My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Leaning to the side, Myra's eyes darted over her dad's mess of a study. Random taxidermied animals wound up in here, not the normal kind one would expect for a King like say lion's heads or stag antlers. There was one of two nugs playing leapfrog, one of the nugs with a squished in skull and eyes of gimlet stones practically bulging out. It was probably the worst done taxidermy in all of Ferelden and her father adored it.

  And standing beside the nug monstrosity, clearly doing her best to act as if she wasn't there and nothing was going on, was Rosie's assassin. Myra gasped, "Holy Maker's balls, when did she get back?!"

  Her brother jabbed into her side, unable to hold in the snickers while the cool eyes of the assassin darted over to them. Anjali wanted to make it obvious she knew they were there, but also not bother to talk to them. "Does Rosie know?" Myra turned in confusion to Cailan who kept snickering to himself.

  "Oh yes, our dear sister is well aware."

  Andraste's knickers, he only got that way when he was being a turd. "Right, okay, what's going on?" Myra folded her hands and glared at him.

  Her brother, whose body remained iron solid while deep into the bottle but with cheeks stained from drink, glanced in once more at the assassin with plenty of sharp objects before turning to Myra. "Dad, he walked in on Rosie and our Rivaini guest here... How to put it nicely? Greeting each other."

  Myra couldn't stop the laugh burrowing out of her gut. "No shit! Oh, Maker's butt. Where's Rossie?"

  "Talking to dad," Cailan said while jerking his head towards the door.

  "Bet they're both trying to melt through the floor," Myra laughed to herself. Together both stepped into the study, strength in numbers, while the assassin turned to glare at Cailan.

  "How do you know?" she asked, her stabby stare barely bouncing off Cailan's insouciant armor.

  Her brother shrugged, "Servants, it caused quite a commotion. And I know my sister. Subtle is not her strong suit."

  Anjali huffed and crossed her arms. If Myra didn't know any better she'd swear the woman looked concerned. It was just Dad. Okay, the assassin part might be a hard sale, but otherwise... Wait, why were they both acting like it was the end times?

  "How long's she been in there?" Myra asked while swaying back and forth on her shoes. She kept them on for once because her mother said she was sick and tired of having to get new ones.

  For a moment, Anjali let her eyes fall into Myra's and the shield evaporated. Clear concern rippled in what should have been cocksure. "Awhile, a long while," she muttered before focusing back on the nugs.

  Cailan swallowed a bit and shifted while Myra felt her knees burn hot. The stinging fear grew palpable that something might be done to the princess' lover, but...no. This is dad. Worst she'd have to suffer were some Maker-awful jokes and his attempts at bonding. Again, aside from the assassin parts. Myra wasn't certain how that bit would go over, but the rest...

  Sliding forward, Myra reached towards Anjali as if to comfort her. "It'll be okay," she began, when the door opened. Rosie's lips were pursed into a knot, her eyes focused off into some distant land as she nearly stomped right past her lover. It was Myra who waved a hand to wake her up. "Hello in there."

  "Myra!" she shouted, her head snapping up, "and Cailan. I need to speak to you. Now."

  "Sapheela," Anjali drifted near enough she could easily reach over and grab Rosie's fingers but didn't touch. "Is there...were you...?"

  A brief smile lifted on Rosie's face and she pivoted fast to her girlfriend. "No, it's...things are fine." In full view of Myra and Cailan she cupped Anjali's cheek and planted a soft kiss to her lips. The assassin smiled a moment at the gesture, but she was still resting on the balls of her feet ready to spring into action if needed. "But I need to talk to my brother and...and Myra privately."

  "Why?" Anjali tipped her head in confusion.

  "Please," the mask shattered, causing everyone in the room to take a deep breath at Rosie nearly reaching hysterics in record time. "Just...it's family stuff. You can wait in my room or visit the dance floor in the meantime if you'd like."

  The assassin stared up and down her lover, clearly not wanting to leave Rosie's twitchy side but finding no reason to stay. "I believe I shall wait in the room," Anjali said.

