All morning, the queen had remained at the table in the grand hall, calling for more tea with which to keep her mind sharp. She had come so close. Hand on
the dagger, she had been quite ready to kill, and, for a moment, she understood what they had done to her, her tribe, when they put her up on the pedestal,
tied with thin strips of vines to the trees above, and spilled her blood.
"Pardon me, Your Highness."
Queen Ino looked up from the table to watch the huntsman Gurr cautiously approach, hands clutching at his fur hat as if it might come back to life and try
to escape him. For a brute of a man, he always seemed remarkably weak, and Queen Ino despised the contradiction more at the moment than she had ever
bothered to before.
"If there is nothing else," he said. "I shall be heading off for the day."
With no immediate task for him, and no qualms about ordering him back to the castle if she needed him at a later time, Queen Ino dismissed Gurr with a wave
of her hand. It was as he turned to depart that she saw the blood, caked darkly on the back of his coat, and the beast growled from within her. "Wait," she
uttered, halting the huntsman's departure. "I do have a task for you."
"I am at your service," Gurr replied.
"Come to me tomorrow. Prepare for a journey," Queen Ino commanded. "I need you to fetch something for me."
"Yes, Your Highness," Gurr nodded.
"Now, you may go," she returned, and, with an uneasy nod, the huntsman took his leave.
Eyes returning to the table, Queen Ino watched the sunlight glare off the silver tray on which her tea had been served, the bright streak of light defiant
to the darkness within. Feeling the contrast intimately, she realized it was happening.
They told her once she could not fight it. No matter where she was, no matter what she became, she would always be what she was born to be. It would not
matter if she tried to resist, and she had tried. It seemed, though, they were right. There was no changing her truest nature, so she may as well embrace
it.
I
n a room full of women, it was easy to hide one more. With little strategy or effort, Akasha and willing accomplices managed to keep Cinderella from being
seen, sitting in groups before her when the king or high-ranking members of his circle came in to make their selections, and hiding Cinderella amongst
heaps of blankets and pillows when the guards entered without cause or warning.
The power resting with the men who came and went, the other women, those who feared the wrath of the men in power, remained the greatest threat. Each time
authority came amongst them, Cinderella would feel pinned by their sidelong glances, knowing they were ready to give her up at any moment if a circumstance
called for it. In the harem, she was a pawn in wait, and the longer she was there, the more likely she would be played and captured.
For days at a time, Akasha explained, the women of the harem were given no leave, watching the suns rise and fall through the windows, escaping the room
itself only to journey to other parts of the castle when their services were called upon. Every half moon, though, was a market day, when they were given
an outing in the village. It was the closest they came to freedom, and would be Cinderella's only chance at escape.
So, though the day was almost too quick in coming, only four days after Cinderella emerged from her bath, and Cinderella still did not know if fleeing
again was the right choice, she marched amongst the throng of women from the castle, feeling the foreign dirt beneath her feet, layers of her dress tucked
into a bag Akasha had given her, as not to draw excess attention, as she looked about at the colorful palette of the Naxos marketplace. Seemingly the
expanse of Cinderella's entire village, the sheer size nearly intimidated her back behind the walls of the palace.
Twenty to one, the women of the harem outnumbered the guards as they spread out amongst the stalls. Eyes did not always need to be on them, Akasha told
her, because running away was futile. If one did run, she would not run far. Beyond the town, there was the forest, vast and threatening, and, beyond that,
something called desert, which was said to be like the dirt, only far less forgiving, so hot it could melt one's feet and known to rise up to pelt the skin
and eyes like a million tiny arrows.
The only proof of it Akasha had ever seen was in a tavern, where she met a man whose eyes were blinded by it. There he sat, day after day, serving as
warning to adventurous villagers, so that few ever went beyond a few leagues into the woods, and, of those who did, Akasha had known none who ever came
back.
For the most part, it seemed, it mattered not. The people of the village were content, as they had been in Troyale, to live within the walls. As Akasha put
it, the people of Naxos did not brave forests and sands.
