by David Estes
Gill had told Cecilia time and time again that, in her current condition, she didn’t need to attend court. But she wasn’t about to let swollen ankles and a round belly stop her from being seen at the side of the withered king, nor her prince. She loved the feeling of importance, of seeing the grand red curtains bearing the rearing-horse sigil of the west surrounding her, of resting her hand on the back of the queen’s modest white-marble throne, which she longed to sit on.
And she loved the way Gill fussed over her. “Are you warm enough?” he asked now, offering her a blanket a servant had brought.
No matter how many times she told him that the child within her was like a fire heating her from the inside, he still expected her to be cold for some reason.
Just to see his smile, she accepted the blanket. “Thank you,” she said, raising her chin for a kiss. His lips met hers, briefly, and she whispered in his ear, “Though I’d prefer to have your unclothed body as my blanket.”
She adored the way his cheeks turned pink. Most of the time he was as self-assured a ruler as his father, but anytime she discussed matters of the bedroom with him in public, he became as bashful as a princeling. Just to get an even better reaction, she was tempted to reach behind him and squeeze his rump, but before she could, the next matter arrived at court.
To Cecilia’s surprise, a young boy was hauled into the large chamber by two members of the furia, the righteous order of female warriors that maintained lawfulness in Knight’s End and the west as a whole. Their skin was as pale as shells bleached white by sun and salt. Their eyes were narrowed and as sharp as scythes, framed by straight, crimson hair. Their strides were strong and crisp.
Though she recognized their importance in maintaining order in the realm, the furia scared Cecilia.
The boy, however, wasn’t fearsome at all. He was no more than twelve, with tousled chestnut hair and a splash of freckles across his soft, pudgy face. And yet his ankles and wrists were shackled, tethered together with thick, clanking chains.
The boy’s bright blue eyes were moist, and seemed to be pleading for someone, anyone, to help him. What has this boy done? Cecilia wondered. There were plenty of young thieves who worked the streets of Knight’s End, but typically they were caught and had a hand chopped off. Perhaps they spent a day in the Temple of Confession, forced to scrawl their sins on the rough stone walls. But that was it. They were released and commanded to sin no more. And usually they didn’t, because there was little mercy for repeat offenders.
But thieves were not brought to the king. Even those who committed more grievous crimes, like sins of the flesh outside of the marriage bond, were dealt with swiftly and mercilessly by the furia, their faces carved with a W for Whore. No, this boy’s crimes were almost certainly more serious. Could he have killed someone? Cecilia wondered.
The boy was shoved roughly to the floor, his chains clanking around him. He cried out, and when he lifted his hands they were skinned and bleeding.
“What is your name?” King Ennis asked. The question was a tired one, spoken by tired lips.
The boy looked up, the king towering over him on the raised dais and throne. “Th-Theo,” he stammered. “Yer—Yer Highness.”
The king sighed deeply, which apparently caused a tickle. He coughed several times, loudly, and then cleared his throat. “And what is your crime?”
“I dinnit do nuthin’, I swear it!” the boy said, his expression suddenly coming alive with determination. As if anything he can say at this point can save him, Cecilia mused. If the furia brought a matter to the king, the boy’s fate was likely already sealed.
The king looked at the furia on the left, who happened to be the taller of the two red-clad women. She spoke: “The boy is sinmarked.” The furia were trained to speak simply and without deception, and, unlike all other citizens of the kingdom, not required to refer to the king as “Your Highness.”
Despite their simplicity, however, those four words caused a stir in the court. Ladies gasped and covered their mouths. Lords shuffled to and fro and whispered to each other behind their cupped palms. Cecilia gripped Gill’s hand, thankful for the steadiness he was always able to provide.
She’d never seen one of the sinmarked before, and though his appearance surprised her—he seemed naught but a young, scared, harmless boy—her heart beat at a rate twice as fast as normal. For all she knew, this boy could summon fire from the ground and burn them all; or take on the strength of a hundred bulls and smash the court to bits; or pry deep into their minds, twisting them like coils of rope until they’d all gone mad. She’d heard the stories of the sinmarked, of their demonic sorcery.
