Donkeyskin - ON HOLD

Of Forgiveness

*Of Forgiveness*

Elodie woke to blinding panic, unsure of where she was or what had happened. Her limbs felt unimaginably heavy, and she struggled to sit up, to return to consciousness. Her chest ached, and she felt dampness well beneath her eyelids, and she was weeping before she even knew why.

Someone pulled her upright and held her close. Elodie held on to whoever it was, grateful to have someone to comfort her. Once, that would have been Adrienne. She dried her eyes and pulled away from her companion. Weeping and lying prostrate would not help her friend.

The queen sat at the edge of her bed, watching her with shadowed eyes. She reached out and tucked a strand of damp hair behind Elodie's ear. "I'm so sorry, my dear," she said, and Elodie sagged back against her pillows, sapped and saddened.

"Everyone knows," she whispered hoarsely. "Don't they?"

The queen could only nod, and that told Elodie everything Annika did not. She suppressed a sob and looked away. So her charade was up, but she didn't know what she should expect now.

"What's going to happen to me?" Elodie asked. "Is Alexandre terribly angry?" The second question came out unbidden, and Elodie found that she cared very much what the answer was.

The queen frowned at her for a moment. "Nothing needs to happen," she said. "What comes next is your choice. If you wish to stay here, then we will offer you asylum. If you wish to return home and confront your father, we'll support you. Now, to answer your second question, I have stayed with you since you fainted. I know he wished to see you, but I sent him away. He was quiet, but he paced outside your door for a time. I think Belle took him off somewhere to give you some peace."

Elodie turned her face from the queen. Alexandre's absence was like a blow to her heart. She knew him, and if Belle had been able to take him away from her, it meant he'd let her, and the was not a good sign.

But, first and foremost, Elodie saw Adrienne's body crumpled on the floor of her antechamber, the king standing over her, from that night, nearly two years ago, when he'd forced Elodie to accompany him to the festival. Elodie had gone with him to save her friend, and, in the end, what difference had it made? Adrienne would have been hurt either way.

"I have to stop him," Elodie whispered. "I can't let Adrienne die. If I do, then it's my fault, because I didn't do anything."

Queen Annika held her close, and Elodie subsided into her embrace. It helped to hold onto her, so she didn't fight her instincts. For a very long time, the sat like that, not a queen and a fugitive princess, but a mother opening her heart to a parentless child.

***

The queen helped Elodie to dress, despite her protests that it was undignified. They chose, together, a gown of black and silver brocade, found by one of the queen's maids for her that fit surprisingly well. It was a bit tight at the waist and too long in the leg, but, in a pair of heeled slippers, she could hold it off the ground with one hand. The queen gave her a black silk veil and an unadorned circlet, and she let the queen's maid pin her hair up in a low chignon. She let the veil fall, like a dark, twisted version of a bride's headpiece, down to the middle of her back.

Looking in the mirror, she realized she did not recognize the pale, grieving woman she saw. Her eyes were hollow and swollen, her skin as white as snow, her hair like the darkest coffee, her lips thin and pale. The woman before her was not the child she had been, nor the herbalist Donkeyskin, nor the dancer Lune. The woman before her was Crown Princess Elodie, the heir to the throne of North Avalon, and a person in her own right, completely apart from her title.