Chapter Four: Valanice

"A celebratory banquet," the castle seneschal was saying. "Or a grand ball with all of the kingdom invited."

"I agree!" the head cook said. "I have several new dishes from Serenia and Eusperia that I have been meaning to experiment with, and…"

"Absolutely not," Valanice said, trying to stave off the oncoming headache.

Both the seneschal and the head cook looked disappointed. But behind them, Valanice could see some of the kitchen assistants breathing a sigh of relief.

"But…Your Majesty, surely everything that has happened calls for…," the seneschal said.

"There will be time enough for celebrations in the days ahead," Valanice said firmly. "What the king, the children, and I, need first and foremost is a few days of peace and quiet."

The head cook nodded. "If Your Majesty insists."

"Here's your tea, Your Majesty." One of the kitchen girls came up carrying a fine china cup.

"Right on time. Thank you, Rhona," Valanice said warmly. Taking the cup, she stood and left the kitchen.

She'd tried to get some sleep after the doctors had declared Graham to be cured, but sleep had proven to be impossible. So she'd gotten up to go for a walk around the castle, stopping at the kitchen to ask for a cup of tea. And it was during that stop that the courtiers and senior castle staff had started clamoring for a grand celebration.

Her walk back through the castle took her through the portrait gallery just outside the great hall. She walked slowly along, gazing up at the paintings up on the walls.

There were portraits of Graham and Valanice along the castle walls, taken at almost every stage of life: after Graham became king, after he and Valanice were married, at many points between then and the present. There were portraits of Rosella, as a baby in a christening gown (Rosella had repeatedly asked for this portrait to be hidden from view), as a young girl in play clothes, and one done last year: a confident teenager being trained to run a kingdom.

No such portraits existed of Alexander.

How was he going to adjust to his new life?

He wasn't a babe in arms anymore, but a youth on the brink of manhood.

Valanice had heard stories, of long-missing children returned to their families, but then unable to settle back into their own lives. They felt restless and angry, and haunted by too many ghosts of the past.

And Rosella. She had been through so much in her short life as it was, more than any seventeen-year-old girl should be expected to go through. Valanice wondered if she was going to be her usual exuberant, spunky self after all of this, or if she was going to start walking around under a cloud.

Valanice reached the end of the gallery and turned back into the great hall. The cavernous, tapestried room was empty at the moment, but it would soon fill with courtiers and advisers on the day's business. The sun still rose and the kingdom still had to be run, in spite of dragons and monsters and illness.

Her gaze fell on the magic mirror, a shiny oval of silvery glass in a polished mahogany frame. She walked up to it and gazed deeply into its silvery depths. Her own face - a little bit lined with age, auburn hair starting to show its first traces of silver - stared back at her. "Not too bad, all things considered," she found herself saying quietly.

The mirror had faded with Alexander's disappearance. Somehow, they managed to get along without it - the kingdom had learned some lessons from King Edward's many mistakes, after all - but it was an echo of a gaping hole in the family. And in their hearts.

It seemed that all of her life, Valanice had been dealing with a fractured family. Her mother, Coignice, had died when Valanice was a young girl. Her father, Cedric, died a few years before the adventure that led to Graham and Valanice becoming husband and wife.

Her thoughts wandered back to the portrait gallery.

Yes, that's what needed to be done first and foremost, she decided. A new picture of the family.

There was something that one of the court wizards had been talking about. A mage had come up with a way to capture a person's image instantly on a piece of paper. And Valanice had always wanted to see how it worked.

"Mervyn, I wish to speak to you," she said into the mirror.

The mirror's image swirled, revealing a frazzled-looking wizard in a tower laboratory.

"What? Oh!" Mervyn hastily smoothed down his wild graying hair. "Ah, Queen Valanice, how may I help you?"

"Are you still working on that special picture-taking box?"

"Indeed. I've nearly worked all of the kinks out. It didn't blow up the laboratory the last time I pressed the button."

"That is reassuring. If you could bring it with you the next time you come to the castle, I would be most obliged."

"I shall, Queen Valanice, and…got to go!" Mervyn yelled as some strange device out of view of the mirror started to fizz and crackle.

The mirror's image died, and Valanice found herself laughing for the first time in several days.

A leather ball suddenly thwacked against the opposite wall. This was immediately followed by a dog's claws scrabbling against the marble floor. "Go fetch, Maisie!" Rosella yelled from an outside corridor.

The ball bounced backwards and rolled up against Valanice's foot.

Maisie came bounding into the great hall through one of the doorways. She spotted the ball, but seeing as it had landed next to Valanice, she walked over, sat down and tilted her head quizzically.

Through the opposite door, Valanice could see Rosella looking for Maisie. And behind her came Alexander, with Raven draped around his shoulders.

Valanice smiled, picked up the ball, and threw it. "Fetch!"

xKQx