Chapter V

“Where is she?” the king asked Michael. After sharing the news with his friends and taking a few moments to let them reel, he had asked Michael to call a council meeting so he could meet with the people who helped run this kingdom. To tell them that damning truth, too.

“She said she would be here,” Michael responded, standing shoulder to shoulder with Ferryl. The king’s council room buzzed with advisors—lords and dukes from around the kingdom who had been granted lands, powers, and a place on the council in exchange for loyalty to the throne. In exchange for running the day-to-day affairs of Navah. Some Ferryl knew well—had known since boyhood. Some he hardly knew at all. But now he was not the prince who attended the king’s council meetings. Now he was the king who would run the meeting. The king who would rule the kingdom.

Ferryl swallowed and made his way to his seat at the end of the long, heavily-carved table. The blanket of clouds muted the glaring winter light to silver as it spilled across the polished wood. Ferryl took the queen’s chair—usually pushed back against the wall behind them—and pulled it up to the table beside him. Two monarchs at the end of the table now, not one.

He would not rule this kingdom without his wife. His equal.

A few of the lords at the table watched wide-eyed, appalled as Adelaide took a seat beside Ferryl. One in particular seemed keenly shocked, watching Adelaide’s every move as if she would sprout horns and a forked tail. Lord Adam took a seat near the opposite end, his face nearly obscured by a shadow, but a threatening smirk showed enough that Ferryl wanted to spit. King Aaron and Queen Avigail took seats at the council table, too, but their eyes were neither leery nor appraising. Avigail gave a small nod to her daughter, a glimmer of kindness in her gold eyes.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” said Ferryl, adjusting his jerkin. For some reason, it seemed uncomfortably tight at the moment.

“Did we have a choice?” asked the particularly appalled nobleman.

“Sir Westerly, is it?” asked Ferryl, cocking his head to one side. “I had forgotten you were on the council.”

Lie. He hadn’t forgotten at all. How could Ferryl forget the man who had thrown his atrocious daughter at him last summer? Lady Anna Maria Nanette Denae Westerly of Teman. Her father had been given a lordship after Ferryl had refused to marry her. A lordship, and a place on the council as a consolation prize.

“It’s Lord Westerly now, Your Majesty,” said the yellow-toothed man, an oily smile on his dry lips.

“Ah yes, Lord Westerly. I had forgotten. And how is your daughter?” asked Ferryl.

Lord Westerly eyed Adelaide for a split second—the girl who had usurped what Lord Westerly surely considered his daughter’s rightful place on the throne. “She is well, Majesty. Married and expecting her first child.”

Expecting her first child which led to her hasty marriage, if rumor serves me correctly, Ferryl said for only Adelaide’s benefit.

His wife laughed in her mind, squeezing her husband’s hand under the table. Be nice, Ferryl.

When am I not? he quipped.

“How delightful,” said Ferryl, even as he held the private conversation with his wife, and Lord Westerly dipped his head with a mocking grin.

“We shall get started, then, I think,” the king went on, bobbing his knee under the table.

“Are we not to wait for the queen, then?” asked Lord Adam, sitting with his arms crossed at the end of the table.

“The Queen Mother,” Ferryl corrected, willing himself not to roll his eyes at his wife’s cousin, “will be along shortly.”

The king did not miss the multiple pairs of eyes that glanced Adelaide’s way, not daring to linger on her for too long.

“I know that many of you were under the impression that my trip to Ramleh was to assess the damage from the rebels, and while that is true,” said Ferryl, “it is not the complete story. In case the presence of the king and queen is not evident, we also went to Haravelle to forge an alliance with our sister kingdom. I am glad to report to you today that Haravelle has provided a hundred thousand men to join with ours in our efforts against Midvar.”

“So we are to war, then?” Lord Westerly asked, crossing his slender arms.

“We are preparing for potential war, yes,” said Ferryl, swallowing.

“All due respect, Your Majesty, but that is not how this looks,” said Westerly. A few of the other lords around the table nodded in silent agreement.

“Pray, how does it look?” Ferryl asked through his teeth.

“Like you are launching an attack on the kingdom whose bride you set aside,” said Westerly. Another, older lord—Mistar, if Ferryl remembered correctly—eyed Westerly with a warning stare. But the haughty lord ignored the old man and went on. “May I ask what you plan to do with her?”

