Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  “I’m not.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  She shook her head, making her green pigtails flop around. “Nope, now I’m making two entries.”

  Privet rubbed his brow and turned his head away in frustration. That’s when he noticed something. At the back of the room, a dark figure was watching them from behind a potted plant.

  “Wait a minute.”

  Privet stood up and stomped towards the back of the room. The dark figure ran for the exit, but Privet was too fast and cut him off.

  “You've been following us all day,” Privet announced as he reached down and plucked up the dark figure by the collar.

  “Just who are you?”

  Privet held the figure into the light, revealing the face of a pale young man.

  “Alder?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Down here underground, amongst the roots of the Royal Tree, the magic was very strong. It filled the air like a sweet perfume, making one’s skin tingle at the touch of it. Each time Queen Forsythia took a step forward, flowers and grass spontaneously sprouted up around her bare feet.

  Hazel lay peacefully on a pedestal of living wood. Her dress and hair floated around her, as if she were underwater. A pillar of sunlight gently descended on her from a window above. Floating flower petals drifted in and out of the light. Kneeling beside the pedestal, taking her hand in his, was Balen. The Queen noted he was still wearing his wedding clothes, which had become dirty and worn from weeks of wear.

  “I’m told you haven’t left her side since she collapsed,” Queen Forsythia said coolly.

  Balen started a little at her voice, but quickly composed himself. He stood up and bowed, his hand over his heart. “Mere rumors, my Queen, I have a cot in the corner.”

  Queen Forsythia leaned on her staff in a courtly manner. “I cannot help but thank you for such devotion. You honor my house, and I am proud to have you a part of it.”

  Balen shifted his weight from foot to foot. “But, the wedding never took place, I am...”

  “In her heart, you were hers and she was yours,” The Queen said graciously. “That is good enough for me. We can work out the details later. For now, it would please me greatly if you would wear this.”

  Queen Forsythia held out a silver pendant in her hand. Intricately designed, it displayed the family crest of the Forsythia household, a stonehawk perched on a mountain top, a cattail held in one claw, a magnolia in the other.

  Balen took the pendant carefully. “I...I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”

  Queen Forsythia nodded graciously.

  “I think I have a pin here somewhere, so I can put this on my lapel,” he mumbled, rummaging through his pockets. As he pulled out a handful of flotsam, the Queen noticed an old, worn badge among the items.

  “What is that?” the Queen asked curiously.

  “Oh, it’s something your mother gave to me,” Balen shared as he found a pin amongst the pocket lint.

  “May I see it?”

  “Yeah, sure. Be careful though, it’s pretty old.”

  Queen Forsythia held out her hand and took the badge. While Balen affixed his family pendant the Queen examined the badge carefully.

  “This is an old ranger badge,” she concluded.

  “Yeah, can you believe it? Turns out, when she was in her thirties, she spent a few years as a ranger. She served as a scout during the Florentine rebellion. “

  Queen Forsythia returned the badge to him. “I never knew. We were never as close as we should have been.”

  “No time,” Balen said distantly as he looked at the badge.

  Queen Forsythia templed her fingers atop her staff. “No, she made time for me, but I did not take advantage of it. I wasted it enumerating my grievances with her. I always assumed that there would be more time later. I thought we would have a lifetime together. Before I knew it, she was gone, and I could not even say goodbye.”

  For a moment, they both stood looking at Hazel. Her hair floating about, the sunlight on her skin, she seemed to exist outside of time. Only the faintest hint of breath escaping her lips indicated her tenuous grip on mortal life.

  “The healers don’t expect her to wake up, but I think they are idiots,” Balen said brightly. “I say, all she needs is a little rest and then she'll be right as rain. She’s long overdue for a vacation anyway. So, don’t worry about saying goodbye, plan on saying hello when she comes back to us.”

  The Queen smiled faintly. “I appreciate your optimism. It is a precious commodity these days.”

