31. Eveera
Eveera
Gods. My body is hot, everywhere he touched me. Everywhere he kissed me, feels like my skin is burning.
I found myself standing outside of Axel’s bedroom door, hesitating to open it or to confront any of them after what happened and what didn’t happen but could have. No one was in the main area of the room.
When I slip into his room I find him sprawled out on the bed with a book on his chest. “Ax.” I whisper tapping his nose. His sleep-addled hand shoves my finger away. “Ax.” I tap again. Two sleepy eyes crack open. Confusion first crossing his face that quickly morphs into a softens as he wakes up. I feel a few traitorous tears on the verge of falling and collapse next to him, burying my face in the comforter. “I fucked up.” My voice is muffled by the fabric. His hand rubs gentle circles on my back, careful of the scars there. He’s always been so reverent of them even though I know he despises what I’ve done to myself.
The first time he saw them was after I had freshly re-opened the splits. We were sixteen and he’d barely been a part of my guard for all but a year. He didn’t ask any questions - just cleaned me up. Ever since, if I needed someone, he was there.
“Yeah, well. You’re not known for making the best of decisions.” I shove his knee in protest and slide down off the bed and onto the floor while he carries on. “In fact, you’re known for making a lot of terrible decisions. It’s become a pattern.” He teases and slides down next to me, “oh come on, E. You can’t have fucked up that bad.”
“No, I did. Bad.” He swipes thumb across my cheek taking a tear with it.
“Okay first. Up.” Axel says, standing up and motioning for me to follow. He walks over to his wardrobe and grabs out a long shirt tossing it at me.
He shrugs, “if you’re going to be moping and crying all night, you’re not going to want to do it in that get up.” Fair enough. Making my way to the small bathroom I undo my dress and slip on the white overshirt that barely passes mid thigh on me. I find him sitting on the floor again with his head dropped back onto the mattress. I slide down next to him my own head dropping to his shoulder and a collective sigh heaves from both of us. Not one of relief or comfort but one of pure exhaustion.
“So what did you do that was so bad?” He asks.
Shame heats my cheeks. “I’m feeling things.” He gives me a look that says, ‘go on’. I hide my face into his shoulder and mutter, “I almost climbed Rorin like a tree.”
Axel snorts, “okay? You’ve basically been doing that for show this whole time. What’s the difference now?”
“It wasn’t for show this time.”
His head bobs slightly against mine; a sign of understanding. “And now you’re feeling things?”
“And now I’m feeling things. ”
His hands fall heavy on top of mine. “Do you want to know what I think?”
I lift my head up, staring at the wall ahead of me. “Not really.”
“You don’t like being vulnerable, and he makes you that way. Ezra - you kept at arms length - which made things easy. But the prince? He doesn’t let you do that.” No he doesn’t. “You’re bending your rules for him, E. But you already know that, which is why you’re in my bedroom - in my shirt. Wallowing.”
Thwack! “Ow!” His hand rubs softly at his chest while I shift to pull my knees up under my chin. My hair has started falling out of its braids, curtaining around my face. I don’t know how to feel these things. I don’t want to feel these things. The confusion, the fear . Everything with Ezra was simple. At least for me it was simple. Purely carnal. No emotion needed, sure, maybe there was some at the beginning. But day after day his affection began to tire me. I don’t think I could ever tire of Rorin’s affection or the tenderness with which he handles me, even when he shouldn’t, even when I am cruel.
But first, I’d have to accept that I, too, have affection for him. Desire , even.
The question Axel poses next, is quiet. Tentative. “Does he know?”
Depends on what he’s referring too. About my mother? Yes. About my scars? Yes. About the conglomerate of feelings I have? Yes. I don’t know how to really answer that, but the words that leave my mouth are, “He knows.”
We stayed holed up in that room for the rest of the night. The next day, Millie brought me my clothes. She doesn’t ask any questions, and we get ready for yet another day of appearances. Another day of this ridiculous celebration.
Apparently, it lasts three days.
The second night isn’t a ball, like the first night, but a tournament for their best fighters. It’s a spectacle. One I choose to spend very little time at. Rorin and I play our part of devoted companions well, but when people aren’t looking, our words are minced and our bodies repel away from each other as it always should have been.
Tap tap. Axel comes in with food piled on two plates, setting one down in front of me. Surveying my options, I pick up a chunk of bread and break off a piece. His lanky body flopping down in front of me while he digs into his own plate. The scenario so mundane, so normal that I have flashbacks to when we first met.
-
“Queen Eveera. You must have a royal guard. Armond cannot be everything you need all at one time!”