From the corner of his eye, Ferryl spotted Michael standing along the wall near the door, his shoulders suddenly tense, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword.

“I have offered her a home here in Navah,”said Ferryl, lifting his chin. Some of the advisors nodded, some looked around in wide-eyed shock.

“That seems a bit risky at such a time as this, Your Majesty,” said one of the lords.

“She is a friend to this kingdom. And to me. I will not put her aside,” said Ferryl.

He realized his mistake the moment Lord Westerly spoke again. “But you have, haven’t you?” The lord nodded toward Adelaide without even looking at her, and Ferryl could have crawled across the table and throttled the bastard for it. “It seems you have put aside your duty for the sake of bedding your mistress.”

Ferryl sucked in a breath, ready to retort, but was cut off by his wife.

They do not know, Ferryl. You cannot blame them for what they do not know.

Ferryl breathed in and out once. Twice. Assuring himself that he was calm again, he finally said, “That is another matter we need to discuss today.”

“Clearly,” said Lord Westerly under his breath—just loud enough that it could not be missed.

Ferryl ignored him, though his heart began to pound. Adelaide squeezed his hand under the table. There is no easy way to tell them, my love, she said. It just has to be said.

So Ferryl said it.

“While we were in Haravelle, it came to our attention that Adelaide, the lost princess, was alive.”

Around the long table, almost every pair of eyes widened in shock. Whispers bounced back and forth across the polished wood. Ferryl swallowed past a thick throat. Then he swallowed again.

“And so I married her.”

“Married her?” blurted Lord Westerly.

“Remember your place, Lord Westerly,” said Lord Mistar from the other end of the table. Ferryl nodded in silent thanks to the old lord.

“We have been betrothed since her birth nearly twenty years ago. By fulfilling the marriage contract—”

“Forgive me, Majesty, but this all seems a bit convenient, don’t you think?” asked Lord Adam.

“Convenient?” asked King Aaron, his brow raised warningly at his nephew. Lord Adam crossed his arms and sat farther back into his chair.

“Of course anyone can see the resemblance between you, but I find it a bit odd that your daughter has been under our nose for fifteen years and none of us were the wiser,” scoffed Westerly, his attention on the king of Haravelle.

“She was cursed,” said Ferryl, his heart a war drum pounding in his chest.

“Cursed?” balked one of the lords at the other end of the table.

“So now not only is the princess miraculously alive, but magic is the reason?” laughed Lord Westerly.

Just then, the meeting room doors opened. All eyes turned to see who was intruding on the uncomfortable meeting as Michael announced, “The Queen Mother.”

The queen entered the room like a ghost, wearing a drab-gray gown that fell loosely from her thinning frame. She hadn’t bothered with kohl on her eyes or jewels on her neck, either. This woman…she was not the queen of Navah. She was a skeleton in wool with a simple graying plait down her back, walking with her shoulders back and her gaunt chin high.

As everyone stood, she floated across the room, her eyes hauntingly distant, and took a seat next to Ferryl. It was only once the advisors had all bowed and taken their seats again that she inclined her head to Aaron and Avigail, nodding silently to them before saying, “Your Majesties, it is an honor that you have come at such a time, and my kingdom thanks you for your show of loyalty and friendship.”

It was King Aaron who responded. “The honor is ours,” he said, his words sincere. Even Avigail’s eyes shone with a mixture of pity and worry. Ferryl’s in-laws knew the taste of unexpected loss and heartache quite well.

Then Queen Meria turned her attention to Adelaide—the girl who to her was still Elizabeth, the nuisance stable girl. But now there was none of the signature hatred in Meria’s eyes. No disdain. Just something else Ferryl couldn’t quite place. As if she were putting the pieces of the puzzle together even without realizing it. Finally, she turned her attention to Ferryl, her face a blank slate all the while.

“Welcome, Mother,” Ferryl said. “The council is glad of your presence.” He wasn’t sure if he sounded perturbed or sincere. And he was equally unsure which of the two he meant.

“We are so sorry for your loss,” said Queen Avigail. “King Aiken was a good man and a good king.”

Silence. Uncomfortable, haunting silence. Then, “He was indeed both,” said Meria, to Ferryl’s shock.

Well.

What in Sheol was he to make of that?

Her response—uncharacteristically sincere and honest—threw him off course so violently that it took Ferryl a moment to recover his train of thought. He stumbled headlong into his mental list of discussion points, as if pushed off of one of the cliffs of Navah straight into the breakers of the Great Sea below.

