A Bloody Crown

Chapter 11: Training

For two weeks. Two weeks, all I did was train. I took twenty minutes to be coronated the day after the Queen's meeting. All my meetings, except for ones related to war, were cancelled.

I pushed resources, time, and leadership into my soldiers and medics. My kingdom was becoming a force, training with solely ash arrows, iron swords with ash sprinkled into the forge they were made in.

Young women were required to train as well, their children being put in care centers throughout the day. 

Tamlin and I met two days after the Queens, and he gave me soldiers to work with. The few he had. The Night Court had infiltrated the previous month and tore it apart from within.

I didn't ask for names, but from the way he spoke, he loved whoever it was. Truly loved them. It broke my heart to think that someone left him.

But then again, I saw the control in him too. The arrogance and pride in being a High Lord. When I visited his palace, I saw a much smaller throne tucked away in a corner. One I imagined was for her. Whoever she was.

I saw a room disgraced, a study destroyed. Paintings ripped, furniture shredded. Saw glimpses of that beast I knew he held within him. His ability to.. transform.

Late at night, I found myself in the library. Just once. Reading in the section I'd never been allowed in as a girl. Seeing what the fae were capable of. Shapeshifting, winnowing, elemental control. Invasion of the mind.

Rhysand. 

His name rattled around my brain for two weeks. High Lord of the Night Court.

They kill fathers, the King said. Destroy Courts, Tamlin said. The worst, Briallyn said.

As I punched the bag in front of me, my knuckles the color of violets, I felt anger. Anger toward whoever would be on the other side of the battlefield.

I trained everyday, pushing my body to its maximum. Fighting a war between my heart and head, logic and emotion.

My head knew, just knew something was wrong. I couldn't place it, couldn't determine why, but something wasn't adding up. I was being lied to.

But my heart, my heart was hurt. Hurt by everything that had happened, and I wanted someone to blame. Needed someone to point a finger at, to be enraged at, because I couldn't look at myself.

Couldn't look at who I'd become.

I wore the King's crown everyday, wisps of shadows swirling around the hanging jewels. It donned my head to every dinner with my generals and counsel, every visit to the flower garden for meditation. 

Marlia came to my study last night, begging me to stop. Tears dripped off her face, splattering onto the floor. But all I heard was blood. Liquid ricocheting, screaming at me. That was the first time we'd spoken in ten days.

I punched harder, ignoring the pain.

She was afraid, worried I was becoming a shell. My only response, before having her removed from the room, was a reminder of everything I was trying to prevent. Prevent the enslavement of the human race, prevent my people from falling into ruin, prevent the fae from slaughtering children.

The white tape holding my knuckles in place was becoming stained. Stained with red, red like cherry blossoms or apples in fall. My throat was becoming raw, vision blurry. 

Four days ago, my mother ran away during the night. Marlia wept then too. Sobbed the whole next day. I hadn't realized how close they were, or if I did, I simply forgot.

I felt liquid rolling down my cheeks again. Every day, there was liquid.

But then, Marlia was here for years before I was. Friends with my mother, I remembered. Like sisters, my mother had said. My dumb mother, always resigned to a corner, or to dote on my father's arm. I suspected for years she was having affairs but could never prove it. I don't think my father cared.

Punch after punch. Cracking now. That was new, I realized. Stopping finally, the warped vines around my mind taking a step back, I looked down at myself.

Red droplets stained the grass underneath me, along with my hands and wrists. Tenderly, I flexed my fingers out, unwrapping the white tape to see the array of colors I'd created.

Even with excruciating pain from my hands, the kind of pain I would have keeled over at a month ago, I just balled my hands, annoyed at the weakness I held to even bruise.

The moon looked down upon me from overhead, the beams of light breaking through the tree branches I attached the bag to earlier. Starlight and shadows mixed over my hands, creating a painting, one of light and dark, the internal battle.

I looked up at her, the same moon that watches me train every night until she is high in the sky, and asked her. Asked her a question.

One I knew would save me. 

An answer that would make it okay.

A wish, a hope, a dream.

She didn't answer.