LINEAGE OF YELLOW

"Could you tell me a story, Mama?"

This is the way it has been every night for as long as Camilla can remember. Her mother—Queen Cassilda of Yhtill, ruler of a planet-spanning empire that she says her daughter will become queen of one day when she's all grown up—will set aside paperwork and duties that eight-year-old Camilla can't understand to tell her stories. She reaches over the layer of silk blankets for her mother's hand and squeezes tightly. They look so alike: Light brown skin, curls of dark hair the color of oak with eyes to match. But with her mother her brown hair is graying, and there are wrinkles patterned around her eyes.

"Of course, dear. Something old or something new?"

She sits up in bed. "Something old, please. Tell me about Carcosa."

So she sweeps Camilla away to the land of Carcosa, to a land with black stars that hang high in a yellow sky. She tells Camilla of twin suns and of a city where no one really looks entirely human, of ballgowns heavy in pearls and magic that no one quite understands, and of the king who rules them all—Hastur, shrouded in a yellow cloak who sits on his throne. She tells stories of the heroes of the lost city who protect the land from harm. And Camilla sits breathless in bed like she has all the nights before.

"I wish I could go there someday. I want to meet the king, too!"

Cassilda sighs, tucks stray brown hair away from her daughter's face. "Oh, dear. I suppose the stories haven't been enough."

"I can't help it. I want to know more and see it for myself someday. I want to talk to the king—maybe if we formed an... alliance? Is that the right word, Mama?"

"Yes it is."

"An alliance, we'd be able to see it. And an alliance would be good for Yhtill, too. It's like the city's calling for me to visit."

Cassilda pulls her daughter close into a tight hug. Camilla wraps her small arms around her and closes her eyes. Maybe she won't visit Carcosa now, but when she's older she'll get to see that fabled city with black stars lying in the sky for herself. Or at least when her mother kisses her good night and leaves her to go to sleep, where maybe she'll catch a glimpse of her vision of Carcosa distorted by her dreams.

"You'd make such a wonderful queen, Camilla."

As Camilla falls asleep she hears Carcosa in the song her mother hums to her as a lullaby. Her mother sings to her of a place where strange moons circle through the skies of this lost place, of the songs the Hyades sing. Camilla doesn't know what any of it means at first—she's very young when her mother first sings it to her. She's not sure how and she isn't sure why, but she knows that even if Carcosa isn't on the map she will see it someday.

Then there are the dreams. She has her first dream the night her mother leaves her to fall asleep. Sometimes—like on the first night—she wakes up in a haze, only able to remember the twin suns sinking behind the lake and a flash of yellow. Other times she runs away from the masked occupants of the city—she does not know why she runs away, all she knows is that she has to—and wakes up shivering, crawling into her mother's bedroom so she will not have to spend the night alone.

"Sometimes I dream about that city, too."

They sit across from each other at breakfast. In the pale golden light of the morning, where servants flit about the castle, it seems like nothing can hurt them here.

"You do?"

"For a very long time. My mother had those dreams too, you know—and her mother before her, and back and back and back." Cassilda stretches her lips into a weary smile. "She taught me the song."