The Queen of Antar MA/AU (Z/A, P/L, Z/L) The End 02/26/08

[DMartinez]

Author: DMartinez
Email: shockerdm@icqmail.com
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters portrayed in the following. They were inspired by creations of Metz as portrayed by Katims on the WB and UPN, which are now known as CW. No infringement was intended.
Rating: Mature Adult (Sexual situations Con/Non-Con, Drugs, Domestic Violence)
Summary: Alternate Universe. Long ago in a galaxy far away there was a planet called Antar, ruled by Y'Antari regents who dictated over all Y'Antari and the remainder of the Tirera. The two worlds existed in the same lands but had little to do with one another so long as all was peaceful.
Notes: This story is told in a series of POVs interlocking to convey how each character felt as the events unfolded.
NOTE: Finally got around to posting this here. Read the non-con as rape, not explicit but emotional.
Pairings: Zan/Ava, Zan/Liz, Liz/David


The Queen of Antar
Is murdered…

Present Day. Prince Avery of Antar.

My heart pounds out of control, my vision has narrowed to a pin point which I follow from one post to the next, one bereaved face after another, one pitying soul and onward until I reach my destination. The throne room. “Father!”

I’ve just run seven miles on bad news and I have to catch my breath to keep from passing out before I know. From the training field to the palace, unable to wait the ten minutes it would have taken to find a carriage back. Though I did not really see them, they were all there. Whispering servants, grunting politicians, and conniving sneaks all hiding in the shadows, doing nothing but spreading gossip. Half of them never even bothered to bow when I rushed through. It is my right as Prince to have the world stop when I enter a room. No one answered my questions; they just stared with those pitying eyes. I need answers!

Father sits pale and still on his throne. He is alone and he sees nothing. A glaze has crossed his eyes and though I know by the look on his face, I have to ask the question. “Where’s Mother? The page said…”

“My wife is dead.” Father whispers to me. My father, the great King Zan, is reduced to whispering in pain. His voice like water and gravel and his hands clenching the arms of his throne. The King of Antar is on the verge of falling apart.

“So… it’s true, then.” It was a statement. It is done. It is unchangeable. I, Prince Avery of Antar, sink to my knees beside the altar and weep openly for my dead mother. There is just so much that doesn’t make sense. All the other whispers. All the other unanswered questions. “Why are the guards outside Liz’s room? They wouldn’t let me in to see her. To ask her…” Had I stopped by to see her first? Have I lost my mind? Am I even capable of holding a conversation at this point? My chest aches but for another reason now. Mother is gone. “Why Liz?”

“Liz has been detained as a suspect.” His words are cool and even. Rehearsed if I didn’t know better. What reason could there be to detain Liz?

“Who? What? I don’t understand, Father. Please tell me.” Am I one or twenty-one? Begging my father for answers that he obviously doesn’t want to give. It is bad enough he refuses to respect that I am a grown man, capable of running my own life but does he have to keep more secrets from me?

Father clears his throat, his eyes on the doors behind me. “The servants say she was the last to enter the bathing room before they found Ava’s body. That she was found face down in the bath.”

So calm and collected when his face reflects that he is shattered inside like I am. What in the inferno is going on? “Murdered?” Is that my voice? “Mother? By Liz? Impossible!” I feel anger boiling up in my chest. Father looks old and weary and incapable of handling this matter but I am young. I am strong and I will solve this mystery because there is no way my Liz could have murdered my mother. “Are you going to tell them to release her? The accusation is absolutely ridiculous. She raised me. Raised all your children. You know she couldn’t murder anyone.”

“I know…” His voice wavered for a moment, his eyes shine with tears but he holds back. “But there are circumstances beyond our control just now.”

“Circumstances? What could prevent you from fixing this?” I bellow, uncaring if the gossiping servants can hear me. I rise to my feet and stand at the base of the dais, near to his feet. “Father, please. I’m going to miss Mother but Liz means so much to all of us.”

“There are her motives to consider.” Where is he? His eyes are not in the room at all.

“Motives. What reason could Liz possibly have for murdering Mother? They were best friends.”

Father lets out an uncharacteristic snort and fixes his gaze on me. The gaze he often puts on me. He’s laughing at me or my naivete as he often says of me. I hate that gaze. “Hardly, Avery.” Then his head drops into his hands, appearing very small in the grand throne. “Because she loves me. Because Ava hated her… because of her children.”

“What are you talking about? Whose children? Liz hated her because she loved you? You’re not making sense.” Why does he have to play these mind games now? Of all times to beat around the bush.

“Liz is… Ava…” Father takes a moment to catch his breath and to catch his words before they spill out freely. From his mouth to my eager ears. Why does he always censor his words with me? He sags further, his robes seeming to swallow his body. “There was no love lost between Ava and Liz, Avery. I can’t tell you more… and it’s a very long story, besides.”

“I don’t understand, Father.” I let my anger recede when he meets my eyes. I see the pain inside and I realize that this is difficult for him as well. Ava was my mother but she was also his wife. His Queen. “Liz is just a nursemaid. She’s been with us for as long as I can remember.”

Father shut his eyes for a long moment; his face turned upward and whispered some low words I couldn’t make out. When he finally opened his eyes again, they were on the far wall, on the symbol of Antar. The symbol of the Y’Antari, our people. “Tradition, my son, tradition. One I hope you never have to partake in.”

TBC

[DMartinez]

The Queen of Antar
Has Been Chosen…


2 Days later.

I hover outside the door to my father’s chambers. I can’t recall a single instance that I had been in there before. Not even with my mother as a child. I steel myself with the knowledge that this is the last time I should stall like this. I have just been handed an enormous responsibility. I can’t hesitate for one moment after I begin.

I grip the handle in my hand and push down, the doors swing open, and there he is, seated on a trunk at the foot of the bed, smoking a thin cigar with ash long and brittle on its end. “Father, I took mother to the Bawo. She wants the… body frozen until we finish the investigation.”

“Such is the will.” Father whispers.

“Lord Larek and Lady Nikas have arrived. They wish to begin the investigation immediately.”

“Who have they appointed as Ava’s Champion?” The words come out but they are empty. I suppose losing a wife of 25 years would do that even to a strong man.

“I have taken the assignment.”

“No.” He shakes his head. Can he not trust me to do anything for our land?

“I have taken it and I wish to start the interviews immediately.” My voice sounds stronger than I am. “We start now. You kept Mother in a cage but I need you to tell me everything. Every password and key. I need to know who had the power to get in to her bathing room.”

“Avery, no.” Father insists and rises from his seat and meets me, face to face. “Can you not answer this one request? I don’t want her Champion to be you.”

“Why not?”

His eyes slide away from mine and soon he is closing the door and turning locks and checking every corner, window and servant’s entrance for eavesdroppers. “There are things that happen behind the closed doors of a marriage that a child should never know.”

“I’m a grown man. I’ve accepted the task. Whoever killed Mother will pay.”

“And if it is Liz? If you find her to be the one who murdered your mother?” He advances on me swiftly, his hand raised but I don’t flinch. He won’t hit me. He never has. He has never laid a hand on me though I know his father, Aperys, often beat him for the smallest of transgressions. “What if this knowledge is something you can’t handle?”

“I will handle it. I am the Champion.”

“If I can’t persuade you to find someone else… then you will have to listen to everything I say… when I say it. I will not leave out the details to spare you because if you claim to be a man, then you must act like one. The Champion is impartial. The Champion is steadfast. The Champion must not stop until either the business is solved or he is murdered for getting too close. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

Father crosses the room to look out the window over the square. “I met Ava 26 years ago. I fell instantly in love with her but it took time to follow protocol and move around traditions in order to have her for my wife, nevertheless, it was done… I remember that day so clearly…”

25 years ago. Zan’s Wedding Day.

Flutes and drums filled the air with melody and steady thumping. A lute joined in as I turned the clearing with my intended, making my heart dance in my chest. The celebration rang into the day and at high noon all noise halted. The silence was deafening as we waited to begin. The priestess, Bawo Lodona, raised her hands to the sky and asked the Granilith to bless the union of Antar's royalty to one of Antar’s lesser citizens. "Blessed are the Y'Antari! Our King has a son who is strong and brilliant. He will become a great leader one day. Blessed are the Y'Antari! Our Prince is a kind and generous man who will rule us straight and fair. Blessed are the Y'Antari! Our Prince has chosen his bride. She is beautiful and virtuous. Blessed are the Y'Antari! Our Prince has chosen his bride out of love. Pure and true to last through all time. Blessed are the Y'Antari!"

I took Ava's hand in mine and approached the priestess. She took both our hands and raised them to the sky. "Bless this man and this woman! Unite them in soul. Unite them in body! Unite them in mind! Let nothing set asunder what the Granilith is foretold! Bless our Prince and his Princess! Bless the royal line!"

The crowds whooped and shouted, celebrating the union. It wasn’t outlawed for a Prince to married beneath his station but it had not happened in so very many generations. Our world had sprouted so very many more classes of people since the beginning. The music began again and the dancing carried on into the night. I laughed and danced until I was breathless. Finally, when the moons were all overhead, we were excused to consummate our marriage. I had waited an entire year to touch her hand; I could not wait another moment to kiss my wife. My wife!

The chamber was lit softly with the propriety of our ways. My wife blushed gracefully, being a virgin and knowing that what was to come was special to marriage. We knelt beside the low table at the foot of the bed. We raised our joined hands to the sky and bowed our heads to pray. "Bless our union. Bless our bed. Bless our seed. Our lives for the Y'Antari." Opening our eyes, shyness overtook us. Unlike my father, I had strictly followed our ways and not been with a woman before my wedding. We were so very painfully shy and though we had been instructed on what do to, gathering courage took a moment. Then Ava took the bowl in her hands and drank deeply of the chalky substance. There was just a small amount left when she handed it to me. I tipped the bowl into my mouth, swallowing the mouthful and shutting my eyes against its sweetness. Wedding nectar is sacred, a blessing and a privilege.

Opening my eyes, the lights had halos and my wife's blond hair shone like the sun. I reached for her skin, the texture was amazing. I ran my fingers over everything within reach. Her soft hair, her smooth skin, her velvety robes… the delicate skin underneath. A hunger I had never felt before sprang up in my body. I tasted her lips, so pink and supple, and her neck, her pulse beating so fast beneath the skin, and her breasts, firm and pert with rosy nipples reaching for me, and her concave belly, where someday she would house our children. Heat had crept upon me, making it hard to concentrate on any one thing. I had to shake off my robes. Had to lay atop my wife. Had to press into her body until we were one. Had to lean in over and over until the heat had won and escaped from my body… leaving us lying limp and spent in our marriage bed, riding out the last of the intoxicant's effects.