“As I was saying—” said Ferryl.

“Yes, in case you missed it, Your Majesty, your son was just regaling us with the tale of his surprise marriage to the miraculous princess of Haravelle,” said Lord Westerly.

Ferryl ground his teeth, but Meria’s eyes slowly landed on Adelaide, appraising her for an uncomfortable moment.

“I know how this looks,” said Adelaide, looking the Queen Mother in the eye.

“Is it true?” Meria asked. Everyone around them seemed to be holding their breath. Then again, so was Ferryl.

“Yes,” Adelaide breathed as she nodded softly.

Queen Meria said nothing even as her black gaze held Adelaide’s.

“I am sorry, but we are going to need more than just your word, dear Elizabeth,” said Lord Westerly.

“Her name is not Elizabeth,” chided Ferryl. “Her name is Adelaide, Queen of Navah, and you will address her as such.”

“You do recognize the danger you put our kingdom in by making such a claim?” asked Westerly. “No one would have balked,” he went on. “No one would have even batted an eye at you taking her as your mistress. But for some reason—perhaps some insatiable need to think yourself noble—you’ve married her instead. Which would have been ridiculous enough without adding the pathetic farce that she is the dead princess come to life again!”

Ferryl looked to Lord Mistar and then to King Aaron, neither of whom seemed to have anything to say.

“It is true. She is Adelaide of Haravelle. I swear it on my life,” said Ferryl, drumming his fingers wildly on his knee. To his right, Queen Meria said nothing.

“I am sorry, but I find this absurd,” said Westerly. “You leave our kingdom for months without a word of your whereabouts. And in your absence, your father is murdered—an act of war. An act of treason at the very least. You return to us a month after his death to let us know that you’ve miraculously found the lost princess of Haravelle and ask what? That we should support this tomfoolery? That we should believe you?”

“Lord Westerly,” chided Lord Mistar from the other end of the table.

“Does not our presence here confirm his claims?” asked King Aaron. “Do you think we would go along with a brazen lie about our beloved daughter?”

Lord Westerly puffed a scornful laugh. “Forgive me, Majesty, but even kings can be bought.”

“For what purpose?” asked Queen Avigail. “For what purpose would Ferryl buy us off?”

“To marry his whore, of course,” said Westerly.

Michael advanced across the room in all of three steps, unsheathing his sword a few inches from the scabbard, a look of murderous contempt in his silver eyes. King Aaron also looked ready to plunge his sword right through Westerly’s throat. Lord Adam, conveniently, sat silently at the other end of the room, that smirk no longer just a threat to his narrow mouth, as smug as if he couldn’t have planned this any better. But to Ferryl’s eternal shock, it was Queen Meria who spoke up.

“Can you prove it?” she asked, her words shattering the tension. “Can you prove who you say you are?”

Ferryl practically growled at his mother. “She owes no proof. To any of you.”

Ferryl, Adelaide said to only him. We can prove it to them.

He looked over to find the amulet of Haravelle in her palm, her emerald eyes alight with determination. She turned to her father, his eyes meeting hers as if he knew what she was asking. He reached within his own jacket, pulling out his half of the stone.

“This is the amulet of Haravelle,” said King Aaron, standing. Adelaide stood as well. “It has belonged to the royal family in my kingdom for generations. It was divided into two stones many centuries ago, a relic that cannot be worn by any but the reigning monarch and his heir. I gave this stone to my daughter when she was a child.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” said one of the lords at the table. “But anyone could forge such a thing.”

“Perhaps,” said King Aaron. “But none can forge the magic of Providence.”

More silence succeeded his statement. More wide-eyed shock as King Aaron lifted his half of the amulet, as Adelaide lifted hers as well and joined the two, just as they had in Haravelle. The miraculous display that had restored a lifetime of memories to a lost princess.

But today—

There was not even a flicker of light. Not a hint of magic in the joining of the two stones.

Nothing.

Nothing but a king claiming to have found a miracle and a council who would not have the proof.

“You will destroy the entire kingdom with your lies, Ferryl,” said Westerly as he stood. He pushed his chair away from the table. “And I will be damned if I stand by and watch.”

###

© 2019 The Parallax by Morgan G Farris. All rights reserved. If you paste any part of this somewhere on the internet, please tag/credit me.