  Rosie released her hold and stepped away. It was she who glanced at Cailan and snarled, "Walk with me." Their brother turned from the suddenly imposing princess to Myra. Shrugging, both took off after Rosie who seemed to be leading them towards a random room on Dad's side of the castle. Barely any light flickered inside save the big moon hanging around the windows, but Rosie ran through slamming doors and checking to see if anyone might be hiding under a table.

  Once she was satisfied, and her siblings were thoroughly spooked, the princess shut the main door to the hall and locked it. At that Cailan laughed, "This better not be when you start impaling us on pikes. We already don't want the throne."

  He was clearly going for a chuckle to shake the dour mood, but when Rosie's head shot up at him, the chortle in his throat erupted into gravel. Cailan danced back and forth on his shoes while Myra kept looking back at one of the doors. If her sister did go mad and start chopping, how easily could she escape? The windows weren't too high and...

  "I spoke with...with the King," Rosie began.

  "Yes, we know. We heard all about your little escapades with a certain Rivaini assassin. You're really putting a ding to my reputation here," Cailan said with a smile, but Rosie didn't glower at that. Didn't turn bright pink. She didn't even seem to care about Dad catching her in the middle of "reuniting."

  "He told me, that..." she knotted her fingers together, both slapping into her stomach as if trying to find some courage inside her guts. "Cailan, you and I are not, we're..."

  "Maker's tainted blood, what? We're not what?" he spat out, clearly growing weary of all this.

  "We're not our father's children," Rosie shot out fast, her eyes screwed tight at the revelation.

  Both Cailan and Myra glanced at each other and began to snicker. "Very funny, Rossie. Well, okay not very. It's rather a stupid and trite joke you tell when you're five, but..."

  "It's not a joke," she railed at her brother. "Dad...the King, Alistair, I don't even know what to call him anymore. He told me that... we're not his. That he can't have children."

  "What?" Myra turned on her sister, jumping into the conversation, but Rosie was too focused on Cailan.

  "Because of something about being a Grey Warden, it...it made him sterile."

  "This isn't funny, at all, Rosie," Cailan fumed, his brow darkening while those ice blue eyes turned a storm grey.

  "I'm not telling a joke!" she shouted, her voice pitching high into a shrill shriek.

  "I get it. You got caught out and now...now you have to drag up all those old rumors about," Cailan fell quiet a moment, his eyes darting towards the window. Those stark blue eyes that no one else in the family seemed to have. People liked to joke about him being the jester's son, especially when he was a bit younger and didn't look like anyone in the royal squad. The rumors slowed over the years, often at their dad's threatening thumb, but...

  "Cailan," Rosie reached over to try and grip onto his hand, "it's true. I know you don't want to hear it, but...he's not your father." A sliver of tears rose up in her brother's eyes, about the only thing that could sting him striking to the quick. "And he's not mine either."

  "Come on," Cailan turned on her and sighed, "no one ever said a thing about you not being his daughter. No one ever thought that it was hilarious to tell at a birthday party. No one ever liked to sing 'one of these things is not like the other' when you walked past in a family line."

  "I'm not, because Dad he... Alistair, he said that I'm not."

  "What?" Cailan snorted, "Daddy's disowned you?"

  "Not, no, not at all. He, he says we're his by right, that he loves us and all, but...but not by blood."

  Cailan threw his hands up, stomping away from Rosie while Myra hung useless in th
e corner. It was her brother's worst nightmare come true. He banked on being the lovable scamp of a prince who could charm his way into coin and beds when it suited him, and now... He was a bastard son of a woman that, without any connection to the King, was at best a Bann's daughter. A bastard, just like Myra.

  Wait.

  "You said Dad couldn't have any kids," Myra tried to tug on Rosie's hands to get her sister to focus on her, but the Princess was trying to console their brother instead.

  "Cailan..."

  "Why?" he couldn't shake off the tears now, his lip wobbling. "Why tell us now? Why tell us at all?"

  "Because, our real father has returned. And it seems he is causing a commotion."

  "Our real father?" Cailan whipped his head over at Rosie, "You mean we...we have the same."

  "Yes, as far as the King understands it."

  "Who?" Cailan spat out.

