Chapter Six Fenlia #3
Her lips tremble as they part. Her voice is scratched and torn as she says: ‘Yes,’ too quiet for anyone to hear. She has to say it again. Louder. Braver. Stronger. ‘Yes – I abdicate.’
And her brother seems pleased by it. Pleased by the thought and the understanding that she is not his chosen. That she is less than.
As she always has been. ‘In knowing this country’s concern regarding Givers ascending to the throne, I made the choice to amend this law for one purpose alone.
Crown Princess Adalei has always been my chosen heir.
She and her children will be the line that rules this house after I am gone,’ Elician says to Hamad.
‘But, should the worst happen, and my dear cousin is unable to fulfil that role, then I wish then and only then for the throne to pass to one who has long been a part of this house. Princess Fenlia is, at this time, second in line behind the Crown Princess Adalei, to ascend only if there is no one that stands before her, and only for the length of one human lifespan so there is no threat of an eternal ruler on this sacred throne. I would not risk this country’s storied history or its fate unnecessarily.
Does this satisfy this body’s understanding of this decision? ’
It is not a wholesale rejection of Fenlia as a person.
She has not been cast aside entirely. But she is still…
less than. Second place. A tempered justification in the form of an excuse that hides the reality of Elician’s gambit.
She is a political convenience used to obfuscate Elician’s position and to rely on the already given assumption that Adalei may be too ill to ever have children in the first place.
It was as simple as saying: Certainly, I changed the law, but it will never be an eventuality meant to come to pass.
It is smoke and mirrors to secure his own place on the throne.
And Fen wishes she hadn’t needed to hear it all out loud.
Hamad bows his head. ‘Thank you for such clear and understandable reasoning,’ he demurs.
‘I am so glad that such an important decision has been addressed with due course and consideration. But, truly, we have concerns for Your Majesty’s good health too.
’ His continued interruptions are inappropriate.
Excessive. But the members of parliament are not dismissing Hamad’s notions.
They are letting him stand for them, and give voice to what they all must have been thinking.
‘Will you be taking a mistress?’ Hamad continues. Gasps echo up in the gallery.
‘No,’ Elician replies. ‘I entered this betrothal with the understanding that Stello Alest will one day be King of Alelune, and by that arrangement, this marriage is one both to Alest and Alelune’s people.
I will not disgrace such an arrangement by the taking of a mistress in order to produce a new heir.
I have already stated my desires. Crown Princess Adalei, her betrothed, Wilion d’Altas, and their line will succeed this throne.
I will never sire a child, nor abandon my husband, either to appease this parliament or any individuals who seek an alternative arrangement to this throne.
There will be no mistress; my husband will remain my priority within my house.
This is my final word on this matter. Your concerns are not our own.
And might I suggest, my lord, that you keep to your house, and I will keep to mine.
And should I need to bring a point of order regarding my health, well-being or the status of my heirs – I will let this body know and answer all their concerns at that time. ’
Hamad bows his head. A word of congratulations for the wedding. A moment of humble fragility. He cedes the floor. It is over. Elician continues his pre-prepared words.
But for the rest of the session, the tension is so thick that Fenlia wishes she didn’t need air to breathe.
The people of the palace aren’t happy. Courtiers who raised their daughters as potential mothers for Elician’s future child openly weep.
Lords who long hoped to be able to turn Adalei’s head from Lio start arguments in the halls.
And wherever Fen walks, whispers skitter this way and that about how, before the whole of parliament, she was forced to relinquish a claim to the throne she hadn’t even known she had.
She doesn’t see her family for the rest of the day.
She doesn’t attend her lessons, or bother to keep with Elician’s schedule.
Someone else can do it. She is certain someone else already has.
Life in the palace will go on, always, without her in it.
She was never fully meant to belong. Adopted but not assimilated.
Not my sister echoes over and over in her mind. It was Lio who said it. Lio, whom Fen has never considered her brother either, and yet it was Elician who effectively disinherited her only hours later. Disappointment.
She tucks herself in one of the enclosed gardens, far away from anyone’s prying eyes, and ducks her head to her arms. She doesn’t even have the energy to cry anymore.
She is simply too tired to manage even that.
She just wants to be alone. Alone and left to her thoughts, which are doing all in their power to break her heart more and more and more.
So, naturally, she is found.