Chapter III

General Titus Melamed made his way down the busy streets of the little village near his home. Cobblestones and dirt combined to make a mess of the roads during the wet, cold winter that had settled in northern Midvar. He passed by the apothecary he had visited frequently in the last few weeks, procuring tonics for his wife’s aches and pains. All part of a normal pregnancy, she had promised.

He prayed to the gods every day that it was true.

But today was not for a trek to the apothecary. Today, he had a very different but no less important mission.

The mist stung his eyes as he rode his steed through the mud and muck, the passersby hunched over, blocking their faces from the biting wind and cold, icy rain. They seemed rather in a hurry today, bustling to and from shop to shop as if they couldn’t move fast enough. Considering the biting rain, Titus understood the sentiment. He pulled his cloak tighter over his chest and rode on.

He reached his destination soon: the bank, a formidable building of tall stone pillars and veined green marble, a stark contrast to the simplicity of the rest of the village. Just how King Derrick liked it. Money. The pillar of a thriving society. Every financial institution from here to Goleath Palace was a testament to that end: money and power and little else mattered in this kingdom.

Which was precisely why Titus hated every single bank in Midvar.

But his visit was a necessity today, so he lobbed himself off of his mount, tied it to a post, and went inside the colossal building.

This was no simple visit to withdraw a few bekas or invest a few talents. No, this was a visit that required speaking with his banker face-to-face, in his office, doors closed. Which is where he found himself rather quickly—being the king’s dog had a few perks, after all.

“Ah! General Titus!” said Gidon, his banker for so many years. The man was tall—typical of most with Midvarish blood in their veins. But he was also gangly and spindly, his mantis-like limbs only accentuated by the tiny pinstripe of his trousers. He preferred clothing of the more flamboyant variety—vibrant colors, ruffled cuffs, gold-tipped walking canes. He looked more suited for a traveling carnival than a bank.

“How nice to see you, my friend. Come in, come in!” Gidon ushered him inside his ostentatious office, offering him a plush leather seat and a hot cup of tea, his mustache curling with his toothy smile. Titus took the seat but refused the tea.

“It’s rather busy today, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would,” said Titus. “Any reason?”

“Everyone is preparing to leave our little village, I suppose.”

“Leave? Why?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” Titus asked, annoyed at the small satisfaction Gidon took from his ignorance. The man always loved intrigues. Much like a woman. For some reason, it annoyed the Sheol out of Titus. But from the look on Gidon’s face, this was no trivial intrigue or gossip.

“The Navarian soldiers. They’re advancing farther into the kingdom every day. It seems Commander Derwin is not nearly as peace-loving as their former commander.”

Navah’s former commander. Titus wondered what blissfully ignorant Gidon would think if he knew that Titus was their former commander. The traitor in disguise.

“Does that really come as a surprise to you? Our diplomat killed their king. I hardly see why that’s a reason to leave. It’s not as if they’re going to attack civilians.”

“That’s just it. That’s exactly what they’re doing,” Gidon said.

Civilians? Titus knew the hot-headed Prince Derwin quite well. And while he was eager and perhaps a bit ill-tempered, the young commander was by no means a monster. Titus had trained him, for the gods’ sake! Why in Sheol would he order the attack of civilians? And what could they possibly be doing that would give people cause to abandon their homes? Their lives?

Gods, wasn’t that what Titus himself was here to do? But for such very different reasons.

“I didn’t mean to set off the meeting on such a dark note, my friend,” said Gidon with a flippant flick of his hand. “What can I help you with?”

Titus cleared his head and looked back at the banker across the desk. “I need to consolidate my assets.”

“So you’re leaving, too, then,” Gidon said, but it wasn’t a question.

Titus only shrugged. The less the man knew, the better. Of course he wasn’t leaving to run from Navarian monsters. He was leaving to run from the true monster of this war: his own king. And he intended to leave nothing behind. Today’s visit to the bank was the first step in the process of starting a new life with Penelope. Somewhere far, far away from Midvar. And Navah.

A new continent sounded like the right idea. And thank the gods, Penelope agreed.

“Isn’t consolidation of assets a bit drastic?” Gidon asked, in his typical intrusive style. “Perhaps just take out a few hundred talents to tide you over for a few months until all of this settles down.”

“I’m taking everything, Gidon. And I need it ready to leave in one week.”

“One week? So soon?” Gidon asked, a flash of abject horror on his face.

