Chapter 37 The King
The interior of the palace looks almost exactly as I remember it.
The antechamber is lit by wall sconces and a pair of ornate chandeliers, sporting hundreds of candles each, dangling from the ceiling.
In their light, the architecture of the place is unchanged, every cornice and arch and column just as I recall.
The only difference is that the interior of the palace is more crowded than I have ever seen it.
Even if none of us had ever been here before, it would not be difficult to tell where to go to find the king.
Palace guards block ever hall and doorway except the same one that the other petitioners are filing down on their way out of the palace.
The palace guards are distinguishable from regular knights or city guards by the gold livery they wear.
While city guards wear brown leather armor and black capes, and knights wear metal armor with black leather jerkins emblazoned with the gold dragon of Ithyma, the palace guard uniforms are more ostentatious.
Their armor is plated gold, their capes cloth of gold.
Their jerkins only are tan leather, with a black dragon at the center.
Some of them carry gold-tipped spears and gold-pommeled swords.
I remember being awed by their getup as a child, the great display of wealth it represented.
The thought of people actually wearing gold, as if it were not money that could be used to buy food and more serviceable clothes.
I do not feel awed now.
Now, I feel cold at the center of me. People actually wearing gold, as if there are not peasants starving just beyond the city wall.
But what do I know about kingdoms or how to manage one?
Perhaps the king has his reasons for dressing the guards so.
Perhaps there is still a way we have been wrong about him, about everything.
There are only a few people waiting in line to see the king when we reach the grand double doors to the audience chamber.
One door is propped open, its entrance carefully monitored by gilded guards.
Anxiety stirs in my gut as the group before use enters the chamber and we are left waiting, next in line.
My dragon is restless inside me. She wants to protect.
To hoard. To kill. She wants to snatch up my friends and burn the rest to the ground.
Minutes pass, and the last group filters back out of the doors, their audience with the king over.
We are next.
We are walking.
Cherry is moving forward at a steady glide, the rest of us trailing behind.
She comes to a stop in the middle of the cerulean and gold carpet runner, facing the dais and throne at the end of the great hall.
She is dressed in rags and traveling dirt, braid half loose and tangled.
But she stares up at the king on his dais as if they are on equal footing.
The king.
He is older than I remember, blond hair now streaked through with silver at the temples, fine lines around his eyes and mouth.
His cerulean cloak, embroidered with gold, matches the carpet runner perfectly as it drapes over the edge of his throne to puddle on the ground.
The crown on his head is gold with a pattern of scales.
"Father," says Cherry, in a tone that contains so many conflicting emotions it communicates none at all.
The king is stunned at the sight of her.
By her voice as she speaks. For a moment, he doesn't move at all, perfectly frozen.
Then his mouth opens. He bounds to his feet.
"Shireen!"
The king rushes down the steps to the dais, long cape trailing behind him.
I tense, taking half a step forward as the king engulfs his daughter in a hug.
Indecision freezes me, preventing me from keeping them apart.
He hugs Cherry tightly, emotion thick in his voice as he speaks into her hair.
"My daughter, my daughter. It's been so long.
"
He pulls away, holding his daughter at arm's length as he looks her over.
"My gods. What has happened? All the men I sent with provisions for you.
The resources. Did none of them reach you?
No one ever returned; we never received word.
" His eyes lift from Cherry to me, hovering over her shoulder.
Something dark flashes over his face, there and then gone.
"Tarah."
He remembers my name.
And I remember his. "King Coatl." My curtsey is instinctive, but stiff.
"What has happened? Why did the two of you never return?
"
"You sent men to kill me," I say through an iron jaw.
I am struggling with my body, which seems to be telling me I am standing here in the wrong form.
I should be a dragon for this, not a girl.
Expressions work across the king's face.
He releases Cherry, stepping back. He looks over our group, including Vakhrin and Marton.
He seems to make a decision to ignore them for now.
Returning his attention to his daughter, he addresses his words to her.
"I sent men to the Old Castle with supplies for you both.
Food, clothes, other essentials. When they did not return I sent messengers, scouts.
When they did not return I grew desperate.
I did not know what became of you or my men.
I heard rumors of a dragon." He glances at me.
"Seeing you here with my daughter...I can see you were never the threat.
You have brought her back. But at the time, I did not know whether you were a thing she needed to be rescued from.
I sent knights. I set a reward for my daughter's return.
"
I clench my jaw hard.
Not knowing how to respond, I wait for Cherry to speak.
She gives me a look, brief and indecipherable, before turning to face her father.
"And now that I have returned," Cherry says slowly, "would you have me stay?
Has the danger that sent me to the tower in first place finally passed?
"
The king's eyes widen.
"Shireen. Dearest daughter. I have longed for your return these three years past. The danger has been gone since then.
It was a conflict with the nation of Umrahs," he informs our group, almost entreatingly.
"A trade deal gone wrong. They believed themselves slighted by me and had begun making threats.
.. But relations between our countries have been patched up.
It is safe for you now, daughter. Nothing would make me happier than to have you back.
"
Cherry shakes, her whole body trembling slightly, tears welling in her eyes.
They begin to spill over. "Father," she chokes.
She throws herself into his arms, and the two of them hug again for a long moment.
There is a feeling like ants underneath my skin, prickling and restless.
My ears ring and the back of my neck burns.
"Cherry." My tone is full of warning.
She is the first to pull back from the hug this time.
