Chapter 3
Thessia
“What spell did you use on your hair, Your Majesty?”
Thessia of Mythria winced. There it was. The question she’d known was coming.
The scribes and conjurists who packed the throne room of the Queendom royal castle watched her with undisguised scrutiny.
She preferred them to Fraternal Order invaders, obviously, the cunning treasonists who had twice nearly toppled Thessia’s
rule with their own reign of terror. Nevertheless, their presence discomfited her.
Her fingers were cold in her new husband’s hand. This was her first formal interview after her wedding to the man seated beside
her, Sir—now King—Hugh Mavaris. The opportunity was meaningful, her press positioner had reminded her. The chance to establish
themselves, to invite the Mythrian people into their lives, to help everyone heal after the Fraternal Order’s recent resurgence.
Yet Thessia was quietly panicking.
In her mind, she dressed up the question about her hair into something interesting. Just pretend you’re fighting . . .
What did heroes fight? She didn’t know. Pretend you’re dragon riding, she counseled herself. Pretend the realm’s most fearsome dragons won’t relent unless you explain the state of your hair.
Perhaps this was true of dragons. Thessia wouldn’t know.
She mustered her most polite smile. “My facemaker did it. You would have to ask him,” she replied.
When the scribe’s eyes narrowed doubtfully, Thessia’s stomach snaked.
Oh, how she wished her body double could manage press conferences for her, the way her counterpart handled public events whenever Thessia was ill or her life was threatened.
Tabitha, who had been Thessia’s double since girlhood, would know what to say.
Of course, Tabitha would not have been in Thessia’s unfortunate position to begin with. She’d never have done something this
impulsive, this embarrassing. Thessia’s facemaker had spelled the queen’s hair this morning, trying to salvage what Thessia had done herself in the middle of the night.
“Your facemaker,” the scribe repeated.
“Yes.” Thessia nodded.
The scribe hesitated.
“Very . . . daring,” he finally commented.
The queen nearly snorted. She was sure it was the first time someone had said those words—even unknowingly—of Thessia of Mythria.
Desperate to exert some control over her life, Thessia had, in the middle of the night, poorly spelled her chestnut hair in
shades of unnatural yellow. She’d wanted to look like a shadow play star whom she loved—a woman who lived her life recklessly
and fearlessly, whom everyone admired and desired.
Unfortunately, the queen had no skill for magic herself. None.
The irony was never, ever lost on Thessia. The woman with everything, queen of the realm, lacked the manner of magical gifts
nearly every Mythrian possessed—whether heart magic in matters of emotion and intuition, head magic of vision or insight,
or hand magic of physical capacity and capability.
Therefore, she’d used multiple bottles of the potion sold in the markets, which produced an uneven, streaky disaster. Her facemaker—once he’d stopped hyperventilating—remedied the damage, using his hand magic to soften the hues into the shimmering color the queen wore now.
They were calling the color “spun gold.” Her press positioner recommended the “aspirational” moniker, which, she’d explained,
distracted from the impulsivity of the change in ways “the queen spelled her hair blond” did not.
The scribe sat, half satisfied. Thessia could not help contemplating how many, many more questions like his would follow.
The sunlight dancing outside the palace window beckoned to her. Thessia knew Queendom’s charms at this hour. Before she was
queen, when her mornings were her own, she would often roam the streets of the city. Her city.
Except it wasn’t truly her city. Queendom was the city of the corncake crafters who enchanted their dough with mouthwatering
cinnamon sugar, filling the stone avenues with sumptuous scents. The city of the old men who played Ogre’s Chess in the courtyard
from morning until night. Of the brewstands from whence she’d pick up a cup of caramel honeybrew on her way home to the royal
castle.
Of possibility. Of freedom.
That city felt far from her comfortable, luxurious confinement in the formal, hushed room she found herself in now.
Hugh lightly squeezed her hand, calling her back. She found expectant faces eyeing her. She realized she’d missed something.
“Pardon me,” she said. One more error, she remembered instantly. The press positioner did not like the queen requesting the
pardon of her guests. Oh well. “Would you please repeat the question?”
Fortunately, this scribe’s smile was kind. Sometimes they smiled like sandwalkers scenting prey.
“What was your favorite part of the wedding, Your Majesty?”
Thessia seized on the query like it was a rope saving her from fraught waters. “Dancing with my husband,” she replied.
She felt Hugh’s adoring gaze on her. He was perfect. Utterly perfect. Of course, he charmed every scribe just like he’d charmed her.