I prop each my feet on top of the council table, crossing my ankles. Alina’s shrill voice is painful. Everything about Alina is painful. “Sure he can. It’s literally what his magic does. It gifts him the ability to be everywhere and everything.” The glare that remark earns me is lethal. Or at least it would be if I gave a shit.
“You cannot always rely on magic, Your Highness.”
I cock my head at her. “See, that is just what someone without magic would say.” She throws her hands up in the air, squealing in frustration.
She looks desperately to Felix, “please talk to her. She is refusing to listen.” With that, she stomps out of the room like a petulant toddler. I lean back in my chair and stretch out the rest of my body. Thud!
“OW! What the fu—” My eyes snap open while pain shoots through my tailbone, I look around and find I’m sprawled disgracefully on the floor. Looking down on me is Felix’s tan face with a deep scowl on it.
“Language.” He chastises and reaches a hand out to help me stand. I dust my pants off once I’m on my feet.
“That would have been a thoughtful gesture if you were not the reason I was laid out on the stone floor.” His eyes roll back as he motions for me to follow him and leads me to the courtyard where several guards and squires are training. “I already trained today, Felix, dear. And I have been out with Vada.”
“Eveera. Lady Alina is right.” Oh not this again. He catches sight of my face but carries on nonetheless, “we only just announced that you have taken up the throne. The entire realm is now aware of your existence when to them - for the past fifteen years - they had all thought you dead. There could be any number of threats lining up, you need more than Armond.”
I smile sweetly at him, “is that not why I have you?”
“I am your Head of Council. I am not your private guard detail.”
“Fine. I have General Matthis.” I counter.
Felix shakes his head, “he is the general of your military.” His finger wags down at the men and women sparring. “Pick.” My nose scrunches up as I look over the courtyard. That’s when I notice him. Tall, dark, and scrawny. Gangly limbs and probably sweaty hands are holding loosely onto his sword. At first I thought maybe it was ill training. But with how quickly he dodges the swipe of his opponent’s sword and moves in with his own slash, I realize his loose hold on it is cockiness.
“Him.” Felix’s eyes travel to where my finger points. He sighs, before nodding and going down to retrieve the soldier.
Once he’s before me I look him up and down, he can’t be any older than I am. “Axel Mecham, this is your Queen.” The soldier, Axel, extends a shaky hand. I can sense the fear off of him, my serpents twitching at it, when I take his hand for him to bend a knee. The look he gives me is nervous and he glances back at Felix but my head of council is staring up at the sky probably begging the gods for patience.
I smile down at Axel my mind filling with so many ideas. “Oh we are going to have so much fun.”
-
Snap! Snap!
I blink a few times to find Axel’s fingers in my face his expression worried. “Sorry.” I say, popping a piece of fruit into my mouth.
“Where did you just go?” The worry not leaving his face.
“Just remembering.” I sigh. The door swings open and Millie and Orem stand in the opening. “What now?” I ask my words garbled by the mouthful of food.
She sighs, “he wants to see you.” He - Rorin. Nausea churns in my gut. Great, with feelings comes illness. Axel looks at me apologetically and helps me to my feet, kissing the top of my head while ushering me out of the room after her.
Once we’re out in the hall, I lean over to her, keeping my voice quiet. “Remember how you said I would need you?” Her lips part and she nods her head up and down. “I need you.” Turning I stand on my toes and cup my hand around her ear whispering what I need done. When she pulls away her eyes have darkened and she gives me one more subtle nod before taking off in a different direction.
A weight starts to ease in my chest, soon. I think. Soon two wrongs will be made right.
My feet carry me right to the baccara rose hedges. The velvet red of my dress spills out around my feet, matching the undertones and texture of the petals. The sun is setting, the rays making prisms of light through the glass hall that glitter through the garden.
“I find you here again. Like a fly drawn to sap.” I turn in the direction of her voice a small smile resting on my lips. Her eyes are glued onto the hedge, not bothering to look at me. “They really are beautiful. Not my particular choice, but then again nothing of Rorin’s choices these day are of my preference.”
She plucks a petal clean off. “I shouldn’t be so surprised you’re drawn here, your mother was too.” The smile I have melts off of my face instantly. What the hell does that mean? “Of course she would be though. She did help me with them after all.” She laughs quietly to herself. The sound sending hairs straight up on the back of my neck. “I suppose she wouldn’t have shared much about me. However, I would’ve guessed a girl as curious and calculated as you seemed to be would’ve figured it out by now.”
My brain feels scattered. “If you’re suggesting my mother spent time here then—” The thought that my mother would have chosen to be here at some point astounds me. It unsettles me. She’s trying to gain the upper hand here, calm down. My conscience snaps.