“I am counting on you to keep this as discreet as possible. No one can know.”

Gidon sighed, pulling out paperwork and a pen. “I can’t say I blame you. I’d probably want to leave if I had a wife as beautiful as yours.”

What in Sheol did that mean? “I’m sorry?”

“What with the soldiers,” Gidon said casually as he scribbled on the parchment before him. “I wouldn’t want my wife—if I had one—anywhere near them, either. Not with what they’re doing to the women.”

“Gidon, what are they doing to the women?” Titus asked, his heart hammering in his throat.

Gidon looked up, his face grave. “You really don’t know?”

Damn this man and his intrigues. “Just say it.”

“The Navarian soldiers, they’re taking all the women in Midvar. Well, at least all the women of childbearing age.”

“For what? What in Sheol would they need women of childbearing age for?”

“Slaves, Titus. They’re abducting women for their pleasure.”

~

Oh gods. Oh damn. Oh shit. This was much worse than he thought. What in Sheol had gotten into Derwin that he would allow his soldiers to behave so abominably? That was not the kind of training he had received. And no matter the sins he had committed over the years, Titus would have sooner been condemned straight to Sheol than approve of such brazen evil. Such atrocities. And against women, no less. They were innocent, damn it. What right had Derwin to give such an order? Sexual slavery? Gods above, the depravity in this world was reaching a new low.

He tried to clear his mind as he paced about his sitting room. The last thing he wanted was to give Penelope any more reason to worry. Not in her condition. His head shot up when she walked inside, her head tilting to one side at the sight of him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He strode to her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Do you think you can be ready to leave sooner than we had planned?”

She nodded quietly, her eyes colored with concern. “What’s happened, Titus?”

“Nothing yet. But we need to leave. And we need to do it quickly.”

“Why? What’s going on? I thought the plan was to leave in a week.”

He let go of her so that he might resume his pacing. “It’s going to need to be sooner than that.”

“Titus, what’s going on?”

“Gidon told me that he thinks he can have everything ready in as soon as three days. Let’s pray it doesn’t even take that long. I’ll have the servants pack our trunks. We’ll have to just take whatever we can fit, whatever we have time to—”

“Titus,” Penelope said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. He whirled to face her, and at the worry he saw on her beautiful face, he rushed to take her in his arms.

“Don’t fret, Lopee. It’s going to be all right, but we need to be ready to leave as soon as possible. Are you prepared? Prepared to leave everything behind, start over? I know it’s away from everyone we know. From your family, but—”

“Titus,” she said, placing her hands on his face and looking him deeply in the eyes. “I don’t care where we live. I don’t care if we leave everything behind and start over. All I care about is our family,” she said, taking a moment to place one of his hands on her rounded belly. “Because where you go, I go. Where you live, I live. We’re a family. And we’re going to stay that way.”

He kissed her brow. Then he kissed her lips. And then he pulled her into his arms and held her as tightly as he could. And he prayed to every god he could name that she was right.

###

© 2019 The Parallax by Morgan G Farris. All rights reserved. If you paste any part of this somewhere on the internet, please tag/credit me.

Chapter I

The snow bit through his gloves, burning his trembling knuckles as they ground into the white expanse. His breath came in gusts, puffing clouds around his beloved’s face as she lay trembling beneath him. He kept his head low, below the fray, his body covering hers as best he could as arrow after arrow whizzed over them. The last one had been too close for comfort, the dribble of blood on her cheek already drying on her skin.

“Through the trees!”

“Don’t let them get away!”

The Haravellian soldiers shouted their commands as the king and queen of Navah lay sprawled in the snow, hiding from the sudden attack. Ferryl could feel Adelaide’s heart pounding in time with his, not in the embrace of lovers but rather the desperate grip of two people dodging the arrows of the enemy.

The icy ground was taking its toll on Ferryl’s hands as he pinned his wife beneath him, the skin of his palms freezing though sweat beaded his brow. He dared to lift his head just enough to see exactly what was happening.

“Rebels,” he spat, catching sight of the attackers as they jumped from one tree to the next, hiding behind the fat, snow-covered trunks, firing their arrows with dizzying perfection.

Beside him, a Haravellian soldier fell with a thud, his eyes frozen in shock, his blood staining the snow, a crimson pool slowly growing beneath his throat. And around him in a pillar of black…those were…

Moths.

Black moths.

