Chapter 12 #2
“No,” I say politely. “I have only left The Estate once in my life, and that was recent.”
“What?” she gasps. “Once?”
“Brook!” Essen scolds. “That is your queen. Remove your shock.”
“I’m sorry…” she stammers.
But a slight smile builds on my lips, an unfamiliar sensation sparked by her candour. My brother believes I will break under honesty. Will I? “It’s quite alright. There is no one around. You’re not a very good Army girl, are you?”
She looks at her hands, sadness and shame pulling her brows in.
My words were meant to be factful not hurtful. “Brook, look at me,” I order gently.
She lifts her gaze, and I notice she has pretty blue eyes. “I’m not a very good queen,” I say with a wink. “Perhaps, that means we will be very close one day.”
A tentative smile hits her lips. I study it, each quiver and curve—like every smile I receive. It’s close-lipped, but not overly tight. She hides something. Nerves, perhaps.
I lean toward the front of the tank, calling to the driver, “Why are we waiting? We would like to stretch our legs.”
“Kong is finishing a perimeter check, my queen. Shouldn’t be much longer. He has recommended you eat your crown-light meal while you wait.”
Will you eat for me, little queen?
I squirm on my seat, but Essen is already grabbing a bowl of berries, bananas, and cubes of cheese from a compartment beside her. And I have no reason to object, other than…
“I am a tad travel nauseous,” I say to her, but accept a berry. Chewing it for what feels like forever, my throat closing up every time I wish to swallow the thing down.
Oh, I don’t know why I find this so difficult. I know I should eat. Maybe because I am forced to eat when I do not wish to or maybe because food became a form of positive reinforcement in my treatments. Taste is burdened by my past.
After several long moments, a few berries, a slice of bread, and a cube of cheese to prevent argument, the hatch opens.
I wait for my ladies to pass through first, before standing and exiting myself.
I pop my head out. The first thing I notice is the gust of air from the forest and then the scent of fresh water. With nearly fifty percent of The Cradle desert practically uninhabitable, the pockets of forest are even more magnificent. They feel almost sacred.
The second thing I notice is the soft eyes of about two dozen Trade men and women gathering around the tank, watching my every move. They are dressed in the Common way, with neat shirts tucked into pants in the colour of their Trade; blue.
A Guard, Blunt, I believe, holds his hand out for me, offering me guidance from the tank. My stomach knots up, but I feel the Trade men and women’s eyes on me, so while his fingers deter me like flames lashing out, I reach for his hand anyway.
Suddenly, Kong grabs Blunt’s wrist with deadly force. “You do not touch the queen.”
Kong.
I peer up at him, meeting his dark eyes, frozen for the smallest of moments, before I lift my chin and feign impatience.
Blunt lowers his hand. “I was just—”
Kong jabs him in the nose, throwing him backward from the tank’s edge. “You do not touch the queen!”
“Well, someone should help me down… Kong?” I attempt to douse the tension but really am pleased I need not feel a strange man’s skin on mine.
Kong holds his hand out. “My queen.”
I place my much smaller hand in his, and his fingers fold over, encompassing.
His skin is warm and rough in places, and thickly padded and soft in others.
I can feel my hand inside his, tiny and slender, almost fragile in comparison.
It’s a small, dutiful touch, but I notice everything.
The radiant warmth in his palm, the strength in his fingers, and somehow he is both powerful and gentle at the same time.
Oh, I shouldn’t be so consumed by a hand…
He doesn’t desire me.
I am still that ten-year-old girl he watched claw at sheets. Now, pieces of a woman with a fluffy toy hugged to her chest, a cold tongue, and a marble coat.
I wouldn’t choose that girl.
Ignoring his hand’s warmth, I climb from the tank and straighten with grace, gazing out at my people.
“Tuscany of The Strait, The Cradle’s Queen and Mother,” a Guard announces behind me, and I try not to blush. This is the first time I have been announced like that— with my entire title.
My ladies quickly fix my velvety white dress and collect my long hair over my shoulders. “Good first-light. Thank you for receiving us.”
“My queen,” a Common man, no older than forty, steps hesitantly forward with a basket of bank flowers. “For you.” Essen collects them before I can, and Kong’s presence at my back is palpable. Eyes scan from me to over my head, to him, and I wonder what expression he has on.
Stoic, probably.
