The wind lashed out, cold and bitter while the skies thundered overhead. Lightning flashed, streaks of silver tinged violet-pink in the burning blazebalm-hued skies. She shivered and hugged herself, her thin, white cotton frock flapping against her ankles. Ice-cold rain pounded down, sharp knives on her exposed arms and face. Knives were nasty, she didn't like them like Sarai did. The wood of the dock was like ice under her bare feet.
A little ship battled on the pounding waves and even though she was on the harbor miles away (yet alone, always alone) she could see everything quite clearly. A blot of scarlet was King Dunevon and the silver-and-sapphire smudge next to him was Elsren. He slipped on the wet wood and then his mouth was open in a soundless scream as he tumbled from the railings. Big, friendly Lord Sibigat reached out and missed his silk tunic by inches, and she too opened her mouth to scream as he dropped into fathomless depths, churning black.
She fell out of bed, entangled in sheets that muffled her screams. Blindly she held out her hand and a glowing silver ball shone brightly in it, the Balitang Gift she had inherited from Aunt Nuritin's side of the family. She huddled on the floor, a heap of silk and lace, breathing in and out, in and out to the rhythm of her wild heart.
It was always the same, the dream that had haunted her for ten years. The nightmare mama's soothing words, Aunt Nuritin's disproval and admonitions against being a coward and Dove's sympathy could not charm away. It was always worse in winter, during winter storms especially. They reminded her of that day.
She hadn't been to the dock to receive Elsren then but she had sent him off, hadn't she? Small details – the color of the small king's robes, Princess Imajane's razor-sharp smile, the hot glare of the early morning sun, Aly's glance darting like dragonflies on the water – were ingrained in her memory. As for the rest, well, she had never been considered unimaginative – even by Dove, even by Aly.
At long last, feeling a little braver, she climbed out of the sheets and stumbled through her bedchamber to the small corner where she always burnt incense to the Wave-Walker after her nightmares. It was useless she knew – Elsren's body must have long since decomposed – but it had become a little ritual for her. It never made her feel any better but it didn't make her feel worse either and besides, it gave her something to do with her trembling hands.
There…she looked up at the miniature portrait of the last of the Rittevon kings, little Dunevon, that hung near the shrine – she could always pretend it was Elsren. The boys had been second cousins and only five at the time of their deaths. Dawn was breaking; it was too late to go to sleep anyhow. She wandered over to the balcony, leaning against the ornately-carved railings. The breeze ruffled her lacy nightgown. She rested her right cheek on her right palm, her elbows leaning against the cold stone.
Etiquette lessons from Aunt Nuritin again today and a spot of archery and history from Dove…meh, she hated life as a princess sometimes. It was hard work. The knuckles of her left hand clenched and unclenched restlessly on the stone bars, her long, slender fingers, pale as a full-blood luarin noblewoman's gouging small scratches down the figurines of stone pygmy marmosets and parrots.
He would have died anyway, the small voice in her head reminded her. Him and Dunevon, even if Rubinyan and Imajane hadn't planned everything. To make place for the twice-royal one, for that half-raka girl…
She bit at an errant glossy black curl, trying to suppress the hot rage that bubbled inside her. Dove was her sister, alright maybe half-sister but so what? Dove was as much Winna's daughter as Petranne was and more than just a daughter. She was a good queen, good for the Copper Isles, much better than Dunevon would have been.
Would? The snide voice inside her murmured. He didn't get a chance did he? Their raka god interfered.
Aly had told Dove the story and she had eavesdropped on the conversation – although, she was sure, her presence had been known to both. Children's blood, she thought, trying to remember Aly's words. She said there's children's blood on my hands.
She bit her curls harder till strands of hair tore and scratched at her tongue. She spat them out with a curse fit for a sailor's ears. Dove, Sarai, little Mequen, then me. She counted the line of succession absently on her fingers. Then she stopped, a new thought striking her. Or is it one of those endless Temaida raka heiresses after Mequen?
The question haunted her.