“She’s the best dance partner a person could have,” he replied. “I’m lucky she’s mine forever.”
The whole room swooned. Thessia herself swooned a little, too.
She smiled, finally genuine in her gladness. If she could not have freedom, she could have the sweet memories of dancing under
the rose-petaled sky with the man seated next to her—
“King Hugh.” A scribe’s voice rose eagerly from the crowd. “How did you feel when you faced the dastardly Myke Lycroft in
battle?”
Thessia fought to keep her smile while Hugh recounted the duel in Vermillion Vale where he—alongside the members of the Four,
Mythria’s grandest heroes and some of Thessia’s dearest friends—slew the Fraternal Order’s dangerous second-in-command.
The scribes listened, enraptured. Hugh was a hero. He deserved the recognition. She just could not help noticing how he received questions about his heroism while she
received questions about their wedding. Her hair.
She knew why. Queen Thessia had no heroism to speak of. While she’d been rescued—several times—she’d never ventured on quests
of her own.
Indeed, she did not even do much ruling. The innumerable councils who gathered in the Queendom castle governed the realm.
The Economic Council, the Magistration Council, the Magizoology Council, the Interrealm Council, the War Council. Oh, the
councils. Thessia knew their functions yet received no invitations to participate in them.
Instead, Thessia served in the role of Mythria’s figurehead. The lovely, loving queen who embodied the realm. Who sometimes
needed rescuing. Mythria’s favorite damsel in distress.
Always the damsel, never the hero. Excitement for Thessia looked like spelling the shit out of her hair, for Ghosts’ sake.
She did not resent Hugh for his heroism. No, the root of her new identity crisis, like the drop of Deathrose poison in the
cunning potions her spymasters used, was elsewhere.
It was—
The next scribe spoke, still to Hugh. “It must be somewhat a relief,” she ventured, “to find yourself a hero in your own right
on the eve of the return of Galwell the Great.”
It was that.
Galwell.
Her smile slipped, finally bested.
Hugh’s, fortunately, did not. When the press positioner chastened Thessia later for the reaction, she reckoned Hugh would
receive praise for his heroic composure in response to the uncomfortable question.
“Well, of course,” he replied confidently. His deft showmanship really was something, Thessia could concede. “It should be
no surprise it takes a great man to be worthy of our queen.”
The inquisitive scribe looked to Thessia. “We must ask, Your Majesty. Is your heart . . . rent in half?” she inquired. “To
have your first love return right when you’d married someone new? How are you coping with it all?”
What a question.
Thessia nearly replied with unvarnished honesty. She nearly confessed that Galwell’s return, though joyous, had ripped Thessia’s story from her own hands. She was no longer a young and driven ruler. She was a girl in a tragic love triangle.
Nothing she could say or do would ever surmount the power of such a story.
“By going blond, obviously,” she blurted.
Everyone laughed.
Thessia smiled. She hadn’t been joking. However, she recognized it was preferable if everyone thought she was. Much, much preferable to the realm learning the queen was struggling.
“I am very happily married,” she went on. “Galwell, Hugh, and I only wish to move on with our lives. The past is in the past.”
“Not to Galwell,” the scribe pointed out. “It was only a week ago to him that you were betrothed.”
“What a nice observation,” Thessia retorted.
Hearing the strain in her voice, the scribe had the grace to look regretful. Other scribes frowned in disapproval of their
colleague’s pressure. For this, Thessia thanked her cherished reputation. The press did respect their queen’s heart and discretion,
mostly.
The next scribe to speak redirected the discussion gently. “What of your honeymoon, Your Majesty? What plans have you?”
Despite the well-meant question, Thessia found she could not recover her composure. The mention of Galwell—the reminder of
their eternal interconnection—unsettled her in ways she hated to reveal.
The response should’ve come easily, for the honeymoon had occupied much of Thessia’s week. The planned voyage was political
opportunity and marital occasion in one, with Thessia and Hugh to tour Mythria’s picturesque countryside.
Thessia needed only to describe the public receptions her domestic councilors had planned, where the couple would wave to
village visitors from their country inn windows.
She found she could not. Nervousness mounted in her. Undoubtedly every villager would look at her and speculate about her
tragic love triangle.
It would be torture.
Her poet-rhapsodized eyes fled to the window. Heart pounding in her chest, she felt suddenly she needed to be somewhere else.
Somewhere far away . . .