Cinderella wondered if they would, if they knew there were things beyond them. Those who did leave went looking for human creations, myths and stories of
places that may or may not exist. As the only proof of anything beyond the deserts of Naxos, Cinderella wondered if she could ever be proof enough.
Sometimes, it felt as if Akasha believed her only halfway.
Standing at the edge of the marketplace, no guards to be seen, a few villagers looked upon them with particular interest. Akasha, who had warned Cinderella
repeatedly that she would be swept up in the next raid if the king laid eyes on her, seemed worried by the eyes directed their way, and it made Cinderella
reconsider her escape once again. All the idle hours she had to think, the right answer felt as distant as ever.
"Be careful," Akasha said quietly, after reminding Cinderella of the village's best hiding spots and warning her against both royalty and sudra, the
kingdom's working people. "Not everyone is a friend."
It was said in such a way that Cinderella wondered if Akasha believed everyone was an enemy, and she could not help but wonder if it was, for the most
part, true. If her life had taught her anything, it was that foes were more easily happened upon than allies, like the women who looked at her with
accusing stares, ready to sacrifice her at a moment's notice. It could not be all true, though, for there were also those who had sat before her, guarding
her from the eyes of the king.
Maybe her only friends in this new land would be those who returned to the palace. Perhaps, Akasha was the only true friend she would ever know.
Turning suddenly to face Cinderella, Akasha stepped so close she blocked the sun. "You can stay..." She seemed to be reading Cinderella's thoughts. "But
you must decide now. You will get no other chance."
Head pounding at the words, Cinderella could hear the warning in them, the path of her life balanced precariously on her answer. She did not need to look
back at the palace to feel it looming over her, all-powerful, a prison of safety. She knew of the dangers in the land, because Akasha had made them clearly
known, and because there were dangers in every land.
At least, in every land to which Cinderella had been.
If safety were life enough, though, she could have found it in Troyale, with the prince and his guards. Still, it was with numbing fear that Cinderella
shook her head.
"I thought as much," Akasha said, soft, sad smile appearing on her face.
Glancing past Cinderella's shoulder, she saw something that turned her away, and Cinderella looked back at the eunuch who was once Akasha's friend, now
eyeing them with suspicion. As he walked off, Cinderella followed Akasha to the stand of legumes, and they inspected them side-by-side, as if either had
the means to cook her own meal.
"You will be okay?" Akasha asked, as they played at being common villagers. One a prisoner, one a stranger, they were more alike than they were different,
neither belonging to the world in which she stood.
"I have always cared for myself," Cinderella returned, not bothering to add that she had not liked it. Loneliness was self-explanatory, a state feared by
the bravest of souls and aspired to by no one. "You cannot leave the palace?" she asked softly, understanding and, yet, not.
"No more than you can stay," Akasha returned in the same low tone. "I do not have your courage, Cinderella."
A bubble of uneasy laughter parting her lips, Cinderella could feel the fear threatening to consume her even as Akasha spoke. "I haven't courage."
Hands closing around her arms, turning her, the touch was so gentle, it threatened to break Cinderella in two. "You can choose captivity," Akasha said
softly, "and you are choosing freedom. You have a great deal more than you think."
Cinderella knew, though, that Akasha simply did not understand. It was not courage that decided for her. It was that she feared what was within the palace
more than what was without.
"You have been kinder to me than anyone I have ever known," Cinderella uttered, voice thickening.
"I am sure your mother was kinder," Akasha returned.
"But I scarcely remember her," Cinderella whispered. "I am sorry I cannot stay."
Indeed, she was sorrier with every moment Akasha was so gentle with her.
"I am sorry I cannot come with you," Akasha said in return, and Cinderella was taken aback when Akasha's lips pressed against hers in a touch so uncommonly
tender, she felt tears fall to her cheeks.
"I have hurt you," Akasha stated, eyes worried as she pulled away.
