5
My mother was not prone to melancholy moods. When I was six, however, she came into my room after I had been put to bed, and laid next to me, holding me in her arms. I was overjoyed, and didn’t move or say a word, hoping not to break the spell. We were silent together for a long time. Perhaps if this together time happened more often I might have drifted into sleep, but as it was, I was wide eyed with my heart racing in the darkness with her.
It could have been an hour before she spoke. When she did, she talked about being a queen, and the importance of our rule. More important than I could know, but someday I would understand.
Everyone in our realm depended on us to keep them safe, and fed, and to provide a place where children could live and grow.
"The hardest part about being queen," she told me. "Is that it doesn’t stop. Once you are queen, you are always queen."
"Even on your birthday?" I asked in a whisper.
"Especially on your birthday, because it’s an important day for everyone."
"Even when you are asleep?" I asked.
"Yes, even when you are asleep."
After a moment, I said, "But you get to tell people what to do, and they have to do it."
"Yes," she said, and her voice dropped into sadness. "And that’s why you’ll never be alone, but you will be lonely most of your days."
Iris, my closest adviser, and also a wolf shifter, stood next to me looking at the charts on the large table. Her and I had been working at the maps most of the morning, and going through the military books Karal had brought for us after I described the watercraft I found on the beach yesterday. Our best guess was the ACUs which were once used by the military. Mostly for cargo, but the books said it also carried troops. A troop, Karal explained was one person.
“There were a lot of them, but these looked like they would have carried more,” I said, wondering.
Adian, lounging on the short sofa, turned. “One hundred and three, according to the bodies I buried,” he said.
I nodded. “Thank you. But still, why three of these things if one would do?”
“Maybe the others crawled over the side on the way,” Bryce said. His sulking was annoying this morning.
I had planned on having him in my chamber last night, but now I was glad I didn’t.
Maybe my agitation wasn’t for all the right reasons. Bryce didn’t like Fen, didn’t approve of the way he showed up and the way I allowed him to take me. Didn’t approve of the fact that I wouldn’t allow them to skin him alive. And I didn’t like the fact that Bryce shared his opinion with me. In fact, I didn’t want him to have those opinions at all. So, he was pissed. I was pissed. But we’d get over it. The truth of the matter was, Fen or Fenrir did good by us to track that landing, then to ensure we were never in danger, and then to bring the event to my attention. That Fenrir didn’t feel comfortable bringing around a crowd in doing so, so be it. Hell, looking back on it, that run through the woods was the most spontaneous thing I had done since my mother passed on.
Now all three of them were sulking because I wouldn’t let them hunt Fenrir down for slighting me.
Iris pointed at the book page. “Says here that it has a 120-nautical mile range. What the hell is a nautical mile?”
“1.8 kilometers,” I quoted.
“So, 216 kilometers is their range? Why did they need one kind of mile for land and another for the sea?” Iris asked.
I lifted my hands in surrender, “I don’t know. I don’t understand that system at all. Using meters and liters is so much easier. Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? Why twelve inches in a foot. How many inches in a mile?”
Iris looked up to me. “I would need the abacus for that.”
“Exactly my point,” I told her. “How many millimeters are in a kilometer?”
She gave me a sideways grin, “One million, hence the name millimeter.”
I shrugged. “I mean, if we had twelve toes and fingers, I could understand it, but who the hell can’t count to ten? Anyway, I’m glad the other queens agreed with mother and the others. I have better things to do with my memory than to memorize feet, yards, and nautical miles.”
Bryce, looking out the window, gave a heavy sigh. His thirty-seventh of the morning.
“Would you fucking get over it!” I snarled, throwing down my compass and pencil. “What the fuck is the deal? I’m not insulted. Why are you? Because he’s not one of ours? Because he’s the Wolf of Destruction? Because he noticed, and helped, and you didn’t? What? And by the way, he’s not the wolf of destruction, and says he’s never been.”
