Palace Walls

Part Sixteen

Dreams pelt my skull's craggy walls in bright painted dreams. They swirl with soft fields of lavender and twinkle with blue-white stars I only see when I sleep. As my eyes open, I feel like I walked through my entire life within the moonlit confines of one night.

--from the diary of Lady Keturah Djere de Djere

Lady Keturah couldn't believe her eyes. The Queen sitting before her wasn't the still-faced beauty she'd met at the bonfire, but a sobbing, stringy-haired mess of pink-powdered flesh. Even the emerald rings of her fingers rusted with tears. She took a deep breath and patted the Queen's bobbing black head. I've never seen her like this before, she thought, She's always acted so strong, so sure of herself and her People.... Could this be it? Could she finally be crumbling?

The Queen lifted her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, with pink bubbling around her soft brown irises. Most of her face was pale, slick, and shiny, but her nose burned dark-pink. Her mouth trembled as her brows knit together and tears streaked her rouge-splotched cheeks. Keturah froze. Should I hug her? Or will she push me away?

"Baby," The Queen's voice was low and hoarse with tears, "Baby, come here. You're hurt; I can see it in your eyes."

"Y-Yes, I remember the King and Queen," Keturah quavered, "They were almost...too kind."

The Queen unfolded one broad, pale hand. Crimson nails curved into crescents as emerald rings winked like eyes.

"Hold my hand," she whispered, "I want to feel your warmth; these days, I've been so...so...cold."

Lady Keturah wrapped her own unadorned hand around the Queen's. She shivered. Her Majesty was right; she was ice-cold. The pain in the Queen's sobs, the tension in her muscles...she reminded Lady Keturah of when the Mother Oracle died, all those years ago. She recalled the wrinkles and pale, hollow gaze of the dead old woman's eyes, the bulging blue veins and brown splotches of age, the gaunt, claw-like fingers curling toward the sky...!

Mama! Lady Keturah's eyes fixed to the glossy marble floor. Two small tears dripped down her freckle-splotched cheeks as her chin trembled into a blur. She buried her face in her hands and winced like a hurt child.

"Baby," the Queen's voice tore through the darkness as she stroked her lover's red hair, "Baby, shhh. I'm here. Whatever can weigh so heavily on my pearl's heart?"

Lady Keturah lifted her head. She could hardly see Queen Clotilda through her teary-eyed haze, and a chill curled over each bump of her spine. What to say, what to say...why am I scared? I shouldn't be scared? Goddess, goddess, goddess...!

"I...I don't know," she stammered, stomach lurching, "I feel like I...I've danced with shadows my whole life, and this is my...my first light."

"In what way?"

"Well, I...I've never seen you face such a challenge before. Never in all the days of your reign, have you cried or reached out to anyone. I hate to say it, my pearl, but...." She bit her lip. "I used to think of you as a cobra."

"What are you implying? My stoicism never meant heartlessness. Am I nothing more than a slithering beast?!"

Heat pooled in Keturah's cheeks as a single drop of sweat dripped down her spine. 

"I-I understand, but before I knew you, like, really knew you, I thought it did."

"You're one to talk, being created by artificial means."