Mareese tilts her face at me, smiling, “oh she didn’t just spend time here, Eveera. Oh no. Your mother lived here. With me.” Bleeding gods. “Well, with me and my mother. My mother was head healer, and well, Ayla…young Ayla, well she was my mother’s apprentice.” She looks down, walking towards another rose. “We spent years together, Ayla and I. Joined at the hip. Practically sisters.” Mareese spins around spreading out her arms in a wide motion. “She helped me create this space when my betrothal to the king was announced. Many hours did we walk or lay among these flowers. Two very young girls with very big dreams. If she wasn’t slaving over my mother’s teachings, she was in here with me.”
My teeth grind together. “How fortunate you were then, to know her.” I grit out.
She shrugs. “Mm. I thought so too once. I thought the world of her. When she went back to Obsidian, my heart simply broke. Of course I was pregnant with Rorin at that point, which helped ease her loss.” Her lip pouts out, “and when she wrote me that she had lost you as a babe…it was a tragedy.”
The temperature in the garden drops, turning frosty. In my peripheral I see Millie’s magic webbing together above us, thankfully, Mareese doesn’t notice. “She had her reasons for keeping me from you, I’m sure.” We move in a slow motion around each other.
“She did have a tendency for keeping things. Even things that were not hers, like my mother. How is Marjorie by the way?”
“The Lady in Black” Murph had said. Of course. The runes…the way she spoke with such familiarity yet distrust towards Rorin. She knew, the whole time she knew.
Mareese sits primly down on the bench nestled in the hedges. “We all thought it odd, an Obsid wanting to learn healing. Maybe even try to harness the magic. I should’ve known that the woman I came to call sister, was nothing more than a rat.” She smooths down the fabric of her skirt, crossing her legs. “The realization of what they were doing, what they had done, didn’t come until it was too late. My mother off and running to her aid when she was in labor with you. Then never returning. My son’s magic coming in tainted, disturbed, wrong .” Venom drips from her words, a fierce hatred in her eyes speaks to my own.
“Unbelievable.” I breathe out and her head snaps up to me. “You blame them for him.” It’s not a question, and the ferocity in which she stands up to be toe to toe with me tells me her answer. My gods, she actually feels anger towards Marjorie and my mother. Disbelief crawls up my throat, my hold on my magic is precarious. “Don’t pretend you care about him now, Mareese.” Confusion flickers in her eyes. “After what you allowed to happen.” I circle her a little more obviously this time. “After who you allowed to touch him, torment him. Break. Him.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She snarls.
“Sure, I do.” I say smiling. “I’ve seen everything. Here why don’t I show you.” My tendrils surge out of me, seizing her where she stands so my power can warp every sense of hers, forcing her to watch the nightmare that plagues the son she claims to love.
-
SMACK! “Stupid boy!” My lip is stinging from the cut his ring opened up again. “What a dishonor you are to this kingdom! Poisonous mist! An omen if there ever was one.” My vision goes black and I can feel my eye start to swell. The bones in my nose are broken. “P-please don’t lock me up here again. PLEASE.” His laugh rings out through the cell. “Please don’t lock me up here again.” He mocks before landing a kick in between my ribs. “P-please.” I sob out - no NO!
-
“Stop. It.” She chokes out.
“Oh yes, your Highness it looks like you really love your son. Allowing a prince to be beaten and broken down. To be debased like that. You. Did. Nothing.”
She sputters at the pressure my magic puts on her. “I am innocent of what you have shown me.”
“We would not be here if you were innocent .” I switch the images to the broken body of my mother. The images of me finding her. And while I watch her I see the bitch actually has tears slipping down her face. I pull my magic back just a little bit and she collapses to the ground. I crouch down, forcefully grabbing her chin and roughly wipe the tear falling down her cheek away. “We’re going to play a little game, Mareese. You hide and I seek.” She struggles to rip her chin from my hold. I could end it right here. But where would the fun be in that? The moment my fingers let go, she scrambles to her feet running deeper into the maze. I give her a two minute head start before I let the magic consume me. It searches for her, seeking out her pulsating fear. The tendrils puncture holes in the hedges, cutting her off and halting her in her place. Her screams ring out loudly, hoping someone will hear her but with Millie’s deflection Wield up not a single sound will break through.
I can feel her panicking as she comes up on every dead end. Each time I stop her I give her a few seconds before another tendril crawls it’s way to her. My steps slow and intentional, her fears echoing around my mind. Each one is pompous and material. With the biggest one being the age old fear of not wanting to experience death. Too bad , I think.
