Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Tuscany
Aged Twenty
Walking slowly into the piazza, I clutch my fluffy toy eagle to my chest as my sombre black dress threatens to swallow me. I named this ridiculous toy Rome, after my absent big brother, who gifted it to me upon his return from a campaign many, many years ago.
My hair is swept off my face, the long honey locks hidden under a black veil—the perfect colour for a funeral. Today, we mourn as our ancestors did—elegies, flowers, and a sea of black fabric.
This dress would have fit me well, had I developed the way they wanted me to.
But I didn’t. I am shorter, thinner and more petite than a near-pure Xin De queen should be.
They discussed breaking my legs and engineering me longer, stronger ones, but my brother wouldn’t allow it.
They did, however, lengthen my vocal cords, lending my voice a smooth, soothing melody.
“She’ll appear human,” they said. A Common. Someone who has no engineered genetics or animal traits bred into their genes to survive this harsh land.
“Relatable. Unintimidating,” they sold. Small. Short. Weak. Common humans are all of the above when compared to the Xin De—the enhanced species.
The piazza once mesmerised me with its old-world mosaics and stone arches, but now I see the contrived elegance.
We hide our advanced technologies from the citizens.
Our human engineering, bone repair, cloning, blending humans with beasts to create supreme beings.
We conceal it all behind a facade of perceived simplicity— the old-world buildings, the humble fabrics and décor, the unassuming festivals and trades.
I see the marketing in it.
But maybe that’s because I see the marketing in me. I was destined to be part of the regime’s great design. I ruined their plans when my mind split in two, and both parts are me, but neither is enough.
The funeral unfolds before me; women weep; men stand solemnly. Rome, and the Lords of The Cradle—Bled, Medan, Darwin, and Turin Two—occupy the front row, facing the large portrait of my father.
I sit in the left wing, on the same row, hidden and cloaked in black. No one recognises me, not after all this time. I haven’t been seen by a Cradle citizen since…
Since I was ten.
I dig my nails into Eagle Rome and lift my chin against any show of vulnerability.
The ceremony begins, and Master Cairo speaks of my late father, Turin of The Strait, The Cradle’s longest reigning Monarch and Protector. I listen on as if he were a stranger, because he is. Each accomplishment is new to me, a fresh, wonderful fairytale.
He moves onto my brother, our new king, Sire, recounting tales of his victories at Breaker Ledge, of his valour in the field. Unbeaten. Some say, he cannot die.
More fairytales.
More marketing.
But the people, The Trade aligned citizens of The Cradle, the mourners, nod and murmur. Oh, how they love the tale.
What feels like an hour or so passes. People begin to shift in their seats as last-light licks the silvery belt between the land and sky.
I clutch Eagle Rome tighter. No one looks at me. No one sees me. I don’t know what I expected from my first public appearance in a decade, but I’m a mere ghost in black. I’m not sure whether this fills me with relief or sadness.
Then, almost as an afterthought, Master Cairo mentions me: my beauty.
It is my only claim to exist: being pretty.
Tuscany of The Strait. Shall the historians title me ‘the broken queen’?
Born For Marble so easily cracked down the seam.
Who has done so little… I still feel so little. So little in every way.
I lift Eagle Rome to my chin and inhale through the veil, the notes of his fluffy feathers remind me of… I don’t know.
Something real. Fur.
As the crowd begins to disperse, I glance over to see Essen, a member of my Collective and now the Queen’s Army, waiting to escort me back to my wing.
Rome will demand I leave my wing often. That is why I am here today— his orders.
Still, soon my brother will be too busy stepping into our father’s place to spend any time with me.
I rise but remain rooted to the spot, stealing time, freedoms. Grieving… or at least that is how it might seem to anyone who cared enough to glance my way.
The large presence of a man approaching in my peripheral lifts every hair on my body to attention, but I do not flinch or recoil.
