Of Spinning Gold and Song

| Twenty Two | The Story

Of all the absurd things I had heard in the last couple of weeks, this was the craziest.

It was hard to believe, but true that I could control the wind. That the queen could find me capable of spinning straw into gold, a feat that I was pretty sure was impossible. That I could end up in a royal palace. Even that my sister would prefer a dragon's company to my own. It was all crazy, but it was all true.

But this? No way.

"You can't be serious," I remarked drily.

"Times like these and many before, I rather wish that I was not," said Jon. "Although I suppose ultimately you are who you are and can there really be any bad in that? I am serious. Everything I've said is the truth. And if you'll sit tight, I'll tell you everything else. I would have expected Adara to tell you everything; by the end of the time I knew her, she did seem sensible and wise beyond her years. But I suppose life has dealt us what it has so here we are."

Sitting there, soaking it all in, I suddenly remembered all those times I had sat and asked my mam why we were different. Why we could sing so well, why we were so pale silver compared to everyone else's healthy golden complexion in Lyvens. She had promised to tell me later, when I was older.

Perhaps there was even a little more than just being a foreigner that she had to tell me. Perhaps that was why she was waiting until I was older. It would certainly be easier for a child to grasp being from another kingdom than suddenly being royalty. She was always going to tell me when I was older.

She was always going to tell me, and then she couldn't. And then she lost herself and I could never have known. "Fine," I said, my voice shaking ever so slightly. "Do tell." I tried to keep my tone nonchalant as though I didn't care, but I couldn't deny that I was shaking.

"You do know the story of how Her Royal Highness, Princess Isolde of Ayraelia, was betrothed to His Majesty, correct?"

"Of course." The rumors about the queen's strange history were rampant—crazy beyond belief—but beneath all of that, everyone from Lyvens had to know the basic history.

"I'll start there. The princess Isolde came when she was but sixteen to wed the king—the prince at the time. It was a long journey from Ayraelia—more than a fortnight, close to a month. And all along the trail she came with a procession of half a dozen guards and her one lady in waiting.

"Unfortunately, the princess was naive. She had no idea that she could be disliked, despised, even conspired against. But as it turned out, her lady in waiting was not as good a friend as she had always believed. She was angry, jealous. She felt that she didn't deserve to be always attending to her lady, who would be the one to get everything, just by chance of birth.

"So her lady in waiting had conspired with the guards to take the princess's place. She wanted very much to be queen; she was tired of serving the princess all her life and being treated inferior. And as much as it pains me to say it now, I suppose I can see where she was coming from. Adara was haughty and stuck up when I first met her. She treated us all like we were beneath her, which made her quite despised amongst the other servants. But I'm getting ahead of myself."

I found my hands clenching at my sides. I had my history with Mam. There were times when I despised her. But that didn't mean I wanted other people saying bad things about her. She was still my mam.

And besides, I was starting to see the err in my previous ways anyhow. She was a good person, and every single person on the whole damned earth should see that.

But then again, this story was so far fetched that it couldn't be true. I didn't know why I was getting so hung up on it.

"So the lady in waiting promised better treatment for all the servants if they would present her as princess. So along the way, the guards and the lady revolted, and forced the princess to switch places with her lady. When the procession arrived at the castle, everyone believed that the lady was the princess.