Lies Dressed In Lace

Not a Queen

Chapter 8 Not a Queen

I wake up to sunlight piercing my eyelids and my head pounding away. Too much wine, way too much wine. The memories of last night hit me like a ton of bricks making my head pound even harder, god the things I said, the things I did! What have I done? Oh god Valtok saw it! Saw me! Like that! I drop my head mournfully into my hands with another groan. A soft knock at my door pains me more then it should. "If you're not here to kill me go away." The door opens anyway and Valtok struts in like nothing happened, like I didn't completely shame myself in front of him with another man.

"I'm not here to kill you I'm here to fetch you for the Princess Sia, she said she missed you last night at the ball." He talks as if last night isn't playing thought my mind on repeat with shame coursing though my veins.

"I promised her I would come back!" I smack my forehead in frustration and trying to smack the memories out of my brain.

"Get dressed and make it up to her." I dare not look at him for fear that I will see the same memories in his eyes only tainted with pain or worse I wont see them at all. I get out of bed leaving him to look at my back as I walk to my dressing screen and change into the most simple and easy to wear dress with half sleeves I have ever owned. He stands there watching the whole time. He's thinking about it I just know it. Hell I'm thinking about it. "So about last night, I was very drunk and he was an old friend." I try to explain myself.

"So your new friends don't get the same opportunities?" He asks and I poke my head out to make sure he's joking. He smiles, "I'm kidding."

"I hope so because that was a mistake." I pull up my sleeve going back behind the screen.

"The joke or last night?" I finish tying the laces on my dress.

"Both," I come out from behind the screen straightening my skirts, I look up as he picks up Mal-The Carvers knife.

"Where did you get this?" He asks holding it up to me.

"Oh, I found it in the storage room since you wont give me my fathers back." I try to take it out of his hand but he pull away.

"Really? Then why is your name carved into it in the language of the Lycans?" I narrow my eyes along with his.

"How do you know that?" I ask completely ignoring the way my heart skips a beat at the fact that my name is carved into his knife...that he uses to carve into other men...well that was a quick moment of surprise affection.

"Answer the question Sylenia." He says darkly.

"That old friend of mine, you know the one from last night, gave it to me to protect myself from men like you and him, and apparently from myself too." I snatch the knife and leave before I regret saying any of it.

I quickly realize I don't know where Sia is staying and grab a maid running by, she leads me to the less used guest wing that always scared me as a kid to come to because the maids rarely clean it unless specifically asked to by my father or mother. Cob webs still cling to corners and dust whorls around as we walk down the hall. Different colored doors line the hall, this was always an odd place because the symbols on the doors. Most likely left by the fae who once inhabited this castle before my father took it.

We pass a red door with a lion carving inside the room has beautiful red walls and gold lions painted on them. A green one with vines and leaves decorating it with ivy crawling along the windows and plants that never die. Yellow with a griffin huge windows that open take up the far wall and a railless balcony. Blue door with a beautiful woman who has a fish tail instead of legs, father called them mermaids, this room was filled with baths and lovely tiles that looked like the sea in the sunlight. Finally we stop at the black door with the tree of life carved into the wood, father always told me to never go into this room but I ignored him finding that this room had the tree of life painted across the marble floor in silver paint that could never be washed away. I dismiss the maid and knock on the door, Sia answers in a simple black tunic and pants that look like the ones from the fight. She smiles brightly and ushers me into the room.

"I am so glad you could come see me! I didn't see you come back to the ball last night and was worried you had gone ill." I shake my head as I sit in a silver wing backed chair, she chooses a black settee across from me.

"No, I was catching up with an old friend you see and I completely forgot all about the ball, I am so sorry to have left you like that." She laughs.

"It is no trouble Sylenia, you were right a great many of men wanted to dance with me, unfortunately none of them were of my type." I nod understandingly, many of the men in court were greedy selfish men.

"Yes, I understand completely." I assume her type is Valtok.

"I wanted to see you to talk about the competition, it is true I would rather go home to take my mothers place before my father can marry me off but I must loose to another, do you know of one such that will win?" I nod.

"Me. I can beat Valtok and become his second but I cant do it as me, I need a disguise to trick my parents into letting me fight." She smiles and jumps up catching onto my plan quickly.

"You can be me in this fight this way you will win and I may go home." I nod standing with her.

"Exactly, you are my only hope." She takes my hands smiling.

"As you are mine."

"We only have a week to prepare fully, I will need clothes like the ones you fought in I have a seamstress that will keep our secret but she'll need to copy yours exactly." She nods running off to her bed room smiling brightly, she comes back out with the clothes bundled in her arms.

"Tell her to be careful with these they are not to be messed with, my mother made them for me as I was learning to take her place." I nod taking them carefully. "And you will have to learn to use my knives, I have extras you may barrow and we can practice with."

"And I have a room for that, it's the last storage room in the training hall, no one will bother us." She sighs still smiling.

"I hope to all hope this works."

"Me too, Sia, it has to." I go to her desk and grab a peace of paper and a quill quickly scrawling out a message for the seamstress then calling in a maid to deliver it to her. "Now, please tell me about this mother of yours." She laughs and sits with me on the settee again.

"My mother was the strongest person I have ever met. She was the last emperors daughter and trained with her mother in the mountain as I did because you see only royal women are meant to live and train and be the swordsman to train others as well as the generals of our armies as men are only to rule. My mother was so pleased to have me instead of a son because my father is a very heartless man and would have made any son of hers the same. He has always wanted to take my mothers claim of the armies and the training of other swordsman but he had no claim until she died and I was left unable to take my place. She cared for her people more then any claim she had, more then me at times because of my fathers rule. She fought for them as I wish to do but I was sent here instead on a fools errand. She would have hated this she always told me if I can fight I can win, I should have been stronger." She bows her head and I take her hands.

"You are incredibly strong, Sia, what else are you to do? Your father sent you here." She shakes her head.

"You don't understand, I was supposed to take her place when she died, when I killed her. But she died in childbirth killing my brother in the process." I stare at her shocked.

"She would have made you kill her?" What mother would do that to their child?

"It is the way it has always been, the way it has to be. Once we are ready we must beat our teachers in a fight to the death, we prolonged the fight until she gave birth and was strong again but she died before I could prove myself."

"Prove yourself by killing your mother? Of course you would win, a mother cant kill her own child."

"You would be surprised what a queen would do for her people. She was willing to die so my father would be force from the throne and I would take over."

"There are somethings a queen shouldn't have to do." She laughs.

"Good thing you will not be queen because you know nothing of being one."

"And you know nothing of being a mother yet I'm the one that will never be one of those either, so perhaps we should just stick to being warriors." She smiles and bows her head respectfully.

"So we shall, tell me Sylenia do you believe we are going to be good friends, because I do."