Chapter 3 #2
Then, I went to my room, where Master Cairo waited, and the ladies in coral took it from inside me… It’s not real—it’s not real!
A nightmare.
A bad one.
“Rome,” I whimper my big brother’s name, lower lip wobbling as I slide my hand under the bandage, meeting the tender slice between my hips.
I hiccup a sob.
I remember. Brownies and rings and candles and ointments and—a womb.
A voice sails through my door. “Has anyone checked on her?”
“We have been instructed to stand watch,” my Room Guard says; I recognise his stiff voice. “And not to disturb her.”
“By whom?”
“By Turin of The Strait.”
“Rome?” I choke his name. Is that you? I want my brother. “Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome.” I fist the sheets at my sides. “Rome!”
“It’s not Rome.” I hear a man clear his throat. “Princess. My queen, are you in pain?”
Yes, yes. Yes!
I shake my head from side to side, my neck a knot of coiled muscles, my little hands unwilling to release the sheets. Catatonic. Petrified. Don’t let go.
“No…” I peep. The single word is so soft, an utterly fragile thing, because it’s a lie and the truth and my world is crumbling around the edges.
The door cracks open. I manage to turn my head to face the thin gap. The large form of a man stands in the space, backlit by the corridor.
“My queen.” Kong bows. “I will get someone for you.”
I know him; he is my father’s most loyal Guard, my brother’s Guardian, seven-foot-tall, packed with too many muscles, and at least thirty years old…
He is also the only Guard that laughs at my jokes, however childish they are, and didn’t tell anyone when he found me climbing a staircase in my nightgown.
“No,” I find myself saying. I don’t know why I say it. He bears no position with me or duty to me. He’s merely another massive Xin De man who prowls the hallways, but… He is nice. He smiles. Winks. I like him.
I hear a deep sigh, mingling with the deafening quiet. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Then stay,” I whisper.
“No, my queen. That isn’t appropriate.”
“By the door,” I spit out.
The pause that follows is a slow-growing ball in my throat, so I growl. “I command it!” I screech. “I command you to stay by the door.”
“As you wish.”
“All night?” My voice breaks.
“Yes, little queen. All night.”
He steps inside and slides down the wall just inside, resting the heavy door on the frame but not pushing it into place, not closing it. We can’t be alone together. They would probably execute him.
I turn my chin, eyes losing focus on the canopy of drapes once again.
My body shakes as if it knows I’m breaking.
I didn’t need them—my womb or my ovaries.
I would never need them. But why did they take them?
Why didn’t I know? Who knew? All this time, while I was accepting chocolate and flowers, beaming at the Trade Nurses, in awe of my beloved Turin and his occasional smile, this was planned for me?
My father, the protector, allowed them to hurt me.
This is a Queen’s Rite.
If I ever wanted to be queen, if I ever dreamed of sharing chocolate with the Common, of sitting beside Rome at the festivals, that dream now chokes me.
“My legs won’t stop trembling, Kong,” I whisper, my voice matching my words. “Do you think I’m dying?”
I hear him rise to his feet. “Let me get the nurse—”
“No!” I choke out. “No nurse. No coral-colours. No kings. No lies. Just pin my legs down, Kong, please. Make them stop.”
“Fuck…” His voice becomes dark torment, bleak and distraught and so raw and real it seems to take form. “I can’t.”
He can’t touch me.
No man ever will.
“Please,” I beg. “I command it.” My jaw suddenly rattles, clattering my teeth. “I demand you hold my legs down.”
Then I remember dark words…
‘A nice clean cut. Say your vows, my queen. Say them as the nurse accepts your gift to The Cradle. Your womb is the vessel for life, and you give it to The Cradle like all the queens that came before you.’
‘I will take no man.’
I gasp.
‘Bear no children.’
I sense a tug at my pelvis.
‘Nurture.’
Tug.
‘Inspire.’
Tug.
‘Endure.’
Something is taken from inside me.
‘I am the Queen of The Cradle.’
By the end of the dark memory, I’m wailing and gasping.
“Breathe, little queen.” Kong’s head blocks the crimson glow from the fire when he peers down at me on the bed. I can’t see his face, only the dark red outline of features.
The nightmare melts.
“That’s it. Breathe,” he says.
I feel so small…
I am so small.
“Use two fingers.” He places two fingers on the side of my neck just below my jaw. “Place them here.”
He removes his touch, and my skin mourns the possibility that he cares. He couldn’t have known. He didn’t betray me or laugh in secret, knowing what horrors awaited just around the corner.
My hand trembles as I place two fingers over the warm patch his left. I feel it. A thumping on the other side of my skin, like my heart is right there, in my neck.
My pulse. The air smooths out when I feel the steady, powerful rhythm.
I focus on the beating. “My pulse.”
“Strong,” he states, his tone daring the world to disagree. “Like you. And brave. Like you, little queen.”
“But… but I don’t want to be brave,” I whisper, my voice shuddering along that last word. “Is that okay? Just this once?”
“Yes,” he states, tone deep with sentiment. “Tomorrow is another day.”
And I know it is. I know to a man like Kong, a day is enough time to wallow, but I don’t want to pretend I’ll be ready tomorrow.
“I don’t want tomorrow,” I admit with a whimper as pathetic as my thoughts. I don’t want my vows. Don’t want to live tomorrow; I want to go back. “I don’t want the light.”
“Then I will sit in the dark with you.”
I can’t imagine him understanding me, or this aching in my chest, or this tear in my soul.
I don’t know why he is even here, babysitting me.
He has seen worse. He nearly died for my father twice at Breaker Ledge when the raiders landed.
Has carried the dead bodies of Guards the same age as me and stacked them in piles on the desert mound.
I guess that is why my father calls him unbreakable.
“Do you ever feel helpless, Kong the Unbreakable?”
“Oh, yes,” he says.
“When?”
“Right now, little queen.”
My first night as Queen of The Cradle is spent between a nightmare and a dark reality.
Kong guards the door in silence throughout the night that seems to go on and on while I drown in the here and now and then and reasons and truths… I toss my head from side to side, wailing and whimpering.
Night blazes into first-light, the people move around the Hall, and a deep voice, the timbre of King Turin, grows as he approaches.
Kong rises to his feet. His gaze lingers on me one last time. Red webs stretch across the whites of his eyes, mapping a night spent fighting sleep. Then he leaves.
Moments alone…
My father enters.
My reality dissolves.
And. I. Do. Too.