But the boy didn’t do anything except cover his face with his hands and cry, his entire body shaking with each sob.
“Show me,” the king said, and though his tone was still weary with age, there was a sharpness in it that Cecilia hadn’t heard for many months.
One of the furia accepted a torch from a castle guard who strode forward. While the other red warrior held the boy’s dirty, bare foot, she shone the light across his heel. Cecilia stared at his skin, which suddenly flared with life. A mark. A sinmark. The mark was that of an arrow with feathered quills, a narrow shaft, and a sharp point. The furia retracted the torch and the mark vanished as if it never existed at all. The effect was…unnatural. Cecilia felt queasy inside. Perhaps sensing her unease, her baby began to kick.
“It’s naught more’n a birthmark. I swear it!” the boy said, tears trembling on his chin. The tears wobbled and then splashed to the ground.
“What dark power does this mark give him?” the king said, ignoring his pleas and speaking directly to the righteous warrior.
“Perfection in archery,” she said. “He won four consecutive tournaments before we caught him.”
The king nodded gravely, as if winning tournaments was a sin beyond redemption. But Cecilia knew it wasn’t that the boy had won those tourneys, it was how he’d won them. Despite the heat inside her, she shivered. She couldn’t look at the creature before her as a boy. Not anymore. It was unnatural to have a mark that could only be revealed by torchlight. Unnatural to have inhuman power. The sinmarks had appeared more than a century earlier, and were thought to be Wrath’s punishment of sinful parents, a curse upon babes in their mothers’ wombs, summoning forth demons in the place of children.
Now that Cecilia was with child, she hated the curse on their land. Not a day went by that she didn’t fear her own child would be born with a sinmark. Though unlikely—royal statisticians had determined the likelihood of being marked was less than one in a hundred thousand—the lowly odds hadn’t staved off a regular nightmare for Cecilia, one that had started before she even realized she was pregnant.
“I feel ill,” Cecilia whispered now.
Gill didn’t hear her, his attention focused on the boy. The room started to spin, and sweat trickled down her back, dampening her dress.
The king stood slowly, his joints creaking. “Under western law, there is no mercy for the sinmarked,” he said.
The boy cried harder.
The world turned to fog before Cecilia’s eyes, and her legs lost all strength. She was forced to clutch Prince Gill’s arm to prevent herself from falling. Finally, her husband noticed something was wrong. “You look pale. You need to rest,” he said. He spoke softly, careful not to cause a scene. The prince was ever sensible, though it was clear he was concerned for her, his brow wrinkled and his lips a tight line.
With the barest apology uttered to his mother, he helped Cecilia through the side door and away from the throne room.
Before the door closed behind them, she heard the king’s ruling. “Execute him.”
There was the piercing shriek of a knife being drawn from a scabbard.
Water dripped on Cecilia’s face. Strong hands gripped her own. A calm voice told her to “Push! Push! Push!” Pain erupted from below, pulsating up through her body. She released a ragged scream, a sound so unlike any she would normally make that for a
moment it stunned her.
And then there was relief and the wail of a child and the sound of Cecilia’s breaths coming in waves.
Blinking blinking blinking the sweat from her stinging eyes.
“It’s a boy, Princess,” the midwife said. “A beautiful baby boy.”
The squalling babe was placed in her arms and she cried tears of joy, dripping from her chin and onto the child’s head, which was a mess of birthing fluid and blond hair.
Her smile vanished, however, as she saw something on the babe’s tiny chest. A red light, brightening, turning yellow, then white. Forming a symbol.
A sinmark.
“Execute him!” a voice shouted, and this time it wasn’t the king, but her husband, Prince Gill Loren. He approached them, a knife glinting in his iron grip.