Bryce clenched his jaw. Tight. Hard. And a part of me was happy he did. I know without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that I wouldn’t like the words that exited them. Queen or not, he was my lover and a lover scorned has a bite as deadly as death itself.
Karal turned from the bookshelves. The look in his eyes told me he was one-hundred-and-twenty-percent prepared to defend Bryce. “Oh, so he’s that one,” he said. “I would have preferred him as the executioner.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped at him.
Karal set the book down. “That’s what the Wolf of Destruction is, my-lady. The Kind’s executioner. He’s also the one to exact vengeance, although the needs for both of these offices have dropped over the years. Still, there are raiders, and murderers.”
I harbored my own beliefs on that subject, but decided it was tactful not to air them at the moment. “So, he’s not it. What did you mean, that one?”
“I think,” he said, searching his mind, “it was sixty or so years ago, that one who was raised from pup to age of choice as the Wolf of Destruction, refused the office. He had already been marked, they do that in childhood after the choosing. It’s not a rooftop with three wavy lines under it, like the water clan has, but rather a mountain with fire inside. Sorry for my mistake there. I didn’t know the water clan only marks the back, not the neck.”
“Good for him, what of it?” That got all three of their attentions. My tiger straightened, as if I had slapped him. Even Iris stiffened a little, but only a little. She had been a friend in my childhood. A tutor, and a watcher. My first bodyguard, really. So I picked up on her moods more than most.
“It means: he’s a coward, and a traitor,” Bryce said, and his voice was not kind.
“A coward?” I asked, my voice low, smooth, conversational as I stepped around the table toward my bull-headed man. “He saved me from a band of one hundred and sixty raiders, asking nothing in return, when I was twelve. He kept me safe, did nothing unseemly. Suggested nothing unseemly. Didn’t ask for my love, or for me to remember him. Two days ago, he killed a band of zombies, what was it? One hundred and two?”
“One hundred and three,” Adian admitted, with a soft voice, and a shift of his gaze to the window.
I gave him a bow of my head. “One hundred and three. As you say. He stood watch over the vessels for that night, looking for others, alone, without aid or request. Did not ask me for anything yesterday or today. Not even thanks. And you call him a coward? In what way?”
Bryce dropped his eyes, but then lifted them again to mine. “He refused his office.”
I nodded my head and returned to the table. “That justifies the charge of traitor perhaps, but Karal, you said he was trained until the Age of Choice, correct? That’s sixteen, isn’t it? Would that suggest that there was some kind of ceremony then, where he was offered the office, where he was asked if he would accept?”
They saw right away where I was going with that. Like I said, my men weren’t stupid. “If he was asked, and said no. Why is that an issue?”
“He doesn’t have the right to refuse!” Bryce brayed.
“Then, it is the Kind who betrayed him,” I said, not lifting my voice. “If you are going to enslave someone, at least be honest about it?”
Bryce’s eyes flashed rage. “I don’t have to take this…”
“No, you don’t!” I raged back at him. “None of you do! And if you choose to leave, that’s your choice! And you will not be called a coward or a traitor, or any other masking name of a slave! I won’t stand for it!” I calmed myself, deep breath after deep breath. “Think about that the next time you see him, Bryce. And there will be a next time, because he is welcome here. He is always welcome. And you, are dismissed. I’m tired of your sulking. Go do something, anything. Go hunting. Go see your mother. It’s been two years since you visited her last. She’d be happy to see you.”
Unlike most of the Kind in service of the Queens, Bryce knew his mother. Remembered her. When he arrived, he had fond memories of her, and wanted to write to her. I helped him learn to write. We wrote her each full moon.
After a few moons, he received a letter from her, which I helped him read. Mother didn’t object, and after I met Fenrir, I thought most of the Kind could read and write. This is far from true. They don’t put much value on those skills. Not those in the tribes and clans anyway. But after learning, Bryce learned the value of being able to put pen to paper. He didn’t only write to his mother, he wrote to me. At first, they were letters of how much I meant to him. Letters where he detailed the moment he knew he loved me; of the things that seared my name on his heart.
