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“I’ve lived through worse. I’m just…” I stopped. At one point, Wrath had told me, “Don’t show your vulnerability. Not to those who depend on you.” And I knew that I couldn’t talk about my fears to my lady’s maid. Another wall went up, another invisible boundary line. But then, when I thought about it, I’d erected plenty of boundaries when I was on the road with Krystal. I’d hoped, when I returned home, that I could tear down some of my barriers, but apparently my destiny in life wasn’t geared toward allowing many people in my inner circle.
The servant with breakfast appeared and I ate up, suddenly aware of how hungry I was. Meanwhile, Druise got my jeans ready, along with a warm black V-neck sweater and a silver jacket. I dressed quickly, then quickly applied day makeup—dark shadow that made my newly blue eyes pop, and a sheen of barely there gloss.
Standing back, I observed myself in the mirror. Not bad. I was looking far more pulled together than I used to, and my 140 pounds of muscle was taut and strong. As I allowed Druise to affix my circlet on my head, I realized that I’d promised to meet with Lannan tonight. Joy o’ joys.
When I was done, I headed for the door. “Druise, you stay here. I don’t want to subject you to the outer world just yet. It’s going to be a big surprise, if you’ve never been out there.”
She dipped into another curtsey. “Thank you. But you will take the guards?”
I grinned at her. “I doubt if I could get out of here without them. Yes, I’ll take Check and…well, Fearless is out of commission for now, but I’ll take guards with me.” Actually, after the attack the night before, I really didn’t want to go out without an escort.
Check was waiting for me outside the door, with another guard. “Your Highness, may I introduce Teral? He will be filling in for Fearless.”
I nodded at the new man, who looked big and burly enough to take on just about anybody. They fell in behind me.
Those who returned to the Court of Snow and Ice—and there were quite a number of them who had made the move—had been calling me “Your Highness” since Lainule had first made the announcement that Rhia and I were to become the new Queens. But today, as I walked through the halls, each person near me dropped into a curtsey or bow until I had passed by. I stood a little straighter, suddenly more mindful of my appearance.
“Check, can I ask you something?” He’d served with Lainule, and before that, with Tabera, I’d found out, always as one of their personal guards.
“What do you wish to know, Your Highness?”
“Should I…do I say anything when they bow like that?” I wanted to add, I’m clueless, but decided that could be left unsaid.
A little smile crept out. He shook his head. “It’s not necessary. If you greet everyone who bows to you, you’ll never have any time for anything. It’s…it goes hand in hand with being the Queen, Your Highness. You’ll get used to it, and you’ll come to expect it. Her Highness Lainule may have been born to her post, but she was just as uncertain when she took the throne.”
I jerked around to face him. “You were with her when she was young? When she took over the Court of Rivers and Rushes?”
He nodded. “I was born to the year she was. We were…I was thought to become King-Elect, and then she met His Lordship Wrath.”
The long stretch of history of this realm, of the people who made it what it was, flashed before my eyes.
“You were from the Court of Snow and Ice even then?”
“As was my brother, Lord Wrath.”
Brothers. That meant…
“You’re my uncle?” I stared at him, searching for the resemblance, but could find none.
He shook his head, again, the flicker of a smile gracing his face. “Not by blood, no. Wrath and I were oath-brothers, much like His Lordship Grieve, and His Lordship Chatter. We were in training together, and we were assigned to be…what you would call exchange students in your world…at the Court of Rivers and Rushes. There I met Lainule, and she and I fell in love. It wasn’t passionate, but the kind of love that feels like it could be a steady glow. And then I introduced her to His Lordship Wrath. At that moment, when their eyes met, when they looked at one another, in that moment I knew I’d lost her. I stepped aside.”
“And so my father became the King and you…”
“I pledged my honor to them and changed courts. When you have fallen in love with the sun, you can’t just walk away. I swore to protect the both of them—she whom I’d loved, and he whom she loved.”
“Did you hate my father?” I had to know. It might affect how he looked at me.
“Hate him? How could I hate the man who was my brother, even if he did sweep away the woman I loved?” He sounded so sincere that there was no way I could believe otherwise.
“Thank you for telling me. There’s so much about my father I don’t know…I barely knew he was my father before he had to leave.” As we approached the exit to the outside, a thought struck me. “Some of you—Grieve, Chatter, you, Fearless…you have names that, in English, describe…qualities. Others like Lainule and you, Teral, don’t. What’s the difference?”
Teral glanced at me, a quizzical look on his face. “How are children named in your world?”
“By their parents,” I said, confused.
He cocked his head, and I had the feeling that hadn’t been the answer he had expected.
Check laughed. “When women are pregnant, they visit the seers. The seer tells them whether their child will be what are known as Will-Begots. The children have extremely strong abilities and life forces, and their destinies are specifically focused. While the stars do not speak of exactly what these destinies are to be, the children who are Will-Begots always end up having a lasting effect. Will-Begots are named after those attributes that speak strongly in their soul to the seers.”