When I opened my eyes in the early morning light, it was to the view of my wife. Finally mine after all this waiting. I wiped the tear tracks from her face. "Do you hurt?"

Ava's blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. "I didn't feel it when it happened but I feel it now."

"Love shouldn't cause pain." I sighed and held her close to me. "Are you alright?"

"I am sore. Nothing a warm bath won't cure. Can we try it again without the nectar? I don't remember much. I think I drank too much of it or it was mixed too strong." She cuddled closer to her husband. Her husband, I. Her husband, the Prince of all Y'Antari. And now she was the princess. My princess.

"When you're feeling stronger. We have our whole lives to make love and to make babies and lie together in our bed."

Her hands slid down to her flat stomach. "Babies," she whispered. "Do you think? Could I be?"

"I wouldn't object to that." I very much loved that idea. Her belly swollen with my child.

"We must make love every night just to make sure."

"Whatever you wish shall be done, my love, my princess, my wife." I kissed her lips softly. "Rest. I'll send up the nurse to make sure you are okay."

Present Day. Avery’s Interview with his father.

“Father, I appreciate that you loved Mother very much but what does that have anything to do with anything?” I sigh heavily.

“Because I tried to make it all work. Go. I’m done for now.” Father stays by the window and I leave because I can't for the life of me figure out what he means to tell me by that story.

TBC

[DMartinez]

AN: There will definitely be parts of this section that no one will understand and it's supposed to be that way so don't worry if you think you're lost. You're only as lost as the main character.

The Queen of Antar
Goes Searching

Present Day. Liz’s rooms.

When I enter her rooms, I am swept over with nostalgia. I had played as a child in this room, running beneath her feet and screaming my head off when I didn’t get my way. Liz has always been patient with me. Has always shown me how to better myself because I was the Prince. It alarms me as I realize I hadn’t visited her in so long. “Where is everyone?”

“They won’t let them see me.” Liz whispers with her voice full of tears but she stays in her rocking chair. “I am worried about Vlastina. She sleeps with me and I haven’t seen her in days. I miss her so much.”

“I sure she’s fine. They’ve probably found someone to watch her until the interviews are done.”

“I don’t want to be interviewed. I just want to… do my job.” She began sobbing and I rush to her side, wrapping her up in my arms as once she had done for me. “Avery, I just want this all undone. I wish I had never come here.” She gasps and quickly shakes her head, squeezing me harder. “No, I don’t. I always wish to be here. Always, always.” Her accent slips and that little halt returns to her speech. I have often wondered where that came from.

“Liz, I have something to tell you.”

“What is it? Tell Liz. I am fine.” She composes herself and sits up to listen.

“I have to interview you. I am Mother’s Champion.” I watch the tears fill her eyes before she rises from the rocker to lay on the bed. “Liz… I’m sorry but I just want this over with. I have to do this.”

“What do I have to say?” She whispers over her shoulder.

“I have already started with Father. He told me about the day he married Mother. It hardly has anything to do with the situation.”

“I don’t understand.” She sighs heavily and rolls to face me. “Tirera do not have these laws.”

“Tirera?” I furrow my brow and stare at her. And it all falls into place. Her accent. Her ways. Her secrecy. “Should I know that?”

“They want to hang me. It doesn’t matter now.” Liz shakes her head. “Shall I tell you how I came to be Y’Antari?”

24 years ago.

Our fields grew in carefully tended rows but the weather was dry. The drought was going on strong and only a select few had managed not to go hungry while keeping their homes. Our small village had banded together, using precious water to feed the fields but it was becoming a hopeless feat. Jeffery Parker, my father, was taking a useless break when he first saw the cloud of dust approaching the village. One by one his fellows also saw it and curiosity drew them in, giving up on the fields for the day.

Village was a kind word and would be stretching the size of the truth. It was little more than a settlement and that settlement had ceased to grow four generations after its declaration. Parkston. As the last male of the Parker clan, Jeffery was the closest to a magistrate Parkston had ever seen. His curious daughter, me, peered out of our front window at the carriage parked in what barely passed for the town square. He kissed my cheek and motioned me back inside. The symbol on the carriage was vaguely familiar but our village had long lost any hope of improvement.

His fellows parted as he approached. Two very confused women stood in fancy garb but still, he couldn't place the visitors. Seeing the villagers part for the farmer, the taller of the women turned to him and inclined her head. She spoke in a language I had never heard before. "Bawila."

"Bawila." He inclined his head to her. "Ni Y'Antari."

"Aye Opologeeze." The woman inclined her head again. Her accent came thick and her words halting. "We deed note know the Tirera woz steel spocken."

"Only in the far reaches such as ours. No Y'Antari this far from the palace as I'm given to understand it." He glanced around and our neighbors were highly interested in our fancy visitors. "May I ask as to your purpose in Parkston?"

"We hove came colliction, sir."

"Jeff will do fine. Collecting what?"

The tall woman conferred with the shorter woman for a moment before she cleared her throat and knelt before my father. "Herd times bafall all Y'Antari. Near and for raches from his Hinness's hom. The Queen washes to eeze the bordon. Her hinness requires servonts. Sikeness has rached even our Reyels. Her hinness would took yer staving babies to the palace." The short woman whispered something. "No babies… Waninos… no adults… dese of leerning aiges."

"I understand. She wants to take our children away." He clarified for our neighbors who murmured amongst themselves. I could see it made him angry and I knew that much was clear to the women. They bowed their heads to placate him.

"No take. To… roscue. His Hinness cannot send help in dese dark times. Y'Antari herts near and for, Jeff."

My father took a long hard look around our rustic township. I was leaning out the window again, trying to catch some of the goings on. I was impetuous in our village, before Antar made me shy. "You do have a point. I lost my wife to disease and malnourishment. I have a daughter, 14, and she'll go the same way if it doesn't rain soon. She's all I have and I don't want to give her away under any circumstances. My people will all tell you the same." He took a breath. "There's no guarantee that our children aren't being taken to be whores or slaves."

The women conversed before the shorter woman stepped forward and spoke with even more broken Tirera. "King Zan hos don a way wit slavs, Jaif. Keen Ava lokin ofter herr peypley… so tha we con contanu to hove peypley win the seeckness and drote hove past. Dey weell be edoocayted well. She bils a soceety wit oat class."

"Our King has died then."

"King Zan take hees bride a yeer ago and is king shotly thereofter."

"Young Zan, already." Father looked to our neighbors. They all pleaded with their eyes. Our village was dying but we still had some hope left. "We will discuss it with our children. We will have an answer tonight."

--

Elizabeth Parker, my Tirera name, and two boys, younger than I, rode in a wagon behind the carriage for two days before we were separated. The boys were going to become soldiers and I was going to the palace for my education. Our parents promised we would live well. That if King Aperys had been a good man then King Zan must be one as well. We were loved and sacrifices had to made to ensure we would see adulthood without starving first.

We were separated immediately upon entering the city. The boys were taken by the soldiers to the training barracks. I was taken with a group of girls to a place deep within the city. None of the other girls spoke Tirera and they shunned me. No one in the room could or would answer my questions. We were led to a bathhouse where silent women took over the thorough cleansing and dressing of us all. Then we were led to another building to a room with nothing but beds. Soft beds with soft sheets and pillows filled with something other than dried straw.

--

In the morning I was taken away from the place I knew to be my new home and instructed on my chores. I was to wash floors in a part of the building we hadn't been shown the night before. The servant who addressed me did not speak Tirera but her meaning came across fairly well as she gestured to the bucket and brushes. I stared at the huge room and then down at my new dress. It was nicer than any I had owned back home. Immediately, I missed my father. Taking a few laces from my shoes, I tied the dress around my thighs to keep it from brushing the floor as I cleaned, rather immodest but helpful. I placed my shoes against the wall and got to work. I had never seen a place with such a smooth floor as this one. It was not dirt and not any stone I had ever seen.

By the time I was done, the servant had returned to collect me for a meal. Though I was tired, I rushed to remove the laces from my dress and to put on my shoes. I was starving, even more so than I had been back home. The girls stood along two sides of a long table where bowls had been placed. The servant called out across the room and all the girls bowed their heads and lifted their arms into the air. Confused, I just watched until I was prodded in the back by a woman I had not even known was behind me. Awkwardly, I raised my hands and bowed my head. The servant spoke loudly and clearly though the words were lost on me. I only understood one word. "Y'Antari."

Finally we were allowed to sit and eat. The food was brought in and all the girls served. The smells made my mouth water. Then I realized what we had done. We had said prayers, like the ones Father said with me before meals. They were so weird, these Antarians. Still, starving, I accepted my new routine and raised the spoon to my mouth. The broth was delicious. The vegetables rich and sweet, the meat juicy and well-seasoned. If I never had another fancy meal in my life, I would die happy.

I could hear the other girls slurping and one by one, I saw them prodded in the back by a woman walking up and down the length of the table, admonishing them. I was careful not to slurp myself. Father hated that noise. If the girls slouched, they were prodded, if they slurped, they were prodded, if they ate with their mouths open, they were prodded. They had to use their napkins instead of their dresses. Had to avoid scraping their bowls. Had to keep their eyes forward. Had to keep silent. Had to make sure they did nothing to receive another prod.

A voice sounded over my head but I didn't know who they were speaking to until I was prodded and the voice came again. Frightened, I didn't know what to do or why I had been prodded. The words stuttered out of my mouth. "N-N-n Ni. Yan… Ya… Y'antare."

"Ni. Y'Antari." The voice re-emphasized the pronunciation for me.

"Yes. Ni Y'Antari." I vowed I would remember to say it correctly for fear of another sharp prod.

"You speak the Tirera." Another voice spoke up.

"Yes. I am Tirera." I answered softly. I was relieved for all of nine seconds until she spoke to me again.

"You will learn to understand Y'Antari but you will not speak it. Do you understand?" The voice spoke again in flawless Tirera.

"Yes."

"Good. You are the only girl to keep herself clean while doing her chores and eating. Was your family prominent?"

"My family is very poor but my father is our magistrate."

"Your entire village knows only Tirera?"

"My father and some elders understand a little Y'Antari."

"Why were you not taught?"

"There was no need. No Y'Antari ever come to our village."