By the hundreds.

His eyes grew wide as he took in the sight of the minuscule beasts that had once plagued and tormented him. The sunlight glinted off their wings, which were iridescent despite their sheer blackness. So similar to the moths he had seen that morning not so long ago on the mountain in Haravelle, despite their darkness. More than moths. More than insects, they were…

I don’t think they’re really moths, he heard his wife say in his mind. He turned his attention back to her, only to narrowly dodge another arrow as it whizzed just above his head.

Ferryl gritted his teeth, took the risk, and grabbed the fallen soldier’s bow before jumping to his feet, pulling Adelaide into a sprint with him.

This way, he said for only her benefit. She followed without hesitation, letting him shield her with his body as they sped through the icy forest.

She landed by a fat sycamore, her breast rising and falling rapidly, her back to the fat trunk. Ferryl covered her body with his own, peering around the tree as her hot breaths caressed his neck. Just one shot…if he could just get in one shot…

Ferryl, she said, her words breathless even in her mind. There were ten rebels that he could see, their black arrows meeting their targets much too easily. Perhaps these were Midvarish wraith beasts. Or perhaps they were just boys. They moved too rapidly to tell. Either way, Ferryl and Derwin had met one of them in Ramleh only a few months ago. Met and killed him. Today would be no different.

Ferryl, he heard again, turning to meet her eyes. But Adelaide was not looking at her husband. And when he realized her gaze was fixed behind him, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

He whirled, facing his enemy whilst simultaneously pressing Adelaide against the sycamore. For as long as he could, Providence save him, he would protect her. Because the world did not yet know that she lived. It did not yet know that the lost princess Adelaide of Haravelle had been found.

And Providence help them all when that fact was no longer a secret.

No, this was just a random rebel attack as they journeyed south to Navah. It had to be.

“Hiding something, Princeling?” said the man. No, not a man. A beast. A wraith. A devil incarnate. A demon made flesh with teeth as black as obsidian and skin as rough as boot hide. He grinned—if you could call it a grin––and his eyes glittered with the promise of a swift death.

“How rude of me,” the man went on, and Ferryl used the moment to press Adelaide more closely behind him. He dropped the soldier’s bow, inching his hand toward his side for the hilt of his sword. Adelaide’s breath was steady at his neck.

“I suppose you’re not a princeling anymore. Daddy’s dead.”

Ferryl bared his teeth, unsheathing his blade, the metal singing as it extended before him, the steel glinting off of the sun-kissed snow, momentarily blinding them both.

“What is that you’re hiding so fiercely?” the beast asked, cocking his black head to one side, unfazed by Ferryl’s sword. Blood dripped from his thick hands, a shock of crimson against his charred skin. The blood of Haravellian soldiers, no doubt. Ferryl took a moment to thank Providence that King Aaron and Queen Avigail’s carriage was far down the road towards Benalle—hopefully out of danger.

The beast-man bore no weapons. At least not any that Ferryl could see. He was not sure whether to be relieved or terrified. But he let the bastard speak. Let the beast buy him some time while he made a plan and figured out how in Sheol to keep Adelaide safe while he killed a nearly invincible foe.

“What a pity that you should lose your whore so soon after losing your dear father,” the man purred.

Ferryl lunged. Whether it was prompted by blind instinct or vengeful rage, he couldn’t be sure, but he would be damned if he let this beast get the better of him. And he sure as Sheol wasn’t about to let him take his wife.

So Ferryl lunged. And parried. He whirled and spun. He called on every skill which had been trained into him and every ounce of the strength in his bones.

But it was not enough. Not against a man who was more than a man. Not against a demon.

Ferryl cried out as the beast whipped a sword from his back, slicing through the air with deadly accuracy, aiming right for his heart. It missed, but only just. And when Ferryl whirled to parry, that’s when he realized—

“Adelaide!” he called out, panicking that she was not there at the tree. He realized his mistake the moment the beast started laughing.

“Not doing a very good job of hiding your precious princess,” he said. And then he lunged. The beast moved so fast Ferryl hardly had a split-second to react. He lifted his sword but it was too late.

No, it should have been too late.

The beast should have killed him. Skewered him like a stuck pig.

Instead the beast fell, toppling to the ground like a sack of potatoes. And from behind his gargantuan form, Ferryl saw the reason for his foe’s sudden demise.

