Of Whispers and Daggers ✓ [TLRQ #2]

Chapter 21 - Aster

The flames illume the dark of the courtyard. Tonight, even the stars' glory pales next to the fire's mournful splendor. Through the flames peaks the serene face of the Queen.

Mourning and anger rage dully within me, held back by a strong dose of the numbing cold. I can't say she was especially caring to her family, and I don't believe that she held any particular fondness for me. She wasn't cruel, though, just removed. As much as I wished differently, she was more stranger than family.

But as little as it seemed she cared for me, she was still my mother. It's not like she was just a cold, calculating courtier, either. She was a cold, calculating courtier that loved her country and made her country love her. She was a queen's queen. Strong but gentle, just but kind. Impersonal to her family, but the country's mother.

I always admired her. And as little as she acted it, she was still my mother.

My soul hangs heavy in my chest with sorrow and exhaustion. The longer I stand here, the more the fire seems to melt away the icy distance that first encased me in her room. My throat constricts.

I may not know if she loved me, but how could I help but love her?

I don't bother blinking back the stray tears that wind their way down my face. Likely, no one will see, and those that do shouldn't think any less of me. Even as grieved as I am, as desperately as I tried to save her, it's not as if I'm sobbing.

I'm just appropriately mourning my mother and Queen. Nothing more and nothing less, as propriety would not accept the former and my heart would not allow the latter.

Normally, all but the closest to the deceased would start to leave after half an hour, but tonight is different. It is not only the time for us to mourn the death of our Queen but also to celebrate Morineaux's newest one. We cannot afford to put more time between them, not with the siege and our efforts needed other places than ceremony and tradition. Even the Ladies see that.

Nobody restocks the fire as it starts to die early in the morning. There's no need. Enough fuel was supplied from the start to properly send her off, and now, in the quiet, dark stretch of morning that both sun and stars forsake, most of her body is ash. The firelight glints off her crown.

Somehow, it still seems wrong that Sela will soon be wearing it. The crown of Queens and Queens past. The crown that all bore the burden of. The crown forged through fire and fire again, strong enough both to outlast the trials of the reign and the heat of the pyre. From coronation to cremation, the crown stands, soon, somehow, belonging to Sela.

In the corner of my eye, maids usher people out of the courtyard and to the Auditorium. They must have everything set up for Sela's coronation. Which means it's almost dawn.

Almost time to declare, once and for all, our mother no longer Queen of Morineaux.

Everything is changing. People are dying, Morineaux is besieged, and the world shifts under our feet. Sela, Reyan, and I are all technically adults, but with the oldest among us at twenty-one, I can't help but feel we're still children. We shouldn't be responsible for a country. Not one with easy decisions to be made, much less one in the middle of war.