"Your King is Y'Antari. Was that not enough reason?"

"Forgive me for trying your patience but we did not even know that King Aperys had passed. News from the palace does not reach us very fast. By the time we get it, it has been translated for us."

"Are you ready to serve the palace in exchange for many meals just like the one you have just consumed?"

"Yes. I am ready to do as I must to please just as I promised my father."

"Good. You've been selected to enter the next room. You are excused from the remainder of your chores today."

I placed my napkin on the table next to my bowl and rose as other girls were as well. We were all escorted into the next room where other girls waited, all seated in rows, all silent and all nervous.

A small blonde woman entered the room and the servants in charge bowed their heads. She rattled off some Y'Antari and left again.

"Yarisa!" The servant in charge called out.

I did as the other girls did and rose, trying to commit the word to memory and the action it required. A servant stood at the end of the row and made herself very stiff.

"Pluturi." Came the command and the first girl in the row stood next to the servant with the same posture. She was taller than the servant and the head servant barked out another command. "Juticho." The girl was quickly removed from the line and sent to the back of the room. On and on until the girls in the front row were only those just as tall as the servant or shorter. Then the next row was examined. All those who did not meet the height requirement were shown to the back of the room and then when all were gathered, shown out into the dining hall once more.

Once the girls were condensed into the first few rows of seats, the head servant spoke again. "Valco man elta rejono."

Tearfully, several girls rose to their feet and removed themselves from the seats. After a moment, I realized they all had blonde hair. I felt the nervousness creep upon me. What would be done with short girls with brown hair?

"Valco man elta nacoosa."

Several girls blushed and bowed their heads. I did not understand until a woman at the front of the room caught my eye and spoke my language. The same servant from the dining hall. "Girls who are not virgins must rise and leave."

The remaining twenty girls were squeezed into the front row. Two women started at either end and took measurements. Girls who had developed quite well were excluded from the remainder of the routine, escorted out the back of the room. One girl was strikingly beautiful and all the servants stared at her for a long moment before nodding to each other and telling her to leave.

I began to panic. What was to be done about the girls left in the room? Whispers rang in my head of conversations Father had had with the neighbors about the ill will they feared for us. Had they been right to worry? The head servant cleared her throat. "Lo nira nan emmo."

The girls put their hands out for inspection and I did the same, a split second later unsure if non-compliance would be punished as it had been in the dining hall. The blonde woman returned to the room and looked us over. She examined our hands, sending those away with rough hands. The remaining four kept our hands out as she lay hers beside ours. Her skin was a flawless pale complexion and none of ours matched hers, she made a face but started over in her inspection. She spoke over her shoulder. "Valco nena modoro."

"Valco man elta rejono… fotta cira, Y'Anri."

"Valco man nicha." She sighed and examined our faces. "Lo nire nan emmo." Our hands dropped to our sides. "Pos nicha mane shiso."

"Lo Tirera."

"Lo Tirera?" The blonde whipped around to face the speaker. "Cira?"

"Lo Tirera." The head servant spoke again. "Lo Tirera mane shiso, di mane santi, di mane seniche. Na Y'Antari."

"Maxicho." The blonde turned. "Maxicho."

"Go with the lady." The Tirera speaking servant said. "And learn Y'Antari. You will need it. She understands not a word of Tirera."

"Losicho." The blonde spat and slapped her hand over the Tirera-speaking servant's face. "Botsi sci sala."

"Na Y'Antari. Binina Tirera. Na botsta."

"Maxicho!" The blonde called again and I rushed to follow the woman through the halls. The blonde didn't speak again until we had walked through many fine rooms and had ended in a bathing house inside the building. The woman must be very important. "Niroso linto ne macha." Then she pointed to a corner hidden by a curtain.

I meekly walked over and opened it to find cleaning materials. I was to clean this bathroom everyday, then.

"Aischa masa dechko." She pointed to another curtain.

I opened that curtain and found it led to a short corridor that wound around the corner and into a room the size of Father's house. It had a bed in the corner and a bureau beside it. There was a large bed with extravagant sheets taking up the wall with the window. Then I realized the blonde woman had followed me in.

"Masa dechko." She pointed to the small bed. Then she gestured to the curtain that surrounded the small bed and bureau. "Mene ando." Then she stepped closer. "Anot posto anira." She patted her cheeks softly. "Iso macha."

Nodding, I took a seat on my bed and just stared at the other bed, wondering who it was for. The blonde swept away back through the curtain, closing it after her. I sat alone in the room for hours before the servant from before came to lead me to the dining hall for dinner. "You will need to learn your routine and to learn Y'Antari soon. I will not be in the servant's roster much longer. I've been reassigned. All you have to do is listen. You will pick it up. How old are you?"

"14."

"Fine. If you value your position in this place, you will not become any prettier or more desirable than you are now. I do not know where I am being sent but I hear it is not as pleasant as I've become accustomed to here."

"She said some things to me. There's another bed in my room that I can't use." I rushed to get it all out before my only ally was taken from me.

"You are her bath maid, my former position. You will wake when the sun rises and ready a bath for her. You will wash her and help her dress. When she is gone, you will clean and then you will come down for your first meal. You will wait for orders from the head servant The other bed… you had best hope it never gets used."

"Did it hurt when she hit you?"

"No more than usual." The servant shut her mouth and raised her hands to the sky and bowed her head. I was quick to copy. Learning the rhythm of the prayer that had been spoken at lunch. When we all sat to eat, there was murmuring but nothing above a whisper.

"Why should I hope not?"

"I got too pretty. I used the bed. She ripped the clothes from my back and sent me away. You're my replacement. Tomorrow I will show you how to do your chores and then I will be gone."

"Nishacho." A voice called and the room was silenced.

Confused, I ate my supper and waited to be escorted back to my room, memorizing the route along the way. I sat on my bed and cried. I wanted to go home. Good food or no. Nice clothes or none. I missed my father and my village.

Present Day. Avery's interview with Liz.

"You were a bath maid?" I felt my face wrinkle in disgust. Liz just shakes her head that I am being childish. "All alone with no tongue. I would have gone mad."

"I very nearly did." She tells me. Then she reaches for a pitcher by her bedside. "They will not let Vlastina come here but you will take to Vlastina my milk. She is still so young to rely on what that infernal cook doles out for your father's babies."

I stare at her. She is sending me away like a child with a chore to be done. "What are you and Father hiding? You speak in the same circles. I ask a question and you tell me stories that have nothing to do with why I must interview you both."

"In time, Avery, my prince." Liz bows her head to me. "Your sister needs the milk. Take it to her and come back. I will speak more then."

TBC

[DMartinez]

The Queen of Antar
Trains a bath maid

Present Day. The Nursery.

I cannot find staff willing to take over Liz's position and I must feed my baby sister myself. I want to weep for her. She is too young to remember Mother when she is older. I am told Vlastina has fussed for two days but, here, drinking the milk she has been denied, she is calm and sleepy. When Lord Larek finds me, I am still rocking her though she fell asleep some time ago. I never appreciated the bond I have with my siblings before when Liz would have me help her with the little ones.

"How are the interviews coming?" His voice is light. He inspects the nursery, perhaps comparing it to his own.

"Slow. Father is reluctant to speak." I say and wonder where all my other little siblings are. I imagine 19-year-old Danei is in a class. She has refused to see anyone for days. Killae turns 16 in just a few days. He must be very upset. Anson is just 14. He was supposed to begin his training soon. Bev is eleven and I know has not left her room since she heard the news. Peyta, eight, has been playing with her dolls. I'm not sure she understands what's going on. Jaif is only six and I wonder if Father has sat him down to explain. Four-year-old Regei must be with a servant because I have not seen him. Vlastina is barely 7 months old but her I hold in my arms.

"Avery, please. Pay attention." Larek grabs my attention.

"Sorry. My brothers and sisters are not all here and I wonder how they are faring." I try to explain. There are nine of us. The highest number of princes and princesses to descend from a single-set King and Queen since the beginning.

"I will see to it that they are being cared for, all of them." He shakes his head, his thoughts probably mirroring my own. "He must have loved her dearly to have so many children by her and her alone."

"I can only hope for the same." I say as I place my baby sister into her seldom-used cradle. As I set her inside, I'm hit by a memory. My father asleep in bed with me, a young child, my mother's breath on my cheek as I suck my thumb. I can't remember having a cradle. I don't truly remember being in Father's room before.

"Avery, I know this is a tough assignment but I trust that you will find the truth, no matter how long it takes or what pressures are put on you." He places his hands on my shoulders. "Your father raised you to be a good man. Lady Nikas would like to tear down his monarchy but I believe Zan is the man to rule over us. Make sure of everything before you report to anyone… even me."

"I understand. I have to finish my talk with Liz. Call in a nurse for Vlastina, please."

"I will."

I stalk down the hallways back to Liz's rooms. I have to finish this. I have to clear Liz because more than ever, the princes and princesses of Antar need her. I step past the guards to find Liz is closing up her dress, another pitcher of milk for Vlastina ready. "She sleeps better now."

"Good." She sighs happily and sets aside the small pitcher. "Are you back for more questions?" She shakes her head and smiles at me. She touches my face and brushes back my hair. "I remember when it was you I suckled. You have grown so much."

"Don't change the subject, Liz." I plead with her. It's unbecoming, a man of my age begging, but I am becoming so frustrated. "Father claims there was no love lost between you and my mother. I know you wouldn't kill her. I need proof. I need you to tell me something to help clear you."

She strokes my face and takes a seat near to the window. "I could tell that story, if you like. It feels like a lifetime ago…"

24 years ago. Liz's second day in Antar.

When the first rays of the sun splashed upon my face, I rose from bed and smoothed out my clothes. I met the servant in the bathing room. We waited in silence until we heard stirring in the main chambers and then rushed to fill the tub with water from a spout on the wall. Amazingly, the water was warm. I had never seen such a thing in my life. When the tub was mostly filled, the blonde woman emerged sleepy-eyed and mussed. Her hair, beautiful the day before, was frizzed and squashed. She dropped her robe on the floor and held out her hand. I rushed to stand next to her. The blonde woman set her hand on my shoulder to aid her climb into the tub. She ducked under the water to wet her hair and rose under the small waterfall.

I tried to avert my eyes but I was fascinated that one person could use so much water to bathe in. The water splashed down her hair, onto her face and down her naked body. The I blushed when I realized I was staring at a naked older woman, I was so young then. The woman opened her eyes; sparkling blue jewels, and nodded to the servant. "Na sururu." She laughed. She cupped her breasts. "Pesa nelata ondi shana."

