Chapter 1- Ashes
Two months after my eleventh birthday, I asked my brother why our family was so odd. His answer was strange to me then, for I was still more than half child and my mind could not wrap around it. I was fourteen before I knew what he meant. When I was nineteen, I found out the part he had been too kind to tell me.
"You remember Mother's story?"
"The one about the dancing shoe that Father keeps on the mantel in their room?"
"Yes, Aine. Do you remember what they called Mother?"
"They called her Cinderella. But her real name is Eileen, Kenneth."
"Yes, I know. Why did they call her that, do you think?"
"She sat near the fire, and cinders flew up and singed her face. But what does this have to do with anything?"
"Patience, little sister, or I won't tell you."
"Fine, fine. Just get on with it."
"Mother sat near the fire, yes. But I'll tell you something the people don't know. Mother IS the fire, Aine."
"You're lying, Ken. She's a person, not a fire."
"Some people can be more than just people. Mother is one of those sorts of people. She's the fire. She keeps others warm, keeps the nightmares away, but sometimes she burns things. Like the duke that came to court two summers ago."
"The duke was in love with her. I'm young but I'm not dimwitted, Ken."
"I know that he loved her. THAT is my point."
"You mean, it's like fire- you could watch it for hours, because it's beautiful, and it keeps you from becoming chilled, but if you touch it, it burns you. So with Mother, you can watch her, because she's beautiful, and she'll take care of us, but no one can love her?"
"Exactly. Well, almost. Father can love her, you see, because he is… he's like the wood thatfire burns."
"What are we, then? Father is wood, Mother is fire, butwhat does that make us?"
"I suppose it makes me smoke. And you would be the embers."
"I don't understand."
"Wood fuels the fire. Fire puts off smoke, and sometimes, if it burns strong enough, embers."
"That makes sense, then. But why does it make our family strange?"
"We were all supposed tojust bepeople. Like our grandparents. But Mother was fire, and I'm not sure how, but Father turned into wood. And after that, I don't think you orI could be anything but smoke and embers. People don't always like fire, Aine. They don't like smoke either, because is stings your eyes and your throat, and it isn't solid. And they think, if they take away the wood, the fire will stop burning, and there won't be anymore smoke."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why take away Father?"
"Our family is something people aren't comfortable around. We aren't always comfortable around fire, you see, because we know it can burn us."
"What about the embers, Kenneth?"
War broke out the summer Kenneth turned seventeen and I turned thirteen. Two years later, during one of the last major battles, Father led the army. He thought it would be good for morale, and his advisers were either too compassionate to tell him it was a stupid thing to risk or counted on his inexperience pushing him straight into death. If it was the latter, their calculations were right. Mother was never the same. She grew pale and stern, and within fifteen months she was dead. I still remembered my brother's explanation, so when a hysterical maid shook me awake with the news, there was no surprise. After all, her wood was gone.
While Father was fighting and dying and being a fool, Kenneth was studying and observing. After our defeat, he headed the peace-party as one of the five ambassadors. I was so proud of my brother. He negotiated so well that we lost only half the demanded territory, and most of our important prisoners were exchanged fairly. But it took a long time, and when all the ends were tied neatly up, three years had passed. I hardly knew him. Our cousin was acting as Regent, and I myself was seven weeks away from being declared Heir-apparent when he returned. I'm not sure the nation ever forgave him for not attending Mother's funeral, and our cousin, Darren, never forgave him for abdicating.
My aunt would have liked the crown well enough, but my cousin hated governing, and crowns aren't passed to aunts if there's a male adult to pass them to until the royal children are old enough, and most of the time crowns aren't passed to daughters either. I was Heir-apparent for formality's sake only, and because embers weren't so disconcerting as smoke. And smoke Kenneth was. He drifted on the wind from place to place, first as ambassador, then as my cousin's eyes and ears to repay him for taking the throne. It was being those eyes and ears that got him killed. A spy is not well looked upon, no matter where he goes.
So my cousin is here in the palace, bitter and angry and sad. My aunt is using her position in court to the furthest extent it can be used, and I am in Kenneth's old room, using flint to start a fire in the old hearth because it's winter now, and I'm tired at looking at the ashes that I refused to let the maids clean out. Besides, I miss the smell of smoke, and if I don't burn Mother's glass slipper my aunt will smash it. It sat on the mantel until late this morning. She glared at it every time she came into the royal suite to have tea with her son and niece.
Darren is not black hearted. He regards me with a rather infuriating mix of pity and respect, and for this reason I have not been married off or poisoned on his mother's orders. It is also why I sit through the ordeal of tea with him and my conniving aunt once a week.
The fire is flaring now. The heat is a nice contrast to the icy flagstones beneath my toes. I'm watching the slipper melt, standing so close to the flames that I can taste the smoke before it swirls up the chimney.
The log is blackened, and the fire is dying out. The glass shoe is half-melted. My dress and hair smell like smoke, and I'm too warm now, even my feet. The hearth is grimy with soot, and the cooling ash is a pasty grey color that matches the shadows outside my window. "What about the embers, Kenneth?" I think I know what happens to the embers, if they don't disappear altogether when the log collapses and the fire burns out and the smoke clears.