A Queen is Knighted Read online

  “Leave your brother out of this. This is not about him.” Her mother gave her a warning glare, accustomed to Lauraine typically bringing him into their arguments.

  “It’s never about him, always me. Zack gets away with everything.” Lauraine pushed herself further back into the sofa, pursing her lips and dropping her gaze to the floor.

  “Oh, please.” Her mother had rolled her eyes and turned away with a huff.

  * * *

  Lauraine had known that she was being unreasonable and now felt silly for how she had acted yesterday, but there was some truth to her words. Zack truly seemed to get away with far more than she did, but that had little to do with him being the heir to the throne and the firstborn son; he was just obedient and rarely caused a fuss over anything that anyone requested of him. Unlike her.

  Lauraine had remained quiet, knowing that the pacing her mother was doing had very little to do with not knowing what to say, and very much to do with trying to restrain her angry words. It was something that Zack had inherited from their mother, which kept them both from spewing hatred on a whim, which Lauraine had not inherited. She had their father’s stubbornness.

  * * *

  “Lauraine Kodie.” Her mother had turned towards her, with hands clasped together in front of her and a stern look on her face.

  “Tomorrow, you will be eighteen. A young woman. No longer a child allowed to ramp around the castle with little regard to your appearance. I have done my very best to ease you into this role that you are so ill-equipped for—by your own doing, let me make that clear. And you fight me as though I’m trying to sell you to the highest bidder!

  I need you to understand something very, very important, Lauraine. I love you. More than you will ever believe me when I say it, and I know that you don’t think of me as anything other than the one person trying to ruin your life, but everything I do is to prepare you. To prepare you for marriage, for this court, for life.”

  Her mother’s voice had grown softer, and she moved towards Lauraine, allowing the silence to hang in the air before sitting next to her.

  “I do not expect you to live the same life I did, Lauraine. But I do want you to learn from me, because, though you hate to hear it, you are just like me. We are good rulers, your father and I; you know it. So I’d like our legacy to continue on with you and Zack. The future is so unknown; it pays to learn as much as you can from those who are successful in life while you are young, because you never know when you’ll have a need to remember that lesson in your life later.

  I know I’m boring you, so I will leave you with this: marry your suitor only,” she paused and looked at Lauraine sternly, emphasizing the importance of her next checklist, “if he is kind and handsome. Don’t just settle for the good heart; you’ll want a beautiful man to sleep with too.”

  “Mother!” Lauraine had gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, cheeks blazing under her fingertips. Even now, as she lay on her bed recalling the conversation, she fought a smile and shook her head while covering her mouth with her hand, her mother’s shrill, but elegant, laugh echoing in her ears at embarrassing her.

  Once her mother’s laughing subsided, she had looked at Lauraine lovingly, brushing a strand of hair out of her face and turned her face to look at her.

  “All I want in life, my dearest daughter, is for you to be happy,” her mother had said just before they rose to attend tea with the king, “It’s just that sometimes, happiness is guided by rules and wisdom. Requesting that you consider all eligible lords before the knights and peasants, is only mine, and your father’s, way of providing wisdom.

  Marriage is forever, and I fear too many inexperienced maidens rush into it, fueled by the feelings and fantasies of an imaginary love, only to wake up six years later and regret it with every ounce of their being. The very idea of marrying a knight or a peasant, for the sole reason that it is impermissible and frowned upon, is thrilling and exciting; I speak from experience, Lauraine. But it will cloud your judgment on the honest character of that man. I want to see wisdom in you, dearest, so I am teaching you. Please don’t think of it as me trying to control you.”

  * * *

  Lauraine recalled the fury that had built up inside of her, the desire to lash out and point out how the very reason that she wasn’t permitted to court any man lesser than a lord because of social status was downright nauseating. Her parents loved the commoners as superiors, as if they were their pets. Not badly: they were great rulers, and they were genuinely loved by the people. But when Lauraine had informed her mother that she intended to welcome suitors of all social status, her mother had reacted as if she had announced that she was planning to marry an animal! Even then, in their discussion in the parlor, her mother had made it abundantly clear that she would disapprove any union other than with a lord—unless they all turned out to be unsuitable.

  But instead of fighting back with her mother, she decided that she would settle with the possibility that she had developed a different view than what was traditional and arguing would do little to sway her mother’s mind. After all, it did little to sway her own, apparently. She had nodded her head and smiled at her mother before they both exited the room and made their way to take tea with her father—changing the subject of conversation as they walked.

  Still, the conversation never left Lauraine’s mind and only seemed to irritate her more as the day went on. If she wasn’t to marry Prince Reuben—which, thankfully, her mother agreed that the prince was pompous—she should select one of the many lords scattering the Three Kingdoms. Tunock had an extensive history of esteemed lords and ladies being married into the royal families, so though marrying a commoner wasn’t forbidden by law, it might as well have been if one wanted the royal family’s blessing.

