I spent the next decade working tirelessly for the Queen. After the surprise of having one so young join their ranks, the other ladies-in-waiting welcomed me into their ranks warmly. However, they did give me one warning.
"Stay away from the Queen's consort. She won't be happy if you get too close . . . "
I took that to heart and immediately vowed to avoid Oberon at all costs. However, it turned out to be unnecessary. Except for when the Queen formally held court, I rarely saw him on palace grounds. Most times I was with my fellow ladies, and we went for walks in the palace gardens or sat and embroidered in our shared chambers. The few times I did see Oberon, he was with other male courtiers, usually hunting or relaxing in the shade of the trees. And he was often away on long, mysterious journeys, where no one heard from him for weeks on end.
And so the years passed by with no worries. I quickly learned how to navigate the many intrigues of court, mostly thanks to the other ladies, all of whom saw me as a surrogate daughter or little sister that had to be protected at all costs. Thanks to them, I was never in any danger with the courtiers. No, my life at court was, for the most part, decent. Of course, it was by no means perfect. Now and then I would reflect on my old life as a village girl, and regret leaving behind my family as well as everything I had ever known – but I always brushed aside any lingering guilt, for I was content and happy and had risen further than anyone had ever thought I really would. Now and then I would think back and wonder about my parents and how they fared, and I would be saddened at the thought – but I was young and strong and wanted to live my own life, and so I brushed them aside as well. It was easy simply because I never saw them again. My last sight of my parents was right before I fled our village, and to this day that is still my last memory of them. It never failed to pain me, but I had made my own choice and what could I expect? Something else that bothered me was the Queen herself. She rarely gave a second thought to her ladies-in-waiting, and often treated us as if we were invisible; she did not even bother to give us her old dresses when she was done with them, instead ordering them burnt when they would have fit one of us marvelously. She ordered us to do menial tasks better suited for a scullery maid. She ordered me to use my skill at magic to entertain her, forcing me to suffer the humiliation of performing parlor tricks in front of the entire court. And when I or one of my fellow ladies displeased her, she would sometimes even throw us in the dungeons for a night or two. Ah, very well. I shall admit it. Life under the Queen's command was far less satisfactory than I had dreamed. However, she was still the Queen, and I would serve her as faithfully as I could.
When I was twenty-seven years old, troubles began to brew at court. The Seelie Queen was well liked and much admired, but she of course had plenty of enemies, the most prominent being her counterpart: Mab, the ancient Queen of the Unseelie. Mab had been the Dark Queen for longer than anyone could remember, and at her current age was so powerful that she could summon a blizzard with a single sigh; and such was her hatred of the Seelie that she had done so on more than one occasion. Where my Queen inspired admiration and respect, Mab inspired abject terror. That might have been a double-edged sword that could even have worked in my Queen's favor, were it not for the fact that Mab was loved just as much as she was feared. Every last Unseelie would lay down their life for Mab, and that made her even more dangerous than she already was to my own Queen. At the moment, the peace treaty between the two Courts was shaky at best, for Mab claimed that the Seelie were murdering her most valued courtiers. It was not a far-fetched claim – assassinations were quite common. However, this time the Seelie Queen was not handling matters very diplomatically; this was partially due to the fact that Oberon, who was still her consort, had been away for a particularly long while and the Queen was allowing her displeasure to spill out onto her fellow ruler. After nearly half a year, we managed to reinstate the peace treaty, and the troubles ceased for the most part. But tension still ran rampant at court. Many believed that the Queen was slipping, that she had proved in her undiplomatic handling of affairs that she was unfit to be ruler of the Seelie much longer.
One evening, we got word at court that our Queen was in danger. At first we paid no heed to the desperate messenger, a young village boy who lived on the border of Seelie territory. After all, the Queen received death threats on a daily basis. However, the boy continued to beg Her Majesty to listen.
"It was the tall man, Majesty, the one with the long black hair and black horse. He was sitting in my father's inn with these men in shiny silver armor and they were talking, Majesty, talking treason! . . . The tall man, with the black hair and horse, he was saying how he had a plan to kill you!"
The Queen decided to humor the child. "All right, all right. Do you know this tall man's name?"
The boy looked up earnestly. "Oh yes, Majesty, I know it real well. The other men called him Oberon."
The court went still. Oberon? It couldn't be. Granted, none of us had seen him for months, but surely the Queen's consort – who was much adored by everyone at court – would never plot against the Queen! I was even more stunned than my fellow ladies-in-waiting. I barely knew Oberon, but what I did know of him I liked; he had been the one to give me my greatest desire. True, it was a desire gone terribly awry, and I had often wondered whether Oberon had deliberately meant to send me into a pit of despair . . . but still. I could not believe what I was hearing.
But apparently the Queen could. After a few moments of shocked silence, her eyes flashed dangerously. We all knew what would happen next.
"Soldiers! OUT! FIND HIM!"
As for the rest of us, we shivered in dread as the Queen stormed up and down the Great Hall, her rage exploding. When the soldiers finally returned, the Queen had destroyed most of her statues and had nearly cracked her own throne in two. She paused, snarling with fury, as the soldiers parted to reveal the chained Sidhe they had caught at her bidding.
Oberon looked up and – of all things – smiled.
