by Kyra Gregory
Neyva’s little lips quivered and the tears resumed but slowed to a trickle from her glistening eyes. “What do I do?”
It was a question that Sybelle had cried and screamed throughout the early days of her reign as Queen. It was of some comfort to her, knowing that everybody, from the strong, powerful General that Gyles was, to the young, defenceless girl, formed the same words and begged for the same answers in times of need and crisis. Sybelle formed the best smile she could. “You will grow up to know loss, whether your father returns or not, so you must be stronger,” she said.
Neyva scrubbed at her eyes, nose and cheeks, stifling back another sob.
Sybelle laid the blankets over the girl’s lap, tucking her into the bed. “You have a strong heart, I’m sure,” she said, smiling. “You’re just like your father and as long as you know that, you will always carry him within your heart.” They were cold words of comfort. She knew they were not the words to be told to a child but her mind was capable of forming few words that she were not suitable to be uttered to her adult-self. “Regardless, in his absence, you will be cared for here; Ellyn will see to your needs as she has always done for me. With or without your father, you may call this place home.”
“Home with no father and no mother,” Neyva whispered.
“I’ve lived with no father and no mother,” Sybelle said, “and you would be surprised with what liberties may come from that.” Neyva stared at her blankly. What was a child to know of liberties and freedom? Being a child was freedom in itself, so long as they were not at the mercy of political decisions made by their parents. Sybelle shook her head. Neyva need never know about such a world, she thought. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to her forehead. “Sleep now,” she said, rising from where she’d been seated on the bed. “The new day brings plenty of joyful opportunities and you must be well-rested in order to have the strength to explore them.”
Sybelle stepped towards the nightstand, cupping her hand behind the flame and bent over to blow it out. “No!” Neyva cried out, in tears once more. Sybelle recoiled, jumping in her own skin with fright. “Please, no,” Neyva continued to plead.
Sybelle stood to her full height and got closer to the bed. Her features softened, her dark eyes flooded with sympathy as she laid a gentle hand on the girl’s head, “What is it you fear in the darkness?”
“Monsters,” Neyva whispered, as though she feared so much as uttering the word would summon them into her presence. “They stand in the darkness.”
Sybelle laughed softly, bowing her head. “You should tell them that you’re friends with the Queen,” she quipped, “and that, if they try to harm you, the Queen will punish them for ever frightening you.”
Neyva stared up at her. Strangely, it was not as though she thought Sybelle to be daft in making such a suggestion. It was as though she was shocked to be reminded of Sybelle’s status, as though she was shocked to hear her call her a ‘friend’ of the Queen. In the mind of such a young girl, it was something of fairytales.
Neyva laid herself down. She had no desire to sleep, even if her body wanted nothing more than that. Sybelle leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Goodnight,” she whispered, caressing the baby hairs around her face.
“Goodnight,” Neyva whispered in return, her large eyes following Sybelle to the door. She gave her a little wave, her form hardly illuminated in the light of the singular candle on the nightstand, and left.
Outside, at the end of the corridor, Ellyn waited. Her lips were pursed together, her eyes filled with disappointment at herself. “Think little of it,” Sybelle said, waving her hand dismissively as she walked past her. “She stopped her crying only because she feared disobeying a Queen. It’s nothing that you did.”
“There will come a time when that influence upon her will fade,” Ellyn remarked, following her. “She may grow as inconsolable for you as she is for me.”
“If that’s true, by the time such a thing happens, Deros would’ve returned or she would’ve forgotten about him.”
“You think a child forgets a father so easily?”
Sybelle shrugged her shoulders, “She appears to have forgotten her mother quickly enough,” she said. “She seemed happy enough to indulge in her father’s affections in place of her mother’s. It’s only a matter of time before she replaces her father with another.”
“And you?” Ellyn asked, her voice uneasy.
“What about me?” Sybelle retorted, scoffing with insult.
Ellyn licked her lips. Her attention flickered about, ascertaining that they were the only ones in the corridor to hear what she spoke next. “Who will replace Deros, now that he is gone?”
Sybelle’s eyes hardened. Her gaze became distant and her heart thudded inside her chest. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, shaking her head. She met Ellyn’s gaze, those soft, concerned eyes, “I don’t think he’s dead, Ellyn,” she whispered. “I don’t think he’s dead just yet,” she added. Ellyn pursed her lips together and said nothing. She knew what she was thinking. Ellyn thought she was in denial. She thought that she was getting her hopes up, filling her mind and heart with expectations of a heartfelt reunion between Deros and herself when it was more than likely that no reunion would ever come. The moment of judgement lingering in the air within Ellyn’s silence, her dumbfoundedness and her unwillingness to offend her Queen, made for great discomfort between them. Sybelle forced a smile, a giggle forming in the back of her throat, “Don’t worry,” she said. “I haven’t filled the girl with false hope, though I imagine I’ve not filled her with too much despair either.” And, with that, Sybelle could say the same for herself.
***
It was pitch dark. The moon, barely a crescent, did little to illuminate the sand. Deros rested his head back against the wooden pillar that he’d been bound to for almost two days, save for the short periods of time he was freed from the pole, but not the ropes around his wrists, in order to take a beating from his captors.
