“Who wishes to contest for the throne? We are past hiding behind theory. Declare your intentions.”
For a moment, the Assembly sat in silence. I sneaked a glance at Ferdas. He was as bewildered as me. In three brief sentences, Kershid had brought the dawdling Assembly to heel. Immediately before this, we had been discussing whether mules could sire offspring (it had been tangentially related to a discussion about farming).
I was not ready for this. I desperately wanted to return to mules.
Hadil broke the silence by announcing, “I nominate Quenela, Emira of Viziéra as the next Queen of Ghalain, recommending her for experience and long years serving in the office of Viziéra.”
“Emira Quenela,” Kershid said.
Quenela nodded, her cheekbones suddenly higher, her whole more queenly. “I accept the honor of Emir Hadil’s nomination. Would anyone contest me?”
Silence reigned. Mentally, I urged someone, anyone, to declare their support for me. Refusing to peer about, I fixed on an unassuming spot upon the wooden patina of the table.
“I call for a vote then,” said Kershid. “You have before you slips of papers, quill, and ink supplied. Simply write ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ fold your ballot and drop it into the bowl.”
“Wait!” exclaimed Idrees of Ariya, his pale grey eyes, startling against the duskiness of his skin, snapping with indignation. “Ye or Nay at this point is presumptive! Surely there is another claimant.” I remembered that Quenela had famously jilted Idrees’s suit for marriage, many moons ago. It suddenly seemed likely that there was someone else in the room who did not want Quenela as Queen.
“Will there be anymore nominations?” Kershid asked.
“I nominate Selene as Queen,” announced Hadil.
Incredulity carved itself into everyone’s faces, except for Quenela who watched with nonchalance.
“You do recognize that you nominated Emira Quenela as well?” Liem said in mild disbelief.
“Certainly. And I believe Selene deserves the chance to answer questions, but I am confident that her responses will inevitably prove that Emira Quenela is the better of the two, and Emira Quenela’s talents will make her worthiness plain to all.”
Although Quenela appeared satisfied by this explanation, I was not alone amongst my peers in my confusion...Perhaps Quenela wished to humiliate me before the rest of the Assembly and thought that an open contest for the throne was the most public forum to do so. Still, I drawled, “As dubious of a nomination this is, I accept.” Appreciative laughter rippled through the room.
Then, the noontide bells rang, ending the day’s meeting. But there it stood. I, Selene Lilah Khamad of Aquia was a claimant for the throne.
***
In spite of the strides made during this Assembly meeting, we found ourselves mired once more and months passed as we navigated the labyrinthine swamp of politics and intrigue. Quenela was nominated. I was nominated. Corrine was nominated then refused. Idrees tried to win a nomination, but found no support. Fyodor tried to convince Aunt Lyra to press her claim, but she subtly shifted her support to me. But there was still so much left to address, and with the Queen still alive, the Assembly was content to let it drag. Winter was a dull Season anyways.
“Selene!” A warm voice jolted to me to reality. I blinked owlishly as a young woman in red velvets bore down on me. Despite trying to maintain my distance for Kershid’s sake, I found that he was right—to know Avera was to love her and we had grown close over the past months. In between studying political treatises and Assembly meetings, I spent a great deal of time with her.
“Good morning, Avera.”
She shook out her hair, a white-gold courtesy of her Hadmerian invader forbearers. “How do you feel?”
By this point, which I figured to be approaching six months, the burgeoning bump was obtrusively evident, but other than a few days of aching and sickness, I felt as well as ever.
Avoiding silver-brown rain puddles, we meandered through the blossoming garden. The manicured hedges, carefully pruned trees and graceful statuary were no match for the vine-tangled Letern Woods. Sometimes, I wished I could scamper back, climb up that plum tree with a book and remain there until the end of my days. But Emira-Regents and claimants for the crown do no scamper and they most certainly do not tramp about overgrown forests.
Avera’s crimson jacket was sodden and no doubt her feet had lost feeling as well. I, in comparison, was dressed warmly in a long blue wool coat and envying Avera her trim waist.
She shivered against a burst of wind. “Come up for a cup of tea?”
“Yes, please!” However well-wrapped I was, I could no longer feel my nose.
In her warm, sitting chamber, we shed our many layers and revealed gowns of matching raspberry.
“The silk bazaar near the temple?” Avera said knowingly.
I wrapped my hands around the hot porcelain cup, letting the steam warm my face. Once our cups were empty, Avera said, “The Queen wishes that I bring you to her. Do you care to come?”
Cautiously, I replied, “I thought the Queen was indisposed to receive visitors.” However, this opportunity thrilled me. I had been dropping hints about how much I would appreciate an opportunity to speak to the Queen to Kershid and Liem for the past month. The Queen’s blessing, if I could win it, would go a long way in helping my case for the throne. And simply speaking to her, this woman who had reigned over a stable Ghalain for near thirty years would doubtlessly be highly edifying.
“Mother Erina does not make public appearances anymore, but family is free to see her. Come! Don’t be nervous.” She turned to me as I lagged. “She is a fierce lady, but gentle. After my mother’s death, she became like a mother to me. You have nothing to fear.”