While in her head, my mind’s eye is sucked into the day Rorin’s magic came in. She woke to him thrashing in bed, he couldn’t have been more than eight years old. His mist was a grayish pallor clouding around him. She couldn’t reach him without it burning her eyes and choking her. Her first thought was concern, that someone had come to kill her boy and she was finding the aftermath. It was only until she tried to use her own magic and failed that she summoned the courts appointed healers before she drained herself. The king and queen quickly came to the realization that it wasn’t a plot to kill their son. But that this was their son and the tides for Rorin’s life changed that day.
My magic coats the stone path completely. Her teeth chattering loudly from where she hides. I let a tendril extend out towards her, then another. Each one wrapping her like a present up against the hedges. I pull back just a little so she can look me in my eyes, the eyes I have been told matched my mothers. “You blame the wrong people.” I snarl.
She spits at me, squirming underneath my Wield. “She deserved it! Your mother knew I was coming for her. And when I did, it was my mother who had to clean up the mess. It was only fair for what they did to my boy.”
I throw the memory again at her, showing her how the disgust crept in and corrupted her against her own child. She spits at my face a second time, searching for a crumb of renewed courage and vitriol. “You are a parasite that your parents let fester and grow. If only the rumors they sowed of your death had been true.”
I cock my head at her, pacing slowly and closely in front of her pinned form. “And what would that have solved? Hmm? You still would have come for their throats, forced them to die at your hand. Hadar would still be wreaking havoc on kingdom upon kingdom at Baelor’s command.” She smiles weakly at his name, brow sweating from the mental back and forth she has sustained. “You are nothing more than a pretty queen sitting atop her pretty throne.”
“Are you any different? Queen Eveera. Do you not hide in your shadows, on your throne, feeding into everyone’s fear? It’s disgusting .”
My feet stop inches from her quivering body, “you forget though. I made those shadows. Lying in wait for the right moment, and right now, in this moment, you are at my mercy.” A tendril snakes around her throat wrapping across the skin there. Her magic is flaring, but it won’t be able to do anything against the hold I have her in, she won’t be able to heal herself. “Would you be willing to make a deal with the devil just to save your own skin?” I finally close the gap between us leaning in close, the volume of my words only a whisper. “You’ll come to find that there are worse things than the monsters under your bed.” She flinches at the threat.
“If there is a devil; I am staring into it’s eyes.”
My vision bleeds black as the magic takes over. The sound of my voice distorting, “flattery will get you nowhere dear. Unfortunately for you, I am the fate holding your thread, and that thread's just been cut.”
The tendrils tighten around her. “Oh gods. Please. Please.” She whimpers.
“You yell for your gods. But where are they now? They won’t save you.” With the flick of my hand my tendrils spear into Mareese. Every one coiled around her body turns sharp as a blade. Her mouth gapes, blood dribbling from the corner as she begins to choke. “Hoc memento, Mareese. Pacem non eris scies, quam morieris in manu somnia maga. Tua sunt somnia, quae comedunt animam tuam in profundis Helys.” Remember this, Mareese. You will not know peace until you die at the hand of a dream witch. May your dreams eat your soul in the depths of Helys.
With a pull of my hand her scream is cut short as the tendrils slice down, flaying her open, all of her organs spilling out at her feet. The blood of the former queen coats the front of me and I take a step back to admire my work. I leave her there on the cold ground for someone else to clean up while Millicent unravels her Wield from around the gardens. When I exit the labyrinth the two of us stare at each other, a silent understanding passing between us until I see someone running up behind her - Mousy. He pales the second he sees all the blood. “What did you do?” He breathes.
I dust my hands us, wiping them fruitlessly on the sticky front of my dress. “Half of my end of the deal.” I snap .
He shakes his head, “no. Not here. Your men, they’re attacking the city. You tell me now. What did you do? Is that why Felix is here? So you can siege the city?”
“Felix?” I ask, confused, while elbowing him out of my way.
“Eveera!” Millie calls after me, “what about—”
“Leave her. Let her king be the one to clean up the mess.” I order, spinning back around on my heel to figure out what’s going on outside of the castle.
Mousy catches up to me his voice brimming with anger. “He won’t forgive you for this.”
I take a deep breath, picking up my pace. “That isn’t my problem. It’s his.”
“You feel so little for him?” His question is quiet - as if he is unsure of wanting to know that answer.
My feet slow, stopping me in my tracks. “I feel everything for him.”
Those beady blue eyes search my face, looking for a fault - a lie - in my words. He comes away disappointed, letting his anger resurface to cover it up. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He snarls, walking the rest of the way ahead of me.
Neither does my army laying siege without my command and yet here we are.