Ignoring the woman, the servant pointed to the assorted washcloths and soaps. We got to work. I made sure I remembered how to do everything, I did not know the penalty but I was determined to do my job. The soft cloths were used for her skin with the creamy soap. The mass of curls were lifted and scrubbed by hand with a gooey soap and then with a creamy soap but a different one from the body soap. They were rinsed with more warm water. A rougher cloth was used to wash her face, removing yesterdays powders and creating a rosy glow from her cheeks. Then I offered my shoulders once more as the blonde woman climbed out of the tub and waited to be pat dry with a large soft towel. The servant showed me how to trim her body hair. I couldn't fathom how I would ever do such a thing alone when my companion was gone. Still, I paid close attention.

Then came dressing the blonde woman. Underskirts upon underskirts and camisoles until she was well covered and supported by a belly belt. The blonde woman left and the servant got busy cleaning, as did I. "Everyday?"

"Sh." The servant admonished. When it was dead silence in the bathing room. The servant opened her mouth. "She thought it was funny that you blushed when you saw her body. She said one day you would get breasts of your own. I advise that you do not." She kept me from speaking more. "Finish cleaning quickly and we will have our lunch and I will show you around as well as I can. You are always to be back in your room by nightfall."

It took two hours to clean everything we had used to bathe the blonde and to drain the tub for cleansing. The servant whispered instructions and reminders to be silent and to remember how to do everything. "When the wash cloths get threadbare, you will throw them out and go to the head servant after the meal and tell her you need more. 'Y'anri mesna doshbala.' If the supplies to clean run low. Go to the same woman and say 'Y'anri mesna kilsh.' Don't speak to her in Tirera. She will slap you."

"Why doesn't anyone speak it but you?"

"I am the last of the Tirera who served King Aperys. His wife used to be the one I served until King Zan's coronation. One by one, we've all been relocated to other jobs or traded in for younger servants. You are the only Tirera in King Zan's home."

"King Zan lives here?"

"You are in the palace. Sh. Someone's coming."

The Palace. A woman servant came in to inspect the work and then snapped her fingers for us to follow. We were led to the dining hall for lunch. Afterwards, the servant took me to the chapel. "You may come in here after your chores are done. You have to learn the gods of Y'Antari and forget the God of Tirera. When you learn enough Y'Antari, talk to the priestess about learning more. She will show you the other places you are allowed to go. Y'Anri leaves the palace every week for three days and you will have to occupy your time aside from your chores. Use those days to cleanse yourself in the bathhouse. I will show you where. When you become a woman, talk to the priestess first. Don't let anyone else know until you have spoken to her. She is my friend and she misses the Tirera. She understands some but not all. She knows our place in the palace well."

"What is your name?" I blurted out. I had been following her around and hanging on her every word for two days but I still did not know her name.

"I am nameless in this place anymore. Y'Slida is what I am called now. You will do well not to earn that title yourself."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I've become a whore." The servant rushed to show the way to the servants' bathhouse. "Find your way back. I am needed elsewhere."

I stood there on that spot in front of the bath house and felt the most alone I had ever felt with scores of people moving around me. Slowly, I made my way back to the dining hall where they were gathering for the evening meal. My guide was not there. No one spoke to me if they spoke at all. I said her prayers with everyone else. I walked alone back to my room and lay down on the bed to cry myself to sleep.

--

I woke at dawn. I poured water into a basin from a pitcher in my small curtained room and washed my face. I straightened my clothes and walked the short pathway from my quarters to the bathing room. Moans and grunts met my ears from the passageway that led to Y’Anri’s room. Erring on the side of caution, I began readying the bath. The roar of the water muffled the sounds somewhat but I could hear all the same. I knelt in a corner when the bath was done and the sounds went on. I wasn’t stupid but naïve a bit. My village’s homes were close together. I knew what was going on in there… vaguely. I expected to find that one day soon Y’Anri would emerge from her chambers with a round belly, expecting a child.

The sounds reached a fever pitch. I heard a man speaking Y’Antari and after several long moments, Y’Anri entered the bathing room without a stitch on her. I rushed to help her into the bath and set about the day’s ritual. It was during the bath that a servant entered with the day’s clothes.

“Y’Antaru anostoru?” Y’Anri asked the servant.

“Anostoro, Y’Anri.” The servant backed out of the bathing room and I finished my work. Once Y’Anri was dressed, I was free to clean the mess. When I was done, I washed up in my room once more and found my way through the twists and turns to the dining hall. I quickly moved into place for the prayer. I then realized I had been relegated to the end of the table. No one tried to talk to me. No one acknowledged my presence. It was better than the obvious rudeness I had been afforded in the maiden house but I knew I would be very lonely in the palace.

The meal passed quickly but I was still seated when several servants leapt up from their seats to collect the trunks lined against the wall. A procession passed by the door and Y’Anri was at the head of it. A sharp word from one of the others had my eyes on my food once more. When I picked up my head again, the procession, the trunks and Y’Anri were gone. The servants began talking louder and more spirited but they still ignored the little Tirera girl at the end of the table.

When my tray was taken, I stood and froze. Someone behind me gasped, alerting me that it was not in my head. My skirt was wet. I was grasped and rushed away from the table by an ample-bosomed servant who clucked the whole way to the chapel where I was thrust onto my knees in front of a woman in a long robe. The woman stared at the servant. “Nishana, nishtoo, Bawo.”

“Anayana.” The servant bowed and rushed out again.

“Bawila.” The robed woman knelt.

“Bawila.” I whispered, in awe of the incredibly old looking woman who also looked as though she could single-handedly plow all the fields in Parkston. “Ni Y’Antari.”

“Ah.” The woman nodded and seemed to think of something. “Dosbali mena Y’Anri.”

“Yes.” I whispered, afraid she would be hit for answering in Tirera. I had been told not to speak it but how was I to answer questions if I couldn't speak it.

“Molana Tirera. Bawo Lodona.” She patted her robes. “Bawo Lodona.”

“Elizabeth Parker.” It was the first time anyone had even implied they wanted to know my name since arriving and it felt good to acknowledge that I did have a name.

“Ah… Elizabeth Parker matscho Tirera. Na, Liz Paka mats Y’Antari. Liz.” She patted my hair but I was so very scared. Of her, of my soiled clothes… of everything. She kept talking but it was so hard for me to follow along. I had been in Antar for two days. I knew next to nothing. “Elizabeth Parker dorir Tiera. Liz amasta Y’Antari… Liz amasta nacisa.” She examined the soiled folds of the dress. “Nacisa. Doma.” She pulled me to my feet and drew me to the back of the chapel. “Liz…”

“Liz, that’s me.” I, the former Elizabeth Parker, nodded that I understood what she was telling me. I, Liz Paka as I had been dubbed, followed as well as I could to the little room in the back of the chapel that looked like a bathhouse. But Bawo Lodona used water from a basin to bathe me as if I were Y’Anri. She gave me my supplies for my rite of passage into womanhood and sat me down beside the large basin of water to talk while we washed my clothes.

I still couldn’t understand half of what Bawo Lodona was saying but the hand gestures were universal. Maybe Tirera and Y'Antari once spoke the same language… long, long ago. I was a woman now. A woman capable of bringing life into the world once I married. I was to leave behind my world. The world of starvation and one god and all of Tirera and become Y’Antari as best as I was able. I was not to talk to anyone until I had mastered Y’Antari. No one in the palace was to know I was Tirera… not even Y’Anri, who, it seemed, was often forgetful. After midday meal, I was to attend chapel to learn prayers… which Bawo Lodona knew in Tirera and would help translate until I was able to make the necessary correlations.

After a prayer, Bawo Lodona dipped my head in the water and said a prayer over me. Cleansed, informed and baptized, I made my way to the dining hall for the evening meal. The servant who had ushered me to the chapel was gone. No one seemed to notice or care.

I went to bed and rose when the sun rose. I waited in the bathroom after my own morning ritual and waited. After an hour, I peered into the corridor and followed its winding path to Y’Anri’s chambers. I knew I probably shouldn't but Y'Anri had never waited so long to bathe in a morning. I had to find out why. There was a dark-haired man in the bed, alone and asleep. Y’Anri was not there. Relieved, I went back to my room to wait until it was time for the midday meal.

Present Day. Avery in Liz's chambers.

"That's it?" I say, incredulously.

"It's just the beginning, impatient young one." She chides me. "I'm hungry. Let's eat and then I will tell you more."

"Why must you and father both start at the beginning of things when the beginnings have no pertinence in the matter at hand?" I groan and throw myself on the bed like a child. Liz lies next to me, pillowing my head on her bosom. She kisses my forehead but says nothing. "Why?"

"I have learned the hard way that leaping into the middle of things leaves you open to attack. You wouldn't jump into battle without first knowing who you were fighting for or against, would you?"

"No."

"Then, if you must conduct these interviews, you have to know who you suspect and who you must clear. You won't find your mother's killer by the days you remember. Any enemies she made were made early on."

"I suppose you are right."

"Yes, I am. Come. Ask them to bring us lunch. A feast. Vlastina's appetite is draining me."

TBC

[DMartinez]

Author's Note: This is your big flaming heads up for Domestic Violence

The Queen of Antar
Meets Addiction

Present Day. Avery visits Liz's chambers.

I refrained from asking or pressing for information while Liz ate. Apparently they hadn't been treating her well. Water and bread to eat. I had to remind them that she was the royal nursemaid and if her diet suffered, so suffered the diet of a royal princess, who still needed the milk. I had them bring up her favorite foods. Liz has never been a hard woman to please. I think I know why, now. Growing up poor in Tirera and then being practically lavished in Antar. Her very favorite treat is a deep fried sweet cornmeal ball dipped in spicy mustard. A simple treat that Antarian servants forgo after living in the palace a while. I can remember that as far as I recall knowing sweet Liz. Her sometimes rapacious hunger for the little cornballs and mustard. Sweet, sweet Liz. A second mother to us all. Fretting over us when we grew too old to rely on her.

Her big brown eyes lift to mine. "Have you spoken to your father?"

"I told you I did." I remind her.

"I mean, how is he?"

"He hasn't left his rooms in two days. He's paranoid that someone will eavesdrop on our interviews." I tell her. "He's… holding up."

"No, he's not." She shakes her head sadly. She probably knows him as well as Mother did. "He's afraid, Avery. Afraid of the interviews."

