The Destitute Queen || h.s. au

3. Milena

October 23rd, 1549

Ben has fallen asleep on my lap, and I wrap the blanket around both of us. The oven is making us nice and warm, but I'm still shaking. My Mama and Papa can't be gone, they just can't be.

"Sweetheart, please eat something," says one of the women who work at Papa's bakery. I shake my head and cuddle closer to Ben. Alex still isn't back yet, he left with that man a while ago but I don't know why. People are coming in and out of the bakery, buying bread and quietly asking the women if Ben and I are okay. They don't think I can hear them, but I can.

The door swings open and Alex runs in, going right up to us and sitting down. I open the blanket and he cuddles in with us, shivering.

"It's really cold outside," he whispers. "Sorry I had to leave, Mila. That man works for Papa, we went to tell the town's Watchers about them."

I nod but don't say anything. After some time, I finally find my voice. "What's going to happen now?"

"We can't live there anymore, so the Watchers are going to burn the house down for us," Alex says. "Mama and Papa...they'll be buried in the graveyard."

I look at him and wonder how he could remain so calm after what just happened. I just saw my Mama and Papa dead on the ground, and so did he. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. It's a good thing I didn't eat anything. If I had, I'd be running to an empty bucket by now.

"If the house is burned down, w-where will we live?" I quietly ask.

"You'll all live with me," one of the women states. I look at her, she's rolling dough while the other is walking up to us to take bread out of the oven. She's old and has long, grey hair. "You'll love it at my home, and I'll take good care of you children," she smiles warmly. I don't want to live in a new house, I want to go home. I want to see Mama and Papa again. This must be a bad dream, there's no way this is actually happening to me. Alex doesn't even look sad at all about any of this, he's just going right to planning what we're gonna do next, he's ten years old but he's acting a lot older, and I don't like it.

Alex wasn't born in Edrokar. He was born in the kingdom to the northeast of it, called Birilia, where my family is from. About a year after Alex was born, Mama and Papa decided to move to Edrokar because King Louis had taken control of the kingdom after his older brother died. He was terrible, he ruined their home kingdom, so my family came to Edrokar. It didn't do much good, though, because King Louis conquered Edrokar shortly afterwards. There was nowhere for my family to go, since the other kingdom, Alba, was already conquered and Toulon Woods didn't have any villages. Toulon Woods is basically one huge forest full of all sort of creatures I'd rather not become familiar with. Alba was to the far south, past Birilia and below Toulon Woods, so they would have been too far to travel to. Truvell is in an isolated part of the land, it's nearly impossible to reach it, so Edrokar was the only place my family could come to. Edrokar is where the King decided to have his palace built, but our village is on the outskirts of the kingdom, so it would take a while to reach the palace. The King now controls the whole empire of Yusal, which he renamed Leria, and there's nowhere else to go if we want to escape, since the land is surrounded by an ocean that nobody has ever travelled past. I heard there are some uninhabited islands off of the east coast of Leria, but Edrokar is to the far west. I wish I had gotten to see Birilia, Mama always told me how beautiful it was, and how kind the people were.

    Although I was born in Edrokar, Mama still gave me a Birilian name. It's odd, considering both Alex and Ben were given Edrokian names. I hate my name.

"We should get going, children," the old woman tells us. I look out the doorway to see that it's gotten dark, and the bakery has been closed for the day. Alex stands up and gets out of the blanket, taking Ben in his arms. I stand up, too, but I keep the blanket around me. The old woman wraps her arms around the three of us and leads us out the door while the other woman puts out the fire so the oven stops. The man who went with Alex came back from wherever he was and closes the bakery's door after we've all gotten out. He turns to us.