“I am not a princess,” Adelaide growled, ripping a dagger from the beast’s back. “I am the queen of Navah.”

The beast groaned, clutching his side from where the black blood pumped in thick rivers across the snow. Ferryl wasted no time lifting his sword, and the beast’s head was severed with one fatal blow.

Black, oily blood sprayed her face, neck, and hands, yet Adelaide stood resolute, eye to eye with the king of Navah. Her breaths came heavily but steadily, the tremble of the dagger in her hand the only glimmer of any fear in her veins.

A moth—no, a butterfly landed on her shoulder, its wings glowing fiercely and radiantly ruby against the backdrop of fallen snow. And Ferryl could have sworn it bowed. Bowed. But he couldn’t be sure before it flitted away.

“Where did you learn—”

“Your Majesties!” cried a soldier, cutting Ferryl off. “Here, John! They’re over here!”

Though she surely knew what question he’d started to ask, Adelaide said nothing as she let the soldiers guide her back to the road and the carriage that awaited them.

~

Steam billowed around her bare shoulders, curling the rogue midnight locks that spilled from the pile of hair atop her head. She poured a basin of water over her arm as Ferryl made his way into the tiny inn privy somewhere inside of Navah’s northern borders.

Wordlessly, he took the cloth from the side of her small tub and set about washing her. Adelaide let out a soft moan as he began working a handful of lavender oil into her shoulders.

“Are you going to tell me where in the world you got that dagger, or are you going to leave me guessing?” he asked.

She breathed a laugh, her black lashes resting on her cheeks as she relaxed into his touch. Sixteen years. Sixteen years he had known her, and yet Adelaide of Haravelle never ceased to surprise him. And terrify him.

“Mother gave it to me when we were in Chesedelle. She said it was no good for a queen to be unarmed. Or unskilled.”

“You learned to brandish a blade in our time in Haravelle?” he chuckled, unable to resist pressing a kiss to her bare, oil-slicked shoulder.

“No. But I did learn a few tricks on exactly where to stick it should the need arise.”

“I see,” he said. “And you never thought to tell me?”

She cocked her head to one side, meeting his eyes. “Would you have approved?”

“Absolutely not,” he said.

She kissed him soundly and with so much passion that Ferryl’s interest in his wife’s weapon-wielding soon began to wane.

“Which is why I didn’t tell you,” she said when at last she took her lips from his.

“Adelaide, I will protect you.”

“I know, Ferryl. But you may not always be able to.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You’re not allowed to leave my side.”

“If you think that now that I’m your wife you’re going to put me in a cage and pull me out to pet me now and then, you married the wrong woman.”

He laughed, pulling her hair down and running his fingers through it. “There is no cage that could hold you, my love. Or I would have already tried.”

She turned, resting her chin on her arms where they perched on the side of the tub.

“Ferryl, I know you’re joking. But I also know that if you could, you would hide me away from the world until all this business with Midvar is over.”

He looked down, fiddling with the thread of her washcloth, knowing it was true, knowing she was right. The woman saw straight through him. She always had.

She drew his attention back to her, running her fingers through his hair. “We face war, my love. You cannot protect me from everything.”

“I can try, can’t I?”

“Providence has brought us both this far. Do not take the credit from him so soon.”

He pressed his brow to hers, the steam from her bath billowing around them both. “Are you always right about everything?”

“Yes,” she said.

He kissed her once, swiftly, reaching so that he might lift her out of the tub. The water sloshed around her, dousing his gauzy white shirt and breeches. But he did not care. Holding his wife to his chest like a newborn babe, he carried her out of the privy and into their tiny attached bedchamber, laying her down on the paltry excuse for a bed.

He climbed over her, devouring the sight of her beneath him as he said, “Well, you were certainly right about one thing.”

“And what is that?” she asked, a smile threatening her mouth as he moved to remove his sodden clothes.

“It is good for a queen to be armed,” he said, settling himself over her once more. He bent and pressed a kiss to her neck, still slick from her bath. “It gives her people peace of mind,” he said as he let his lips make their way down, down, down… “It gives her husband peace of mind,” he went on. When she let out a little breath of delight, he smiled against her skin and continued his exploration. “And it is certainly a turn on.”

“You, husband, are hopeless,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice as he moved to worship the queen of Navah.

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© 2019 The Parallax by Morgan G Farris. All rights reserved. If you paste any part of this somewhere on the internet, please tag/credit me.