Page 8 of The Crimson Princess
There will never be another smile shared between us, no more birthdays celebrated, nor a word spoken between us. I can’t even say goodbye to her. I can’t ever speak another word to her ever again in this lifetime. Guilt and tears overtake me. I had her dagger. Why did I take her dagger?
The air shifts, and my father appears, and somehow, I push to my feet and face him. We step toe to toe. “She’s gone,” I say, hugging myself, shivering.
“I know, my love. I know.” He grabs me and pulls me to him, his forehead against mine. “I felt it happen.” But he doesn’t look at her.Why doesn’t he look at her?
Anger blasts through me hard and fast, and I shove against him. “Shelovedyou. Why did you let her come here?! So you could have all the women you wanted?”
His energy jackknifes around me. “I loved your mother. I will always love her.”
“If you loved her, she wouldn’t be here! Bring her back!”
“I can’t do that.”
“You own the Book of Life and through it the magical stones.” I grab the lapels of his gale uniform, my fingers curling around the cloth. “Bring her back.”
“Satima—”
“Bring her back!” I shout it with every part of my soul, even as cars begin to race toward us, so close, too close. I shove him. “Bring her back!”
But all my father does is waves his hand and we are swept away from this world and returned to Ravengale. We reappear in my parents’ room, with my mother on their bed, and we are the three of us, one last time. Wordlessly, me and my father sit on eitherside of her. There are no words to be found. No words adequate enough to pierce this moment. He shows no emotion. He doesn’t cry and I hate that he is here. I hate that I feel he will think I’m weak for melting down, but inside that is exactly what is happening. She was my best friend. Living with humans, she was my only friend. And now she is gone, and despite my father’s presence, I’m alone. So very alone. I’m done trying to hold it together. I collapse on top of her, my body quaking, and I can feel the change inside me. I can feel the hollow where there was happiness.
I will never be the same.
I will never be okay again in this lifetime.
Chapter five
TheTributeceremony,thegales’ version of a funeral, comes far too soon and yet stretches eternally long, a full week in which different types of flowers adorn the castle in the queen’s, my mother’s, honor. These are flowers of our natural gales’ habitat, all of which symbolize the many blessings bestowed on us by our ancestors. The corridors of the castle are filled with blossoms that would be gloriously beautiful if not for the death masked beneath each lovely petal.
As the future queen, it is critical that I remain strong and regal, and the only way I succeed is with the belief it’s what my mother would want from me. It is tradition for the royal family to formally welcome the gale public to the castle each of the seven days.
I’m expected to dress for the celebration of life, and each day, the most famous of gale designers adorn me in luxury that I do not wish to wear. I do not wish to look as if I belong on a runway while grieving, no matter how full my skirt or demure my intricately stitched corset. There is something about the human tradition of black for mourning that calls to me. When I dare speak this preference, my father’s rejection is filled with disgust.
“You are not a weak human, and you would be smart to remember as much, or you will get you and them killed.”
And so, I wear the gowns, and I cry in private, the way I often saw my mother cry when I was a little girl—not because someone had died, but rather because of the ways she was forced to live. I know now that she’d felt lonely, and I didn’t understand that feeling, but now that my mother is gone, I do. I so do. My father might beby my side, but he’s never with me. And for five days, I sit in the throne room next to him, not in my mother’s seat, but one made long ago for me, and welcome the gales who wish to honor the queen they have loved and lost.
There are gifts for my mother, brought by adoring gales, and while my instinct is to reject what will always remind me of my mother’s brutal end, I do not. I understand this to be yet another way to celebrate her leadership; therefore, I accept them with the graciousness they are given. Throughout all of this, the mood between me and my father is tense at best and angry at worst. We finish the day at a long table so far from each other we are unable to speak. Servants who look upon me with sad, understanding eyes serve us, often whispering their support and comfort.
It’s on the seventh day that Ambrose Osgood appears before us. He is the boy I once had a crush on, who often talked to me when others were too afraid of my father to dare. Life in Ravengale had been lonely. Life with the humans had been filled with happiness, until it was not. “My king,” he says to my father, bowing to him, a show of ultimate and expected respect I’ve always despised. It feels as if we are better than the people of Ravengale, and we are not.
Ambrose, a distinguished member of our armed forces, wears a formal military uniform, his formal jacket adorned with the emerald colors of the Osgood family crest. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he offers humbly to my father.
“Thank you, Ambrose,” my father replies. “What gift do you have for us?”
“It is a gift for your daughter, sir. If I might?”
My father holds out his hand in my direction. “Of course.”
Ambrose turns his attention to me. “Princess,” he greets, bowing before me, which I hate, and I wave off the actions. He’s tall and blond, with the green of his eyes declaring him highborn. His body is, of course, that of a towering warrior, and yet, his voice is as gentle as it is deep. “I hope you are well.”
“I’m…as expected,” I reply, and there is a tiny lift of my spirits just speaking with someone familiar, someone I consider a friend when I have no one here in Ravengale that my father hasn’t shut out beyond formality.
“Understood,” he says, and removes a blade from his holster, a cluster of Ravengale sapphires glistening on the hilt. “Perhaps this might offer you comfort. May I approach?”
“Please,” I say, sitting up straighter now.
My father welcomes a new visitor, his attention thankfully pulled elsewhere, while Ambrose eases forward and offers me the hilt of the blade. “From my family to yours, princess. We wish to be with you, as we wish we would have been with your mother, anytime you are in battle. There’s Osgood magic weaved into the blade.”