"Aren't you? You're the prime suspect."

She stares at me and dips a cornball in mustard before popping it into her mouth. Once chewed and swallowed, she sits up straight. "I have nothing to fear. I did not kill your mother. Where are the others?" I shake my head. I'm a bad brother. I still haven't checked in on them. She shakes her head at me. "Danei is hiding, isn't she? She's not going to classes and she is refusing suitors…" Liz sighs heavily. "Killae is probably stabbing a practice dummy to death. Anson is in the barn. Bev has not come out of her room, not even to eat. Has he spoken to the little ones? Do they know? Peyta? Jaif? Regei?"

"I don't suppose so. He's really upset."

"He'll get around to it. He'll realize his children need him more than ever." I let out a snort and shake my head at her. She smacks me hard on the arm. "Don't ever do that to me. You're just like your father when you do that. Humor me and check in on them and then remind your father that he has young children who need their father right now. Your father cares about you all."

"He doesn't show it."

"He can't." She settles back into her seat without explaining. "I was telling you about my first days here…"

"Please, continue, if you will not be persuaded to highlight only the pertinent details." I say calmly, my arm smarting. I can't believe she said I acted like my father. I don't.

23 years ago.

I spent the first six months doing just as I was told. I was Liz Paka, now, bath maid. I bathed Y'Anri and groomed her and dressed her. I cleaned the bathing chamber everyday. I ate my meals in silence, slowing picking up my prayers and their meanings with the help of Bawo Lodona; something I began to realize was a title much more than a name. My fifteenth birthday passed without incident or acknowledgment from anyone except Bawo Lodona, who was teaching me the ways of the Bawo, something I don't think I realized at the time. The lessons were slow as my grasp of Y’Antari was so tenuous but I tried so very hard. My father had always prided himself in having a very intelligent daughter and I struggled to maintain that… even though he would probably never know.

Y’Anri would only require my assistance on the last day of the week and first three days of the week. She would leave the palace for the remainder of the time but I did not dare ask anyone where she went or who was the man who slept in her room while she was gone. Then one night, my whole understanding of Y’Anri was changed.

Y’Anri returned from one of her jaunts angry. She was angry during her bath, shouting at me for no reason at all, striking me across the face when I pulled the laces too tight on her robes. A servant came in and bowed. “Y'Antaru anostoru.”

Inexplicably, Y’Anri calmed and even caressed the red spot on my face before waltzing back through her corridor. All went as expected for the rest of the day. I got ready for bed, pulling the curtain closed around my little area and closed my eyes. I prayed that Y'Anri would be in a better mood when I woke. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard Y’Anri’s laughter. It echoed through the corridor. Against my better judgment, I got up and inspected. In the bathing room, Y’Anri stood, naked as ever, drinking heavily from a bowl held by a man that I had never seen before. The pair fell onto each other, pulling his clothes off. I backed away, scurrying to my bed and pulling my curtain closed, scooting to the far end of the bed against the wall and behind my bureau. The giggling and grunting got closer and before I could run from the room, they were toppling, nude, onto the bed I was forbidden to touch.

I was horrified. There was nothing left to my imagination about what happens between a man and a woman. I was too young to have that knowledge. There were no corridors for sound to travel off. There were no walls to muffle. I had just the thin curtain between myself and Y’Anri who had taken a lover outside of her bedchamber. My brief glimpse of the man had me convinced that it was not the man who slept in her bed… Y’Antaru as he had been called.

Present Day. Avery's interview with Liz.

I sit here, my mouth agape. I have never in my life heard Liz speak of anything remotely sexual in nature and now she had just claimed my mother had an affair so early in her marriage. Just two days after her death, disparaging the image of my beloved mother. "If you can't speak the truth, I will leave."

Liz stared at me with sad eyes. "Do you think I like saying these things? You wanted the truth and I am speaking it. I started from the beginning. I can only attest to the events I witnessed. That night scarred me. I began to wish never to marry because of what I had seen. You think I'm being too bold but I held back because she… Y'Anri…"

Liz stumbles over her words, as if unsure how to finish her sentence. "She's my mother and you think you spare my ears but I think you're telling lies."

"That would be a mistake." She tells me. "Shall I go on? You won't like any of that either. You wanted to know why your father said that Y'Anri and I did not get on… I am telling you why."

"Finish. Please. Soon."

23 years ago.

Haggard from a night’s unrest, even after Y’Anri had taken her lover and gone, I went about my chores… adding the making of the pretty bed to my list of chores. I could not imagine the interrogation if a superior servant came in to find the bed in disarray. Not that I would have understood a word of the interrogation. Y’Anri didn’t act any different than the day before. She was irate until a servant came to tell her Y’Antaru would be gone again.

On and on it went until Y’Antaru returned. Y’Anri was pleasant enough but I could feel the anger just below the surface. I began to fear the days the servant would come in and tell Y’Anri that Y’Antaru was gone. I wouldn’t sleep in my own bed those nights. I would find some other place to bed down. Every night Y’Antaru was gone, I would find a different place to sleep so that I would not be haunted by the sights and sounds of Y’Anri’s affair. I was too afraid to tell Bawo Lodona about it but I suspected that the Bawo knew and that the Bawo was not happy about it.

--

One night, I spread a blanket under a table in the library for my bed. I fell asleep early so that I could be up early and back in the bathing room before anyone noticed I was gone. I didn't want to wonder what the penalty would be if I wasn't bedding where I was allotted. I was awakened late that night by the sound of heavy boots clomping through the library. They stopped in front of my table. I shrank back, afraid to be discovered, when the person attached to the feet sat down. A frustrated stream of Y’Antari erupted above me. All the words a mystery to my ears. One of the boots kicked a chair and I yelped, unable to muffle my startled response in time. The boots stilled and then pushed their body back. A face peered down at me. Wild hair and a beard on a face that looked weary and far too young to be that way.

“Bawila.” He greeted me nicely enough. “Kinatu dine?”

“Bawila. Ni dorli.” I whispered in my limited Y'Antari that I was sleeping.

“Dorli? Batsa nila?” He reached for my hand, looking me over with a look I’d often received from male servants over lunch. “Batsa dechko?”

“Dosbali mena Y’Anri.” I hesitantly took it and climbed out with my blanket tucked under one arm, explaining my station. His eyes widened and he dropped my hand.

“Batsa nila?” He asked, all kindness in his face gone. “Batsa dechko dorli Y’Anri?”

I cowered and lowered my eyes. He grabbed my head and made me look at him. My heart pounded, wondering if I'd inadvertently said something wrong to deserve the harsh treatment. He reached backward and grabbed a book off the table. Afraid he was going to hit me, I fell to the floor. I could take Y'Anri's slaps but I feared a man's fist would harm me too much. When I peered up at him, he was staring, dumbfounded at my actions. He flipped open the book. “Nost malia. Y’Anri desh iska neytsa?”

My eyes lifted to the page he showed me. “Iska.” I whispered and pointed to the bowl Y’Anri often drank from when she had her lover over.

“Iska?!” He exploded and tossed the book away, storming from the room. I stayed right where I was, my blanket pulled against my body like a shield. I stayed where I was until dawn began creeping in the windows. I quietly picked up the book and put it back on his table and made my way back. When I sat in my quarters, the pretty bed was mussed again but this time blood spotted the sheets. Cleaning myself, I entered the bathing room to begin the day’s ritual. When I began to fill the tub, shouting came from Y’Anri’s chambers. I recognized the voices. It was then I realized the man from the library was Y’Antaru.

I waited in the bathing room until the water began to cool. The fighting went on and on. Suddenly there was an explosive burst from Y’Antaru and Y’Anri was thrown through the corridor and into the bathing room, Y’Antaru shouting the entire time. He ripped the robes off her back and threw Y’Anri into the cool bath water. She shrieked and a mess of Y’Antari spilled from her lips. I stayed very still in the corner where I kept my head bowed. Tears slipped down my face. I never meant for Y'Anri to be beaten and humiliated. Y’Antaru was very angry and I understood that Y’Anri had done something very wrong with the other man and the bowl. It went deeper than her affair and I felt that in my bones. Still, I was scared of Y'Antaru and prayed that his anger would not be directed at me for informing him of the situation.

“Na nacisa. Na kena nacota!” Y’Antaru screamed at her. “Paritsaht nacota!”

He stormed out, leaving Y’Anri weeping and cold in the water. I crept forward and began bathing Y’Anri, who did not move. Who did not strike. Who did not say a word the entire time. She sat on a chair after I dressed her and stared at nothing while I cleaned the bathroom around her. I had just finished when the robes came sweeping in.

Bawo Lodona looked menacing, so I knelt in my corner with my head down. The sharp crack didn’t make me look up. I couldn't. Y'Anri had done something so bad, the gentle Bawo had struck her. The Bawo was angry at what crime Y’Anri had committed. The kind woman had struck the blonde who I had once thought held great importance to the Y’Antari.

“Nacota! Na jenos pia curoa.” Bawo hissed. She turned and spotted me and flicked her hand to my door. “Liz, candono.”

I got to my feet and made my way to the dining hall where the prayer had already started. I rushed to my place and lifted my hands, starting at the beginning and not sitting until I was done, much to the annoyance of the others who found it disrespectful to eat while someone was still saying their prayers. When the meal was over, I rose to make the trek to the chapel but was stopped at the door. Y’Anri was inside, praying with Bawo Lodona.

Y’Antaru sat on a bench blocking the chapel door, smoking from rolls instead of a pipe. I paused at the turn in the building, trying not to be seen but it was futile. Y’Antaru took a long drag on his cigar and blew the smoke out slowly. “Ma deni ha. Domo.”

Hesitantly, I approached and knelt at the end of the bench he’d used to keep the chapel shut. His question came out harshly. “Peshcha quaro?”

I had to think hard. How long had it been going on? I held out my hand, four of my fingers extended. Then I made the symbol of the moons with my hand. He spit at the ground but said nothing so I put my hand down. He puffed on the cigar, his smoke filling the alcove with the choking smell. I stayed still, my head bowed but it wasn’t long before I had passed out from lack of fresh air.

--

When I woke up, I was in a strange bed and Bawo was talking about me. About my progress, about how I was studying to become Bawo one day. Then I picked out some disturbing Y’Antari… if I chose to become Bawo, I would never marry and never have children of my own.

Then again…. If my child could not know the goodness of a land within the Tirera, there was no point. I was educated and well-fed. That was what my father had sent me away for. I would put up with the crazy Y’Antari ways because my father thought it was better than starving to death or dying the way my mother had in our barren lands.