She looks at me, dabbing at her damp cheeks with a tattered sleeve.
Whatever she sees makes her shake her head at me.
"We can trust him Tarah. He's my father.
" The words hang strangely in the air around us.
Him being her father has not made either of us trust him these months since we left the tower.
I don't know what would be different about it now. But...
But.
Fear and doubt, outrage and uncertainty swirl in my mind, a debilitating cocktail.
I know nothing now and I have never known anything.
I am the same ignorant peasant girl who first came to this palace, gazing up at its vaulted ceilings that made me feel smaller than the sky ever had.
I am the same girl who said yes when my king asked me for a favor, not knowing how it would define my life.
How it would make me a sister and guardian.
How it would make me a murderer.
If the king speaks true, I am a murderer.
Not just a killer but an aggressor, an originator of violence against the innocent.
Isn't that what he's saying?
That I killed his messengers and envoys.
Killed them before they could speak or before they could deliver their provisions.
Killed them out of my fear and misunderstanding.
I think of the first man to find us in the tower, the first man I killed.
He had been looking for Cherry by name. Had demanded to see her, irritated by me as if by a fly, until I killed him.
He had been wearing armor, but was it possible that he had been there to deliver supplies rather than harm the princess?
Was I to blame for everything that had gone wrong since then?
Had it all been a horrible mistake?
"I—"
Marton is suddenly by my side, squeezing my hand.
"It has been a long day of travel," he says diplomatically, addressing himself to the king and surprising me by the eloquence with which he does so.
"I believe we would all feel better after a bath, a decent meal, and a good night's rest."
"Of course," says the king, at once in agreement.
"Of course." He nods to a pair of servants waiting nearby, hovering uncertainly until now.
"I can have rooms prepared for three guests.
Baths drawn and meals brought up for you.
If there's anything else you require, you need only ask one of the staff.
" He says all this to Marton, Vakhrin, and myself before turning to Cherry beside him, pressing her hand.
"You, of course, may stay in your old room.
It is just as you left it. The maids still clean it every week and change the bed linens, awaiting the day when you would finally return to us.
" He blinks, misty eyed.
I shift on my feet, opening my mouth.
I am ready to shut this suggestions down.
Of course Cherry will not sleep in her old room without me.
But I close my mouth just as quickly, realizing that here, now, I have no right to decide where Cherry sleeps or what she does.
I am not her protector, officially charge by the king to make decisions for her, anymore.
I am just her friend and traveling companion.
There is no danger to protect her from.
I am vibrating with tension by the time the maids leave us, having shown us to our guest rooms—in a completely separate wing of the castle from the rooms of the royal family—and stayed to oversee the delivery of pitcher upon pitcher of steaming bath water and plate upon plate of steaming food.
My stomach growls, but nausea turns my stomach.
Vakhrin goes into his room with a grunt and a parting look back at me and Marton before the door closes behind him.
When Marton tries to do the same, I cannot bear it.
I follow him into his room, directed by instinct and feeling more so than any conscious decision.
He is not surprised to see me stepping into the room after him.
Mutely, he opens his arms, and I bury myself against him, face pressing into his chest, inhaling deep lungfuls of his scent.
Parchment and leather and grass. He holds me tight, and I hold him back just as tightly.
"It's going to be okay," he promises.
I am trembling hard, shaking my head. "How."
The world is nearly lost in his shirt, but he hears me. Hands rubbing gently over my back, he answers, "We will find out what's true and what's not true, and Cherry will be safe until then. I don't see what the king would gain from harming her."
He has harmed her before. The words I want to say do not come out.
Because if the king spoke true before then I am the one who has harmed Cherry.
Keeping her isolated and miserable in that tower, even years after she could have been free.
Marton reads my mind. "You have loved that girl better than anyone could have ever asked you to.
Done more for her than any duty would ever entail.
If you have made mistakes, they are forgivable.
You are a good person, Tarah. I promise," he whispers the last.
My breaths ratchet unevenly, like sobs, though my eyes remain dry.
It is a long time before we pull away from one another, and even then it is only because my stomach growls. Marton laughs softly, releasing me to go and investigate the silver dining service.
We eat sitting cross-legged on the floor, and then Marton insists I have the first bath.
Since there is no question of me leaving him alone to go back to my room, I go behind the screen to strip and dip into the warm bath water.
It will be cool by the time I am finished, but I can reheat the water with dragon fire.
I rinse off the days of travel, scrubbing with the expensive soaps and floofy sponges provided on a low table beside the bath. Detangling my now-clean hair is another matter, and I decide to leave it for after the bath.
Rising, I pat dry and wrap myself in the silk robe hanging from a hook on the back of the screen.
I emerge to find Marton blushing an avoiding my eye.
He goes behind the screen to bathe, and I stretch out on the bed. Between his gentle splashing, the plush mattress beneath me, and the days of fear and exhaustion weighing my body down, it is a struggle to hold my eyes open as I wait for Marton to be done.
I am dozing on the bed when I feel the mattress dip down behind me. Marton's by-this-time-familiar arms wrap around me, holding me securely against his body, his breath at my ear.
"I love you," he whispers. It sounds like good night.
I clutch his sleeve tight, keeping his arm around. "I'll keep you safe," I promise.
He kisses the hinge of my jaw, nuzzling me as his breaths even out.
It is not long before I fall back asleep. My dreams are filled with slithering snakes and princesses, screaming.