Chapter Twelve

 

 

“How are you feeling?” Danya asked, walking into the sick room with a pair of winter boots in one hand and a cloak over her arm. Nothing that Aren could leave the village in, nothing for long outings, but it was the best they could offer her without finding an animal within the lines.

“Cold, but well,” Aren said.

She was curled in the corner of the cot, wrapped in the blankets that Danya had offered. The pillow was missing from the head of the bed, likely behind Aren’s back. There would be no warmth for Aren.

Others in the village didn’t necessarily notice the cold. Danya had begun to, little could rid a body of the bone-chill that only the hottest day of summer could chase away.

“That’s good. I’ve brought a cloak. The seamstress made it for you, and a pair of boots,” Danya held up each in turn.

Aren pushed aside the blankets in favour of the winter boots and cloak. Made for outside weather, Aren thought they would help warm her.

They would not.

Even sitting in front of a full fire, the cold would persist. Most days there wasn’t enough wood to go around. Plenty of trees, but no bodies to bring them down. For a while they had tried, but then the trees became farther and farther from the lines, making it almost impossible to keep fires going. Now Danya only started a fire when she absolutely needed it.

“I thought we could go for a walk,” Danya said once Aren was dressed. “I could show you down to the lake. The body of water you were found by leads to it. The lake itself is mainly frozen this time of year. Do you skate?”

“Skate?” Aren asked. “What is skating?”

Danya frowned. The others who had come before Aren had known what skating was, even if they hadn’t enjoyed the act. She struggled with how to describe what a skate was, how one skated.

“It’s like dancing on ice, only you wear sharp pieces of metal on the bottom of your shoes,” Danya said.

“You dance on knives?” Aren asked, looking as if Danya had lost her mind.

When described in such a manner, yes, it did seem a foolish thing to do.

“It’s actually quite common,” Danya said, turning and motioning to the door of the sickroom. “If you are feeling adventurous one day, I could show you how to skate. Most who I’ve seen have skated. Many seem to enjoy it, except when they fall. That’s not much fun.”

“Falling on ice with knives on your shoes, that you dance with?” Aren asked. The queen shook her head as she walked past Danya. “I can barely dance on my actual feet, let alone on the edge of a blade.”

“We’ll just go for a walk, then,” Danya responded.

She closed the door behind them and led Aren out of the healing house. On the porch, Aren shivered and drew the cloak closer. The village proper was empty. Danya caught a child gazing out from behind a curtain across the way, and gave the barest shake of her head. The child ducked back down, out of sight.

Aren noticed the absence of life to the village, as all queens before her had. She did not ask, or comment, on the emptiness.

Danya stepped off the porch. Aren was a step behind as Danya led the way out of the village and down the little path that led towards the lake. Once it had been pretty, but now the dead branches stretched overhead as bitter and cold as Danya’s heart.

“Something is bothering you,” Aren said at the edge of the lake.

The queen looked out over the ice, calm for the first time since she awoke. Danya watched the change and wondered what manner of creature had found them. The others gave orders, simply assumed a role. Yet here Aren was, relaxing where others would put their noses in the air.

“No,” Danya lied.

Aren gave Danya a look, then focused on the ice. She tested it with her foot even though it was solid enough to hold her weight. The queen ventured out just far enough to be out of reach. She looked at peace. On the ice, surrounded by white of the snow and the greys of the dead trees, somehow Aren looked like she belonged.

Magic drifted off of Aren, soaking into the ice at her feet, leaking outward. Danya stepped onto the ice as Aren’s magic met the shore.

“No, nothing?” Aren asked Danya.

What was it her mother had once said? Most queens were simply women. A rank was a person. Their hearts could be broken, their will to go on crushed, but much like one found those few in the world to call friend, one could find a queen to whom they called so strongly that all else was ignored.

There had been a constant sadness to Aren. A past that haunted her, perhaps, one that she did not necessarily share with Danya. Impossible for Danya to miss, like called to like.

Danya shrugged to Aren’s question. “I’ve never quite felt at peace in this village. Recently it’s become worse.”

“Perhaps that’s because everyone else is a commoner?” Aren asked, and yet stated at the same time.

“Perhaps,” Danya said with a sigh. “Or because they’re all related to me, or the fact that we are cut off from the rest of the world. I’m over thirty and I’ve never met a man from outside the village.”

Aren made a face. “They aren’t all they’re rumoured to be. You hear stories of warriors and expect they will come and save you, riding a bright, white horse. All you need to be is a queen, and—like magic—a warrior will appear who loves you more than he loves himself.”