  Sighing again, Lauraine sat up in her bed and thought about the few lords that she had met from Tunock. Her mother had informed her on multiple occasions that choosing a lord from their own kingdom should be a priority above all else. And only if they were unworthy, then was she permitted to consider the lords of the other two kingdoms. But even then, unsaid social status required her to consider the lords that belonged to Taus next, because they were Tunock’s closest ally. Wilmington should always be a last resort—chosen only if life as a spinster was the only other option. The kingdom of Wilmington should never be trusted with something so precious as a marriage ally.

  Her mother had recited all of this to her for most of her life as if it were a school lesson. But there was no law or document to back her words. The laws of the Three Kingdoms allowed the royal families to marry whom they wish, but the royal families enforced their own, undocumented expectations that had been in place for generations, making it impossible for commoners to marry into higher status.

  The peninsula that was divided into the Three Kingdoms consisted of Tunock, Wilmington, Taus, and the Free Plains—a desolate wasteland in the center of the peninsula. Tunock, Lauraine’s kingdom, was the largest of the three and took its place on the Western coast of the peninsula, claiming the entire forest and farmland all the way to the South. Tunock’s borders were the Western and Southern beaches and ports, Taus in the North, and the Free Plains and Wilmington to the East.

  The entire expansion of the North, running parallel to the Neverending Mountains, was the smallest of the kingdoms: Taus. Its southern borders were Tunock and the Free Plains, the latter of which was kept divided with a wall. To its East stood the dread Sundaland Mountains. Taus was known for its lush forests and unique minerals that they mined in the Neverending Mountains. They were a small but very wealthy and elegant kingdom, which made them great allies to Tunock.

  Wilmington was the hill country to the west. Its Northern borders were the Free Plains. Its Western border was the Major Trading Post with Tunock, and the Southern border of Wilmington was the ocean cliffs. To the East, the Sundaland Mountains loomed over Wilmington on a gigantic scale, making the terrain of Wilmington hardly desirable except by those who lived ther
e.

  Over the centuries, the Three Kingdoms had sent ships beyond the reefs in the sea, only to never see nor hear from them again. They had lost countless men and ships on voyages to discover more land over their history. No matter which way they traveled, none had ever returned. The Sundaland Mountains were also a border from which no one had ever returned, well, until Sir Tupac, during her father’s early reign.

  The knight had unexpectedly returned after nearly a year of disappearance into the mountains, according to her father’s stories. They had been dear friends, her father and Sir Tupac. Sir Tupac was an acclaimed knight who had a reputation for capturing bandits and wayward rebel tribes. But his heart’s desire, according to her father, was to see what lay Beyond. Beyond the borders of their Three Kingdoms. “The Curse of the Beyond”, they called it, because though it wasn’t a literal curse out of the fairytale books, it felt like a curse to the family who watched their loved ones slowly lose touch with reality as they dreamed and speculated what else was out there. Ideas that plagued the mind and eventually, if left unaddressed, resulted in the person charging past one of the borders—the sea or the mountains—and never returning.

  So, though her father had begged Sir Tupac to stay, even loaning him all the books that told of the legends and myths of the Sundaland Mountains in an effort to dissuade him, Sir Tupac set out to venture into the Sundaland Mountains, alone. Sir Tupac declared that he would return in two months—traveling one month beyond the mountain and then one month back. He left behind his wife, Eliza, and eight-year-old daughter, Ermina. Lauraine’s father had invited them to stay in the castle until his return, though they all secretly prepared for him never to return. After four months and still no sign of him, Eliza and Ermina moved back home to Eskinom—the central city of Tunock.

  Six months past Sir Tupac’s departure, King Warrun had given up hope of his return and declared him lost forever to the Beyond. His mourning was so great for his friend that he issued a decree that finally forbade anyone from Tunock ever going beyond the borders of their peninsula—whether by sea or mountain. The Curse of the Beyond had stolen so many loved ones, it was rare to encounter someone who had not lost someone to the idea of exploration. So, with King Warrun’s decree also came the removal of books about the Beyond from all public libraries across Tunock. He deemed that sharing these stories encouraged the fantastical yearning for a world that stole so many of their loved ones—whether it truly existed or not. The other kingdoms soon passed similar laws in an effort to cure their populations of this curse.

  But then, mere months after they passed the laws, Sir Tupac’s horse—a breed of enormity which Sir Tupac later called Ambis—galloped into Wilmington from the Sundaland Mountains with Sir Tupac unconscious on her back. King Wilhelm of Wilmington sent word to her father immediately, and they began treatment to nurse the knight back to health. He was dangerously close to death’s door.

  During his recovery, he mumbled about magical other worlds, amazing sights, and a mysterious storm that he claimed to appear and disappear at the border. Sir Tupac had held to these stories even after his recovery, showing how near death’s door he had been. His hallucinations had seemed so real to him that doctors told him that the frostbite had permanently damaged his mind.

  Her father would argue that Sir Tupac never fully recovered from his encounter with the mountains, and though Sir Tupac had begged him to believe his stories and abolish the law that forbade entry to the mountains, her father never did. He mourned the loss of his friend as their relationship became estranged, and when Sir Tupac threatened to convince the commoners of his stories, her father added “permanent banishment” as the repercussions of breaking the law. Eventually, Tupac was stripped of his title as a knight by the King of Tunock.