Present Day. Avery's interview with Liz.

"My father hit her?" My mind reeled with that information. I had always thought my father incapable of harming anyone.

"He was upset. He loved your mother very much. I think a piece of him died that day."

"Did he do it again?"

"I wish I could say he didn't." Liz averted her eyes.

"Did Father kill Mother?" I had to force the words out, my lunch beginning to revolt.

"No." She lifted her chin, her eyes hard and resolute. I want to believe her but if he could strike Mother, it was not impossible that he killed her. Perhaps Father was guilty that Liz had suspected when it had been Father who had done it… unable to deal with her infidelity after all these years.

TBC

[DMartinez]

Author's Note: The following post will contain domestic violence and a scene involving intercourse to be construed as non-consensual. While not graphic, it is still descriptive and this is your final warning.

The Queen of Antar
Steals Innocence

Present Day. Prince Avery's rooms.

I am burdened with knowledge. Some of my father's actions are now explained. He kept Mother in a cage. Under constant guard with the very best soldiers. His most trusted allies. The only times I did not see my mother when I wished were when she was pregnant. She and Liz always went to her home in the far reaches until the child had come, then they would return under fanfare. My mother always beautiful with a baby in her arms. I vaguely remember the day she brought home Killae. I was so jealous. I had not seen my mother for five months and there she was, greeting all those citizens and showing off my little brother before she would even greet me.

The knock grabs my attention. So soft. Unofficial business, whoever it is. "Enter!"

"Avery?" Danei. She peers inside and then rushes into my open arms. "How can they say those things about Liz?" She hiccups and clutches on so tight, I think I might pass out. "She would never. I hate Mother for dying. I hate her. I wish—"

"Stop it." I order and pull away. "Who was talking to you about this?"

"Lady Nikas. She said that Liz is a whore who will burn forever in the inferno. Everything was fine. Find out who did it, Avery." She pleads. My beautiful little sister with our father's eyes and his temperament. "Find them and kill them."

"I would but… my interviews are crawling along. Father and Liz are not cooperating as much as I would like."

"What are they saying? Can you tell me? I can help. I have to help."

"Sh…" I brush her hair out of her face and kiss her forehead. "You can help me with Father. He's heart-broken and forgets he has children who need him. Help with the children. Vlastina needs to be fed Liz's milk and they aren't letting her close to the baby."

"Can you tell me what Liz is telling you?" My little sister pleads with me. She hates to feel powerless.

"Not now. When it's all over, I… someone will tell you. I still don't know what's going on. I'm trying."

"Can I see her?"

"As soon as I can arrange it, Liz will see you all."

--

I watch her. Liz traces our faces in a small portrait she's procured somehow. All eleven of us. Father, Mother, myself, Danei, Killae, Anson, Bev, Peyta, Jaif, Regei and Vlastina. Looking over her shoulder, I muse on how wrong that portrait looks without Liz in it. She is as much a part of our royal family as Mother and Father. A nursemaid, maybe but part of the family. "Are you ready to talk some more?"

"Have you talked to your father?" She asks without turning.

"I've delegated the task to Danei."

"They're going to fight." She sets aside the portrait and moves to her rocking chair next to the window. "Where did I leave off? I was telling you why Y'Anri and I never got on…"

22 years ago.

I continued with my duties with a forlorn Y'Anri to tend after. Even well groomed, she was not as beautiful as she once was, despite my untrained eye. Her visits away from the palace became less frequent but longer in length with more guards when I could catch a glimpse of the procession.

I remember one day feeling she had regained it all in a blink. Her color, her vibrancy, her meanness. All in such a short span. From forlorn to openly wicked. Y'Anri's old self returned with a vengeance. Everyday I sat at the dining table with a new bruise on my body. Rarely did she strike my face hard enough to bruise but I wasn't alone. There were others but no one ever talked about it. No one ever talked to me, at least. I picked up a little more of the language but barely enough to get by on. Learning the meaning of prayers was hard enough.

I did my best to remain in good spirits. Doing as I was told, visiting with Bawo Lodona when I could, exploring the palace when I feared Y'Anri could surprise me with a complaint and an open palm. The other servants stayed away from me, never calling me in to interact. I began to sense that whatever Y'Slida did, I was accused of the same.

--

One day I went about my prayers in the chapel, ardently trying to memorize the cadence when Y'Anri was shoved into the room by Y'Antaru. They were greeted by Bawo and they vanished into the back room. Bowing my head, I kept whispering the words, paying attention to my stresses. They stayed for a long time and when they emerged, Y'Anri was crying and Y'Antaru seemed just as upset. Still, he was none too gentle when he pushed her into place to begin their prayers.

I watched their backs, straining to hear their prayers. All I heard was a flurry of hissed Y'Antari because they were arguing again. Often, I could hear them through the passageway from their chambers to the bathing room. Whatever they fought about most likely kept her in her foul moods. Their words got louder but before they could become discernable to my ears, Bawo stormed out and chided them both, refocusing them on their prayers. She spotted me and made me follow her to the back of the chapel. She muttered their titles under her breath but I couldn't catch anything else she said. I helped her set the altar for the sacred day but my sore muscles made me spill a handful of candles to the ground. I removed my robe so I could get them without tripping on my sleeves.

Bawo saw the bruises on my arms. She called over Y'Antaru. When he saw my arms, he whirled in a rage and began yelling at Y'Anri. "Nacota! Kinatu dine? Qaene tsoa doshbali? Elta nena yirmo, naj lina qaene!" Y'Anri opened her mouth to speak, her sparkling blue eyes on me. "Losicho, Nacota!"

"Y'Antaru!" Bawo Lodona bellowed, making me cover my ears and curl into a ball on the ground. "Batsa shiso! Iska Yutiro! Naj lina modoro nisa! Yarisa. Woforo."

I tried to understand what she said but all I could glean was he was behaving badly in a chapel and she was calling him on it. Telling him to pray. When I chanced glance upward. Both Y'Antaru and Y'Anri stood with their hands raised to the roof, beginning their prayers all over again. Bawo put her hands on my back and guided me back to the altar to finish setting up. As I was finishing, Y'Anri caught my eye and a shiver shot down my spine. Those blue eyes burned into me and I knew I wasn't going to sleep well in the nights to come. I could expect to be left alone for a few weeks but as soon as Y'Antaru and Bawo Lodona became complacent, I would be beaten for my role in her latest humiliation.

Present Day. Liz's chambers.

I stare at her. She's not lying. She's telling me the truth but I cannot for the life of me reconcile this picture she paints with my flawless mother. My Liz was regularly beaten by my mother? "When did she stop beating you?"

Liz reaches forward to cup my face. "22 years ago."

"Soon after she got pregnant then… Motherhood calmed her down."

Her lips curve in a smile. "You could say that."

"The beatings stopped not long after that day in the chapel?"

"It felt like an eternity. I was 16 on the day things began to change."

22 years ago.

I went about my chores. Putting away my laundry, making my bed, dusting the other bed which had not been used in some time to my great relief. I still sometimes slept in the library or the bathhouse when I could feel Y'Anri was in a mood. My birthday was largely ignored just as it had been the year before. Bawo Lodona had taken me to a bakery where a lovely woman was handing small balls of something to the children. My love for my fried cornballs started that day. It was fun. The baker let me make a basketful to take with me. She even shared her special dipping sauce with me. It was only an hour but it was the most fun I had had in the palace since arriving a year and a half before.

It was late afternoon when I sat in my room with my scrolls and my basket of fresh cornballs. I should have been aware. Y'Anri entered my room with a new dress and a small cake. I was too scared to do anything but stare at her.

"Doshbali amasta nacisa." She smiled sweetly and laid the dress on my bed, then held out the small cake. "Iska nena doshbali."

I took it and she motioned for me to eat. I liked it. It was very sweet and light with a slight bite at times. She watched as I ate the whole thing. She handed me a glass of water, which I gratefully took to wash down the oversweet cake. I started to thank her when I felt extremely woozy. My head felt heavy and my vision blurred but I stayed on my feet. I can't say for certain what happened from that point on but I know I felt a draft. For a long time, I was very cool and then I wasn't. The world spun and I floated. I thought I was flying. The stars came out to play with me. The draft came again just before a great heat settled on me. Wet and hot and all over me before it slipped inside me. I remember wave after wave of heat. The sensations were unbelievable. I exploded. My body dancing with the stars and my mind shooting out of my body and into oblivion.

My body arched up and suddenly, I could feel everything. The weight on my body, the hard part inside me, the mouth on my breasts and neck. A red haze obscured my vision. I could feel the bed beneath me, the softest sheets I've ever been on to this day. The body on top of me, inside me. The pain. He lifted my hips up off the bed as he kept hurting me. I fought for every breath and finally after much clawing, ripped the veil from my head. Every time he moved, my breath caught and I cried out. Then a white-hot heat rolled over me, pushing me towards oblivion once more. I wanted to go. To make it stop but something held me back. I could hear his grunts and pants for breath. His fingers dug into my skin and I slapped at them, trying to get them off me, so I could get away but things had progressed too far for that. I gave up. My body went limp when he stopped moving, his hot breath on my neck. I was pinned beneath his large body, tears streaming down my face.

When I turned my head, I could see my bed with my everyday dress laid out on it. My basket of cornballs. My glass of water. The plate from my birthday cake. On the floor, wrinkled and torn was the dress Y'Anri had just given me. He still lay atop me, sticky with sweat. Still inside me. Still touching me. I couldn't stop myself. I sobbed. I heaved deep breaths and wailed aloud. I was just 16. 16 for all of a day. In the back of my mind, Y'Slida's warning came back to me.

How I had I broken the rules? Had I gotten prettier? Had I developed too much? What had caused this to happen to me?

Then he placed his hands on the bed on either side of me. He pushed himself up, hovering over me, still inside me. I watched his eyes when they became visible. I watched the pupils go from large to small and then his eyes grew so wide I could see the whites all around his amber colored irises. I sobbed louder. I knew this man. "Y'Antaru…"

Present day. Liz's chambers.

I can feel my blood boiling. Father raped Liz. She was just 16 years old and he raped her. Liz takes me by my shoulders. "I'm not done yet."

"But… Father… He… how could he do that to you?"

"It was quite a while before I understood what had happened myself." She turned back to the window and rocked slightly.