“That’s not the way it happens?” Danya asked.

“I didn’t formally meet a warrior until I was seventeen and went to court to be finished off,” Aren said. She shook her head as she moved away from Danya. “My parents didn’t know what I was, but warriors are not as plentiful as the palace claims. Around the palace, certainly, but ranks have always been born around the throne. I had seen them before. One once offered to find me one of his own to protect me. I turned him down.”

“Why?” Danya asked.

“I was only eleven,” Aren said.

The queen’s magic infused with the ice, trickling through and into the water. In response, the ice hardened. Danya felt the shift in the balance of nature but made no comment on the change. Aren was not changing the ice on purpose, it was an instinctual reaction.

Much like how Danya could not turn away an injured person.

“I still thought at the time that my parents loved me. Perhaps I foolishly thought that I was not what I knew I was.” Aren stopped walking and turned to Danya. “The last to sit the throne attempted to have me killed when she discovered what I was. I didn’t even want the throne. I just wanted to be left alone. Not that I was to get what I wanted, not in the end.”

“I always wanted a puppy,” Danya offered up.

“I wanted a house on a lake.” Aren sighed, “Just me, and perhaps a puppy also. I didn’t care about having a warrior or a man of any sort out there with me. I simply wanted… I don’t know.”

Danya thought about what she wanted from life. “Control,” she said finally. “Over yourself, over what you do, how you dress, who you see, what you eat. The ability to dictate your life. You don’t actually care if you have a house on a lake. It’s just the only place where you can see yourself with a choice.”

“I don’t know about that,” Aren said. “You’ve not seen palace lands. The lakes are amazing. Large or small, you can have your choice. And your choice of how populated the lake, and the area around, is. You can build your home to the south of the lake, and have a view of the mountains behind the palace or,” —Aren turned suddenly, motioning in the other direction— “build on the north end and see nothing but hills of green, or just the trees.”

“Green hills?” Danya asked.

She had never seen such a thing.

“Yes, absolutely, hills filled with trees and the lake is much like this,” Aren said, motioning around her. “Surrounded by trees. Though the ones on palace land tend to be more brown, less grey. It’s gorgeous out there. Perhaps when I return there, you can visit me and I will take you on a tour.”

“Certainly,” Danya said.

Aren must have sensed Danya’s hesitation. Suddenly, the queen’s undivided attention was on Danya. Unsettling to say the least, Danya couldn’t seem to avoid the probing look. Others who had come before her didn’t bother with the look. What they had wanted to say, they said with words.

“I don’t like the man who keeps visiting you, asking after me,” Aren said.

Meaning Rewel. Danya hadn’t even been aware that Aren knew Rewel was visiting. She had foolishly hoped that if she could keep Rewel from seeing Aren while the young woman was awake and well, she could keep them from bonding.

“Why not?” Danya asked.

Aren looked pointedly over Danya’s shoulder. Danya turned to the lakeshore, where Rewel stood, looking rather sheepish. He had snuck up, meaning to spy on them. Rewel was the only one who would know when a queen was using her magic, and of course Danya should have known that he would be drawn to the lake, to inspect what Aren was doing. To assess the damage.

To see if she had detected the lines.

“I did find you and bring you to safety,” Rewel said, raising his voice across the distance of ice. “I believe it is my duty to ensure that no ill has befallen you since I last saved you. If you’re in need of rescuing, I’d be pleased to assist you again.”

Aren’s comfort bled away. Her face shifted, ever so subtly. From a living face to nothingness.

“No, I don’t need saving.”

“Perhaps we should head back in,” Danya said to Aren quietly.

The temperature was dropping. Surely Aren would notice the change, notice the cold was biting worse now, nipping at their fingers and noses. Threatening to seep through the boots.

Danya offered her hand to Aren. The queen reached out and took it gently, as if half expecting it not to be there when their hands met. Brown eyes travelled from Aren’s arm, to Danya’s hand, then up into the healer’s eyes.

That terrible feeling of something else staring out at her prickled up Danya’s back.

The throne could take control for moments in time. A flash here, a splash there. Riding a queen’s body when the one who sat the throne flew into a rage. Not pop in here and there, and all over for the sake of a look-see.

“Perhaps it’s time I headed in,” Aren said to Danya.

She released Danya’s hand and walked past. A tremble ran through Danya as she looked at her cousin. She watched his easy laugh. Rooted in place, Danya tried not to cry out when Rewel offered his hand to the queen, and she took it.

Danya couldn’t separate her concern for Aren from her concern for her cousin.

Who was the danger to whom?