Wow, right? It's been about a year and a half since I wrote the first chapter for this story, and now of all times, I decided to come back to it. So pick it apart, I hope you like it, and thanks for your time.
Chapter Two
The funeral procession was the largest I had ever seen in my life. Our people wept. All around me there was the sounds of sobs, sniffles, moans. I forced myself to be untouched by it all; my own eyes remained dry, my face composed beneath the transparent veil of grief.
Black consumed the streets. Mourning flags were put up everywhere; really, they were handkerchiefs dyed with the dark juice of wild berries, hung from the bottom of a window.
Father walked beside me, as was expected. Despite the instructions his advisors had given him, he chose to hide nothing. Tears streamed down his sunken cheeks, and his eyes, once so bright and merry, were shadowed and bleary. Part of me wanted to reach out to him, to touch his arm and remind him I was still there, but I did not.
“Queen Isiladora,” someone cried out. “May she rest in peace!”
“Be quiet, you fool!” another hissed. “Silence is the way of things!”
I tried to pretend that I couldn’t hear them. I focused on the heat, the unbearable heat, made worse by my layers and dark headdress. The sound of my shoes on the cobblestones—thud, thud, thud—served as a distraction, as well.
“She’s gone,” Father surprised me by choking. “She’s really gone.”
I should say something, I thought. It’s my duty. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything. The look in my father’s eyes frightened me. He stared ahead at Mother. She had been laid out on a proper procession bed. She still looked beautiful, despite the weeks of illness and the paleness of her cheeks. She always would.
“What will I do?” Father whispered.
An advisor—he went by the name of Wissom—overheard him. “I will see to all the details, my king,” he murmured. Wissom’s expression matched his voice: cool, bland, and controlled. “You need only worry about appearing strong for the people.”
You do not know him, then, I silently told Wissom. Our king has never been strong. It was the queen that led us. Now that she is gone, he will be as helpless as a newborn babe. It would fall to my shoulders to pick up the pieces of this swiftly-crumbling kingdom.
“My Isiladora, my Isiladora,” Father chanted. Wissom frowned.
Finally I interfered. My hand rested lightly on the small of Father’s back. “She is with the kings of old, now,” I told him in a soft voice. “Smile for her. Smile for the others that remember her fondly.”
“Fondly?” Father repeated hoarsely. “I was not fond of her. I loved her.”
“I understand that,” I replied, still keeping my voice down so others would not hear as we walked through the streets. I remembered something Mother had once said to him—she’d been so sterns, so strong. A fortress. I strove to sound like her in hopes that Father would straighten his mourning vest and wipe away his tears. “It is not a time for weakness. There is never time for weakness.”
Father stopped walking, and turned his head slowly, to look at me. His gaze met mine, suddenly intense and confused. It broke my heart to see it. He was looking for her. He would always be looking for her now, and he would never find her. “I can’t live without her,” he whispered.
Quieting my own internal laments and resolving to have the strength that I knew my father couldn’t, I took his arm in mine. “Neither can I,” I said, propelling him into a walk again. Wissom watched with narrowed eyes, displeased. I would speak to him later.
I squared my shoulders and finished, “But we must.”
* * *
The sickness did not take hold instantly, as many do. Mother’s was gradual, sneaking, sly. Every day she weakened a bit more. Many blamed the spring air—she would grow accustomed to it, they said. Others claimed there would be a new prince or princess come winter. No one wanted to admit to what it really was.
Stubborn as she was, Mother did not relent to the illness that worked to consume her day by day. She continued her duties, hearing the people’s complaints, running the castle. She stood in front of the mirror every day, as always. Even she pretended not to notice what the reflection told her.
And she continued to lament on my own appearance, as she had been doing since I was a small child of six.
“Your hair is not becoming, Princess Sharlemone Dermandé,” she would say. Ever since the day they’d married my mother had refused to use my father’s name, Mercuse. She said it was not fit for royalty.
I remember one of the few times I’d been summoned to the queen’s dressing room. She’d told me to stand before her as she sat in front of a large mirror. In the glass reflection I saw her icy gaze sweep over my face, her perfect lips pursed. “What manner of a maid do you have attending you?” she questioned. “Your cheeks have no color. You look as sickly as a bedridden old woman.”
Before I could answer she turned her sharp eye on my gown. “That shade of pink will not do,” she added. “Change before you sit at my side for the counseling today. I will not have you drawing disapproving eyes. We must look our best for the people.”
I’d made the mistake of saying what first came to my mind. “But many of the people wear rags, Mother.” I ducked my head, frowning. “Why should they care about my gown being pink?”
A chilled silence filled the room. One of the chamber maids in the corner hid her face quickly, but not before I saw her wide eyes, her face registering shock.
“Are you questioning me?” my mother asked. Now she wasn’t looking at me, as if the sight of my gown utterly disgusted her. Her tone was rigid—I’d heard it used for criminals and members of council that irritated her, but never directed at me. I realized that I’d erred in being so forthcoming.
“I will change,” I said softly. I did not offer excuses or apologies; Mother had forbid both. She believed our family above such things.
“Be at my side in one hour,” Mother ordered. I had not been forgiven; her tone was curt and she would still not look at me. “And send your maid to me when you see her.”
A lump grew in my throat. I feared for old Hattie. “Yes, your majesty,” I said softly. I used the title in hopes of pleasing her. She did not acknowledge this, and I left the room, defeated.
It is one of my clearest memories of her. Growing up, I did not see her majesty often; hers was a life full of council meetings and dinners and public affairs. The maid I’d once had and loved—Hattie—disappeared shortly thereafter that afternoon with Mother. I heard snippets here and there, and found out that Hattie had had to leave the city. Once shunned by Isiladora Dermandé, no one would dared to have taken her on for a new position.
Hattie had been the only person who had treated me not as the princess, but as a child. She told me stories and read to me, sang songs and danced me ’round my room. It was true that she had little talent with the hairbrush and pins. When she left, the small flame of defiance within me flickered out. I became what she wanted me to be: Her Royal Highness Princess Sharlemone Dermandé of Palmasia. Part of me hated her for it, but another longed for the mother’s touch that I’d never experienced, wished there could be some sort of kindness between us.
It was among these days of stifling decorum and lessons that my life changed yet again. In the aftermath of losing Hattie, I met someone else. I met him… Garroway.
). All in all, very well written, and I'll have to check out the other chapters! 