The Exiled Queen

Chapter 13

(art by @amagicdeeperstill used with permission)

"Your father is relentless. I can see where you've gleaned your overambitious nature." The Bomb interrupts my reverie, my moments of now fleeting bliss. She is standing in the doorway of the nursery, her chest plated in a shield of armour and heaving laboriously. Over her nose is smudge of black: soot, or dirt, or perhaps one of the powders she uses to concoct her explosives. She looks relieved to have found me, although her eyes are bright with high alert and she hesitates in the doorway anxiously. "The High King has called on the lower courts, the tree folk, even the wild fey, but there has already been so much slaughter."

I notice the Bomb's dappled brown hand trembling as she reaches up to push a wisp of hair from her forehead. My stomach drops and I stand abruptly, placing the sleeping princes of Faerie side by side into one of the cradles. I cross the room to the Bomb so that I can speak more quietly, "I will stay here and guard the twins."

She shakes her head, "But you don't understand. Orlagh, she has demanded your presence alongside the High King. Cardan has gone to her now with Nicasia."

"She knows. She knows Cardan truly did make me queen. Madoc must have told her, must have used me to entice her to ally with him. Cardan tricked her with this pretense of a marriage to Nicasia. And I've irrevocably let Madoc down, he's grown impatient."

"Which means--"

"Madoc and Orlagh both have no use for me. And they know Cardan will not just abdicate, not like this. There will be no bargaining today." I think of Madoc at his war table, how I used to watch him when I was a little girl, moving his "little dolls"--as Taryn and I called them--around the mapboard. Positioning wooden carvings of knights in clusters here and there, a carving to represent Eldred atop the hill. I think of how sometimes he'd use the figurine of himself to topple over another, and he'd stare down at the one he felled, laying on its back atop the war table, before gathering it up into his scarred hand and tossing it into the fire.

I wonder if he made a carving of me.

I say a quiet goodbye to Auron and Virion as they sleep, leaning into the cot to kiss their warm cheeks, and the tips of their pointed ears, to sweep my fingers over the fine silky texture of their dark hair. I don't know what will happen. But at least this time I get to say goodbye.

When I reach the hall the Bomb is arranging for a knight to stand sentry in the nursery, in addition to the guard posted in the corridor. I let her lead me through the palace until we stop at my old rooms. The Bomb unlocks the doors and sets the faerie globes aglow with a whispered breath. I am surprised to find that my rooms have been kept just as I left them. Tidier  than I had left them actually. Tatterfell must have cleaned before she was dismissed due to my exile.

 Rifling through my wardrobe I choose a dark brown tunic, a navy doublet, and thick black trousers and toss them onto my bed. In the bath chambers, I strip out of my clothes from the night before methodically; I try not to think of what is to come. The shirt has stuck to some of the bigger wounds over my back and rips away painfully as I peel it off.

The Bomb pops her head in at my sounds of distress and taking in my injuries she immediately fills the basin with water and adds fragrant drops of tea-tree and eucalyptus oils. I wince at the cooling sting as she dabs a dampened cloth over the scrapes, but the burn of the oils sink in leaving a numbing tingle. She dresses the wounds and then passes me my clothes and leaves the bath chambers. I dress hurriedly, and run a comb through my knotted hair and work it into a braid as best as I can.

In the palace stables, the Bomb and I mount one of the few remaining steeds and head out to the northern shore. I think of the last time I did this exact thing, except with Cardan at my side, riding out to meet the Queen of the Undersea, how that ended in my exile. I try to take deep, slow breaths to calm the racing of my pulse.