“They are lovely, thank you.” I gesture to the second tank just as two Guards appear with boxes of fruit and sweets. “I have gifts. Fruit, honey, medicine, and—”
“Wait.” Kong edges closer to my spine as a small girl wriggles her way through the group and flings herself toward me.
“It’s fine,” I say, meeting the sweet blonde girl a few paces closer to the group of people. Ducking to her height, I kneel on the dirt. Everyone gasps.
“What is your name?”
“Runner.”
“Runner?”
“River.” She laughs and hiccups simultaneously, then gasps, seeing her two-sizes-too-big shirt has come out from her trousers. “I’m a runner.”
She tucks it in.
“What are you doing out of the nursery?” As I say the words, I feel overwhelmed by what the answer might be. It isn’t safe for a child to be this close to the dam, to the construction and male workers.
“I am a Trade Dammer, my queen”
The blood drains from my cheeks. “How old are you, River?”
“Ten.”
A little voice inside me says, ‘Me too!’, and I know I have to focus.
“I’ve been here for two months,” she continues. “Meaningful Purpose starts at ten.”
“Yes.” A knot forms in my throat. “Well” —I force the emotion down— “will you show me around your magnificent dam?” I lift to my feet, and I take her hand in mine, not that much smaller than my own, and we walk toward the group.
“Yes! I can show you the runner,” she quips happily. “That is what I work on.”
Oh, a runner is her role. She introduced herself to me as her Trade role… The knot in my stomach squeezes.
With River on my right, Kong’s warmth stays close, his long arm bordering my left side, a physical barrier between me and the people as they part for River and I. Behind us, the CR Guard tracks our interaction, following our every move.
Ten…
She is only ten.
My pulse races in my throat as I complete the tour around the enormous dam and smaller weirs that surround it, leaving little River and the Trade Dammers behind to continue their usual proceedings.
Overwhelmed and on the verge of tears, I feel emotions swirling within me that defy logic. No need to cry. Everyone had been so pleasant, so polite, yet the weight of it all is almost unbearable.
Kong stands guard at my side, a silent fortress of stoicism. If only I could chisel away at his layers, uncovering the warmth beneath, the affection he hints at but never reveals. He once told me, on the day of my father’s funeral, that his inner creature would never be set free.
As I make my way back to the tank, trailed closely by Kong, I can’t stop thinking about little River.
“She is ten,” I mutter.
“Yes.” A strong, assured voice comes from behind me. We talk so often in private, with him at my back, and my face forward.
“Can I save her?” I whisper.
“Does she need saving?”
My heart twists. “She actually seemed pleased with her role, with her Purpose.”
“You are looking for things to improve, children to save,” he says, too knowing. “It isn’t here, little queen.”
Ahead, last-light melts away, and glowing dots twinkle beneath the forest canopy, marking a nearly erected royal tent.
I still, my breath catching.
Waiting on a wooden deck outside, Ana, Essen, and Brook smile gently as I approach the proud purple structure. Its heavy ropes and metal fixtures hold it in place while bulbous lanterns illuminate it against a dying last-light.
“Your room for the night, my queen,” Kong says, his hand brushing my lower back in a small, grounding gesture.
I gaze at the tent in awe, but a flicker of caution warns me not to indulge in too much excitement. Marble doesn’t feel. Not too much. The higher you rise, the more perilous the fall. The last time I felt this flutter of childish glee was at my Rite.
My smile falls.
“There is nothing dangerous inside that tent, little queen,” he adds.
“It’s not the tent that scares me, Kong. It is the—”
“Joy it might bring? Allow it.”
Ugh. I despise how he sees into my fractured mind, how he notices the slightest flinch or hitch in my breath and offers words of comfort, but no more... Not touch.
A tear slides down my cheek.
No one wants to embrace a marble statue.
I once read about an experiment where an infant was given two inanimate surrogate mothers: one soft and nurturing, the other hard and unyielding but provided food and water.
The infant chose the soft mother so many times that it eventually forgot to eat and perished.
I turn to face Kong, feeling the absence of his warmth where his fingers had just rested. My tight control begins to splinter. He is mistaken—there is danger in the tent. There is delight and promise, and promises can be broken. I am terrified of feeling too much of… anything.
“Is this how it will be?”
“How what will be?”
You speaking behind me.
Through a door.
Always separated.
So close, yet so far away.
“Nothing.” I straighten, forcing my eyes to level with his chest, arching my neck to meet his dark, unwavering gaze.
“It is lovely,” I admit, striving for normalcy. “I will debrief my Army now. Please allow us privacy.”