“You need your rest, My Queen. Too much of the night is not good for the child.”
Never one to entertain the tales of wives young and old, Taresa nevertheless cocked her head to feign listening. “I’ll be in, after a moment,” she promised her chambermaid. The woman curtsied to take her leave from the balcony. Taresa sighed, thankful to have another moment to herself, while still altogether anxious for the fire burning before her.
She had directed the attendants to keep the tower unlit. In the presence of such persistent light – one which bespoke of not only crime but the severity of its punishment – it seemed inappropriate to set the candles and torches aflame as though nothing stood amiss.
Hours had passed since her request. The brightest moments of the blaze subsided long ago, the flames threatening to extinguish themselves following their ravenous consumption of the monastery.
Yet, with the wood and vegetation of the grounds having turned to ash, the fire continued. Like ghosts, they appeared as paler versions of their former selves, promising to haunt the rest of the night.
A gentle knock rapped on her door. Taresa sighed. “A moment more.”
“Forgive me.”
Taresa swung around. Jameson’s fist remained curled before the edge of the door as he peeked his head in for a glance.
“Oh,” Taresa gasped.
“Your chambermaid said you were still awake.”
“I am.”
“I startled you.” He held himself between the door and its frame, unsure of whether to enter.
“You only disrupted my foolish thoughts.”
“Shouldn’t you be . . .” Her husband nodded to the empty bed.
“As should you.” Taresa beckoned him from the door before reaching for the flint and candle on the stand by her balcony. With a flick, the wick came to life whilst her husband shuffled to bed.
Jameson sat on the opposite edge, his back to her. She stood on her side of the bed, waiting briefly for him to turn and face her. When he did nothing of the sort, she rounded to approach.
The soft glow accentuated the somber tone he bore. His eyes sunken, his shoulders drooped, he spoke no words. Instead, he allowed his deliberate silence to speak volumes. Taresa turned to the balcony, where the faint light persisted from below. She placed her candle holder on Jameson’s nightstand before taking her seat beside him, along with his hand.
“Did your father ever speak of his rule?”
“How so?”
“Of the difficulties he encountered. The weight of the decisions which faced him.”
“He was a pragmatic man. He would tell of the edicts he made, the bickering amongst the nobles he caused, the results of his decisions.”
“But never of the toll it took on him?”
“He never shared his feelings about that. Or anything.”
Dawkin grunted. “Your father and my father had that in common — most of the time. You see, my father had this reputation of a man unfazed by the Throne. Unmarked by battle. ‘The Foxhunter’ they called him, a moniker he earned for ousting the spies Kin Foleppi had planted throughout Marland and Greater Afari. And growing up, I believed all the tales about him. How could I not? For whole stretches of my youth, he was gone. Away on some campaign or diplomatic trip, securing the future for Kin Saliswater.
“Then, in the past few years of his reign, he started to . . . He appeared different. Or maybe I was just beginning to appreciate a side to him that was there all along. He would have these moments, after a long debate with ministers or nobles, when he would tire all of a sudden. The fatigue, or something deeper, would unsettle him. I caught sight of such moments, perhaps a few times, at first not believing what I saw. It was, as if, seeing a man revert to a babe. Or witnessing an elder turn fool in their advanced years. Listen to me. I sound like one myself.”
“You don’t.” Taresa’s hand slid from his palm to his forearm, sweeping up and down in a gentle caress.
Dawkin’s mind went astray. The hand which comforted him turned from a rich caramel hue to milk-white. Startled, he looked up, finding not Taresa’s face but Cora’s.
Dawkin withdrew his hand. He shot to his feet, reaching out to the bedpost for support.
“We shouldn’t. I’m not the man you think I am.”
Perplexed, or hurt, or both, Taresa stood. She inched closer while keeping a respectable distance, careful not to startle him further. She moved within the periphery of is vision. Her hands, with fingers clasped, drifted before her abdomen.
“You hide it well,” Taresa stated. “All of you. Or at least you try.”
“What?” Dawkin asked.
“The burden. The one you shoulder every moon and sun.”
Dawkin ventured to glance upon her. He found Taresa staring back. Not with malice. Nor pity. Nor astonishment. Rather, her eyes presented an offering — an understanding.
“Father did the same. I sensed it, even when he had left a hall or chamber. Servants would scurry, overly concerned by his directives, short and terse as they were. Mother would fret, more than usual, about how I wore my hair or what Ermesinda said or what Nataliya ate. The signs, they haunted that bloody castle. And I hated it. I hated him.”
She stepped closer. “Then I saw it. Like you did with yours. Father, he . . . The Throne took its toll. Yes, he matured along with his reign, and in his rule, the matters which caused him angst in his younger years no longer troubled him in his latter.
“And yet, all that weight. The stress of a hundred-thousand decisions. They tore. They split. Bit by bit. Inflicting wounds so subtle, so deep, he never healed.” Taresa paused, looking off to the side as though remembering something long-forgotten. “James, I have a confession.”
Tears which never should have been there emanated, from an abyss he had never known of her or expected. “Go on,” he urged.
“When we first met, the prospect of coming here, marrying you, it frightened me. Not because of not knowing you. Because of knowing another, who, who would slowly break. And fall. I fear the hopelessness of standing by, of watching it happen, and not being able to do anything about it.” She pressed her hands tightly against her abdomen. “For the both of you.”
Dawkin – suddenly losing his inhibition – reached out to seize her hands from her. “I won’t let that happen. I won’t!”
“You alone will be the one ruler the burden will not break?”
Dawkin closed his eyes. Not one. Terran. My brothers. And I. Four. We will be what others have failed to live up to . . . We have to . . . We must.
Dawkin forced his eyes open. “Yes.”
For a moment, if only an instant, he saw it. A glimmer in her eyes. A wellspring of hope.
A distant thunderclap from beyond disturbed their peace. Dawkin squeezed her hands tight as he turned to the balcony. He motioned for Taresa to stay put while he strode outside, drawn to the rising glow suddenly eating away at the night sky.
Smallquarter. A section of structures had erupted in fire, their tongues lashing out at their tightly-packed neighbors, promising to consume them in seconds. Burning bright red – a hue unnatural to any fire he had seen – he knew its source, its meaning.
The threat soon found company to the west, where a line of tenements at the Curved Wharf exploded in a flash of blue-green brilliance. Their proximity to the harbor caused their light to ebb and flow with the onshore breeze, like the bioluminescent tide Dawkin saw every spring.
Randomly, other pockets arose. Some in a furor, no doubt the product of some catalyst the unseen enemy had conjured. Others occurred without haste, perhaps the work of a candle overturned in panic or a torch thrown from a drunk amongst a mob. No matter the particulars. The response to all would be the same.
The magistrates would answer the chaos with soldiers to support them. Crowds would disperse. Martial law would be announced. The reserves called up from the countryside. Along with the men-at-arms from every manor of the island, in answer to the edicts the scribes were drafting at this very moment.
All to meet an enemy, still unknown. Mayhaps one from The Continent. Tosily. Lewmar. Volkmar. Belgarda. All four. Or more.
Taresa came up behind Dawkin. She placed her hand on the small of his back.
“James . . .” she started.
“War is upon us.”
“I know.”
“I won’t crack. I will not break,” Dawkin assured himself as much as he did her.
Taresa held her breath. Along with Dawkin.
“I pray not,” she finally answered.
So do I, he thought. Dear Mar, so do I. 242Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYKQrlUS3A
