Chapter One #2
She says nothing, and instead, walks over to the vanity table that sits below the arched stained-glass windows, her dress ignited with the red fire of sunlight that beams through the roses that centre the glass.
She stares out the windows for what feels like a painful eternity, in deep contemplation.
The sight of her in the colourful sunlight evokes a sense of awe within me, like I’m in the presence of a saint.
Her lustrous beauty is inebriating and seeing the way the light trickles down her cheeks like warm honey, it’s no wonder my father proposed marriage at his very first glance at her.
I hold my breath, when her head dips towards the patched-up window, her feet mere inches from the bloodstains left there on the stone floor after I cut my feet running to the window to check that there were no more birds circling.
But her gaze falls from the window as she shifts on her feet to turn back to me, and sticks on something on my vanity. She freezes.
Oh, gods help me. The letter.
She pivots stiffly on her feet, gripping the letter. The paper crumples up in the tightness of her grip. Her eyes scream outrage, and I flinch as though she’s capable of setting me ablaze with one blink.
‘Tell me this is not what I think it is,’ she says sharply, holding the parchment in the air, the red seal broken apart and trembling with her quiet fury.
My heart beats so fast it feels entirely possible it could burst from my chest and smack an expression onto my mother’s steel face.
‘Speak, girl!’ she yells. ‘This is the Umbrian seal. Is it not? Speak, for the sake of the gods.’
‘Fine!’ I shout back. ‘I didn’t want you to panic, I—’
‘You what?’ she cuts me off. ‘You didn’t think I should worry that you received a letter from the Umbrian king on the day of your presentation in court? You think it’s not even slightly dangerous that this letter is addressed directly to you, the sole fucking heir?’
The sole heir. Her words make me think of Ori. I ache with the grief of his absence. I was never supposed to be sole heir.
‘I didn’t think it was anything more than an empty threat. Just some fearmongering to make us retaliate or something.’
I don’t know where to look. Anywhere but her face.
She lurches forward and thrusts the letter into my face, the blade of the parchments edge scratching my cheek as I reach up to grab it from her.
‘Read it,’ she commands, her voice a sudden and disturbing level of calm, however.
I swallow hard as I unfurl the letter, revealing the twisted handwriting of the King of Umbra.
Princess Delengranz,
I am deeply offended I have not received an invitation for such a fateful occasion. One would think I am not welcome within the court of Reyhen. I will attend. If you wish for the Divide to remain intact, you will oblige.
Yours forcefully,
Eliaz Daegon of Umbra.
My mother’s skin drains of any colour. Something in the way the acidic sting of nausea rises up in my throat tells me she knows something about the Umbrian king that I do not, and that I have been way less worried about the contents of this letter than I should’ve been.
‘You don’t really think he can get across the Divide, do you?
’ I ask. ‘The Divide is powered by the Relic – it’s meant to be impenetrable.
And even then, if he’s known all along how to tear through it, why wait until now to make an appearance?
’ My mother shakes her head. ‘You don’t understand.
’ She keeps her eyes on me as she fumbles for the bed and perches on the end of it.
‘What better day to assert supremacy by brutally murdering the Reyheni heir, than on the very day her powers manifest in full. He wants to create the illusion of a fair fight.’
I wince at the imagery her words invoke, shaking my head as if to rid myself of the thought of him biding his time for decades. Perhaps honing his strengths into perfection, sharpening the black blade of his power into the weapon he will use to gut me with my entire court as witness.
I push any image of that out of my mind.
‘But surely he cannot access Reyhen?’ I press.
There should be nothing more powerful than the magic of the Virtuae Relic, the very thing that created the Divide, and what keeps it standing after all this time.
‘It has been done before.’ She looks to her lap. I blanch. ‘When you were but an adolescent.’ My eyes widen in horror, piecing it together in my mind.
‘That’s part of the reason you sent me away, isn’t it?’ I say, less of a question, more of an epiphany. ‘Because someone somehow managed to breach the Divide.’
‘It’s powerful magic,’ is all she says, meaning if the Divide sources its power from something as ancient and potent as the magic omitted from the Relic, then whoever managed to cross over from Umbra must have been in possession of a terrifying amount of power themselves.
I look at the pathetic grace of my mother as she purses her lips and shakes her head. She may be one to cower back from the unknown, but I certainly won’t be. I’ve spent the last 84 years sitting idle, and now that I know more about the looming threat to my kingdom, that ends today.
‘I am not scared.’ I fold my arms across my chest. ‘I do not accept threats, empty or not. And I will certainly not allow our kingdom’s safety to be jeopardised by anyone, more powerful or not.’
I keep my posture, riled up by my mother’s need to push away the inevitable. The Umbrian king’s presence is unavoidable; the clashing of our kingdoms was bound to happen at some point. But I will not sit around and pretend it won’t.
‘What else aren’t you telling me?’ I implore. My mother doesn’t even look at me before rising and making her way to the doorway, pausing before she enters the hall.
‘Enough questions.’ She shakes her head, hand clutching the door frame as if it is the only thing holding her in the room, and sighs.
‘Don’t be like me, Eira.’
I am taken slightly aback by her words as I watch her disappear into the light of the hall. Something glinting in the back of my mind tells me she doesn’t mean what I think, but I quickly smother it with a blanket of anger.
I stare at the empty doorway, eyes drying out in the breeze from the hall. With my hand gripping the cutting edge of the parchment until I can feel the paper slicing into my fingers, tempting more blood to the surface, I think to myself:
Gladly.