"No," Cinderella assured her. "You are just the first person in many years who has shown me any kindness." Until the gesture that demanded nothing of her,
she did not realize how few of the touches her skin remembered were neither cruel nor demanding.
"You are the first person in many years I have kissed by choice," Akasha smiled.
It felt real, Cinderella realized, the moment, so unlike any that had come before. Akasha's hands on her arms, it was as if she was being awakened from a
long, deep sleep. Gaze sweeping around them, though, the walls of the city still looked like a dream, the palace and even Akasha's eyes upon her like
illusions meant to trap her.
Akasha's friendship felt genuine, her kiss sincere, but something about her was not wholly authentic, and, whatever it was, it made Cinderella step back.
"Thank you," she said, fighting tears that wanted to fall, and Akasha's smile faded, her own dark eyes glistening against the morning sun.
"You are most welcome," she returned softly. "Perhaps, one day, we will meet again."
"Perhaps," Cinderella smiled, not seeing how that might come to pass. When one was in captivity, the other in hiding, where in the world would they meet?
Before Cinderella could say more, Akasha was swept up in the commotion of the marketplace, carried back by choice to the life in which Cinderella had found
her, and, surrounded by more people than she had ever seen in one place, Cinderella realized she was truly, terribly alone.
M
ist hung heavy over the castle grounds, tiny white flakes cutting through the fog, remnants of the storm that had cloaked the kingdom for days.
Boots buried halfway, Queen Ino cursed the snow. Once, she had believed it a peaceful sight, a winter-strewn landscape. It had been snowing the morning she
walked out of the mountains, away from her past life, so pure against her skin and hair, it was like being washed clean. Snow was a blanket, she decided
then, covering all manner of sin on the ground.
Now, it felt a burden, like the girl asleep, once again, upstairs.
It had taken him long. A common man, he would surely have died in the storm. Trained as he was in nature, though, Gurr knew how to survive it, and the
queen knew he was coming. It was his approach that had drawn her awake ahead of true morning, that had carried her outside where darkness still had its
hold on the world.
As she climbed from the bed, King Kardon snored so loudly beside her, she was certain it would be hours before he rose, but the queen felt as if she had
been waiting those hours when she finally saw the huntsman appear from the gray, a giant frozen beast hulking toward her. Upon seeing her in wait, though,
it was he who seemed to fill with trepidation.
"I am here, Ma'am," he proclaimed, as if he could be missed. His hair, seeming to have collected all the moisture in the air, was stiff where it poked from
beneath his hat, and his teeth clacked together as he shivered.
"Yes, I am not blind," Queen Ino returned.
"Yes, Ma'am. Of course, Ma'am." Gurr cowered in his own obedience, and Queen Ino looked on him with near pity. What good was it to have such a
strongly-made body if it ran solid with fear?
"Do you have it?" she asked.
"I think so," he said anxiously, and Queen Ino might have been concerned at his uncertainty if she could not feel its energy, if she did not know it was
close.
Watching him pull the stone from deep inside a pocket, it looked black in the darkness, as would any other stone, but Queen Ino recognized the surge as she
took it from Gurr's hand. Bowing with its weight, she was instantly reminded how much heavier the stone was than others of its size. Then, it did carry the
lost secrets of the world and a great deal of death within, and those things, the queen knew well, were heavy.
Even through her glove, she could feel it, crawling up her arm, the past stroking her skin, ancestors reaching out for her.
"What is it?" Gurr had the audacity to ask, and Queen Ino silenced him with a look.
"It is none of your concern," she replied. "You tell no one of this. You tell no one where you have been. You tell no one what you have found."
"Yes, Ma'am," Gurr returned at once.
Eyes moving over him, Queen Ino was not sure she was done with him. Most would have died in the storm, or made no effort to return until it broke, but
there he stood, sniveling but sturdy. "Go inside." She injected the order with a measure of false kindness. "Get dry. Wake no one."
With a nod of gratitude, Gurr turned for the castle, and, eyes locked on the stone, Queen Ino drifted toward deeper wood.