I am the queen. I stare ahead as if I do not notice, while I notice everyone.
Notice Rome leave, his giant pet eagle’s shadow crossing the sky, and the Guards chance a conversation.
“Do you love Sire?” Cairo stops in front of me, between me and the stage he stood atop only moments ago.
“I didn’t realise you saw me,” I say, flat.
“Of course, my queen.” He bows.
“Why ask such a silly question?” I say, tone level and unamused.
“You will undermine his reign…” His words trail off as his eyes drop to Eagle Rome hugged to my chest. The message is sharp, cutting like a knife.
I’m a liability. With my dissonance, my regression, and my pathetic needs.
“One look at you and you will put his infallible nature into question. You’re not ready. Are you?”
He is just a man.
They are only words.
Skinny reality… That is what I call it when the ground shifts and my mind builds with fog. My reality becomes skinny. When time and space and my place disappear, and I watch myself from a distance.
I part my lips and think he can see it through the veil. “I will not.” My voice trembles, offering me up for his mockery.
“You will.”
“No.”
A heavy pause presses on my shoulders, and it takes every inch of strength not to crumble under the weight of it, but then Cairo looks over the top of my head, and I feel warmth move through my spine.
Someone is behind me.
It must be Rome.
Cairo’s gaze falls to me once more, not addressing the King of The Cradle surely standing at my back.
The obstinance; had I more courage, I would slap Cairo’s cheek for his insolence.
My brother may only be twenty-nine, but he is now Sire, the king, and one must address the Cradle’s Monarch appropriately.
“Better a quiet queen than a hysterical one,” Cairo muses, eyes moving from Eagle Rome and up again.
My heart squeezes when Rome says nothing to defend me. “So, you want me to be seen and not heard?”
“If you think that’s for the best, my queen.” He bows. “I am sure I will see more of you now.”
He bows again and clasps his hands at his back, sauntering away, casual power in his movements.
“Why?” I breathe.
Why didn’t you defend me?
Frowning, though behind the veil, I turn to confront Rome, but—
My mouth parts. “Kong…”
“My queen,” he acknowledges, bowing his head and straightening once again.
I swallow and face forward as memories of that night hurtle back. Oh, I wish it wasn’t him. He knows too much. Has seen me raw. Flayed. How am I to move on if he stands there, the witness to all my pain? A mirror. A reminder. I can’t pretend with him.
But I try.
“Y-you startled me,” I lie.
“My apologies.”
Or maybe he has forgotten.
It has been ten years.
Just because that night is forever carved into my soul doesn’t mean it meant anything more than duty to him. Watching Rome’s sister. Guarding the queen. Duty.
Kong has been in my father’s Guard for longer than I have been alive, and for the past decade he has been my brother’s Guardian. He has always been easy to look at, but today, though I only had the smallest of peeps at him, he appears… different to me.
How did I not realise that he has beautiful eyes, or a perfect jawline, not too square as to look brutish but chiselled in a regal and virile way?
I missed his long black eyelashes and the thick column of his neck.
How did I miss such things the last time we spoke—over ten years ago—and why do they affect me so strangely today?
I swallow. “You knew Turin well,” I say, staring again at the front stage, at the portrait of my late father.
“As well as any man could,” he agrees, but doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to. His response speaks volumes.
“I haven’t been well,” I say stupidly, as if he doesn’t know.
As if the entire Guard and every member of Sire’s Hall don’t know of the broken queen.
So, I say it before he can. “It feels like a lifetime,” I mutter.
With my fluffy toy eagle hugged to my chest and pain as intrinsic as bone, I own my absence these past ten years. “It was.”
It’s not like I didn’t exist. I did. I saw my Army ladies. Saw my brother grow into the man he is. Played with the eagles in my aviary. I learnt five old-world languages, even read the Bible. I just didn’t exist outside that enclosure…
Now, my father is dead, and Rome believes that solves every problem in my head.