I'm astonished by her dismissal of her abuse. My mother beat her, my father raped her and she's sitting there talking about it as if it were just a dream she had once. "How could you stand to be here after that?"

"I'm not done yet. Let me finish." She chides me.

22 years ago.

Y'Antaru shoved himself away from me. His hands flew to his face. "Na, na, na." He whispered and sank to his knees. I turned my gaze away and curled into a ball. My body screaming in agony.

"Iso macha. Iso gornia." He sputtered. "Kineta dine?"

I didn't understand his actions. Not any of them. Not why he would do such a thing to me or why he acted as if I had burned him when I was the one injured. He stayed on his knees and as soon as I was able, I retreated to my curtained bed, still sobbing and began to clean off, needing to get his sweat off me. I stayed behind my curtain until after he was gone, which was not until dawn. When I came out, the bed had been stripped and the torn dress gone. I readied for my morning duties but Y'Anri never came out. I couldn't go in there and check for myself, so I fled to the chapel… but I forgot my place.

I sank to my knees and clasped my hands. I prayed my way. The Tirera way. Openly weeping as the old familiar words flowed over my lips in rapidity. I felt ashamed and used and dirty. I never wanted more in my life to go home and risk starvation in Parkston than be in this palace with Y'Antaru.

Bawo Lodona and Y'Antaru walked into the chapel, talking rapidly. I hid beneath the altar and kept praying silently that neither discovered me. His words were hard to make out, marred by tears. I heard Bawo say something about a misunderstanding and I remember violently hating her in that moment. I peered out and saw him waving around the red veil. His eyes were red and his lips quivered. What right did he have to be upset? It was my virtue stolen from me. My innocence ripped away inside the palace walls. My right to be angry.

"Ti ane lo Bawo nisa botsono nacota." He blurted out.

I couldn't contain the sob as I retreated and clasped my hands. Asking for God to take me back. To let me go back. I felt like I was being punished for letting them talk me out of my faith and into falsely accepting theirs. I wanted nothing to do with anything Antarian in that moment.

"Y'Anri gorneo doshbali. Y'Slida abonto." Bawo Lodona chided him. Not his fault? Y'Anri didn't put him on top of me. Didn't make him take away the one thing I had to offer any man. The tablecloth lifted and Bawo drew me out. I was inconsolable but she was calm and she had us all kneel. She between Y'Antaru and I. We prayed for an answer to whatever had happened.

Present Day. Liz's chambers.

Queen wronged the bath maid? How? How had mother anything to do with it? I stared at my Liz and wanted to strangle my father for what he had done to her all those years ago. "Did he even apologize for what he had done? How could you ever have forgiven him?"

"Your father did apologize and eventually I did forgive him." Her mouth curves up in a smile. "Sooner than you would probably approve of but things were different than you think, Avery."

TBC

[DMartinez]

AN: Let the frustration begin and let some of your earlier questions be answered. hee hee. Am I Evil? Let's just say "I aim to misbehave."
Same warnings apply for domestic violence.

The Queen of Antar
Loses her husband

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

I throw open the door and draw my weapon, training it on my father. He just stares at me, resigned. I advance until the muzzle is flat against his sternum. My brown eyes met his amber ones. I want to pull the trigger. I want to so badly but my sister's wide eyes stop me. "If it weren't for the eight children who still respect you, I would kill you now."

"Avery, what's going on?" Danei whispers.

"Do you want her here for this?" I ask, drawing back the hammer. Danei throws herself between us, shielding Father from my pistol. "I won't say it in front of her."

"What did she tell you?" My father looks and sounds anything but kingly just now.

"She told me all about her 16th birthday." I shove the muzzle into his chest hard over Danei's shoulder.

"Avery, calm down." She pleads with me. "This is our father."

Gently, he pushes her away. "Do it, Avery." I want to. I really do. But I drop my gun hand and punch him in the face with my other fist. He takes it, though he rocks backward with the force. "Danei… go check on the little ones. Avery and I have some things to discuss." After a long moment, and a warning look to me, Danei leaves us Father sits on his trunk, his shadowed eyes on the floor. "I had never planned to tell you any of this."

"Liz told me what you did to her."

"There are things that Liz did not know when all that happened. When she arrived…" He takes a breath and motions for me to sit. "I have to tell you what she couldn't."

23 years ago.

When I ascended the throne, it was a time of deep sickness. Disease killed my father and many of our people; near and far, rich and poor, indiscriminate. Powers shifted and our higher class of citizens dwindled. I did what I could to ease the burden. I began with the palace. Slowly I phased out some useless positions that my father seemed unable to do without. Your mother and I created new class levels to keep our population from dropping from lack of available marriages. The halls began to empty but I swore we would not use slaves. Our servants would be well taken care of for their labor. Ava sent out her women to recruit from the borderlands.

Sometimes the ways of the world cannot be changed with certain people in certain places. I was determined to change that. My father kept Y'Slida in the palace and I planned never to need one. His favorite was also my mother's bath maid, thus becoming Ava’s. I gave Ava a year to find an acceptable replacement. Y'Slida could not understand my devotion to my wife. I was gone often to make sure my intentions were clear. I never really knew when the new bath maid had been instituted.

I had been out to the far reaches. The droughts were ending but citizens all over on the verge of death from starvation. I came back when a storm knocked out a bridge. I hadn't planned to come back so early. I was upset. The storm had flooded four villages and killed all the people I had hoped to save. Unable to face my wife after my grand failure, I went to the library to find some way of restoring the lands, to read the scrolls to lift my spirits. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when I sat down but I kicked a chair in frustration and the chair seemed to yelp at me. When I peered beneath the table, I found a young girl hiding with a blanket. “Hello.” I almost laughed at the picture she made down there. “What are you doing?”

“Hello.” She whispered, her brown eyes wide. I noticed that her accent was odd but I had more pressing matters at hand. “I was sleeping.”

“Sleeping? Why in here?” I asked and reached for her hand, to help her out. I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was. Young but pretty. She looked a little scared but I hadn’t shaved in weeks. I must have been very scary to a girl of 13 or 14. “Why not in your quarters?”

She took my hand and climbed out with her blanket. She seemed to hesitate on her response. “I’m Y’Anri’s bath maid.”

I can’t explain everything that ran through my head at that moment. Feelings and events out of place for some time now had all started to shift and focus for me. I had not been as attentive to my young wife as I should have been. Dealing with Y’Slida and the famine, the drought. All the problems of our kingdom had taken me from my wife for far too long. Often when I came back from a trip, I would make love to her and I would sleep for days until I had to go again. When that girl, who should have been sleeping near to my wife, said she wasn’t, my heart stopped. I dropped her hand as if she had burned me. “Why in here? Why not in her highness’s quarters?”

She began to shrink away from me, averting her eyes. I cannot begin to describe the dark side of me that erupted. I grabbed her head at the base of her skull and forced her to look at me. I reached for a scroll on the table. It was one I had been studying before I left. Before I could turn back, the girl had fallen to the ground as if to protect herself from me. I gaped, opened mouthed and dumbly held out the scroll to her and opened it to the page that had interested me in the days following my wedding. “Look in here. Which bowl did the Queen drink from?”

Scared, she lifted her eyes to the scroll and pointed with a shaking hand. “This one.”

My heart exploded. It broke. It shattered. My fears. My silent fears were being realized. “That one!” I bellowed, needing some sort of release. I tossed away the book and stormed through the palace to my rooms. My vision flared with starbursts and I was afraid that I had gone mad. I knew that she had expressed unnatural interest in the nectar when we had married. I should have known that a woman of her class would not have access to the nectars that Bawo blesses us with. I should have seen it coming. I had only one hope left and that was for Ava to be alone when I reached my rooms.

I threw the door open and my bed was empty. The sheets pulled back, ready for one of us to climb in to sleep but otherwise empty and undisturbed. Then I heard the sounds. Sounds that haunt me. A man’s voice. My wife’s voice. Passionate sounds. I followed them through the passageways to her bathing room where her clothes lay strewn about and the sacred bowl, wet and empty on the floor, to the bath maid’s chambers where I know there had always been kept a bed for a King to take a lover. A bed I never intended to use and had planned on removing when I found a moment.

There I found my wife on top of my first guard, doing things we had never done together. A man my father had trusted beyond all others. I cannot accurately recall the following events but I remember Ava screaming and Kivar bellowing in pain. When I was still again… I had blood on my hands, Kivar was a quivering bloody pulp and Ava was bawling her eyes out. I don’t know when Bawo Lodona arrived but she pulled me back into my rooms where I sat like a mute fool until she pushed Ava into the room, vowing to get rid of Kivar for me.

I stared at her. The woman I had waited a year to marry. Who I had defied convention to be with and I had no clue who she was. Stealing nectar and rutting with my guard while I was away. I knew it was not the first time and had I not seen the little bath maid in the library, I had no doubt they would have continued to make a fool out of me. “How could you do this to me? To us?”

“Zan, I… when did you get back? Why didn’t you send word?”

“So you could continue to lie to me about how much you love me?” I was calm at first, my voice low.

"I do love you."

"Then what in the inferno were you doing on top of my guard?" I couldn't keep it up. My heart ached. It took over my mouth. "Abusing sacred nectars? You are the Queen of all Antar and you broke the law! Our place is not merely one of chance. It is a privilege and a duty and by marrying under the Sun, invoking the blessing of the Granilith, we promised to uphold the laws of the land. To be good people to lead our people. If anyone ever found out, they would demand your head! I would be bound by law to cut it off myself! How could you do this to me?"

"How could you leave me alone?" She screamed at me. "All I ever wanted was to be by your side. To be your wife. I didn't know I would be abandoned and unloved!"

"Unloved?" I whispered and grabbed a hold of the trunk at the foot of the bed, spilling its contents to the ground. "All of this. Useless shit! I bartered for it all. Called in favors to buy you things you like when I should be pawning it all to pay someone to carry water to the far reaches! I cannot be by your side always. I have responsibilities. I am the King! You are the Queen and you shame us all by behaving like a whore!"

"Don't call me that."

