The Vixen Queen

Chapter 1.3

Ganzig began the last of the spells, muttering in the old tongue of his people. A faint green force field wrapped around Aurora's chambers, settling into place with every word of the cantrip. Mists of the same color were expended from his hands and wrists, forming the last layer of a ward that would make her doors inoperable unless the person was invited in, or she opened the door. That was, if they remembered why they were going to Aurora's chambers in the first place from the confusion spells he laced within the ward's many layers.

To put such heavy protection around her chambers was an odd request, but one he was beginning to understand as he mulled over his observations since arriving a few weeks prior.

Rikard was a walking contradiction. Intellectual and religious on the outside, but sickly and weak on the inside. His heart was crushed by his wife's death, leaving him lost and misguided, with nothing to anchor him. He knew about the chambermaids — literally everyone in Minnehil Palace knew about that. Ganzig had come across that bit of gossip his very first day. What he didn't expect, though, was how extreme Rikard's secret madness and mourning had become. Rikard wasn't shy about treating Aurora harshly, but that was the first he had seen or heard of him deliberately, physically hurting her, making comments as if he'd sneak back in the middle of the night and have his way with her.

For Elek, honesty was both his weakness and one of his only redeeming qualities. He did little to hide his descent into a libertine lifestyle — but, to his credit, preferred silken dragons to chambermaids. The one thing he and his father oddly seemed to have in common was their bittersweet attitude towards the princess.

A creeping feeling slithered up his spine, around his shoulders, and spread out through his chest. It shook him from head to toe. Rikard's comments, Elek's surprisingly cavalier attitude about his sister's purity in advance of her wedding — Rikard's, too — the lack of regard for her consent...it was beginning to appear worse than Ganzig could ever have imagined.

The creeping feeling burned away as anger swept through him. He could still hear the sound of Rikard's hand smacking Aurora — his own daughter — across the face. The clap resounded in his ears, boiling his blood. Aurora may have been incorrigible at times, but she had done nothing to warrant the treatment she received. Especially not that. Jaded, eyes out of focus, Ganzig shook his head and lowered his hands. All in all, the core of The Old Kingdom, the core of The Jadar, was falling apart — and no one seemed to see it.

The fall of The Jadar would not be sudden like The Eldamar or The Karhai. No, it would be a gradual implosion. They'd be eaten away from the inside, and by themselves no less, while The Four Brothers hang their heads in shame. Pride and arrogance always catch up in the end. If not at the hand of another, then at your own. Such is the fate of tyrants.

The cracks were already there — and judging by what he saw peeking out from behind, he was happy to fulfill Aurora's request. She lived day to day feeling disgruntled and unsafe at the hands of the men who were supposed to protect her and care for her. Suddenly, her unceasing attitude made sense. Beneath the bitterness and past the dry sarcasm, was a girl whose heart was broken.

A year ago, she lost more than just her mother. She lost her father and brother, too. Her whole family. Her whole world. It was no more, a phantom of the past now getting more distant with each day. And each day, she awakes to a world where she loses more and more control, where everyone becomes so much more cold, so much more strange, than they ever used to be. All she wants is to have them back, to share in the mourning and grief with them, to know that she's not alone. But instead, each one of them just breaks her heart a little more.

The burning anger had subsided, cooled and depressed by a heavy wave of sadness that crashed through him. He now understood why she was drawn to him in her own weird way. I know that feeling, too. She can smell it on me, no doubt. Everyday, my people are further lost to the past than they were before...and it breaks my heart. Even more, no one here knows me — not like they could. I am alone and every day, the isolation grows.