“I’m pleased to see you, little queen.” Kong’s deep, honest reverence blankets my back. His simple utterance, nothing special, but everything at the same time.
I grip the chair, almost collapsing onto it.
“Rome said he did it for me,” I whisper, unwavering from the portrait before me.
“Did you know? He came to me with my father’s head.
Dropped it in the bath I was submerged in and told me to get up.
That I could be free now.” A shuddered breath leaves me.
Not because my brother killed the king, because that isn’t a secret or unusual, but because I was never truly locked away.
I chose to be there. I chose to be sick.
Didn’t I? Didn’t I choose not to smile? Didn’t I choose to dissolve into my skinny reality? “He made it sound so simple,” I add.
“And it isn’t.”
“No”—my throat cracks like thin glass— “It is. It has to be.” I feel too much and lash out. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have to meet with my brother? Take his right hand, begin his reign.”
“I am here because you are, little queen,” Kong replies, and his words curl into my heart. “And I said I would be the last time we spoke. All those years ago.”
He remembers…
The fragile resolve holding me in place starts to splinter. I know what I have to do. I have to pretend that I am fine. Hide as much as I can. Fall apart in isolation.
Now that my father is dead.
Maybe, it will all stop.
“Your pulse.” Kong’s deep voice rolls through my spine, and the heat from his body at my back feels palpable.
Perhaps it’s his presence... A warm, masculine, protective presence.
Something my father should have offered.
“Remember when you feel yourself drifting away, hear it in your ears and feel it beneath your fingers. You’re real. ”
“I’m twenty. I should know that I am real,” I scoff. “And this thing”—I glance at Eagle Rome— “should get rid of this silly thing,” I deflect, only holding it tighter, because my words are unbearable.
“We do what our inner creature needs,” he says softly, and I glance at Essen from my Army who still waits for me.
Yes, but my inner creature whimpers and recoils, huddles in a corner wanting to be held like a baby. My inner creature is pathetic.
My throat tightens.
You said you would sit in the dark with me? You lied, Kong.
“Didn’t you wonder where I was?” I ask, the pain of a deep, misguided betrayal fluttering along each word. “I mean… Please forget I said any—”
“They wouldn’t let me see you,” he cuts in, and I part my lips to breathe. Does that mean he tried to see me?
“And you wouldn’t leave your wing,” he adds, his voice a rough whisper.
Oh… I don’t know why he pretends to care so much, and I don’t know why he feels like… mine. He isn’t. He didn’t come for me. “You’re not my Guardian, Kong.”
“Your life will never be easy. It doesn’t have to be lonely. Allow people in. You’re free from your wing, now.” He pauses, and it feels heavy. “If you will allow me to watch the monsters for you, little queen, I will.”
Yes. Yes, please. Please. A desperate plea resonates between my ears, but all I say is, “My monsters can’t be watched.”
“Allow me to try.”
“You can try, but you will fail.” I cuddle Eagle Rome to my chest, grounding myself. “I disappear occasionally.”
“I will wait until you are—”
“No,” I cut in straightaway. “Don’t let me hide. I’ve done it enough. Getting lost is too easy now. I want you to find me, even when I don’t want you to… please. I need someone to always find me.” Oh, please understand me. Please understand what I am saying.
“I will find you, little queen.”
My lower lip wobbles. He has no idea what that means to me.
He can’t. When finding myself has been impossible at times, when my skinny reality can be split by a patronising word from the Trade Master or a side-eye from a nurse or days of overstimulation or nothing at all— I gasp as the thoughts are tangled in my mouth.
I want to believe him.
But he wasn’t there.
He can make the promises, but The Trade and his duties will always make him break them. So all I say is, “Thank you, Kong.”
Then I bow to my father’s portrait, clasp my hands in front of my waist, and stride to Essen to be escorted back to my wing— the Queen’s Wing.
But not forever.
I’ll leave again soon.
Maybe in a week.