It matters not whether you wear a crown, plough fields, or wear God around your neck. Everyone sustains the Garden of Blood.
It is said that many eons ago, the greatest of men rallied the people under one Silver God and ruled as emperor. Legend ha...
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It was too early... far too early for Nodalen to be awake. Queerer still that she would find herself not in her chambers at such an ungodly hour.
But the morning was unlike any the princess has had the disfavour of braving. Last night was similar in that regard. She thought mingling with ostentatiously habilitated glitterati whilst she anxiously awaited her barbaric espousal would be the worst of her living nightmares.
She thought wrong.
She had not anticipated seeing her father dead on the floor, looking like himself, but not quite, as blue veins crawled his cold pale flesh. She had heard poison was the culprit. She was beside herself with shock and denial. Who would dare poison the man she called father? Not just hers, but the father of Ferevis.
He was a good king, Nodalen thought. Was he not?
She remembered few things before that infernal scene. Her mother's screams cutting through the hundreds of gasps still rung in her mind. As well as the guards pushing the crowds back, securing the room, one of them hoisting her body over his shoulder and carrying her all the way to her chambers. She had not heard from anyone since then. She spent all night praying. Praying for her family's safety. Praying that her father would burst through the doors, pull her into his embrace, and tell her there was no need for her to worry.
No need for her to pray.
Sometime just before dawn, the guard stationed outside finally allowed her to leave, accompanying her to where she stood now.
Her father's room was massive. Paintings and tapestries commissioned from the best Palasia could offer hung on the walls, depicting scenes of the daily lives of commoners in Paravalley, hunting parties in treacherous forests, and feasts outside the Silver God's churches.
Ignoring them, she closed her eyes and breathed in, hoping she may still smell some semblance of King Aloden's scent. She smelled nothing.
Persistent, she made her way to his empty bed, curling up on the luxuriously soft eiderdown and burying her nose in the clean sheets. She inhaled. And smelled nothing still. Yet she kept her eyes closed, conjuring the illusion that she did.
"They've already changed the sheets, I imagine."
Nodalen jumped.
Stefalen leaned against the wooden frame of the canopy. How long he had been standing there, Nodalen did not know.
"Mother slept in her own quarters last night. I think she could not bear to sleep in that bed without him," he added.
That knowledge would have stunned no soul. She was told that it was common for Palasian kings and queens to sleep in separate rooms. Lords and ladies too. But not her father or mother. There were times when she would appeal to sleep with them, revelling in the warm comfort of their presence as she found herself nestled between them. She was too old to make such a request again. But it still pained her to know she would never experience that again even if she did.