  Balen walked up and moved a stray strand of hair away from Hazel’s face. “What do you think she was like back then, when she was a ranger?” he wondered aloud.

  “I know exactly what she was like,” The Queen said stoically. “She was strong, so strong that she thought she could escape her fate. Strong enough that she believed she could break the bars of the wooden cage into which she was born.”

  Queen Athel turned and looked at Balen. “But she found out there was something stronger than she could ever imagine.”

  “What was that?”

  “Her love— for her family, for her friends, for her forest.”

  Balen thought for a moment. “It must have been hard for her.”

  Queen Athel leaned her head forward, her eyes distant. “It was the most difficult thing she had ever done, but she did it out of love.”

  Balen chuckled. “Everyone called her the ice queen. It is strange to hear her described so warmly.”

  “But you knew she was caring.”

  Balen nodded. “Yes, deeply so. I would watch her from day to day. She was always concerned for each of her subjects, always thinking about them. I honestly don’t know how she did it. I know it is not my place, but I think it was too much. Too much for any one person, but somehow she did it, year after year.”

  Queen Forsythia placed her hand on Hazel’s arm. “She did the best she could; she did what was necessary. She did what was right, and even when people hated her for it, she never held it against them.”

  Queen Athel closed her eyes.

  I’m sorry, mother.

  * * *

  Captain Sykes could feel the room spinning around him. He had been a sailor most of his life, so swaying and rocking were so familiar that they went completely unnoticed. Spinning, however, was a new sensation. His entire body was covered with large, weeping black boils. The pain was so intense, it frequently robbed him of consciousness.

  He stared at the nearly empty bottle sitting on his desk. In all of his career, he had never drank while on duty. Not once, even after the Iberian border wars, when he was awarded the Medal of Courage and promoted to Left-tenant. But now he was forced to drink, because it was the only clean thing left on the ship.

  Captain Sykes looked at the boils on his arm. Each one felt like a hot coal had been placed underneath his skin. His whole body trembled in agony. Looking up, he saw his Medal of Courage sitting in its display case. He had been so proud of it back then. Now, it felt so empty, so meaningless.

  He coughed painfully. One of the boils on his tongue popped. Drops of blood dribbled onto his desk. He used a handkerchief to clean it up. Portraits of his family hung on the walls around him. His father had been an Admiral, his great-grandfather a Rear-Admiral. He had always been so proud of his Navy heritage. Now, after watching the tidal wave wash over the Wysterian coastline, for the first time he felt ashamed of it.

  Loyalty. That word used to be so simple. It was something you either had or you didn’t. An element of character, immobile and immutable. But now...

  Left-tenant Iarti knocked on the cabin door. Captain Sykes knew it was him, because he always used a rhythmic tappity-tap-tap. Probably part of the Nayzer national anthem or something. Nayzerians were famously patriotic.

  “Come in,” Captain Sykes answered, trying to compose himself against the spinning room.

  Iarti stepped in as best he could. He was also covered in bla
ck oozing sores. “We just received orders from the Admiral. All ships are to advance and destroy the island.”

  Captain Sykes didn’t turn around. “And how are the orders received?”

  “So far, no ship has moved.”

  Captain Sykes moved to don his hat, but instead left it on the desk. “Assemble the sailors.”

  A few minutes later, the crew of the St. Downing assembled on the quarterdeck. They were mere shadows of their former selves. Starved and withered, with sunken eyes, they fought to simply remain on their feet. Every last one of them was dotted with blisters and boils and wracked with fever. Some had too many sores on the bottoms of their feet to stand, so they dragged themselves on their knees. The sound of their violent coughing was a constant background noise.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Captain Sykes said with a dry voice. “I speak to you today not as your Captain, but as a fellow sailor caught in the same predicament as you are. Over the last twenty-four hours, over a dozen islands have withdrawn from the League and joined the Wysterian Alliance.”

  The crew nodded knowingly. None of them looked like they had slept in days.

