Page 18 of Winter Queen
Everyone but Theodoreis in attendance. He’s looking after my mother so that Crispin can get some rest. I make a mental note to seek out my healer Guardian after this meeting, to check if he’s alright. It must have been exhausting to stay with Beira all night. Maybe it’s made him even more resentful towards me. I sigh inwardly. Even more issues to fix. How did I manage to break so many things during one week of grief and madness?
Instead of my usual place on my mother’s side, this time, I take the seat at the head of the table, the chair that looks almost like a throne. It’s surprisingly uncomfortable. No wonder my mother always keeps these sessions as brief as possible.
“You’ll all know by now that my mother won’t be able to attend the Council meetings for a while,” I begin. “She’s asked me to take her place until she’s recovered.”
I watch their reactions. Tamara is smiling at me reassuringly, as is Storm. There’s pride in his eyes, and it makes my stomach do little flips of happiness. I made him sit in Ada’s usual place, so that it’s immediately clear to all that he’s taking over her role.
There’s been no protest about that. They all know he’s the right person for the job. He’s been ready for more responsibility for a long time.
The problem with Guardians is that they live forever. They don’t usually retire, so to move up in the hierarchy, Guardians have to hope that their superior moves, disappears or dies. No wonder there’s so much intrigue in this place.
Zephyr is smiling at me as well. That’s a good sign. The Master of the Wings is a hard man to read; I’m never quite sure if his confused appearance is real or fake.
The librarian, Algonquin, is looking at me with a blank expression. Time will tell if he’ll support me or not.
However, I’d much rather take his blankness than the outrage Magnus is openly showing. What was he expecting to happen? For him to take my mother’s place? Or for the Council to take over and rule together, rather than be the supporting advisors?
As much as I support democracy on Earth, for the Realm, it doesn’t make as much sense. Beira is a Goddess, the Mother of Gods. Even if she wasn’t ruling, people would still turn to her for help. She’d never be able to not play an important role – orthemost important role.
She’s a Queen through and through, and that won’t change. I can’t wait for her to be back on her feet.
I turn to the Mistress of the Household. “Tamara, I believe you have an update on my mother’s health?”
She nods. “She’s stable and was talking a little this morning. She repeated her wish that Princess Wynter acts as her replacement.”
I smile at her, grateful for the reassertion. The more often Magnus and Theodore hear this, the more likely it is that they’ll support me eventually. Pity the healer isn’t here. Maybe I should ask Tamara to spread the message throughout the Palace, so that everybody knows what’s happening. It will need some thinking about. I don’t want my mother to appear weak, but at the same time, I can’t afford for people to think that I don’t have the authority to enforce whatever I need to do to win this war.
“Good. You will have noticed that Storm is sitting in Ada’s place. Ada has left on an important mission and will likely not be back for some time. Therefore, Gwain and I have decided to promote Storm to Deputy Master in Arms, reporting directly to Gwain and myself. One of my other three Guardians will take over his role as the head of my personal guard, so don’t worry, I won’t be left defenceless.”
I smile drily. I don’t think most of them are aware that Storm isn’t actually the leader of the four. They’re all equal, and they let him pretend to be the head of my guard when it’s needed. He is the most dominant of the four, so the role fits him.
“Now, I believe Gwain has some more to update us on.”
The Master of Arms stands and gives me a small bow.
“Yes, Your Highness. There have been attacks on the Southern Gate. We managed to defeat the Summer soldiers, but we took heavy losses. I’ve dispatched reinforcements and additional healers to all the Gates. We need to prepare however that eventually, they will manage to break through. I don’t know if you’re aware, but two decades ago, Angus managed to get some of his warriors into the Realm without the use of the Gates. In response, Queen Beira strengthened the invisible defences of the Realm, but we don’t know how long they will hold. Especially now…”
I swallow hard. I know that story. Those were the Summer soldiers who killed my father. Yet another reason to hate Angus.
“If he attacks and breaks through one of the Gates, how quickly will we get the rest of the army there?” I ask and am surprised when Gwain averts his eyes.
“Usually, Queen Beira would transport a large number of them, giving the rest time to fly there themselves. But now… we’ll have to spread out our forces across the Realm, making it easier for them to congregate in one place should the need arise.”
“When the need arises,” Tamara corrects. “There’s no question that we’ll be attacked soon. Who knows whether it will be Angus first or the Morrigan, or maybe they’re working together and will combine their forces.” She looks straight at me. “Princess, I think you should have a talk with your mother and see if you may perhaps have inherited the power of transporting others across distances. Other Gods can teleport themselves, and maybe one or two others, but Queen Beira is the only one besides Angus who can take large amounts of people with them. If you had the same power, well, we’d have an additional way of fighting them.”
“I will speak to her later today,” I promise. I was planning to talk to her about my new lightning powers anyway. I’ve never heard of anyone having lightning magic before, but maybe I’ve just not talked to the right people. It was a shock to have yet another new magic. Maybe it was the sparklies that caused it. Maybe it wasn’t real lightning after all, just a side effect of all the unicorn magic I’d absorbed. Whatever it was, it had been incredibly powerful and explosive. If I could harness that power, it would be a powerful weapon against our enemies.
I cringe. Here I am, talking about enemies and war and death. Not long ago, I was an almost-human on Earth, having romantic notions about living in the Realm as a Princess. I never imagined there’d be war. I didn’t think anyone would dare stand against my mother.
And now, we don’t have just one enemy, but several. If what Chesca said is true, the Morrigan is controlling the demons that are attacking our borders almost daily now. Then there’s Angus and his twisted hate for Beira. Bad enough to have one, but we have two, one as powerful as the other. Angus may have the better warriors, but the Morrigan has a mind more cruel and evil than I can even imagine. I shudder when I think of what she did to Crispin. How she manipulated him into hurting and killing others.
“Tamara, any news on the Morrigan? Did the man who brought us the message give us any leads?”
‘Message’ sounds a lot better than ‘the chest that contained my dead mother’s hand’. The messenger took poison when he arrived, dying almost instantly.
“We retraced his steps for a bit but then his tracks disappeared. He came from the North, and he was on foot, he didn’t fly.”
I frown. “So he wasn’t a Guardian?”