Awake, late into the night, he found no peace in sleep but the silence had been kind to his throbbing skull, though he knew that kindness didn’t suit him very well at a time like this. Breathing was difficult, after all, making sleep a great necessity but a very distant dream for him.
His gaze flickered in the direction of the faintest trace of movement, a golden glow of a torch disappearing and plunging the only visible nook of the beach further into darkness, forcing him to blink until his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light. Even in the slush of the sand he could hear the faintest sound of footsteps imaginable, so faint that he almost thought himself delusional, making it all up out of an ambition to be free from his confines, out of the chill and in the arms of the one he loved, cherishing his daughter at least one more time.
But he couldn’t think it a delusion when two guards, both of which had paced back and forth on watch, seemed to disappear with not even a cry to alert their slumbering comrades. Nonetheless, it was impossible to assume that nothing had happened to them, what with them having disappeared for so many minutes. His thoughts were confirmed when, soon enough, they were replaced by louder foot steps, a figure running past him, still too far of a distance away to even consider calling out to what would be an ally. Then, suddenly, what was once a small flicker of fire from a couple of torches became an eruption of flames that threatened to lick the sky.
Men emerged from their tents in a heartbeat, roused by the loud crackling fire as their food stalls burned and smoke thickened the once clean and salty sea breeze.
A smirk grew on Deros’s lips, albeit with a bitter-sweet feeling, as the Azurian soldiers re-sheathed their weapons, cursing with an escalating frustration as they realised that their men on watch were dead, their food was being reduced to ashes and a thick fog of smoke was making breathing, and putting out the fire, increasingly difficult.
Deros did his best to hold his breath, struggling to inch himself down the post in hopes of getting onto the ground. But the
ropes around his ankles were too tight, making impossible to sink low enough towards the ground in order to avoid the smoke.
Eventually, in time, the men got the fire down to just a few flickers and the cold night air, by now chilling Deros back down to the bone, cleared the air and gave the men the opportunity to calm down, venting amongst themselves. It wouldn’t be long, he thought, until their attention turned to him, making him suffer for what his comrades had done. Instead, however, they simply returned to their tents, snarling at him as they passed him, with one delivering a blow to his abdomen that only worsened his aching rib.
Returned to the darkness and with no retribution to deal with for the moment Deros’s heart began to sink in his chest. He considered himself so foolish, laughing at himself and shaking his head with visible disappointment, having allowed himself to be swept away by the notion of a rescue. After all, if he’d been freed, he couldn’t have returned to the palace. No, how could he face Sybelle again? What could he possibly say to her? What words could he possibly form in order to make things right between them? But his daughter. His daughter was there and he would not abandon her for as long as living was a possibility, leaving him with no choice but to confront the woman he loved and take whatever abuse she would rightly hurl in his direction.
No, he thought, inhaling as deeply as his bruised, or cracked, ribs would allow, not being rescued was for the best. It would make matters far simpler for everyone. His time would come and, with this, he needn’t have any concerns of the inevitable outcome of death. His remaining path, however painful, would be easy, with no opportunity for troubling decisions.
It was with that thought that he fuelled his tenaciousness the next morning. He was removed from his post and moved to a well-furnished tent where King Alessio was seated, feasting upon his lunch with a great appetite and a taunting gaze in his eyes as he looked over his food at Deros. He was certain that the ropes around his wrists and ankles were that much tighter than earlier, a useless precaution when he could hardly do any damage in his state. He wasn’t sure why he was brought here, away from the other men, given a private audience with the King of Azura, or why he was still alive for that matter. Well, he thought, he imagined he’d soon find out. Deros cocked his head back, smirking and raising an inquisitive eyebrow, “Should you not leave some for your men?” Deros asked, raising an eyebrow in the King’s direction. “I believe your supplies went up in flames last night, did they not?”
King Alessio smirked, licking his fingers clean, “There is enough to serve us until we acquire more,” he said.
“How fortunate for you,” Deros said, certain that the man was bluffing.
“I must say,” King Alessio started with furrowed brows, “from all that I’ve heard about Queen Sybelle since her ascension I thought her to be much smarter than this.”
His hands, having been clasped together lazily in his lap, moved to a steepled position in front of his lips. Though they were contorted into an arrogant, almost disappointed, frown, Deros was certain the action was done in a bid to cover his own uncertainty. “After all, with all that’s been said about her, I expected her to have made some greater attempt in removing us from her lands than a handful of men and the intention of starving us out.”
Deros chuckled, shaking his head, “If you haven’t yet worked out her full intentions then you haven’t yet understood her enough to make such a judgement.”
“Have you?” King Alessio asked, raising his brows with cruel intrigue. “Have you understood her?”
Deros bit into the inside of his cheek, wondering the same. He shifted, licking his cracked lips. “I’m lucky to have gotten to know a part of her,” he said.
“And which part is that?” he prompted, leaning forward in his seat. “The part beneath her clothes?”
Deros held his breath, balling his hands into fists behind his back, somewhat grateful for the ropes that bound him when he had no desire to show the man that he was getting to him. “Whatever part, it’s a lot more than you’ve had the pleasure to know,” he said, exhaling.