Through those letters, I learned a lot about Bryce. And a lot about myself. I learned that falling in love with someone a second time and a third and a fourth, was wholly possibly. The letters evolved to notes. Though evolved is a strong word for something that diminished in word count. That’s not to say they weren’t intriguing. They were. Very much so. These notes would hint at what my nights would entail; at what would happen when he so much as smelled my scent.
We were young then, and adventurous. We stole moments that didn’t belong to us, we fucked in spaces that barely had the footage to hold both our bodies. I learned just how hard, but possible it was to keep quiet the moans that ripped through during the height of ecstasy.
We loved each other just as hard now – and fucked even harder. More experienced. That is not to be misunderstood. But sometimes, space is necessary. Not for me, but for him.
A knock came at the door before Bryce could state whether or not he thought visiting his mother was a good idea. Mentioning his mother did calm him down a peg, so I knew he considered the option.
After the knock, a bell rang, and the door cracked open. “Your highness?”
My porter, Mark, poked his head in.
“Yes?”
He stepped inside. Mark was short, narrow from shoulders to waist, and then narrower the rest of the way down. “You have a visitor, a messenger in fact. One of the Kind. I’ve offered him room, meals and drink, telling him you were engaged, but he says this is urgent, and insisted I ask you.”
Looking back at the map, and the books, I sighed. “Bookmark the pages Iris, but leave everything as it is. Insisted, did he?” I asked, turning back to Mark.
“Yes, my queen,” he nodded, clasping his hands behind him.
“Well, show him in then. He must have something important to say, I imagine.”
“Thank you, my queen,” he said and bowed, then left the room with efficiency.
The man who came in was huge, even by my standards. All three of my men showed signs of alertness as soon as he was near the door. His shoulders were nearly too wide, and he was almost too tall to come in without bending. When he took two steps into the room, he met each of my men’s eyes and then gave a low growl. They looked to the floor. Even my tiger. Then this monster looked at me, and I saw the mark on his neck. It was the same as Fenrir’s.
“Queen Myriana, I am Víðarr,” he told me, and bowed.
I nodded. “You have a message for me?”
His eyes met mine before he straightened from his bow. “Yes, I do.”
He reached into the satchel on his side and pulled out, I kid you not, a scroll. A real live scroll. Then he stepped forward to hand it to me. Iris interceded. Víðarr gave a low throat growl, and she gave him one right back. Then they stared at each other for a moment. Silence. A stale, thick silence, hung above and between us. No one breathed. No one spoke. But daggers, sharp and judging, were stared from messenger to citizen. From citizen to messenger.
After a tense heartbeat, I spoke. Despite the chill that swept through the room, my voice didn’t shake. Didn’t wilt. “Either you give it to her or your mission fails. I won’t accept it otherwise. I might have been inclined to, until you threatened my people. I don’t care who you are, you do not have leave to do that here. Now, give it to her or leave. I’m busy.”
It was Mark, my porter, was who was in my mind with that statement. Yes, he was short, and young, and slight, but fearless. He knew he had the full support of my guards out in the entryway, and the halls. It took more than an insistent wolf to cowl him into disturbing this meeting.
“My orders,” Víðarr said slowly, “are to put it in your hand personally.”
“Were you ordered to threaten my porter? To bully your way into a meeting? To insult me, my men, my staff? These three here have been aching to kill over far less insults all morning.”
He looked around the room, his dark eyes scanning each of us, then shrugged, “No, but…”
“Then you have failed. Leave. I will no longer hear you. And tell whoever sent you, never to send you again.” I turned back to the map on the table.
I knew it was a gamble. He was volatile, and strong- if his muscles were anything to go by. This was my home, however, and I wasn’t going to be bullied by him here. I could not have guessed at what came next.
He smiled, turned, and left.