Long Live The Queen

“Your Grace!”

A liveried servant burst open the door to the King’s study, so manic with energy he didn’t manage to catch the heavy oaken door and it bounced off the opposite wall with a loud THUD. A ripple of fright ran through the assembled party: one minister nearly dropped the bundle in her arms, another jumped to their feet as if to escape the danger of the intruder. Ilya herself startled hard enough that the quill in between her fingers drew a ragged line of black ink mid-word. 

All heads whipped in that direction as the servant drew up short and dropped into a flustered half-bow. He was an older butler that had been in service of the palace since before Ilya was born, and everything about this entrance screamed disorder and breach of protocol — something the servant never would have done for all the world except in the case of some true emergency–

Ilya drew a sharp breath and dropped her quill.

“How dare you.” Minister Ernst was the first to find his voice, loud and affronted. “We are in audience with the Princess –“

“Your Grace,” the servant cut over him as if he never spoke, his attention zeroed on Ilya, “a herald rides to the gate from the east.”

An unnatural stillness crashed over the assembly. A herald rides from the east side of the keep.

Ilya shot to her feet, all her weight supported on her hands against the table, heedless of the ink from the parchment bleeding onto her palms. 

“And?” she asked, her tone sharp, disguising the roiling of emotion in her breast.

“The mount carries the standard of the 13th Battalion.”

The breath in her lungs left in one fell swoop, and the assembly broke into a frenzy of movements and mutters. She heard none of it. Her gaze dropped to the ornate desk before her, the stacks of documents and proposals, seeing all and seeing nothing. She remained frozen in place.

“A herald?” One minister’s demanding voice broke through the otherwise incoherent murmurs in Ilya’s ears. “A herald from the front, and not a messenger?”

“It is unmistakable, my Lord,” the servant retorted.

There could only be one reason why a herald bearing the flag of Lisborne’s imperial army would be riding to the castle in times of war like these.

The clamor grew louder. How five people could make so much noise.

“Enough,” Ilya’s voice cut over the others, and at her command voices ceased and all eyes returned to her. She straightened and took her hands from the desk. A handkerchief somehow found its way into her fingers and she was cleaning them of ink without knowing what she was doing. 

“This meeting is adjourned,” she said to the room at large, and then addressed each person in rapid succession, beginning with the servant. “The moment the herald arrives, bring them to the War Room. Palmer, summon the Council. Sir Wyland, with me.”

She gathered her skirts and swept to the door with purposeful, measured strides, Sir Wyland falling into step behind her. Aware only of the prickling gaze of the ministers on her even as they bowed in silence, and the frantic, fluttered pounding of her own heart in her ears. 

A lifetime of etiquette and social grace training kept her from bursting into a run once she turned the corner to the next hall and no longer felt their eyes. She moved by force of will and memory alone, unconscious to anything else, lost to the tumult of thoughts swirling through her head. 

Her last private conversation with Hadrian reenacted on repeat in her memories, over and over.

How aged he seemed. How tired. How frightened.

Intercut with memories of her smiling, bright-eyed little brother who would once drag all manner of contraptions down these very halls as they walked together.

“Promise me you’ll come home. Whether it be in triumph or in chains, promise me you’ll return to me alive. If Lisborne is to fall, we fall together, okay?”

“I promise.”

It seemed that she blinked and found herself seated at the head of the table in the War Room. Sir Wyland took his position at the table to her right, and the other members of the Council quickly streamed inside from wherever Palmer summoned them. It didn’t take long; word from the front was nearly a week past delayed, and no one quite dared to wander too far.

“Is it true?” Lady Findlay was saying to Sir Wyland. “It’s a herald that’s come?”

“We shall see,” was all he gruffly replied.

“Well, what standard does it carry? Ours? It’s ours, isn’t it?”

“Patience, my Lady.” Lord Rasakov soothed Lady Findlay with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?” He also looked to Sir Wyland. “Do you know how far out the rider was?”

The rest of the conversation faded from her comprehension as the others arrived. The other members of the Council either broke into their own muted conversations or took their places in silence.

