Legend of the Stones 1: Rise of the Hybrid

Chapter 2: An Inexplicable Evasion

I quickly mounted Tritick and spurred him into a gallop, all the way back to Tubersin. My horse streaked across the fields as if possessed, and we quickly found ourselves entering the breach that led into the kingdom. I covered my head with the hood of my cape and lost myself in the bustling commotion of the market, occasionally noticing suspicious glances cast my way by passersby who paused from their various doings to scrutinize me. There were so many people on the road that I was forced to move slowly down the winding streets, and it was only when I started climbing back up the hill to the palace that I exposed my face.

A marble stairway gleamed from the bottom of the vast structure that was the palace. At the top, ten guards stood as sentries covering the main entrance. They all wore official uniforms that boasted the insignia pin of the kingdom on their coat lapels. They were armed with swords. I avoided that direct entrance and chose a distant passage that led to the stables. It was little more than a narrow path formed between rocks that had piled on top of each other in the wake of some ancient avalanche.

Once I had settled Tritick in his stall, I hurried into the palace, still feeling restless. 'In the name of the Mystery,' I thought, 'the old scholars would have made the incident in the forest into a cautionary tale about a reckless girl who ran away from her home despite all the prohibitions, and ended up paying the direst of prices.' Some would say most of the fault lay with that undisciplined child who had decided to go into the forest unsupervised, without setting any boundaries for herself – and they would probably not be too far from the truth. Reality like the one I had been born into, is no longer a safe one, especially for a woman. And it was all the more dangerous for a youthful one, which was something I had learned from a tender age, especially as I was a member of the highest aristocracy.

Sometimes I would eavesdrop on the conversations of the female servants, some of whom said they would have preferred to have been born as men. When I pondered the subject, I always reached the same conclusion – despite everything, I had no regrets about being destined to be a woman. I have always recognized something powerful about women, although most of the time, I could not tell you what that 'something' actually was.

I marched among the round marble support pillars, iridescent with colors that reminded me of the twilight sky. My footfalls echoed in the corridors as I passed the royal gardens and reached one of the guest rooms. There, through the door open ajar, I saw the edges of a green dress, then the tall, slender image of Mamma, standing beside a sooty fireplace. She was an impressive woman, gentle and noble, rare purplish eyes, and a face that always looked fresh, as if old age could never claim any kind of hold on it. She also had this constant aloofness about her – although she never acted distant from me, we were very attached to each other – but from the world. She was always a part of it, yet also seemed to hover over it in her constant daydreaming.

Every time I saw her immersed in such heady thoughtfulness, I refrained from interrupting – those moments always seemed to me to be intimately personal, and I thought I had no right to unsettle them. I knew that many years before, long before she met Pappa and became Queen, she had been in love with another man. It had been a forbidden affair that had ended in great pain. Sometimes she would tell me about him quietly, discreetly, but only when it suited her, and she never revealed too much. She would call him "My lion," and smile bitterly as she described how they had fallen in love under the sun, became tangible in the shadows, and ceased to be when they had been exposed, as if they had no right to be in love so long as it was known, so long as their love left a visible mark.

But this time, Mamma turned suddenly, as if sensing my presence, perhaps, and her face paled.

"Flemma," she called, and I discovered I could not speak. She repeated my name, and I went to her. She shook my shoulders urgently.