The Heir of Aiwan--Book 1

chapter 8

The Queen walks into the open room, the dust swirling around her as she swipes a white sheet off the blush pink sofa that likely hasn't been used for many seasons, if Emma can trust the layer of dust that covers every surface. With the amount of servants who buzz and flit around this place, it seems likely that the queen has threatened pain of death if anyone enters this space.

"Sit," she beckons me over, her hand sweeping across the top of the cushion adjacent to her. Emma's mind is still moving a mile a minute. Emma thought she was a siren, now I'm not sure what she is. She sees the hesitation on her face and lets out a small sigh. 

"Emma, I know you still don't trust me, and I can understand that," she lets out an exasperated sigh before continuing "But, what use would it be for me to bring you all the way here just to kill you? I want the exact opposite for you. I want you here and thriving. I may not look it," a small smile plays across her features, "but I am very old, and so very tired. I am in need of someone strong to take over the throne. I know the power that runs through you veins. As it does my own."

Emma only hesitates one more beat before she sinks into the cushion opposite her grandmother. Emma can feel her own posture angling away from this magnetizing figure. Her gravitational pull having the opposite effect. She look from her to the candle she lit on the way in. The second time no less fascinating than the first time. The rest of the sconces have flared up since she swept the cover off the couch. The room is bright now, brighter than it has likely been in a while. The queen sees her lingering gaze on the candle and the stiff grin she was holding cracks bigger. "With training, you will be able to do that, too." She must see the question behind Emma's eyes because she continues, "there is a lot in your blood that you might not be aware of. Your mother refused to let me train her. She thought that tapping into the history of our blood was a dangerous thing. No one should have that much power, etc. etc." Her hand lazily waves in the air in front of her.

It was a lot to absorb and the hits just kept on coming. "This was her sitting room actually," Emma can see the pain in her grandmother's eyes as she speaks about her daughter. Her daughter. She had always raged at the world for taking her mother away from her but Emma never thought about the fact that she had a mother of her own who might have missed her, too. It's hard for her to justify the woman in front of her with the monster Jame painted her to be. A sigh escapes her lips and she relaxes back into the cushions. Emma didn't notice just how rigid she herself was until this moment. 

"Your majesty," they are interrupted by a slight wire frame of a man she has never seen before.

The queen turns to look at him, he shrinks back from her gaze, growing even smaller. "I apologize, but it is urgent." He does not look at her, his eyes dart to Emma before the Queen makes her exit, skirts swishing behind her.

Being in her mother's room is weird, to say the least. There is a sense of voyeurism being in here. Emma feels like she is invading her privacy. But how can you violate the privacy of a dead woman? After only a moment of hesitation, Emma runs her fingers along the dusty spines of the books still sitting on the side table. Her mother's books. She touched these with her own hands, too. Emma wants to feel connected to her. She wants to know if this is what she expected of her. Would she approve of the life she has led this far? Did she picture, after running away from this very place only to have the daughter she died to protect come right back.?The betrayal Emma feels in just being back here stings under her ribs, her fingers catch on the edge of a book and Emma feel a sinking sensation inside me. Emma's mind is pulling her inward, she has just enough time to sink backward, she feels herself dropping as the world goes black around me...