“Please, no!” Cecilia screamed, trying to shield the child. Trying to hide the mark, which pulsed with light between her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Gill said. And he raised the knife…
Cecilia awoke screaming, thrashing at the covers, which seemed to be trying to strangle her. The sheets were pulled back, and cool air swarmed onto her skin, which was soaked with sweat. Gill’s face appeared, his hands reaching for her. “No! No! No!” She slapped at his hands, swiped at his cheek. He backed away, a look of confusion spreading across his face.
“Cecilia,” he said. “It was only a dream. A night terror.” Naked, he stood and lit a lamp using hot embers from the hearth.
Slowly, slowly, the images from her nightmare faded into reality. She was naked, too, her stomach bulging. She settled her hands on her round skin, rubbing up and down, up and down. She was still pregnant.
Only a dream. Not real. Only a dream. Not real. She repeated it several times in her head, until her heart stopped pounding.
“Can I touch you?” Gill said. His voice was still calm. She loved him for it.
“Yes,” she said. He slid across the bed and took her in his arms, his skin a rush of cool next to the heat inside her.
“Was it the same dream?” he asked.
“Yes. Our boy was killed.” Like always, she didn’t tell him he was sinmarked, nor that it was Gill who’d killed him.
His lips pressed against her forehead, lingering as he spoke against her skin. “Our child is healthy and strong.” He placed a hand on her belly. Right on time, the baby kicked. The prince laughed. “See? Nothing to fear.”
“I hope we have a girl,” Cecilia said.
“Would that make you happy?”
Oh, Wrath… “Yes.”
“Then I hope we have a girl, too.”
Alas, it was not meant to be.
“Are you disappointed it’s not a girl?” Gill asked, letting the babe’s tiny hand grip his thumb.
Cecilia smiled. Though she was exhausted and sore from the ordeal of childbirth, she’d never been happier. Her nightmare had not come true. For one, her husband wasn’t even there for the birth, and afterwards he’d arrived with a knitted crown—not a knife—which he placed atop their son’s head.
The child—Roan Loren they’d named him—slept in her arms, swaddled in the softest linen blanket they could find in all of Knight’s End. Cecilia was happy because his chest was pale and smooth, not pulsing with light like in her recurring dream.
“No,” she said. “He is our child, and he is perfect.”
Gill moved his hand from the babe to her cheek, cupping her chin. “My heart is torn in two,” he said. “You have half. Roan the other.”
Warmth spread from her chin throughout her body. It was the warmth of gratitude. Wrath had blessed her in so many ways. This man would never hurt her son. He would make a great father, teaching the boy the mysterious ways of Wrath and the true path to the seventh heaven. Roan would be loved. And one day he would be the king of the west.
The door opened without a knock. One of the furia stepped inside the room bearing a torch, her pale skin dancing with orange and red streaks of light. Cecilia had the strange impression that her crimson dress was soaked in blood. She shivered. What is this woman doing here?
“Gill?” Cecilia said.
“This will only take a moment, my love. We have to set a good example for the realm.”
A tremor rolled through her bones. “What example?”
“That we are not above Wrath’s law. It’s no more than a ritual. Pass the torch over the prince. Declare him holy and unmarked.”
Images from her nightmare flashed through her mind, but she shook them away. They weren’t real. Gill looked at her with love, not violence. Though he did have an ornately forged knife in a hip scabbard, it was purely ornamental—the Prince’s Dagger it was called.
The woman approached, raising the torch.
Cecilia held her breath as the orange light passed over Roan’s tiny face. The babe continued sleeping, oblivious to the ritual being performed. “Remove the wrapping,” the woman said, her tone devoid of emotion. Gill started to peel back the cloth, but Cecilia stopped him.
“Let me,” she said. He nodded. First, she slipped the blanket away from his shoulders, then one arm and his two legs. A triangle of cloth remained draped across one arm and his chest, which rose and fell with each slumbering breath.
Cecilia paused only a fraction of a second before uncovering the rest.
She breathed out sharply when his skin remained pale and smooth.
Unmarked. Thank Wrath. Thank the heathen gods of the south. Thank the sun and the stars and the—
Red lines began to form, curving along the child’s skin, creating a strange pattern that seemed to make no sense until the lines came together, blazing forth with a bright light in the shape of a three-leafed plant.