No one would look at Ilya, nor even address her beyond the barest form of courtesy decorum would allow. She didn’t know if it was meant to give her a sense of privacy or if they were afraid to meet her gaze, but she was grateful for the lack of respect either way. It was all she could do to keep her expression carefully blank, calm, controlled. She didn’t know if she could answer if they did speak to her. An icy lump sat thick and solid at the base of her throat. It was all she could do to breathe around it.

A herald didn’t necessarily portend bad news; so the Council seemed to be discussing. With communication from the Verdant Fields long past due, perhaps a traditional messenger could not reach the keep. Why, no one could come up with a good answer for; but then again, no one knew why there had been no word from the army since King Hadrian passed through the last keep before the border and reaffirmed they would reach the Verdant Fields by the end of the next day.

The lack of news unnerved the Council. The Battle of the Verdant Fields would not be the first time an encounter with the Vraskan Empire left nothing but silence in its wake. Firiene, Evelion, Ranstad… as each country fell, all communication to their fellows ceased. 

Surely if the battle had been won or lost, word would have reached the capital by now. Was it possible the battle did not begin when they thought it would?

Silence was not a good sign.

All conversation abruptly died when the servant appeared in the doorway, a man following steps behind. It was indeed a herald, dressed in the colors of the Lisborne military, and indeed bearing the emblazoned sigil of the 13th Battalion across his tunic. He looked dirty, and winded, as if his ride had been long and hard, and he had run as much as his mount. He didn’t so much as bow or pay any of the usual courtesies to the assembled Council. The herald had eyes only for Ilya, who had eyes only for him.

Ilya rose to her feet. 

“Thank you, you may go,” she said to the servant, and her voice came out strong and smooth with a grand amount of effort. The room otherwise remained silent but for the ragged breathing of the herald. The servant bowed, much more deeply than before, and left. Palmer closed the doors behind him and remained there, planted, as if intending to let no one else in or out. 

“What is your name, sir?” Ilya began.

“Jon, your Grace.”

“Sir Jon, I know you have come a long way, and evidently ridden hard. You come from the Verdant Fields?”

“Yes, your Grace,” came the reply.

Ilya took a deep breath, in and out, to steady herself.

“Then speak as you will, sir. What news from the King?”

The herald twitched. “I bear no news from the King, your Grace. I come from the convoy of Grand Duke Nathaniel. I am… the only one who has made it past the barricade.” 

“Barricade?” Lady Findlay gasped, but she was hushed with a sharp gesture from Ilya.

A long hesitation followed, as the herald appeared to struggle with his words. No one else spoke. Members of the Council shifted about in their places. Ilya took another deep breath. She could guess what the hesitation meant. A foreboding sense of doom pressed down on her.

“You may pass your message, Sir Jon. Do not fear retaliation from this council or the court of Lisborne. We do not shoot messengers here.”

He audibly swallowed, but her words seemed to ease some of his struggle.

“I… have been tasked… by my master to pass these words to Princess Ilyana.” This time he did not hesitate. “King Hadrian is dead.”

The War Room went deathly silent and still. There was no sound but the soft thump of a body against wood as Ilya collapsed back down hard into her chair. 

King Hadrian is dead.

Her little brother was dead.

Hadrian is dead.

As if on a pendulum swing, the heads of the Council turned from the herald to Ilya.

A thick column of ice stiffened in her spine and Ilya somehow still sat straight, despite the way it seemed all her bones turned to jelly. She could hear nothing but the roar of her own pulse in her ears. The herald’s words rattled through her skull over and over. 

King Hadrian is dead.

King Hadrian is dead.

Hadrian–

Somehow her mouth moved on its own. “And what of our armies?”

The herald shifted under Ilya’s stare, but answered readily enough. “Our armies were overwhelmed on the Verdant Fields before the battle could begin. We have been barricaded at the border as the Vraskan military travels towards the capital to prevent word from reaching all here. The Empress of the Vraskan Empire granted the Grand Duke’s company leave to escort the king’s body home from the battlefield. I was able to pass through the barricade at Dunhill and came straight here by my master’s orders.”

