Raval saw the prince and princess walking hand in hand across the paths. Only a day, and the crown prince was wrapped around her finger. A decade in a monastery had not changed the girl at all. She made her way back to the guest rooms she’d been given, and ordered her servants to start packing.
She had gotten rid of the girl in the most definitive way outside of death. A crown princess of Daivia could not be a queen of Noumin. Eshal’s rule was safe. She was still uneasy leaving him alone, even with her father there. Eshal was easily influenced by people. It was more than him being a child. It was in his nature to trust, to be kind. Raval knew it was something he had gotten from his father. Her side of the family was not so generous or forgiving.
By dusk, she was ready to leave. If she was lucky, she would be back with Eshal within a week. They were allies and partners now with Daivia, and so she might have to see the girl in the future, but she was Daivia’s problem now. Raval remembered her early days in Noumin’s court, as the new queen. People deferred to a teenage girl over her. They trusted an adolescent’s judgment over hers. It had taken the king’s death and her machinations to power for the hierarchy to change.
She wanted to leave the empire, the castle, and the unfamiliar people. Again, she felt that old inferiority while she was around them. In Noumin, she was a queen. No, she was the queen. In Daivia, she was just another queen. Worse, she was the queen of a small nation. There were duchesses wealthier than her, merchants with grander castles. She felt provincial among them. She only wanted to go home to Eshal, who she knew would be missing her already.
By the time they started, it was well after dark. Daivia’s capital had so many torches, so many people, that the light dulled even the darkness of the sky. Raval stood outside while her carriage was loaded with her luggage, eager to start. Some of the courtiers she’d met during the wedding festivities came to wish her farewell. She did not expect such a courtesy from the girl, but she came to greet her.
Again, she was arm in arm with the crown prince. They looked comfortable with each other, and it irked Raval. For Raval’s happiness, she’d had to marry a man two decades her senior. She’d had to wait until he died, and spent years building the connections necessary to seat her son on the throne. After Eshal’s position was solidified, she had lived as a widow, because her position and Eshal’s would be threatened if she married again. Instead, she had to live as the celibate, untouchable queen regent.
She had hoped the girl would be miserable in Hethyra. There were plenty of cliffs that an orphan could jump off of, but instead the girl had made a new life there. She had taken to the simplicity and discipline like a fish to water, and nearly become a priestess. Now, in the span of a few weeks she was a crown princess in a new country, and already she had made an ally out of her new husband.
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The crown prince must have seen his fair share of beautiful women. Daivia had no shortage of them, and any woman would be interested in the crown prince. But the man was interested in the plain little thing next to him, in her fine dress and mismatched shawl. No matter what she did, the girl landed on her feet. Raval despised her.
“I wish you a safe journey,” the girl said. The crown prince’s arm was around the girl’s shoulder. If Raval did not know better, she would think he was in love.
But she knew the girl’s tricks, because Raval had played those same tricks years before. When a woman was small, when she was fragile, spoke softly and acted vulnerable, it made some men want to protect them. Now Raval was too jaded to pull off the act. The girl acted like she was above Raval, above manipulation, yet she manipulated people anyway.
“I wish you a happy marriage,” Raval responded, her smile strained, and her wish insincere.
The girl shrunk back against the crown prince, and Raval stepped into her carriage. She saw the young couple disappear into the darkness as the carriage picked up speed and left through the castle compound’s main gates. The roads were dark, and the few days before had been exhausting. She had signed treaties, negotiated the details, and eked out a final bargain that she was happy with. Noumin had been on the brink of ruin, and now they were looking at prosperity. Raval closed her eyes and smiled, thinking of the things she could do for Eshal with the money that would soon come in.
On the third day of travel, they neared the border to Noumin as the first inklings of sunlight started lightening the horizon. Raval was fast asleep when the carriage stopped in the middle of the road. The carriage stopped in the middle of the road. The forest was silent except for a single voice. A woman stood at the side of the road, her dark curls wet against her face. She sang, her voice smooth and clear. She swayed as she sang, like the song was a lullaby. Those in the carriages stepped out. The horses stood still while their riders and owners stepped off of the road and into the water of the coast.
With winter approaching, the water was cold. Raval did not feel the cold. Instead, she felt Eshal’s warm embrace as she took each step. Instead of the woman’s song, she heard Eshal happily telling her of what he’d done while she was gone. When she was neck deep in the choppy waves, her foot caught on a sharp rock and she woke. She was surrounded by her guards, by the old coachman, by her servants. She was in the middle of the ocean, in the dark. The water was ink, the sky was starless, and every step she took towards the shore was a struggle.
Someone pulled her back. Raval tried to wake her guards, or the old coachman. They all kept walking forward, until their heads disappeared beneath the water and slowly, the water stilled. Raval lifted her feet off from the sand, preparing to kick and swim her way to shore, only to have something grab onto both her feet and pull down, down, down.
