War and Roses
Nine-year-old Kalasin of Conte loved the spring. It was the time of year when the days finally became brighter, warmer, and longer. Every ray of sunlight glittered with a million hopes. All the plants that had been hiding underground during the winter emerged from the dark dirt. Trees and flowers blossomed, opening people's hearts in the process. Birds sang, causing people's souls to dance. Each breath of sweetly-scented air seemed to be filled with a hundred dreams, every one of which was destined to come true.
Spring, she thought, was a time when life renewed itself, which meant that it was a very special season. This year, though, spring contained a unique promise for her, because, after this spring, would come the summer, and, at the conclusion of the summer, Kally could start training as a page.
Maybe she should have been scared by that prospect. Perhaps she would be as she drew ever closer to beginning page training. Right now, though, the idea of being a page only exhilarated her. Her mother came from a long line of warrior women, after all, so the notion of being the first female page in centuries didn't terrify Kally. Stubbornness and strength streamed through her veins. Besides, if she did need any help, she had Roald to rely upon. Her older brother might have been shy, but he was undeniably steady.
All these thoughts were bouncing around inside her head as she gazed out the window of her bedchamber at a fire-winged butterfly darting about outside.
A knock on her door that announced she had a visitor interrupted her admiration of the butterfly, and she called, "Come in."
When her father entered, she was surprised, since she had imagined that he would currently be buried under a mountain of paperwork. Before she could ask why he was not, he inquired, "Do you want to go for a ride around the gardens, Kally?"
"Aren't you busy, Papa?" Kally wanted to know, arching an eyebrow, because he was normally busier than ever when the queen, as she was now, was off working with the Riders.
"Not so busy that I can't spare an hour to go riding with my beautiful daughter," her father answered, smiling at her.
Grinning up at him, since his talent was making people beam like idiots just because he smiled at them, Kally put on her riding boots and accompanied him down to the royal stables.
They were riding their horses down a cobbled pathway through a garden that was presently filled with roses that were more thorns than petals when her father remarked, "Spring is a time for new ideas."
"And new beginnings," added Kally, watching a speckled butterfly alight on the thorn of a yellow rose. "After this spring comes the summer, and, at the end of this summer, I'll be a page."
"You are still planning on becoming a page, then?" her father said, acting as if the sky wouldn't turn to ashes before Kally changed her dream of being a page.
"Of course I do." Kally laughed, even if a part of her was whispering that her father wasn't teasing.
"Maybe you should about this," replied her father, pinning her with his sapphire eyes, so that she felt like a trapped butterfly, because she already sensed in her gut, with an icy foreboding feeling deep down inside her chest, that something was about to transpire alter her forever. Even though she didn't wish it to, she was helpless to prevent it from happening. Somehow, she knew, as a result of this moment that there would be a distinct "before" and "after", and a "was" and a "will be." This minute was a knife-edge on which her delicate future was precariously balanced.
"You said that I could be anything that I wanted." Kally glared at him with blue eyes she had inherited from him, wanting to resist although she already realized that, from now on, she would hate spring. Spring, to her, would no longer signify promise; it would represent the death of dreams. In her mind, spring would equal defeat, not rejuvenation. Her world would still have flowers growing, but their scent would be nothing more than a mockery of her misery, and the birds could still sing, but her soul would no longer dance in accompaniment.
"Kally, you are a princess whether you want to be or not," her father responded seriously. "With your rank comes an incredible amount of responsibility to your country. As a princess, you need to serve your realm by making a marriage that will create an alliance to strengthen and protect our kingdom. Unfortunately, no ruler will wish to wed you if you have spent more time training to be a knight than to be a lady."
"You married Mama, and she was nothing more than a refugee princess from a war-torn land," pointed out Kally, her jaw clenching.
"I'm a rather unconventional man." Grimly, her father shook his head. "The fact that we are having this conversation at all proves that."
"You said that I could be anything I wanted," Kally repeated, not caring if she sounded more like a baby than a princess.
"You can." Her father's gaze pierced into her, and she was a butterfly whose wings were ripped from her as she still fought to fly while he went on, "I trust that you will make the right choice. I have faith that you will understand that ultimately your duty to your country is more important than your individual desires."
"I want to serve Tortall." Kally was aware that her voice and face were broken, but she didn't care. Her dream was shattered, which meant that her pride was, as well.
"You serve the realm best in marriage, not in battle," her father informed her, and she felt like screaming because she knew it was true. However, she was a princess, and princesses couldn't scream. Princesses let their dreams die without a whimper if that was what their country needed them to do. Princesses kept their heads up when anyone else would have ducked theirs. Princesses did not flinch from their duties. After all, being royal meant surrounding everything to your people. Royalty wasn't an inherited divine right; it was something earned with every ounce of sweat and blood a princess possessed. "I'm sorry, Kally, but that's the way the world works. Your mother and I have tried to change things in Tortall, and you can devote yourself to reforming whatever country you end up marrying into."
Tears that she obstinately refused to permit to flow down her cheeks burned in her eyes as Kally noted inwardly that her father didn't even pretend that she would choose the selfish thing and decide to become a knight. Her dream was so dead that it wasn't even a hypothetical in her father's mind. She would have hated him for that if she hadn't been bred from birth to comprehend why such cruel decisions were necessary.
Thinking that nobody would ever recognize just how much of a sacrifice she was making right now since being royal meant never calling attention to all one gave up for one's people, Kally slit her own throat and cut out her own heart as she said hollowly, "I see now that I was mistaken to believe that I could ever be a knight. I won't train as a page. Instead, I'll devote my time to learning whatever you and Mama deem best."
Those few sentences almost broke her tongue as they emerged from her, because they were such a denial of everything she had hoped to be. She was a butterfly tearing off her own wings, or a flower trampling over herself for the good of her people, but that didn't mean that she would ever be able to fly, blossom, or look beautiful again.
Blinking back the salty moisture in her eyes, she studied the roses in the garden. Ever since she was little, she had been referred to as a rose of Tortall. Before, she had imagined that she could hone her thorns into weapons to defend her realm, but now she saw that she needed to chop off those thorns for her country instead. For Tortall's sake, she would have to become a rose with no thorns, and a butterfly with no wings. She would have to allow herself to become a perversion of nature, because that was what being a princess was all about.
"You're serving this country in the most valuable way possible, and in a manner that only you can do," her father murmured, reaching out to clasp her shoulder. "Right now, you are being braver than any knight by sacrificing your dream for the sake of your realm. Sometimes it can be easier to fight for your kingdom than to marry for it, but I promise you, my dear, that I will never wed you off to anyone without your consent."
"That's not much of a comfort, Papa." Kally twisted away from his touch. If he laid a consoling hand on her, she would start sobbing, and she didn't wish to weaken her sacrifice with tears. "After all, I would agree or even choose to marry a monster if the good of Tortall demanded it."
Loyalty yanked off your wings and tore off your thorns every time, she knew now. Love always made you less of a butterfly and less of a rose. To be loyal and to love was to lose your freedom. After all, you couldn't be permitted to prick your prince with your thorns or fly away from your duty with your wings.