My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

warning: nsfw (non-explicit/insinuated)

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xxxi. the king and the joyful

wonder
// a wandering wonder. a shooting star, sparkling with all the brilliance of a moment. beauty lies in the now, in the temporary—moments that do not last forever, but which continue to echo well beyond their end.

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Silence perched upon the queen's seat. A mocking smile was pulling at its wide mouth, and it sneered at Orelus from across the table. The queen took her time—took it sweetly, delicately, in that graceful, careful way of hers.

She must see the world in shades of rose, but perhaps that was merely the fault of her silver tongue.

The silence gnashed its crooked teeth, and a low, long hiss escaped its snarling lips, but it set its thin hands down upon the table and then tapped at the wood with one of its claws. Its pus-colored eyes were narrowing, and it glanced pointedly at the door before looking back to him.

She thought too highly of gods and men. Violence was common ground, and only the rarest of men ever rose beyond it. What were words without action? What peace was won without blood and flesh? The gods, themselves, stooped often to murder, and why would they not? Men were insects to the divine: worms and dogs mulling about in the mud and the sand, barking and screeching and howling at everything and nothing, but at least they had cause to kill. Cause, even, to die, though perhaps even Orelus failed to recognize a reason great enough for death.

Why seek out what had always been perched just at his neck, waiting and watching and wishing for the faintest crack in his resolve?

The queen prayed to Edite. She thought an assassin capable of discussion. She was a fool, and if she did not learn from her error, her rosy eyes would get her killed.

Life was harsh. Life was cruel.

The silence snickered, and then it placed both of its hands flat upon the table and leered at him.

Her eyes had been so wide, so devoid of color and light. Terrified, but the assassin had been bound and beaten; he couldn't have killed her, even if he'd tried.

She walked on feather feet; she had a voice of silver, and her smile was as soft as down, but must her vision be rosy? Must she think so kindly of the world? It would not treat her so graciously. It would ruin her; Qodes would see to that. The queen of the gods respected nothing, not even the bounds of her kins' domains.

She would learn her lesson; cruelty did not come without its price.

Perhaps it was hypocritical of him, then, to allow the queen to fall prey to such viciousness, but if she thought to halt the coming of a war with words alone, then she should put her theories to practice. The assassin wasn't going to harm her. He couldn't have; Orelus wouldn't have allowed it.

The silence clucked its tongue and then whistled.

Orelus would bring them peace from the gods, but men were another breed entirely.

The door opened, and the silence jumped down from the queen's chair and slunk off to wait in the shadows. Orelus's gaze rose from his plate, and his eyes found the queen. She crossed the room with careful, light strides, like a dream, or a cat, but there was a now novel bounce to her heel. An odd, firm sort of brightness, spilling from her raised head and proud chest. Where had all that trembling gone? All that wide-eyed, pale fear—the sort that pressed like nettles at his own skull and left a sour taste in his mouth. Where had it disappeared to?