Chapter Twenty-Nine Fenlia
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Fenlia
The mother’s name is Kassandra. She is young and plain-looking with dusty copper skin and curling brown hair.
She is dressed in simple linen layers with basic ties.
Her daughter is her mirror image in every way, but someone has seen fit to dress the toddler in fabrics so fine they could only have come from Hamad.
They are in his house colours, after all: blues and greens and golds.
Fen’s jaw clenches. She inspects the mother and child with a careful eye.
Kassandra looks terrified, but the little girl seems only curious.
She clings to her mother, one hand clenched tight in Kassandra’s fist, but she peeks out from around Kassandra’s limbs, sucking on a thumb and looking mystified by Fen’s presence.
‘My lady Kassandra,’ Hamad greets her. He walks forward, arms spread wide like he intends to take both Kassandra and the child into a warm embrace.
Kassandra’s hand tightens around her daughter’s.
She doesn’t initiate contact with the man.
He lets his arms fall, but not his grin.
‘This is Princess Fenlia, King Elician’s sister.
’ The qualifier is not necessary, especially not if Kassandra has come from Himmelsheim originally.
They know Fen there; all the city knows her name.
‘Your…Highness,’ Kassandra greets politely. She isn’t happy. Fen approaches. She stands before Elician’s Giver-born child.
‘May I?’ she asks Kassandra quietly. Kassandra’s expression is one of pure resignation.
She has no say in what is about to happen, and she cannot stop it from transpiring even if she wishes to.
She nods as if Fen needs her permission, and Fen gently places her hand on the child’s head. She closes her eyes.
She can feel her brother’s energy swirling through every part of this girl’s genetic code. ‘What’s her name?’ she asks miserably.
‘Aniya,’ Kassandra whispers. The girl is beautiful. She has dimples on each cheek, a cute little button nose. Fen does not need to guess what she will look like as she ages. She will look just like her mother.
‘Aniya. A beautiful name,’ she murmurs. It means happy blessing. She wonders how often Kassandra has snuggled her little girl, delighted in her presence alone.
Not the least bit pleased or amused or expectant, Fen says, ‘Lord Hamad, if I may speak with Lady Kassandra alone? There are…delicate matters of womanhood that must be discussed before I can confirm this child is my brother’s.
’ Hamad frowns at Fen’s request. ‘Truly, propriety here must be observed, don’t you agree? ’
‘Of course, Your Highness.’ He tips his head and sees himself out. Fen gestures to the simple bed that Kassandra and Aniya have been offered. She casts a glance over her shoulder and confirms the room has a lock on the outside. Kassandra is a prisoner here in all but name.
‘Tell me how you met Elician,’ Fen murmurs softly as she sits beside her.
‘You already know then?’ Kassandra asks, just as soft.
‘Yes, I can sense him.’
‘I didn’t know he was the prince,’ Kassandra says.
There are tears in her eyes. ‘I didn’t know.
Aisha and I…we just wanted a child and – and a different Giver started the process, I swear.
The prince – we met on the road. He…he—I fell and he caught me and he just said he wanted to make sure I was all right and I… ’
Oh, Elician. Fen closes her eyes. She can see it more clearly now.
Kassandra had already been pregnant. ‘How long had it been since you’d seen the Giver who gave you your gift?’
‘Six months,’ Kassandra murmurs. ‘More?’
‘Aniya…she would have been stillborn, Kassandra. Giver-born children need the Giver to be constantly present because the male component helps with the formation of the child. There are so many things that can go wrong, and likely did go wrong.’
‘She hadn’t been moving,’ Kassandra whispers. ‘But after the prince…’
‘He saved her life,’ Fen says. ‘I can feel him…echoes of him, still circulating through her. His intention, his hope, his desire: for her to live and to be healthy and strong. There are only a few reasons I can still feel him, and the most obvious is this: my lady, your child would have died without his involvement. He saved her in your womb. His power is literally what gave her life.’ Kassandra sniffs loudly.
One hand goes to her eyes, and she cries against her palm.
Aniya’s bottom lip warbles as she looks back and forth between her mother and Fen.
‘I didn’t know he was the prince,’ Kassandra repeats. ‘I just…I didn’t know what he did.’
‘He didn’t want you to know,’ Fen tells her.
She knows that for certain. If Elician had wanted Aniya as his daughter, he would have named her before court.
He would have followed up with her after returning to Alelune.
He would have told somebody, anybody. He did none of that.
He chose Adalei as his heir, and he swore himself to Cat utterly and completely.
‘This isn’t what Elician wants,’ Fen says.
‘More importantly, is this what you want?’
‘No,’ Kassandra hisses. ‘Aniya is my daughter, mine and Aisha’s.’
‘Where is Aisha now?’ Fen asks.
‘I – I don’t know. They took us while we were at the market.
Hamad’s men. We were supposed to go home but…
I don’t know what’s going on.’ Kassandra’s hand drops from her eyes.
Still wet with her tears, it latches on to Fen’s wrist. ‘Please, Aniya isn’t a princess, she’s…
she’s my daughter. I just…I just want to take her home. ’
‘You have to be certain, Kassandra,’ Fen says.
‘Listen to me very carefully, because you have to be certain. If you make this choice now, there is no going back. Your daughter does have a claim. It is weak, but it could be enforced. Elician is her father as far as the law is concerned. When he helped your daughter be born, he took that responsibility on his own. Aniya could go to Himmelsheim, she could be raised as a crown princess. Aisha and you…There is no reason to believe that you wouldn’t be able to go with her.
