I am not a queen because I rule, I rule because I am THE QUEEN.
Birthed in my heart. Alive in my veins...
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Before she could hit the floor, her mother caught her.
Her mother cradled her in her arms and scampered backward, away from the men on the grotesque masks.
She was not in Valcresh or Zorgan’s palace. She was in that field where she last saw her mother’s smile, the last place her mother had looked at her with life in her eyes and she was still a little girl.
They weren’t meant to be out of the Palace by this time of the night but her mother could not return. The King had spent last night in her mother’s chambers and one of his rings that holds the seal of Isoloth had gone missing. Nadezhda’s mother was certain the King had not come to her with the ring on his finger but the King wouldn’t hear of it. He thought it was a scheme to have him spend another night with her and he had ordered her to return it.
Her mother had taken it upon herself to go everywhere that the King had been during the day and that had included one of holdings the King had been to. It was rumoured the land had some valuables beneath its earth and the King had come to find out how far the searchers had gone.
Now they were being attacked by people who also wanted a piece of the land, and the two guards that accompanied them lay unmoving on the ground.
“We aren’t here to stand in your way I promise. I am one of the King’s wives and I’m just in search of-” Her words died as a sharp metal was sunk into her from behind. They had no idea where the attacker had come from but it was now certain that the men weren’t going to let them leave.
Her mother slid to the ground as blood sipped from the corner of her lips.
After wiping it off, she smiled like a maniac.
‘‘Mother!’’ Nadezhda quipped as she lifted her small hand to her mother’s face. Her mother placed one of her hands on her chest and the other on Nadezhda’s chest, directly over her heart. She closed her eyes as some words Nadezhda or the attackers had never heard fell from her lips.
At the end, she said, ‘‘You will heal the world… exa mentraxantos’’
Tears flowed from Nadezdha’s eyes as the men seemed to have gathered around them. She couldn’t comprehend what her mother was doing.
Her mother’s eyes opened before her hands held the sides of Nadezhda’s small face. ‘‘This is not the night you die my child. When I let you go, you run. Do you comprehend?’’
Tears descended stronger from her grey eyes but she couldn’t respond to such a question. Her mother shook her shoulders. ‘‘You have to Dezhda. Respond to me, do you comprehend?’’ Her mother asked with urgency. Nadezhda nodded and her mother’s lips came on her face and kissed her tears and then her eyes and then her fingers. For a second longer, her lips pressed to her daughter's fingers.
She kept her hands on Nadezhda’s shoulder till she got back to her feet.
Turning to the men, she pronounced, ‘‘I’ll ensure none of you see the next light of dawn’’.
The men chortled and laughed hard. Nadezhda’s eyes went to her mother’s face. She had never seen her like that. Her mother has always been the overly pleasing and calm soul but from her stance, there was nothing calm about the air that gently whooshed around her.
‘‘You are hurt King’s wife-” One of them said mockingly. ‘‘What makes you think you can even touch any of us?’’
Nadezdha's mother’s jaw clenched, and a sinister look followed.
‘‘By the heavens… by my blood… and for her life-’’ She said casting a brief look at her daughter. ‘‘Your blood and mine, will condemn this field’’ She completed. Then she shoved Nadezhda hard, pushing her off the circle.
With tears in her eyes and a cry in her throat, Nadezhda sprinted. Her legs were small, but they moved and pushed. One of the men chased after her, but a knife carved its form in his back, and he was the first man to fall. And so the night stretched and so she ran…leaving her mother behind!
………..
The wall after Nadezhda’s room heard the grunts of another person who was also partaking in his own night horror.
His deep-set black eyes were fixated on the young boy before him, and he had no need for a looking glass to see himself. They were everything alike – their height, their smile, their hair, and even the looks they made at various degrees of facial expression, were exactly the same.
Regardless, there was a difference.
While one was born healthy and strong, the other was born frail and in constant need of support. His health failed constantly and he was perceived as a dent to the Royal seat of Valcresh.
But Zorgan knew his brother had the biggest heart this world could be blessed with. He would speak of his love for Valcresh, his love for the South, and his love for the world in total.
He always wanted to protect himself and had a wooden sword that never left his side. Their parents paid him little mind; he wasn’t allowed to go to special events except the one mandated for all Royals to attend, and even then, his parents made his presence known too quickly before he was stashed to a corner.
Gradually, he began to be left out of everything.
Zorgan was taken for training, but he wasn’t. Zorgan was trained to improve his general etiquette as a Royal, but he wasn’t, and these were the least of the things he was left out of.
In the words of their parents, ‘‘You know it will be exhausting to try. Best to lie down and get some energy.”
It was constant and they never gave him chances to try – to try and fail, as many times as he wanted to.
Zorgan took it upon himself to fill his twin with the stories and details of everything that he would want to know and even things he didn’t want to.
They were forced to stay in separate rooms because the physicians claimed there was a chance his condition could be contracted. But when the world is dead at night, Zorgan would sneak from his room and join his waiting brother on the balcony, watching the darkness or staring at the star-filled or starless skies. But just like everything that has a beginning, there is always a an end.
They were caught a certain night, and they tried to separate them, but he wouldn’t accept it. When they were finally pulled apart, Zorgan was whipped and was made to stay in his room, which became heavily guarded. He would cry for days, ‘‘He’s my brother. I cannot leave him alone. I need him’’
The King would retort, “You have other siblings who would gladly play with you. Stop being foolish Zorgan, you could be the Crown someday and you must learn to make difficult decisions”.
But his parents never understood. He had shared the same womb with this person and they had depended on each other before they knew any other soul or knew what it meant to need another soul.
But this only made their parents angrier but after a while, Zorgan’s cries and stubbornness made them come up with a routine for the twins.
They decided to allow them meet twice a week and only at night.
When Zorgan slept by his brother’s side the next night, the brother saw the healing scars on his brother’s back. He had not been whipped because they feared for his health but he wished he had been punished also. It was because of him that Zorgan had endured pains alone.
And Zorgan would never forget that morning when he was about to leave. His brother had given him his wooden sword. He had a smile on his face and had spoken words he could not properly understand at their age.
‘‘Tell me you will conquer the world for the both of us.
Tell me you wouldn’t rest till the earth is robbed of most of its evil. Tell me you will heal the world with your sword by starting from the South. Promise me.”
Zorgan had laughed at first. He couldn’t understand the change in his brother but he had said the words.
‘‘I will heal the world for the both of us brother.
With my sword, I will drive evil far’’
And his brother embraced him a little tightly before letting him go.
Zorgan was excited for the next night because he was prepared to teach his brother the few things he had learned with his wooden sword. But when Zorgan reached the room, his brother wasn’t there. With the balcony as the last resort, he checked but his brother still wasn’t there.
He was below the balcony, his black orbs open and feral looking and his limbs twisted at unfixable angles.