King Alessio pursed his lips together with obvious amusement, “Perhaps you’ve gotten to know her,” he said. “It’s a shame for you, however, that such a luxury was not enough to grant you a rescue.”
The pang of pain in Deros’s chest was unavoidable, however much he’d prepared himself for such a blow. “It comes as no surprise to me,” he said with a sigh, a tinge of humour in his voice, “perhaps I was just not very good.” He shook his head, running his tongue along his teeth, “No, matters of betrayal are taken very seriously by her,” he added, “one cannot expect to gain her favour after such an offence.”
“I find it curious how you were able to gain it in the first place,” King Alessio said, tapping his jaw with his index finger. “She is a stubborn girl, very much kept to herself, protected from the influence of others, ever since her childhood,” he said.
Deros chuckled loudly, as boisterously as he could muster, openly insulting the man into a deep frown, never minding the agony that doing so caused him and the stifling of his breathing that he had to endure. “The very fact that you still call her a ‘girl’ is a testament to your ignorance,” he wheezed, his eyes cold and touched by a dark humour.
King Alessio growled, baring his teeth as he gestured for two of his guards to come forward.
He was removed from the post and bent over the table in a heartbeat, his cheek pressed firmly into the surface. With their hands in his hair and his rib pressed flush against the table he made the mistake of struggling in their hold, writhing uncontrollably for reprieve, gasping for breath and only worsening matters for himself. King Alessio crouched at one end of the table. He spoke to him with a taunting grin on his face that he could hardly see through the mist that formed within his vision, speaking words that Deros couldn’t hear over his own struggle as the guards at his back lowered his trousers and pulled his shirt off his back, increasing the choking sensation around his neck.
Alessio slammed his hand on the table as he stood, disappearing, and, with that, Deros closed his eyes and willed himself to end his struggling as he submitted himself to the forceful intrusion that came.
CHAPTER 13
SYBELLE REMAINED SEATED on the steps of the palace into the late hours of the night, fighting off sleep with her head propped up in her hand. Anyone who approached her was immediately waved off, leaving her to adjust her coat over her shoulders and the fur-trimmed hood over her head in a bid to keep warm. When she heard the sound of the gate rising, just as the sun began to do the same, she opened her eyes in an instant, stumbling off the step and across the square to meet the carriages as it made its way inside with her soldiers. They disembarked one by one, counting them in silence to find that they were all there. Ewin dismissed the groggy men to their beds before approaching her, dark-eyed and exhausted himself. “You’re safe,” she whispered, breathing a sigh of relief as the weight lifted from her shoulders. “I saw the smoke. I take it you were successful?”
“We got each of the food stalls,” Ewin agreed, walking slowly away, forcing her to follow with eagerness. “Our men are dead, however. We stumbled across their bodies.”
Sybelle recoiled, her hands balling into fists in the folds of her dress. “Deros too?”
Ewin shook his head, seating himself on the step and placing his head in his hand, “I didn’t see all their faces,” he said. “I cannot say for sure.”
Sybelle swallowed thickly, glancing around as she blinked the prickling sensation out of her eyes. She nodded, humming in agreement with her own thoughts, “Thank you,” she said. “It was a dangerous feat. Your effort, and that of the men, has not gone unnoticed.”
Ewin glanced up from beneath his lashes as though assessing the sincerity in her words. He exhaled softly, glancing around, “You haven’t yet told me why you needed this to happen,” he said. “We have no idea of your plans.”
“Do you think that’s necessary?” Sybelle asked.
/> Ewin scoffed but thought it best not to turn back now, “I think it would help, yes,” he said.
Sybelle shifted her weight, playing with her fingers as she looked up as the golden glow of the sun began to fill the sky. “I’ll give it some thought,” she said. Ewin scoffed once more, hanging his head and running his fingers through his hair. She dropped to a crouch in front of him, reaching for his hands and squeezing them tightly in her own to get his attention. “I will,” she said, eagerly. “But give me time.”
Ewin blinked, shaking his head with an exhale. “You, and your mad ways, are our only hope,” he whispered. “I have no choice but to give you all the time you need.”
Sybelle smiled, hanging her head to hide it. She patted her knees and hauled herself up, feeling her bones creak painfully from a night of sleeping upright on the cold, hard steps of the palace. “Find your bed,” she said. “You’ve done enough for the moment. I’ll call you when you’re needed again.”
Ewin hauled himself off the ground and left, showing her the faintest trace of a smile as he left her in silence.
She smiled for as long as he was in sight but, soon enough, all traces of it fell from her face and she lowered herself back onto the step. She buried her face in her hands, inhaling as deeply as she could muster, forcing into herself a life that she wanted no part of, forcing herself to feel all she didn’t want to.
“Neyva! Neyva, come back!”
Sybelle lifted her head and looked over her shoulder. She got to her feet and the guards pushed open the front door. In a blur of vision, Neyva ran out of the palace and out onto the step, colliding briefly with Sybelle who stood there, staring with wide-eyes as the little girl hopped down the steps and looked around the square that was empty except for a handful of guards.