  Captain Sykes held up his letter. “I just received word from my uncle, who sits on the presiding council of The Illiam Confederacy. He informs me that in the morning, they will announce that Illiam will be doing the same.”

  Even with the coughing, there was a hushed shock at the news.

  “As you can see, that puts me in a tight spot, to say the least. Mr. Mathahews, I know you are from Nthonu, which has announced something similar. And we have all heard about what has happened on Madaringa, and we all have very raw feelings about that.”

  Captain Sykes took a moment to let the gravity of the situation sink in. “I have sworn an oath to the Navy, as have you all, but now I am forced to choose between siding with my homeland, or siding against it. As those of you who know me may rightly guess, that is no choice at all. I am, and will always be, an Illium first. That does not mean, however, that this is not the most difficult decision of my life.”

  He took a moment to regain his composure and wipe the blood trickling down his chin. “Unfortunately for you, that means your Captain is a traitor to the League, and I will not have you take on any of my shame.”

  “So, what do we do then?” Avid asked, blood dripping down her cheek from an open pustule.

  Captain Sykes coughed, doubling over in pain. Left-tenant Iarti propped him up to keep him from falling over. “We must each decide for ourselves where our...loyalties lie,” he explained. “We will split ourselves into those who will join Wysteria, and those that will not. I have decided that we will do so peacefully. We may end up being enemies next time we meet, but by Vestum’s Saddle, right now we are shipmates and that is how we shall treat each other. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Aye,” the crew responded weakly.

  Iarti brought up a glass bowl and a bag of small stones. It was difficult for him to hold it due to the boils on his fingers. “The only thing left is to decide how to divide up the ship.”

  “This is simple,” Captain Sykes announced. “Those bound for Wysteria place a white stone in the bowl, those staying with the Navy place a gray stone in. Whichever side is more numerous will sail the St. Downing, the less numerous side will take the longboats.”

  The sailors looked at each other, uncertainty in their eyes. There was no time for pondering, debate, or discussion, the time to decide was now.

  Emar raised her hand, the Tomani bracelets on her arm making a sweet jingly noise. “What about our pay, has there been any word from the brass on...”

  “The answer, I’m afraid, is the same as before,” Captain Sykes affirmed.

  “What about our rations?” Holli asked

  “Again, no response.”

  Captain Sykes blinked and the pain nearly rendered him insensible. A fresh blister was forming on the side of his eyeball.

  “Is it true that the brass have a cure but the stonies won’t let them use it?” Dr. Wagess asked, her hands in her coat pockets.

  “It appears so,” Left-tenant Iarti confirmed.

  “Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen,” Captain Sykes warned. “The trees of this place can read your hearts, so do not vote yes unless you are one hundred percent committed to this.”

  “Can we even trust these tree-witches?” Bosaka asked aloud. “How do we know they won’t just execute us all after what we've done to them?”

  “That’s no less than we merit,” Avid affirmed grimly. “I’d do the same to them.”

  Kathan raised his lizard-like tail into the air. “I was on the Dauntless before serving here,” he explained. “She went down during the first Battle of Wysteria, and we were all taken prisoner. And I tell you what, they treated us mighty decent, more than we deserved even. So, I say yes, I think we can trust them to treat us well.”

  Two more sailors spoke up and voiced similar experiences.

  Karite walked up first, boldly, and grabbed a white stone and held it up. “This is for my nephew, who was taken back on Madaringa. I'll make The Stone Council pay for what they did!” He threw the stone into the bowl.

  Nacer was next. He walked up furtively, disliking the attention. “This is for my children back on Schillotaum,” he said quietly, grabbing a white stone. “I joined the Navy to give them a better life, to pay for their schooling, but now all I have to give them is shame. The Navy has sent me here twice now to massacre a peaceful people, and I will not do it.”

  Nacer tossed the white stone in the bowl.

  Emar walked up next and grabbed a white stone. “I don’t give a squat about politics, but if the Stone Council thinks it can cut off my wages, starve me to death, and let me rot from some plague, well then I say, screw ‘em to the wall and let them hang there!” She threw the stone into the bowl and stepped aside.