“Oh, Wrath,” Gill said, desperation in his voice. “Why?”
Cecilia’s eyes flooded with tears, but she blinked them away so she could re-cover her sleeping babe. She held him to herself protectively. Let this be another nightmare. She pinched herself. Wake up. Wake up, Wrathdammit! She’d never cursed before, not even in her own mind, and certainly not against her god. But now she cursed him with all her fury.
The furia didn’t say anything, just retracted the torch and dunked it in a nearby washbasin. The flames sizzled and hissed as they died. When she turned back to face them, her eyes seemed to glitter darkly. “The boy is cursed. But you have a choice.”
Cecilia blinked. “What choice?” She’d never known the holy warriors to be merciful, but maybe they had to be when it came to the monarchy. Maybe there was a way out.
“Who will send the boy back to the underworld from whence he came? One of you…or me?”
“No!” Cecilia screamed. “You can’t have him! He’s mine!” Because of the commotion, Roan awoke, unleashing a high-pitched wail that she barely heard. Still holding her son, Cecilia swung to her feet, her teeth bared, daring the furia to try to take her child. I will die before you touch him.
The red-cloaked woman didn’t react, simply looked at the prince. “The choice is yours,” she said.
Incredulous, Cecilia’s eyes darted from her husband to the furia and back again. “Gill?” she said. “Please.” Tears trickled from her eyes, trembling down her skin.
Roan continued to scream, his tiny mouth searching for her breast.
“I’m sorry,” the prince said. “The law is the law. There is nothing I can do.”
Cecilia bit her lip so hard she broke the skin. The warmth of blood joined her tears. This was the man she married. Devoted to Wrath and his laws. Unerring in his obedience. Holy to a fault. The man she loved. The man she now hated.
“I’ll do it,” he told the furia, who only nodded. He drew his knife.
All fight went out of Cecilia, who felt numb, broken. She crumpled to the floor, cradling Roan as he shrieked. He screamed so loud he was having trouble breathing, his wails interrupted by choking sobs.
And then his mouth found her breast, and he quieted, suckling hungrily.
Gill crouched beside her, and there
was only sorrow in his eyes. “I only wanted for you to be happy,” he said. His words were truth. His words were a lie.
“Then if you kill my son—your son—kill me too,” she spat. She tossed back her head and exposed her neck. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins. Blood she no longer wanted, not if the cost was her child.
Her husband stared at her, horrified, indecision flickering across his face. “I—I can’t—I don’t know—”
“You have a choice,” the furia repeated. “Give him to me. Leave in peace. I will do Wrath’s will.”
Cecilia could see the moment the prince made his decision, a strange light entering his eyes. An almost blank look, like he himself couldn’t believe what he was about to do.
He stood, his grip tightening on the knife’s handle. And, just like in her nightmare, he raised the blade over his head...
And spun, whipping his hand around so fast there was no time for the furia to react, the dagger entering her chest, her heart. Her mouth gaped open, blood already bubbling up from her throat. Her eyes widened, and then she collapsed.
“Gill?” Cecilia said, shocked by the turn of events. “Gill?”
Roan stopped eating, falling back to sleep.
Prince Gill Loren, future king of the west, turned to face her. “Go,” he said. “Take the child back to our bedchamber. I will take care of everything.”
In that moment she knew she’d love her husband until the day she died.
She also knew she’d do anything to protect him and their son.
Two years later
“Mama,” little Roan said, reaching for the baby girl, who was on Cecilia’s breast. Her latch was strong, and she was very hungry. Hungry and strong and healthy, she mused, just like Roan.
“Baby,” Cecilia corrected, helping her son to be more gentle.
“Baboo?” Roan tried.
“Your baby sister,” Cecilia said. “Rhea.”
A smile lit up Roan’s face. “Ree-ree,” he said.
“I guess she has her nickname,” Gill said, crossing the large bedchamber. He swooped in and picked up Roan, twirling him around as he giggled.