She would be your daughter still, but also his.
She would be his heir. But if you choose this, if you choose to refute this, then she will never get that opportunity again. ’
Kassandra trembles before her. ‘She’s my daughter,’ Kassandra whispers. ‘She’s not a queen.’
There aren’t many people in the world who would withhold a crown from their daughter when it is freely given. ‘Tell me something,’ Fen asks. Aniya is staring up at them with her big brown eyes, curious but patient and sweet. ‘What would you do for her?’
‘Anything,’ Kassandra swears.
‘Would you die for her?’ Fen asks.
‘Anything,’ Kassandra repeats.
Fen nods. She places her hand on Kassandra’s shoulder.
‘All right.’ Kassandra looks at her with uncertainty.
‘I need to ask you to trust me, my lady,’ she murmurs.
‘The next few weeks are going to be incredibly difficult for you, but please…please trust me. And if you do, if you do everything I say…I promise that I will do everything I can to get you and your daughter back to Aisha. Can you do that?’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes flick to the door, then back to Fen.
Fen supposes that between the two of them, Hamad would seem like the less honourable person to depend on.
She supposes that knowledge might even make her happy one day if not for the dread it fills her with now.
She nods to Kassandra one final time, then, taking a deep breath, she stands.
She steadies herself, clears her thoughts and squares her shoulders. Aniya watches her. Kassandra shivers violently on the bed. She pulls her daughter into her arms and Fen wishes that this could be easier for her, but nothing from this point onwards is going to be easy.
Fen walks towards the door and opens it. It’s not locked. Not yet. Lord Hamad is waiting just on the other side. He raises his brows speculatively and Fen tilts her chin up. ‘May we now speak in private, my lord?’ she asks. He nods and takes her to a room across the hall.
‘Well?’ he asks her. He turns about so quickly to look at her that she marvels for a moment at his balance. His impatience is leaking from every pore. Fen breathes in nice and slow. She breathes out.
‘Aniya is Elician’s child,’ she confirms slowly. The smile on Hamad’s face could outshine the moon. He looks like a man who has reached into his well water and pulled out pure gold. His teeth sparkle in the torchlight. ‘Adalei will deny the claim,’ Fen continues.
‘Will you defend it?’
Find answers to questions that haven’t been asked, Adalei told her to do once.
The greatest intelligencer in all of Soleb, that had been her father.
Fen takes another deep breath. She forces her heart to calm. She meets Hamad’s eyes and she commits herself, wholly and without question, to the path before her feet.
‘Yes,’ Fen says. ‘But as you said…Aniya will need a regent, and if I must focus on healing others and you mean to depose Adalei entirely…who then? Queen Calissia?’
‘The Queen abandoned her people when Anslian took the throne. The Queen will not be respected.’
‘A council then? Elician’s advisers?’
‘Do you believe Wilion d’Altas will choose our king over his bride-to-be?’
Fen bites her tongue at the question. It is one that she has never needed to contemplate.
Lio has been Elician’s brother in all things.
But in this…‘Perhaps not,’ she says, and the maths is so very simple from there.
Without Alest, Adalei, Fen, Lio or even Calissia there to provide any voice or influence, she sees where Hamad wants to lead her.
She asks the question he wants her to ask, wide-eyed and hopeful: ‘Can you lead us through this crisis until my brother returns from Alelune, Lord Hamad?’
‘I can,’ Hamad swears. ‘I will do what I must to ensure that the proper leader guides us through this turbulent time. Adalei’s decisions have put our people at great risk. We must follow King Elician’s original plan. A quarantine must be enacted, health measures put into place, barricades raised.’
‘There is a problem, though,’ Fen says. ‘I’ve spoken with Kassandra. She doesn’t want her daughter on the Sun Throne.’
‘We’ll convince her otherwise. What woman wouldn’t want their child to become queen?’
‘You won’t convince her,’ Fen replies. ‘I’ve seen her kind of mettle before – she won’t bend beneath your hammer. She will fight us all the way until the end, and every moment she spends with her child is a moment that child could be used against us.’
‘I’ll take care of it.’
Breathe. Listen. Learn.
‘I shouldn’t have to tell you that you cannot murder that woman. Murder, unlike kidnapping, is not so easily reversed.’ There is a touch of irony in a Giver saying such things, but Hamad laughs at the joke. He nods his head gamely.
‘I’ll do my part when the time comes,’ he says simply. ‘Will you?’
Fen thinks of Elician’s orders. She knows full well Elician does not want this child as his own, and he has never given her an order regarding this child.
But she knows how he wants the plague to be handled.
She knows what Adalei and Lio are permitting right this very second.
She knows, too, how terribly unfair all this is to Kassandra.
Sometimes, though, life is not fair.
‘Yes,’ she promises Hamad. ‘I’ll do my part. I trust my king.’
‘As do I,’ Hamad swears. ‘As do I.’
‘But how will we remove Adalei from the throne? We cannot just approach her with the child.’
‘No, but there are those in place who will ensure that she has no choice but to comply once the evidence is laid before the court.’
‘Someone in the palace?’
‘Yes.’
Fen nods slowly. ‘Good…then tell me how I can help.’ And he tells her everything.