The Dark Heir (SHORTLIST - Open Novella Contest 2019)

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, there lived a king and a queen, who were beloved across the land, because their people had low expectations and no other models of governance.

The king, a master swordsman and a mage, was dark and handsome. His skin shone like polished ebony, and he had eyes the color of new grass. He loved to help his people, and so he often would be gone around his kingdom for weeks and weeks, settling this dispute or that, helping villages whose crops were failing, or curing bouts of plague. Of course, there were others who could do this for him, but he adored the adoration of his subjects and clutched at every opportunity to bask in their praise.

He especially appreciated the praise given by young and beautiful men.

In fact, he often recruited the most beautiful and eloquent men into his service to follow him around, singing his praises wherever he went. Including, and especially, in his bedroom.

His wife was as beautiful as he was handsome. The queen's skin was the color of churned butter, and her hair a mass of ringlets, of which people argued over the color. Some swore they blazed red like the sunset. Others replied they were always the color of the night sky, and anyone who thought otherwise could throw themselves off the nearest cliff.

But the queen was a gentle woman, and she would quell these arguments with a smile, or a word, for her voice was like an angel's. It was said her song was so intoxicating it could call a child back from the edge of death, or stop an advancing army in their tracks. Some said it could even call the Dark Lord from his prison.

Often the queen would visit the close villages when her husband was away (which was increasingly the case), and sing to the children as they played, or hush a colicky babe. She found solace in these activities, but it did not keep her from wondering if there was something wrong that he preferred the company of his people and attendants to hers.

If she had been taught to govern a kingdom, perhaps she would not have cared so much about the absence of her husband. It would have given her a purpose in life, and she would have been excellent at it, turning their riches into a golden age rivaled by no other kingdom in any era.

But she hadn't.

She'd only been taught that she, and her body, was created for making children and being beautiful. So she filled her head with songs, since her adoring subjects brought her an endless stream of music books, and grew lonely and jealous.

Their marriage was going on its third year when the queen began to ask her husband for a child. The people had been hoping for one since the first year and were becoming more and more nervous. This did not go unnoticed by the queen, but if it was noticed by the king (which it probably wasn't, because he couldn't even find his socks in the middle of an empty room) then he chose to ignore it.

His reply was always, "If the gods will us to have a child, then we shall have one, my love."

The queen thought that there was rather more to making children than praying to the gods, and indeed her ladies in waiting, and her maids, had hinted as much. But she had not been brought up to know the intricacies of baby-making, nor in the practice of asking questions; her mother died when she was little, and her father's constant reply to her was, "Stop asking me questions. Your husband will teach you all you need to know."

But her husband hadn't taught her all she needed to know. In fact, he hadn't taught her anything. And she began to suspect he knew as little about the act as she did. Either that or he did not want children at all, which seemed to her to be a very odd preference for a king.

He was now gone so much from the castle that she only saw him once every three moons for a few days before he was off again. And none of his time at home was spent anywhere near her bedchamber. His constant absence created despair within her that could not be abated by any tincture or spell the castle mages and witches created.