  Taus and Wilmington had agreed and followed Tunock in issuing the same laws so that adventure and travel beyond the borders had completely stopped twelve years before Lauraine’s birth.

  Tupac held to his stories as the absolute truth and tried to convince anyone near him of the same fantasy, but the rest of the kingdom only heard the mumblings of a fever-damaged mind. Over time, Tupac became known as insane and damaged. No one believed him, so he disappeared into isolation. He went back to live with Eliza and Ermina in Eskinom, but people had little to do with him. To Lauraine, it was clear that her father had been right in outlawing both the seafaring journeys and the mountain expeditions if it left the only survivor to ever return in this state of mind.

  A distant bump brought Lauraine out of her wayward thoughts of the Beyond, and she turned her head towards her door, though it was pointless because of how dark it was.

  Who else is up at this hour?

  As she reached for her bell to ring for Winnie, a scream and a muffled yell resounded simultaneously through the silence, and Lauraine froze. Her heart pounded in her chest. Those screams sounded like the ones from her dream.

  It was a dream, wasn’t it?

  The Blood Red Flames

  Princess Lauraine lifted her feet up into her bed, the action allowing her slippers to fall to the floor with a faint thump that made her jump. She willed her breathing to slow down. Several minutes of silence passed. She stared toward her bedroom door and focused all of her attention on listening for the scream again, hoping that she would never hear it. The nightmare that had woken her was still vividly replaying in her mind, and she wondered if she had imagined the scream after all.

  Lauraine had almost convinced herself of this when another scream started, a shrill sound that shot through the silence but quickly ended, unfinished. As if the screamer no longer had a voice.

  Mother? she thought before shaking her head and closing her eyes. It’s the cursed dream again. Haunting me even as I wake.

  Lauraine’s mouth went dry, and she hugged herself tighter. That had sounded like her mother’s scream. She knew it well. Her mother often screamed at the silliest of scares—Lauraine and her brother had made a game of it as children—but the scream that haunted her at this hour was the same scream that often woke her from her sleep. It was the sound of terror that had emitted from her mother’s lips that day Lauraine had waded too deep into the ocean. Her panicked gasps for breath as she fought to keep her head above water were never without the accompaniment of that scream in her memory. It was all she heard with every desperate gulp of air before being sucked under the waves again.

  A sudden sense of urgency prodded Lauraine to rise from her bed and at least go investigate her parents’ bedchamber. If the door was closed, she would simply return to her room and probably call herself names that included “childish”, “paranoid”, and “stupid”.

  She picked up the soft, pink robe neatly folded on the chest at the end of her bed and slipped it on over her pearl-white, silk nightgown that fell to just above her knees. The robe almost touched the floor, so she chose it for the sake of modesty, just in case she encountered one of the servants in the hall.

  After tying the ribbon around her waist to keep the robe closed, she took cautious steps towards the door, mindful of where her feet fell in the dark. In the lightless hours of the morning when Lauraine usually paced, she often found herself craning her neck towards her favorite window, hoping to see the iridescent glow of the moon. The window was a large arch, with carefully crafted glass that captured light and turned it into color as it fell on various places in her room. But when she looked from her room to the moon, it almost made the moon look like a glowing ball of blue fire, that was the reason this was her favorite window. She preferred it even to the balcony just across from her bed because this window also had an elegant, velvet seat that was large enough for her to sit and pull her feet into.

  During the day, this window caught the perfect angle of Tunock. When seated, she could gaze out over the forest from the elevated place of the castle and could see for miles. On the horizon, she could almost see Eskinom.

  It was habit for her to glance out the window as she strode past it, so she gave lit
tle thought to the action until something nagged at her consciousness as out-of-place once she was several steps past the window. Her brows furrowed in thought, and she took three steps backward so she could look out the window again.

  The darkness made it difficult to see beyond the immediate courtyard of the castle, especially with the moon kept from shining its fullness by the silver clouds that covered it. The outposts at the corners of the castle were lit with torches, and there was torchlight that kept the main paths of the castles illuminated, but there were still many shadowy areas that would always hold their mysteries at night.

  Lauraine leaned onto the seat and investigated the world below her. Something drew her eyes to the shadows just on the outskirts of each circle of light, but she saw nothing out of place.

  I really am a paranoid child.

  She sighed and, whilst shaking her head in frustration at herself, abandoned her trip to her parents’ bedchambers. She hadn’t heard a noise for some time anyway. She hopped down from the window seat and turned back towards her bed. But as she did so, her peripheral sight caught whatever drew her attention in the first place. There, on the far side of the courtyard where the road left the castle and winded its way down the hill towards the city, there was a flickering light near the guards’ post. When she looked closer, she realized that it was a man holding a lantern as he spoke to the gate guards.

  No, it wasn’t one man; it was two. No, three. No, four.

  Lauraine leaned forward again on the seat and squinted to focus her eyes. There were three guards, each holding a lantern, and four men who were waving their arms in excited conversation. But behind the four men that she could see, there was movement. Lauraine could see shadows as they moved around just outside of visibility. How many people were out there? And why? It must be only the second or third hour of the morning. Dawn hadn’t even made an appearance yet.