  "Brother Cordell. I...I remember him a bit," she confessed as if she'd been plumbing the depths of her memories to jog that waterlogged fact forward, but Myra didn't care about this wandering Brother. If their dad didn't create Rosie and Cailan then...then they weren't her siblings. At all. Not even by half.

  Cailan wiped his sleeve against his nose and snarled, "I remember nothing of him. I do not care. He is lying."

  "Why would Dad...? Why would Alistair lie? He told me he always knew. It wasn't...it wasn't something mother pulled on him. He knew he couldn't have children and looked the other way for years, for us. For Ferelden."

  "Fuck Ferelden," Cailan shouted. He pawed at his eyes, then moved to straighten out his collar, "I'm going to talk to mother about this. She'll, she better have a damn good explanation."

  Cailan moved to walk out, but Rosie latched onto his hand. He tugged, attempting to extricate himself, while Rosie hung tighter. Myra barely watched, not caring if her brother stomped away to piss off the Queen. Her stomach was reeling faster than a jig. "What do you mean Dad can't have any kids? Like at all? Or just with...with your mom?"

  "I don't know, Myra. That's what he told me. No children. I..." she paused in trying to drag Cailan back, her eyes darting towards the bastard daughter whose only connection was through an apparently sterile King. "I suppose that means you're..."

  Myra snarled, her hands trying to scrub against her own eyes. There were no tears though, only a fiery rage dripping out of them. She lied. Her whole life her mother lied to her. Made her go to parties at the castle, to suffer all those stuck up cousins and for what? What was the blighted point of it? So the elf could have some taste of nobility while also acting as if she was better than it all?

  Or did she lie to Alistair too? Did she get knocked up by some random man in a back alley and tried to pass her filthy daughter off as the King's? And that stupid fool was so fucking in love with her he went along with it. Didn't call her on it once, just kept pretending that Myra was anything special. Anything other than the daughter of a whore.

  Her brother...no, her not-brother was sneering about finding the Queen, but Myra ran past him. Ran past them all. Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest as she rounded down the damn gilded stairs. She learned to walk up and down steps on those, fell so hard when she was three she broke a finger. Greased up her legs with goose fat and slid lightning fast down the bannister at Cailan's behest. And it was all a lie.

  She didn't belong here. She never did. Her father wasn't...

  Every breath on her tongue turned to ash, bitter as smoke from the husk of what her life had been tossed onto its funeral pyre. She hated how everyone looked down on her, treated her like she didn't belong anywhere and now... Myra's eyes wandered up the stairs towards the little door where her father was sitting and probably drinking. How long did he wear this secret on his shoulders? How many times did he glance over at Rosie, Cailan, or the bastard half-blood toddling under his legs and wonder if he could ever care for something that wasn't his?

  She wanted to stay, to run to his arms and insist that she didn't care. He was her dad, had always been. But things didn't work like that, and this castle in the clouds wasn't where half blooded whore-daughters belonged.

  Tears stinging in her eyes, Myra dashed down the steps towards the grand entrance. A few of the servants were rolling up the carpet, Myra leaping forward off the pile rather than dodging to the side. They both looked up, but she didn't say a thing, she couldn't. Stopping would only cause her to shatter in half.

  No. She knew what she had to do.

  At the gate, she spotted two guards walking towards her. "Who's that?" one asked. Her bloated eyes glanced askance at both, unable to place either.

  The second stared hard and shrugged, "No one important."

  The hard truth landed upon her chest. She was no one important. She wasn't even that foolish butterfly that was free to hop around doing whatever caught its fancy. She was nothing. Fatherless. Elven blooded. Magic cursed. A void where her life should have been.

  Scrabbling out into the street, from behind her Myra heard the two derisive guards rattle the gate shut. It was unlikely it'd ever open for her again now that she knew the truth. Now that she knew where she didn't belong. The question of where she did hung over her head and throbbed inside her heart like an infection ready to burst.

  By the time she reached her destination, the mage lights were left in the distance. Only torch lights lit with a bare wisp of oil coated this section of Denerim, all of which were on the way out. It'd be a nightmare traversing the streets soon, but Myra didn't care. She had to do this or she may never have the spine again.