Flitting ahead, Avera led me through a pair of silver and green tapestries to a guarded staircase. Clambering up the squeezed passageway, we finally burst into a glare of light that revealed a sprawling room with high windows and dangling crystal chandeliers. It smelled strongly of fragrant, out-of-season roses
I followed Avera into Queen Erina’s bedroom. I held my breath against the sweet and sour stench of illness that sat heavily in the air.
“Hello, Mother,” whispered Avera to the lump of mauve blankets. She dismissed the attendant beside the queen with a firm flick of her hand.
There was some stifled muttering and the covers shuffled as a head of pure white emerged, crowning a startlingly unwrinkled face. The silvery curtains were drawn against the white winter light, swathing the Queen in shadow. “Who have you brought Avera?” Her voice was surprisingly strong, not the feeble, sickly croak I had expected.
Beckoning me, Avera said, “Mother, this is Emira-Regent Selene. She is a friend of mine and your sons.”
I neared the Queen’s bedside. “Good morning, your Majesty.” I curtseyed for good measure. She might have been a bedridden old woman, but she was the Queen. She reached out a claw-like hand and felt my face, my stomach. I tried not to flinch.
“Ah. And who might be the father?”
It was a rudely posed question, but then again, she was queen. “My husband, your Grace. Lord Gwydion, son of Wiliem of Altus.”
“A wealthy match,” she said frankly.
I nodded.
“An ambitious family.”
“Indeed.”
She coughed, a scratching, hacking sound. The handkerchief crumpled in her fist shined with clumps of blood. I fought the urge to cover my mouth.
Once her fit had subsided, she asked, “And what brings you here, Selene?” Despite her illness, she was briskly businesslike, a queen to her core.
“I come to visit you. I come to Aquia for the Assembly.”
“And is your business ruling or reproducing?”
As my mouth worked soundlessly against the air, like a fish futilely trying to draw breath, Avera came to my rescue. “Emira Selene is much respected for her brightness. Calenda of the Thirds Council was more than suitably impressed.”
The
Queen turned her attention to me. “Tell me, Selene, for while your acumen may be admired, you are no great hand at court intrigues and I can tell exactly why you have come here, how would you handle a bad harvest year?”
Trying not to think that my chance at the throne, the opportunity to break the curse, may very well rest on this quiz, I choked down a feeling of nausea that had nothing to do with pregnancy. I answered slowly, my mind flicking back the pages of the ponderous texts on economics I had studied. “I would lower taxes at varying increments for each socioeconomic class, granting relief to those at the bottom by creating jobs for road repair and forestry and the like, depending on how bad the harvest had been. Once farming became able to support the people, I would lower the accessory work forces.”
Nervously, I watched for Erina’s reaction. While Avera dimpled in support, it was Erina’s budding smile that told me I had passed. On this question at least, for the Queen peppered me with a dozen scenarios, testing my problem-solving abilities. If my answers were not lifted from books, then they were extemporaneous inventions, but they appeared to function, to impress.
At the end of the examination, she pronounced, “You display a sense of government, a good foundation to learn on, that few possess even with years of experience. And I like you better than that cat Quenela and that dunderhead Hadil and the other idiots who want to rule Ghalain. Seasons know that none of the other have made any real effort to seek my approval.”
She sighed bitterly and in that moment, I perceived a woman who had once been the center of power, relegated to a dark corner by the mere and inevitable passage of time.
Seasons, may I never know that grief.
“You have my blessing and support. I hope we shall speak again.”
A wide grin stretched my lips and cheeks, an almost pain spreading across my face. Softly, I pecked the Queen’s cheek. Her ochre eyes widened.
“Of course, your Majesty. Thank you, your Majesty. Thank you.”
Her gnarled fingers grasped my chin. “I knew your grandmother as a girl. We kept in touch until her death, Seasons rest her soul. She always spoke highly of you.” Erina coughed again. “But if I learn that you are unsuitable in any way to rule Ghalain, I will rescind my endorsement, and you would be twice damned a fool if you think you could recover from that.”
“Of course, your Majesty. I understand.”
“I hope you do,” she answered. “You are dismissed.”
Not weighed down by Erina’s admonishments for too long, I nearly skipped out of the room, arm-in-arm with Avera.
“You were excellent!” she squealed.
“Thank you,” I grinned.
With a chiming laugh, Avera departed with a promise of a walk tomorrow after lunch.
As Avera disappeared around the bend, Liem appeared from where Avera had vanished.
He beamed. “Avera just told me of your victory with Mother. I commend you, Selene!”
Laughing excitedly, I enveloped him in a friendly hug, which he returned with an affable squeeze.
“Why Selene. You do manage to become...entangled with the most odd people.”
I froze and then leapt away from Liem’s grasp at the sound of that most familiar voice. I was utterly shocked, surprised, horrified to see him before me, and I knew for a fact that all those emotions played openly upon my face, which would inevitably lead him to draw his own conclusions.
There he stood, sardonic smile splintering: Gwydion.
Chapter Seventeen