yellow eyes. That was Lindir. She had looked back at the castle she had called home for so long.
She felt herself sliding into the identity of Lindir, and she tried very hard to resist it- she was not her mother! She would never be like her! However, she felt herself somehow soothed and gently pulled in.
She owned her own cottage… so much smaller, but so much friendlier than the cold and austere Castle Darius. She kissed Gaiden as he came in, and patted the wolf Hakon on the head.
A baby cry in the background caused her to move away. She pushed into the only room in the house, where a small child with hair so bright it looked almost silver instead of golden was crying for food…
And then came the sensation that time was rushing away simply too fast. Life was somehow perfect, and perfect things have but fleeting existences. She wanted to believe with all her heart that they could live safely here forever, but at the same time she was intensely frightened of a looming future that couldn’t help but come at any time. In any case, the headaches were worse and worse… and in the world of a fugitive queen, there was no forever. It seemed when she looked into Gaiden’s eyes, he also knew the futility of the future.
The dream shifted.
“Lindir!” Hakon had called to her urgently, “I am fetching Gaiden, you must head to the house. It has begun.”
The dream blurred, and Rosalea felt as if she were herself again. The first thing that she felt she saw was Gaiden’s face. He could have been Ulric’s brother in some ways. Gaiden had dark-brown hair much the same shade, and the sun bronzed skin and weathered faces also were similar. He was different in the way his eyes shone, different in the reassuring smile that did not reach the sadness and knowing reflected in his expression. He pushed Lindir into the only other room of the cottage, no matter how much she fought and objected. Then he shut the door with his strong hands and arms and Rosalea watched as Lindir screamed and beat her hands and body against it. A thump of something heavy suggested he had barricaded it shut. She beat her hands against it, “Gaiden, they are going to kill you! Gaiden!”
She broke into tears, “We could run, we could run,” she whispered brokenly, softly as she sank to the floor. It was her fault they couldn’t run. She was so weak. She could barely manage the little one. There were more thumps, these sounding more like they were coming from another door in the adjoining room. A crash. Breaking pottery, and the smell of oil and smoke. Heat radiated from beneath the door. She looked up from where she was crouching, something fierce in her reddened face and gleaming in her eyes. “But we could never hide, could we?” she seemed to ask no one in particular.
Rosalea watched her move to the middle of the room, where the crib was. Lying in the bottom was the same silver-haired baby from earlier. Rosalea realized with a jolt that it was herself she saw. “Nadia, I will never let this truth die,” she said stroking the baby’s head softly with her hand. “Get away from them. Get away from them with all your might.”
There was the sound of the furniture being thrown aside and the door burst open, the cottage was on fire, and yet men still poured into it. Lindir turned to face Ulric. Rosalea was struck again by how similar Ulric looked to Gaiden. But he was not Gaiden, Gaiden could be seen lying next to his liana Hakon in the next room, with a stillness only a lack of life can bring. He was certainly not Gaiden’s brother, but his murderer.
“Stop it, Lindir! You are going to kill yourself!”
Lindir only laughed at him, and mocked,“Your woman’s prophecy will fail, you baktya!” and dropped ungracefully to the floor - magic erupted along her skin like too-red fire and spread along the floor, as if it could draw a line between the baby and the murderer.
Rosalea jerked awake. It was completely dark. Her head and heart pounded as her blood raced. She rolled over in bed, shoving blankets away, a sharp clattering sound made her jump and squeak, but she realized it must be the sound of the cup she was probably still holding. She held herself still, trying to breathe and calm herself, but as the anxiety settled, all that was left behind was rage.
Ulric killed my father. It made her all cold all over. Especially when she thought of how very much she really hated and feared Ulric. He made my mother… she couldn’t help but re-see the determination on Lindir’s face as she knew she was doomed to either get dragged back to Castle Darius or try to thwart the Ieshans. Suddenly, the whole story she had always been ashamed of became a source of fiery rage in the pit of her stomach. She’d been lied to. Again and again and again, she had been lied to, and now they were trying to use that lie to control her.
Rosalea got up and moved across the hall. She wasn’t thinking about what she was doing; she was filled to the top with constrictive hot emotion, and it seemed to be what was piloting her down the hall to the brown door behind which she knew Ulric slept. He dared treat her the way he did when he had done what he had done? She pounded on the door. Ulric blearily opened it, dressed in a loose nightshirt.
“Rosalea?”
“You killed my father!” Rosalea shrieked at him. “You were there! I saw you!”
Ulric moved abruptly toward her, and even though she reeled back away from him, staggering into the hall, he caught hold of her by the throat; it was the last sensation she felt as her mind spun, and she lost track of everything after that.
***
“We cannot alter course when we are this close.”
“Please, sir! Every day, all I see is how willful she is, and she is so like her mother. She-” that was Ulric.
“Shh! She is waking up,” she recognized the other voice as Nashota.
She did not want them to know she was awake; she wanted to lay still and hope the pain in her head subsided… and she knew she was in trouble. She could hear lots of breathing and shuffling - there were plenty of people in this room. At the first footsteps toward her, she opened her eyes, and felt sick as she saw not just Ulric and Nashota, but the twelve other councilmen, all in their nightclothes and various states of barely dressed because of the hour.
Rosalea tried to sit up to scrabble back away from them, feeling panic as she was surrounded by a ring of older men, but the headache and sharp pain in her brain was so intense that she saw the edges of her vision go sparkly and black, and was too unsteady to move properly. She felt a grip on her ankle as the nearest reached down to grab her. She recognized the sensation, it was the same feeling as when Ulric had grabbed her by the throat earlier… and she did what she could to repel the magical buzzing creeping into her body, but as an untrained mage, there was little she could do.
She tried to swing out with her hand and slap or push people away, feeling panic singing through every sharp pain in her brain, but by then, two more hands were on her, and then more, and as her vision sparkled and she struggled, she knew she was no match for a fight this size. Maybe if she could just yell loud enough, someone would come...
“Princess, ya awake?” Rosalea blinked her eyes and her eyes took a moment to clear and focus on Genya bending over her. The woman’s face looked anxious. Rosalea tried to sit up, but the blood rushing out of her head was so immense that she fell back down and wondered if she was going to black out. “Princess?” Genya gripped her shoulder urgently.
Rosalea closed her eyes tighter as it felt as if the sound was trying to slice into her brain through the ear closest to her nurse-maid. “My head hurts,” she whispered, even the sound of her own voice hurt inside her head. The light that was leaking in through the window and over her face seemed to batter at her eyelids- also wanting a chance to carve into her brain.
Genya sighed gently, but sat, and brought Rosalea into her lap, rubbing her forehead. Roslea turned her face and buried it against the cloth of the apron over Genya’s stomach and closed her eyes. It was really the worst headache ever.
“Sweetie, wha’ happened last night?” the Dyran nurse asked softly.
Rosalea thought back, but her head ached with stabbing pain. “I think… I think... I think I fell on the floor and hit my head.” It felt wrong, but she didn’t know why, but she thought she could remember falling. She could remember getting up, walking a short distance, and then blacking out. There was just… nothing. She clung to Genya harder.
“Just res’, the feeling will pass, it’s all right. Ulric told me he found ya and brought ya back ta bed, ya’ll feel better soon.”