Dunhill. If the herald could not escape the barricade until Dunhill, the Vraskan army and the Grand Duke’s escort were already only a few days’ ride from the capital.

No one spoke. Or if they did, Ilya could not hear them. She no longer felt their eyes on her. The column of ice in her spine spread through to her limbs as he spoke so she felt nothing but numb.

“Thank you, Sir Jon. Your bravery and determination to bring us these tidings is understood and recognized.” How she still had breath to speak, she did not know. “You have my deepest gratitude.”

As if sensing his unspoken dismissal, and with no objections from the rest of the Council, the herald gave a stiff nod and Palmer led him from the room.

Sir Wyland was the first to speak. His eyes remained down at the table.

“The King is dead,” he rumbled, in the same gnarled, stoic tone he always possessed. But he lifted his gaze and landed on Ilya, the same as all the others, and he intoned, the way he would a prayer, “Long live the Queen.”

“Long live the Queen,” the words ran at a murmur through the rest of the Council. Lord Rasakov made a sign of the Goddess.

Ilya’s hands shook hard enough she had to clench them into fists on the table. 

Another hush settled. All waited for her to speak.

“Council,” she began, after the silence threatened to stretch into unbearable, “you served my brother and I through two of the worst wars Lisborne has seen in generations. Your loyalty and devotion to your country and the crown are unmatched and unrivaled. I could not ask for better advisors through these trying times. Our worst fears have come to pass. The Verdant Fields have fallen.

“I will extend the last mercy I can bestow upon you as your… Queen.” Her voice cracked. Some of the Council averted their eyes. “Should you wish to gather your families and your banners and return to your homes before the Vraskan Empire arrives, I give you leave to do so.”

A chorus of mutters and protests broke out among the assembled. Lady Findlay looked offended by the notion. “And leave you to face the Empire alone? No, indeed.”

“House Rasakov stays,” Lord Rasakov chimed in.

Ilya took another breath she did not feel.

“Please do not speak in such haste. We have all heard of the destruction of Ranstad. I would spare each of you the pain if I could.” 

She looked from face to face. Most of the War Council were the Heads of Houses and ministers who served under her father, the former King. Old faces, lined with age, of men and women she knew all her life. And here they stood, still, as Lisborne fell. 

“I intend to enact the plan we arranged in the event such a disaster came to pass. Once Sir Jon has had a moment to rest, I will send a royal herald with him back to the convoy to offer the Empress of the Vraskan Empire Lisborne’s negotiations for surrender. I ask you, Council, one final time – are there objections?”

There were none.

She looked to Sir Wyland. He read her unspoken instruction with a glance, and took lead of the conversation from that moment on. There were fine details to work out from their original plan of surrender; details such as how to announce to the keep and the capital at large, evacuation routes for those who wished to leave, how to ascertain the extent of the barricade and the damage done by the Vraskan Empire at the border. They left Ilya to sit in a frozen, blank silence, staring at her shaking fists upon the table until the table blurred into watery shapes.

The ink she tried to wipe away earlier still smudged under her fingernails. In the blur her fingers looked black and decayed. Like death.

Hadrian is dead.

You promised me you would come home.

Hadrian is dead.

A soft touch at her elbow. Ilya looked up. Lady Alaine, a blur of indistinct blues of the lady-in-waiting, stood next to Sir Wyland. Palmer, hovering behind, must have retrieved her.

“Please allow me to escort you to your chambers, your Grace,” she said, tone ever so soft.

Ilya didn’t think her knees could support her weight ever again. But she stood, somehow. The War Room silenced at once, offered formal bows as Lady Alaine led her from the room, and did not once look at her until they were at her back.

Ilya made it three steps into her chambers before her legs collapsed. The calm she fought so hard to maintain for the benefit of her people shattered into a million pieces. Tears poured down her cheeks, and she clawed at the fabric around her neck as if that might help clear the wall of ice choking in her throat. It took a long moment to realize the wailing in the air as Lady Alaine ordered the other attendants around was her own voice.

King Hadrian is dead.

Long Live the Queen.