‘Fen?’ Adalei stands before her in her perfect dress, with her perfect headscarf and her perfect circlet. The image of monarchy. One day to be Queen.
‘Go away,’ Fen bites out.
‘It was cruel you had no forewarning on the inheritance,’ Adalei says anyway. ‘But thank you, for your response and your abdication. It means so much.’
‘Go away,’ Fen insists, burrowing her head as deep as it will go in the harsh fold of her arms and the tight press of her knees.
‘Would you have even wanted to be queen?’ Adalei asks.
‘I guess I’ll never know, will I?’ Fen shouts, losing her fight with self-pity now that a target has appeared so willingly before her wicked blade of a tongue. Who needs lessons in swordplay when she can slay others and herself just by her words alone?
‘What do you want, Fenlia?’ Adalei asks. ‘What, more than anything in this world, do you want to do with the long life you have been given?’
Once, Adalei said it was always best to find answers to questions that have not been asked. Fen wonders what Adalei truly wants to know. Why she is standing here, when all the rest have deemed her a failure already.
‘I want to matter,’ Fen says.
She wants to be held. She wants to be comforted. She wants to know that she has a purpose in this world beyond merely existing.
‘Then do something that matters.’ Adalei offers no comfort. No excuses. ‘Everybody you know is, right now, doing the very best they can to do something that matters. What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Figure it out.’
‘I don’t know how! I keep getting sent to lesson after lesson but I don’t know how to be…to be you.’
‘You never will be. You will only ever be Fenlia.’
‘Well Fenlia is a waste of space who can never do anything right.’
‘Take my hand.’ Adalei holds her palm out between them.
‘What?’
‘Take my hand,’ Adalei repeats. Fen grasps her palm, and Adalei squeezes tight. ‘There,’ she says. ‘You have done one thing right. Now stand up.’ She helps hoist Fen to her feet. Fen stands, still holding Adalei’s hand, bewildered and numb. ‘There. A second thing right. What will be your third?’
‘None of this matters,’ Fen chokes out.
‘What you did today – mattered,’ Adalei says. ‘It mattered a great deal, to a great many people. And it mattered to me. I will never forget it. But I will ask, what will you do next?’
Adalei releases her hand. She is going to leave. Fen says: ‘I said something horrible to Lio. I accused him of being the reason Elician got hurt. I didn’t mean it. I was angry and I just said it. I didn’t think.’
‘Then apologize,’ Adalei tells her, with no condemnation at all. ‘And do better.’ She walks away, leaving Fen standing there with a new thought replacing all the horrible ones that came before. What is one thing I can do that matters, and how can I make things right?
She makes her way back to her room. Guards and various residents of the palace bow their heads when they see her, but no one speaks.
Everyone has a job to do here. Everyone has a mission.
And Adalei is right. Fen is without a purpose.
Tolerated but not wanted, and always out of place amongst the quagmire of politics.
Returning to her room, Fen sits at her desk. She glares at the letter King Aliamon left her. She shoves it to the side and draws a fresh sheet of parchment in front of her instead. What can I do?
She’s not much good at anything, save being opinionated.
She has a great deal of opinions. And right now, whether anyone listens to her or not: opinions are things that matter.
Elician needs the court on his side, and Cat…
Alest needs the people of Alelune to want him on the throne in lieu of his brother.
But no one in Alelune even knows he exists. Not really.
Fen may not be the most effusive writer – she does not have Elician’s poet’s touch – but this does not need poetry.
It needs honesty. Earnestness. Someone who actually knows the person she is writing about, and believes in them.
Even if none of them believe in her. She lowers pen to page and she starts to write.
On this, the thirteenth day of Harvestfall, it is to be known all across the land that Queen Alenée’s firstborn son, Alest, is the rightful King of Alelune…
She writes until dawn. Draft upon draft.
She scratches out excess words, inserts proper adjectives and draws up a narrative that King Aliamon would have been proud of.
She lists all of Alest’s qualities, his kindness and mature judgement, his dedication to his oaths.
Then she goes to the printing press and places an order.
Hundreds of thousands of copies are to be printed and disseminated as far as the courier can carry them and beyond, both at home and abroad.
Elician wants Alest on that throne. Alest wants it too. And if this can help…she’s willing to try. She just hopes that in the end, it actually does matter.