Highwater and Glass

The Sacred Crossing, Chapter 2 - Annette

Annette had first heard the whispers of magic when she was eleven. It was an odd and terrifying sensation. She was admiring the roses in the greenhouse beneath the Blue Keep, alone in her thoughts when they came for her. Voices that didn't belong to her, speaking distantly in a chorus of ancient tongues. Among the words, she would sometimes hear her own name echoing with delirious desperation. She held her hands over her ears, but they wouldn't stop and she feared she was going mad. Her instincts led her blindly to the roses. She gripped their thorny stems firmly and bled from her palms into the soil. The whispers stopped abruptly, though the roses grew unnaturally, doubling in size at her fingertips. The gardener didn't know how it happened, but Annette did. And she understood what it meant. She was a mage. She was a freak. No one could know.

She read what she could in the library and queried the Archmage when he was available. But every bit of knowledge led her to the same conclusion: the people of Iron Fen would never accept a magic-wielding princess, especially one who was in line to be queen. She read about young maidens in the countryside allowing their magical sensitivity to fade throughout adolescence. And so she decided to follow suit. When the whispers became too much for her, she would return to the greenhouse and visit the roses. Annette's hands, scarred and scabby where henceforth hidden beneath silk gloves. The roses in the castle greenhouse and their clueless gardener became legendary.

Annette never put much thought into the power she would lose out on by ignoring her magical calling. She had met Cirrus Alindal and his successor Oran Highwater. Archmage was the highest level of command a mage in Iron Fen could attain, and still they answered to the king and his court. Thus, Annette would settle only for being queen. It was a right passed down to her from her father, the only son of the king of Iron Fen. After her younger brother died of swamp pox and her father was killed during The Sacred Crossing, Annette's ascension to queen in the event of a grandfather's death was uncontested. Or so she thought.

"Your cousin, Renard," the King said to her in his office one afternoon.

Annette looked back to her grandfather as if she'd been slapped.

"What? Why?" she protested. "I'm older than him. His parents are Duke and Duchess of The Fingers where half of the population are stupid dwarves. His father isn't even related to us!"

"Many of those stupid dwarves, as you put it, are high-ranking members of the merchant class. They command a lot of wealth," he said softly. "I know it doesn't seem fair, Annette, but Renard is a boy. Boys grow into men. Iron Fen is historically a land of kings. We've only had one ruling queen in recorded history."

Annette was well aware. Queen Maudia ruled three hundred years prior. She married an elite knight below noble status so she could maintain her solitary rule. But as soon as she had a son, he became king in her place.

"Renard hardly has a claim," said Annette. "Why can't you simply say: I, King of Iron Fen endorse my granddaughter Princess Annette?"

"Because a king cannot govern without the support of the people."

"But everyone loves me," she whined.

"In Port Shorishal, sure," he said. "But beyond these cities walls, your popularity unknown."

Annette pouted and looked out the window. She saw the butcher and Handmaiden Gilda. Did they not always smile at her in passing? Who cared what the people outside the castle thought of her?

"I wanted to wait until you were older to suggest this," said her grandfather. "But I fear Renard is gaining support for his claim faster than you can combat it. If you're serious about being my heir, you'll need to do what your father could not. You'll need to complete The Sacred Crossing."