  Berrimar walked up and saluted Captain Sykes smartly. “I am an orphan of Artice, so this ship is my family, always has been. I've served with you, Captain for the last twelve years, and you've never led me astray.” Berrimar grabbed a white stone. “If you are going to Wysteria, then I am going with you, with or without my island.”

  Dr. Wagess walked up next and put her trembling hand into the bag. “My God Odesi commands me to heal the world, to comfort it. When I look at the two sides in this conflict, I see one trying to destroy, and one trying to save. I am Advanian, therefore I must join the side trying to save.”

  Kathan walked up next, scratching the hard bony plates on his neck. “I've served on a number of ships, and there’s never been one I was more proud of than this one.” He grabbed a white stone and smiled. “There is no way I could cross any of you on a field of battle; I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  One by one they came up, casting their vote. When the last sailor had passed, Captain Sykes and Left-tenant Iarti placed a white stone for each of them into the bowl. When it was held up, not a single gray stone had been cast.

  Slowly and formally, as if he were attending a funeral, Captain Sykes took off his Navy Jacket, folded it precisely, and walked over to the gunwale. He held out the uniform for a moment, as if saying goodbye, then dropped it over the side. The rest of his crew followed suit, their jackets cascading down towards the seas below like falling confetti.

  “Drop the colors,” Left-tenant Iarti commanded. “Loose the mainsail.”

  A few moments later, without pomp or meretricious display, the Navy Interceptor St. Downing lowered her Navy flag for the last time, and replaced it with a white flag. Her canvas dropped, she surged forward out of formation and sailed into Wysterian airspace, and an uncertain future.

  Then, a few moments later, uniforms rained down from another Navy ship, then a second, then a third.

  The falling uniforms merged together into a falling cloud of debris as dozens of ships began breaking formation.

  * * *

  In the freshly-cleaned throne room, these was a sense of barely controlled chaos. Messengers scur
ried in and out as fast as their legs would carry them. Matrons and Matriarchs came in and out through the doors of living wood, their appointments and schedules maintained by Alder’s expert hand. Former Navy officers were escorted in to speak with the Queen and formally pledge their new allegiance on behalf of their crews.

  In the center of the storm sat Queen Forsythia, appearing as calm as a spring morning. The sunlight coming in from above radiated off of her red braided hair and her cape of roses and thorns. It gave everyone confidence just to look at her.

  Captain Beauregard stood up after swearing his oath and saluted as best he could, the boils on his skin making every movement painful.

  “I accept your pledge with gratitude,” Queen Forsythia said graciously. “Lady Orchid will direct you and your sailors to your new living quarters. Your people need rest, food, and immediate medical attention. She will make sure you have plenty of each.”

  “Thank you, your Highness,” Captain Beauregard said as he was escorted away by Lady Orchid.

  Queen Forsythia turned to Alder, who stood by her side holding his clipboard, looking quite dapper in a finely tailored royal suit. Bunni Bubbles stood next to Alder, wearing a miniature royal servant dress, holding a tiny clipboard of her own.

  “How many ships have crossed the line now?” Queen Forsythia asked coldly.

  “Four hundred and thirty seven, my Queen, and we are receiving signals from at least a dozen more.”

  Through the trees, Queen Forsythia called for Madam Aster, who walked in and bowed.

  “Madam Aster, we will need to create additional docks for the ships. We are already beyond capacity. Take Lady Gladiolas and Lady Peony to the Nettle Mountains and reshape the Nallorn there to accommodate the next wave of airships. The trees have already given their consent.”

  “But, my Queen, I have never seen airship docks before.”

  “Ah yes, of course,” The Queen said patiently. “Link with me, and I will show you.” Madam Aster placed her hand on the Queen’s staff. For a moment, they both remained still with their eyes closed. When they opened them again, Madam Aster bowed thankfully and walked out of the hall.