  Yanking open the door she'd tugged upon millions on millions of times before, Myra's nerves jangled along with the bell. It was quiet, a soft autumn fire crinkling in the hearth while everyone else had gone home. Because they had a home. Because they belonged.

  "Oh, that's a surprise. I thought for sure you'd be dancing until I was long in bed."

  The liar barely looked up from whatever murder case she took upon herself. All her life, her mother was devoted to uncovering the truth while she hid the biggest secret of them all from her daughter. Why? Myra didn't care that Reiss would shout her stupid for it. She had to know.

  She had to.

  Something of the cold chill wafting off her daughter must have struck Reiss as she placed down her quill and stared right at Myra. The party dress, thin as a sun dress because they couldn't afford anything with jewels or gilt, wafted through her legs. "My?" Reiss twisted her head in confusion, "what is it?"

  "You lied."

  Reiss blinked a moment, but didn't race to insist she didn't. Her fingers upbraided the feather of her quill, noting every fault in its lining, every divot that was wrong. Fit in, Myra. Be good. No, be better, because you have to be.

  Because you're of an elf blood.

  Because you're expected and watched by many.

  Because you're the daughter of a King.

  Every fault of hers laid out, examined often because her mother feared the ridicule she'd be placed under from the nobility. The pain and strife she'd face in sharing a spot in her...the King's life. But why? Why torture her with something that didn't even matter? Something that wasn't true?

  Stepping forward fast, Myra slammed a hand into the front desk. A mug filled with clips and nails rattled over, a river of used iron and steel spilling out. "Why did you lie to me?!"

  "About what?" Reiss folded her arms and glared at Myra.

  "Alistair," Myra felt the tears welling up. She called her mom her first name on occasion, usually when sparks literal or otherwise were flying, but never her dad. He'd always been Dad, Pops, Father. And now...

  "You lied to me my whole life!" her lips crumbled, the fury shaking her thin arms and shoulders as if an earthquake rumbled in her soul.

  "My," Reiss moved to touch her daughter, but Myra shook it off hard. "What are you talking about? What about your dad?"

  "He's not my dad!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs. Through the tears she expected to watch her mom turn i
ndignant, or panic, or do anything but go very cold and quiet.

  "What?" was all Reiss said, her green eyes burning through her daughter.

  "He's not Dad, he's not Rosie's dad, he's not Cailan's dad, he's no one's dad! Did you know that, Mom?" Myra shouted, her fist pounding into the desk with every 'dad.' "Because he does. He told Rosie that he can't have kids. He never could."

  "Blighted Maker's ass taint!" Reiss cried, her hands reaching towards the sky as if it could rescue her from this. "He wasn't supposed to tell you like that."

  "You knew? You knew he knew? And you, you both kept it from me?!"

  "My, it's not that simple. You don't understand..." she reached forward as if to comfort her daughter, but Myra shook it away.

  "I get it, Mom," she spat every Mom out as if Reiss' connection to her could be as much in question as Alistair's. "You, you lied. You knew you lied, and Dad...The King, maybe he lied too. Maybe you both needed the lie for all your other filthy lies. Build it up, like a nest made out of burrs and thorns. And who gets stuck in the middle? Me!"

  "Myra," Reiss folded her arms, "calm down and listen."

  "Listen?!" she, as anyone in the world told to calm down would do, shrieked harder and whipped away. "Listen to more lies? Do you have any idea what I've done. The...the fucking fights I've fought, cracked bones, black eyes, broken toes and fingers all to defend you."

  "Maker's breath, Myra. Fighting? In the streets."

  "For you! Every Maker damn time they called you a--"

  "You were never supposed to defend me or anyone else!" Reiss stood up taller, as if she intended to wrap up her daughter in a hug. Her eyes brimmed in tears, but it had to be in being called out. She knew she was caught and there was no way free of the trap. Her daughter knew the truth at last.

  "You're right," Myra teetered closer to the door, her hands bundled behind her back. That simple answer caused her mother to freeze, her eyes narrowing. "I shouldn't have bothered because they were right too. You're nothing but a knife-eared whore!"