My Beloved Queen

PROLOGUE

o. the fates

monster
// black were his eyes. black as tar—black as the charred remains of a body burned in the fire. but blacker still was his heart, burned by humiliation and fear, blistering and peeling under bars of cold white bone.

————

The witch's milky blue eyes narrowed, and her pale, papery thin lips curled into the shape of a disgusted frown. "What do you want?" she hissed. Her voice was sharp—unfriendly—like the blade of a sword, or the fangs of a viper.

The king stood in the doorway to her home in the woods. His body was outlined in gold, but war clung to his fair skin, and death stained his cold iron armor. The stench of it climbed up the witch's nostrils, and her glare turned scalding.

"Is it different?" The king's voice was not like the witch's. There was no resentment in his tone—in his face. His dark eyes were empty, void of any anger or offense—cold, like the iron sheathed at his hip.

Fire curled up the witch's chest, making her throat warm and drawing her pale lips back from her yellow teeth. "Is it different?" she snarled in mock imitation. She whirled to face the king, fury burning in her blind eyes. "Is that what you want? Is that why you kill and maim and torture? For change?" She lifted a curved, bony finger and pointed it at the king accusingly. "You are as foolish as you are cruel. Destiny does not bow to any man, regardless of the sword he wields or the skulls hanging from his belt."

The king's empty eyes flared with anger for a brief, frightening moment, and he stepped toward the witch, his gloved hands flying to the hilt of his blade. Then the anger was gone, and the king's face was flat once more. He was young, the king. But he did not look so. There was a hardness to his face, a jadedness that did not belong in the eyes of the young.

"Everything has a breaking point, witch." The king's empty, dark eyes stared unblinkingly back at the witch, and the hand that had flown to the grip of his blade fell back to his side. He moved closer to her, but the witch did not back away. "Now tell me—is it different?"

The witch glared at the king, but reluctantly turned her gaze back upon the silver mirror. At first, all that lay before her blue eyes was her reflection—pale and leathery and painted with the same bitterness that swam in the king's eyes—but then she saw it. A picture—a painting in the mirror. A vision.

Future? Present? Past?

It was blurry, and the witch squinted at it. Something moved in the picture—the false reflection—but she could not tell what it was.

"It's gone fuzzy again." The words were forced past her clenched teeth, and she raised her gaze to shoot the king a scathing glare. "Too many possibilities. Too many futures." She swallowed, and the fire in her stomach flickered. "How many did you kill?"

The king's dark eyes narrowed. "There was a battle." His gloved hand came back to the hilt of his sword, and he grasped at it almost absentmindedly. "The enemy refused to cooperate."

The witch clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on the silver mirror. "I wonder why." She looked back at the false reflection and the image shimmered and then grew sharper, cleaner. The blurry edges and muted colors brightened and became clearer, and the witch brought her face closer to the mirror's surface.

A hand. An eye? No, no it was a ring. A face. A nose. An arm, holding something. Someone?

A woman, and she was...

She was...

The king? The king, yes, he was—and she—

She...

"No." The witch drew back from the mirror. Her eyes were wide, and fear and shock rippled across her face. The fire in her stomach had been snuffed, and now her chest was cold, and her throat was tight. "No, no—that isn't right. You can't have that. You shouldn't—they wouldn't—"

But she was there. And so was the king. And the child was in her arms, and he was at the throne. But it was still intact, it was still golden. The stained glass mirrors weren't broken. The king's head—his young, bitter head—was still resting on his shoulders, and there was no blood on the floor.

There was no death in his eyes.

"That's not right!" The witch's grasp on the mirror loosened, and it slipped from her fingers and would have shattered on the floor if the king had not moved forward to grab it. The witch's voice was shrill, piercing. "That's not fair!"

The king rose back to his full height, the silver mirror now in his arms. "What are you talking about?" His voice rose to match the witch's, but confusion muffled his tone, and his dark eyes were narrowed with suspicion. "What's wrong? Witch? Witch, are you listening to me? What's wrong?"

"It's not fair!" the witch wailed. Disbelief swam in her gaze, and her milky blue eyes began to gloss over with something akin to tears. "The gods would never let you have it! They wouldn't! They cursed you! They cursed you and they wouldn't—they would never—"

"What are you talking about?!" the king yelled. The anger was back in his eyes—hot and fiery and burning. It was in his voice, too. Warming his teeth and coating his tongue with a sharp, passionate taste.

The witch's wide, frightened eyes focused back on the king, and then she screamed. "Get out! Get out!"

Something heavy slammed into the king's chest, and he stumbled backward, away from the witch. He tried to regain his balance—to right himself—but the world pulled and swam around him and he went toppling to the ground.

And his most recent future went with him.