The Exiles

30a. Battlefare

Rita could feel the buzz in the air like those cables strung between wooden poles to bring light to fancy homes back on Earth. Electricity, they'd called it. An invention by an extraordinary human. That same strange kind of buzz filled her veins now. Warning folks — don't touch me, or ye shall burn. That was the warning given to villagers and curious nosy-bodies. She wished all those who touched her then would burn too, and not bright like the sun's nurturing rays, but roaring, enraged flames of wildfires. All-consuming. Destructive.

All-day she'd been touched. First by Rava, moving in for a victorious kiss until his unholy hands singed from her still intact marriage oath, and her haggard, raw animal appearance suddenly repelled him. He ordered a small battalion of handmaids, some as young as Nessa and others as old as her mother-in-law, to help her clean up and look the part of his future Queen and stormed off as if she'd offended him.

Rita could have thrown up at the prospect of ever kissing that frog—if she'd had the energy—or buffet away the strong, small hands used to handling princesses or flours in the kitchen, grappling at her frail body, freeing her from her prison world. Leave me, she wanted to say, let me rot away here, for how could I even think to part from my family?

As two of them slung her crusty, dirty arms, weak from malnutrition across their shoulders — trying not to retch at her ungodly smell — Rita wondered if she could ever truly go through with this, break her vow, cast aside her family as if they were nothing. Just air and water. She tried to speak again, but her voice was scratchy, like a newborn bird. Or is it the trinket? Did Lady Euphim betray me with her sweet voice? Alas, Rita had no energy to yank that necklace off her neck, not yet.

But now she'd agreed to this union, Rava would have no need to gag her with spells and trinkets, would he? After all, no man or woman bound by marriage could ever go against their other half without dire consequences. Perhaps that will be my end.

She took comfort in that thought as they carried her through the dark corridors of the dungeons, upwards to the light, to supposed freedom. But that's not what it felt like. She was trading one prison for another, worse, and a part of her knew she'd do it repeatedly, go from prison to prison if it meant her children were safe. Safe and away from her.

The sunlight, too bright, seared her vision. The wind, too cold, pressed its thousand needles into her skin. Noise of the keep, stirring awake, filled her ears to the point of pain, yet Rita could do nothing, nothing but hang from the arms of the women carrying her through the opulent corridors of her once-and-future-home. Her children had been born within these walls. Young Amer had run right past her into that grand hall there, chased by young Ursa in a flutter of laughter. 'I get you, I get you, big brother.' Oh, and on that window, Attin had almost fallen out and over the ledge at that small age when everything looks worthy of being climbed and conquered.

As the windows whooshed by, Rita's memories flooded in, and she had no will or desire to stop the sweet torment.

'Mama, how do I look?' Oria was a vision, dressed splendidly in a dazzling gown, barely old enough herself. Rita smiled at her child as they whisked her past the grand doors to the balcony. That had been the day they had introduced baby Amer to their subjects, and oh, what a proud big sister she had been. Her Oria. My sweet child...

Tears trickled down Rita's cheeks silently. It was the only thing she could do.

How am I to live without you? Without you all?

Later, scrubbed to an inch of death, doused in fragrant oils and flowers in her neatly braided hair, done up in a crown upon her head, Rita stood before a blasted mirror, barely able to glance at herself dressed as a bride. Why had she not perished before this? How could she be standing there in one piece instead of shattering into a million little pieces from her broken heart? Why wasn't Ovek thumping down the corridors with his men and rescuing his bride from a living hell? Why wasn't anyone trying to help her? She'd been a good Queen in her time. Caring. Kind. Generous. So where was their generosity? These women who were helping her dress, as if she were a lifeless rag doll, similar to the ones Vanylla still played with. Why were these very women she'd helped once not returning the favour? Why weren't they helping this rag doll from renouncing her family and marrying a despicable man? How was she expected to accept such a selfish man? How was she expected to welcome him into her bed? To love? She couldn't. Never.