Of Spinning Gold and Song

| Fifteen | The Girls

Unbecoming as it was, I could feel my mouth do nothing more than fall straight open. I was quick to snap it shut, but thoughts were still whirling and waltzing through my head as I tried to process the completely unexpected information. "The queen wants to see me?"

"Her Majesty herself. I just received word from a courtier."

Improbable possibilities raced rampant through my mind as I tried to fathom any possible reason Queen Isolde would have to see me. I had no ties to her. I had no ties to any royalty. I had no ties to anyone in the capital. Anyone outside of Betane, the place where, before last week, I had never set foot outside of in all of eighteen years.

The only thing that had ever taken place involving both me and royalty was the Augustin had promised he would petition the king for better men to slay the dragon with. And honestly, that had nothing to do with me. Or the queen.

In other words there was no reason the queen would have to see me.

And it wasn't just the royalty part that made it strange. It was the queen part. Because me and my homely life aside, the queen didn't see anybody. Not even her family.

Ever.

The kingdom of Lyvens was awash with rumors about our eccentric queen. She had grown up Princess Isolde of Ayraelia, a wealthy and powerful kingdom far to the west, beyond the golden line where the sun ended each day and the land connected with the sea. She had come when she was my age to marry our own prince of Lyvens and forge a powerful new alliance. That in and of itself wasn't so strange. What was strange was the fact that from the first moment she had set foot in Lyvens, she had never once returned to Ayraelia.

Supposedly there was some sort of feud between her family and herself. People speculated that she was bitter with her parents for sending her off to another kingdom to take part in a marriage she had not wanted. Not once had she gone back to visit, and her parents themselves had not even attended the royal wedding. The forlorn bride had walked down the long aisle alone to meet her prince.

Furthermore, when visiting dignitaries from her home kingdom were in the palace, people who were never her parents, the king and queen, or any members of the royal family, she never meet them, always asking her husband to do all the negotiations and locking herself up in her room.

In fact, she spent a lot of time in her room. Although it was common knowledge that the king and prince could speak directly into anyone's mind, nobody in Lyvens knew for sure what the queen's power was because she had never been seen using it in public. Which could hardly be a surprise, since she had hardly ever been seen in public at all. On the very rare occasion she was at meetings, she was always in her husband's shadow at meetings, cloaked in the dark two steps behind him.

Nobody spoke with the queen. Least of all, a nobody peasant from a dying village battered by a dragon and a dwarf that would surely drive away all its occupants in the next few years in the corner of the kingdom.

"Why?" I couldn't stop the question from popping out of my mouth but regretted it the moment I saw Augustin's mam's face darken.

"Don't question your betters," she snapped. "Do you think I know? Would I have asked you if such was the case?"

My face burned red. "I'm sorry."

The lady said nothing for a moment. "Girl, you may go." She dismissed Lucie, the maid with whom I had been speaking, with a flick of her hand, and I was sad to see her go, not just because I was still famished, but also because she had made good company. Conversing with her was easy, even if it hadn't been about a topic I was comfortable with.