"Do you deny fornicating down the hall from your marriage bed?" I grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look at herself in the mirror. "Look at you! Crying for that deceiving snake! Disloyal! Treason to the crown! I should behead you both!" She closed her eyes against her image. "Open your eyes, whore. I married a pure and virtuous woman who promised me she would help me realize the dreams I had for our land. Stripping the upper classes of power and raising up the lower classes to give them voices. I loved that woman. With all my heart. I saved myself, against my father's wishes, for your arms. I have only ever been in your arms, forsaking some of the oldest Y'Antari traditions to be faithful to my wife only to have her turn whore to get her hands on nectar. Do you know why we only drink it in blessing? Why only the citizens most willing to prostrate to the will of the Granilith have the very best nectar? Because it must be used with care. Since the beginning it has been so. Only those trusted to high office. High religious office. It is sacrilegious to abuse nectar for a sexual high. In the old days your head would be chopped off and speared on the tallest spike available and set on display until the crows came to peck out your eyes. Your body would be burned and the ashes used to sweeten the shithouse!"

I tossed her from me and sat on the floor, unable to fathom sitting on our bed that had been a lie. I stared at her. Her hair mussed, her makeup smeared, her robes haphazardly wrapped around her small frame. "Sex is not a duty, Zan. I have needs. What would you have me do? You hardly touch me when you are here. How am I ever to give you a child when you are not here long enough to impregnate me?"

"Quit changing the subject. Despite my long absences, there is no reason for you to give yourself to anyone. No reason to steal what must be painstakingly harvested and cultured for divine blessings. No reason to break my heart for Kivar. If he is not gone when the sun rises, I will rip his black heart from his chest with my bare hands. No reason!" She knelt in front of me and started to shed her robes. I slapped her, hard. "How dare you come to me when you still have his sweat on you? His seed inside you? How many times did I come home to your arms when you had just been with him?"

"I took precautions."

I was stunned by her viciousness. How could she think so little of all we had to together? I slapped her again. An angry red handprint across her face but I couldn't stand to look at her. "How could I ever love you? You don't know what love is."

"I don't?" Her blue eyes turned hard when they fixed on me. "I saved myself for you. I had twenty offers on my hand, all suitable offers and I wouldn't have had to wait an entire year to get married or to hold my lover's hand. Being a Queen doesn't afford me anything but access to better nectar!"

"Shut up! If the title means nothing to you, neither will living in the streets, penniless! I will tell them all what you did! I will see to it that your father is stripped of title and lands to match his daughter!" I fisted my hand in her hair and dragged her to her bathing room. I tossed her through and she sprawled on the ground. "You can wander naked and unfed! Sucking dick for nectar for all I care!" I ripped her gowns from her body.

"You wouldn't dare! I am Queen! I am untouchable!" I tossed her, almost without thought and without care, into the water that filled the tub and I remember vaguely hoping that she would drown.

"You aren't a woman." I spat at her, leaning on the edge of the tub. "You're nothing but a whore!" I could feel the bile rising in my throat. "A nectar-strung whore!"

I rushed from the room and into my own bathing room where I vomited everything I had into the drain. That's how Bawo Lodona found me. I wept in her arms, remembering that as a child, mother had entrusted me to the Bawo. She treated me like a second mother would. She taught me what it was to be a man of faith in our secular world.

"Zan, look at me." I did as told and her grey eyes were firm. "You are the King. You are strong. You could not have known she would react to nectar this way."

"Is he dead?"

"Near to it."

"Good."

"Do not speak such things, my Zan." She stroked back my uncombed hair. "I know you're hurt but no one can know. Your campaigns would be lost in the gossip. The Lords and Ladies would doubt your ability to rule if you could not control your wife."

"How could she do it?" I asked, weak from lack of sleep, from anger, from sadness. "I hit her. I hit her. I struck my wife."

"I know you didn't mean it. What she did was unforgivable. She didn't just betray her husband's faith. She betrayed her people's. What do you want to do?"

"I should throw her out… but I love her." I wept on the Bawo like a child. "Did you know?"

"I knew someone was stealing nectar. I didn't know who." She lowered her face to mine. "I didn't know about Kivar. My spy does not yet know to inform me of these things."

"Did you employ yet another spy without telling them that's what they were?" I snorted and shook my head. Bawo Lodona never changed. "Lady Nikas would have a field day with this one."

"Then no one shall know. We will keep it between us three. Kivar will slip away in his sleep. He has outlived his usefulness. He clings to the old ways of the monarchy."

"You cling to the old ways." I reminded her.

"I cling to the ways of the Granilith. The true ways. These soldiers and bureaucrats cling to the rules their forefathers instituted to appeal their hormones. He should have never tempted your wife." She soothed my soul for the moment. "I will see to your wife. You must get some air. You must act as if nothing is wrong. I will meet you in the chapel for counseling."

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

I know the two have not spoken. There is no way they could concoct such similar stories if it had not happened that way. "It doesn't explain why you did what you did to Liz."

"I know. But it started there. With… the repercussions of that night." He looks so old though I know Father to be just 46 years old. "If you don't understand why Liz is being accused then you cannot save her."

"You could save her."

He just stares at me. I know he knows something that could save Liz but he's tight lipped and refuses to say more than he must. I hate that he beat my mother for whatever reason. I hate that Mother had a vindictive side to her. I hate that we are all in this world living this way.

"I spent an hour washing blood off my skin and out of my clothes."

23 years ago. The Chapel.

I had no clue what Bawo Lodona had said to my wife while I cleaned up to meet them in the Chapel. When I got there, Ava was sufficiently cowed. I have always wished to believe that the things she said to me were said because of the nectar and not because she truly felt them. I could never deny that I did love Ava once. She had been bathed but she didn't look nearly as beautiful in her robes and makeup as she once had. The addiction had eaten away at her soul and it was there for anyone who knew how to look for it. Her blue eyes were pale and her ivory skin lacked the vibrancy of youth though she was just turned 21.

Bawo met my eyes. "Kivar is inside. Ava and I will see to it that he gets ill and does not survive the night. While we wait, Ava will perform her penance. She will recite all nine scrolls of the marriage rite by memory before we emerge." I wanted to protest but I knew that it wasn't all the Bawo had in store for my errant wife. "We will also go back to elementary catechism to learn why our sacred nectars must not be abused. You will guard the door."

I did as I was told and once they had disappeared within, I moved a bench against the doors and took a seat to think. Hours crept by and I succumbed to my own addiction. I pulled out my pouch of Geroa weed to roll.

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

"Geroa weed?" I blink at my father. "You told me that I was never to touch the stuff."

"That's not the point of my story, Avery." He sighs heavily but I can see he's torn about addressing the subject. "I'm not proud of it and Geroa weed has become much harsher than it used to be."

"When did you stop?"

"When Liz threatened to deny my access to my children if I walked into the nursery smelling of it." His lips curve up as if he remembers the conversation well. "She has always taken care of all of us."

"Father." I clear my throat.

23 years ago. The Chapel.

I had smoked most of my cigar when I felt someone staring at me. A shadow at the corner of the chapel. My mood had mellowed somewhat due to the weed. I waited but the shadow stayed just out of sight though its position was betrayed by the sun. I took a long drag on my cigar and held it, preparing me for any confrontation. I blew out the smoke with my words. "I see you. Come here."

The scared little servant from the night before stepped into my vision and slowly made her way toward me. She knelt at the end of the bench and kept her eyes on the ground. I couldn't look at her for very long without remembering what her words had revealed to me without malice. She hadn't meant to hurt me. She had only answered a simple question. "How long since it started?"

I waited for her words but she didn't speak. When I turned, I could see she had just made up her mind about whether or not to tell me the truth. She held out her hand to me. I almost reached forward to take it but she extended four fingers before striking three interlocking circles in the air. The bile burned my throat. I spit out the venom I could feel building once more. Needing to calm down and not interrupt the Bawo and her work, I puffed my cigar heavily, needing the weed to calm my anger. Like a flower, the servant wilted and passed out. I panicked. I didn't know what I had done. Cigar clenched between my teeth, I scooped up her small body and kicked the bench out of the way. I hooked the handle with my foot and yanked it open, striding around the pews to the back of the chapel to Bawo's rooms.

Bawo Lodona cursed at me for not following her instructions. Then she cursed at me for smoking. Then she cursed at me for smoking Geroa in the chapel. Then she gasped when she saw what I had just laid out on her bed. "Who is she, Bawo?"

"Liz Paka, her highness's bath maid." Bawo snorted out the title. "At this point, I'm more convinced this girl is a better person than your wife."

"You may be right but something is wrong." I gestured to the unconscious girl. "I don't know what happened. She just… wilted."

"You were smoking that filthy weed." She yanked the cigar out of my mouth and tossed it in a bowl of water. "I told you that it's a disgusting habit… and you've felled a girl with your foul smoke." Bawo rummaged in one of her many drawers and burned a waxy stick for a few moments before blowing that smoke over that young girl. "She will wake on her own soon."

She ushered me out of the room and sat me beside the baptismal fountain. "Don't go courting disaster, Zan. You can't use that girl because your wife betrayed you."

"What are you talking about? She was trying to get into the chapel and I asked her a question. She… she's the one who told me what Ava was doing." I sagged against the cool fountain and took a deep breath. "It goes deeper than just the nectar. She's hitting servants. I was angry but I wasn't going to hit the girl. I was just asking about the nectar and she fell to the ground as if I were going to hit her. Ava… her class is different from ours but… Father never hit the women. He hit me."

"I know, Zan. Your mother never hit them either but your father's mother did. His father hit him. That's why it has to stop with you. You need to change the archaic unspoken laws of the land. One at a time, though. One at a time and only those you can change by example."

"Who is Liz Paka, Bawo?" I asked her seriously. "I had never seen her before last night and now I've seen her twice. She claims to have been here long enough to witness four months of this… defilement of my marriage."

"I know Liz. She wouldn't ever speak so much. You read into what she says. Stay away from her, Zan. Don't follow those traditions."

"I won't."

Bawo stared into my eyes and I could see a spark of something behind them. "She's young. Just 15, come to the palace from the far reaches. She has come a long way. Her people, her class did not have the advantages that even our lowest servants are afforded. She was mightily overwhelmed at first but she has made great strides. She doesn't talk much but she is diligent in her prayers. A citizen worthy of your ambitious changes, your highness. If there are others like her, your implements will not fall on a deaf and blind country. I am training her in my ways. The ways of the Bawo."

"So she will never marry. Never have her own children." I mused aloud and shook my head. "Then we must keep her safe. You have not have any new students in years and if Antar is to stay on the path with the Granilith, we will need a priestess of such value as you place on your charge."

"Y'Antaru is already back to himself." She kissed my forehead and rose to return to her vigil with Ava in the main chapel. I sat beside that fountain and prayed I had the strength to lead a world full of priestesses so that I might have the strength to lead my world full of epicureans.

Present Day. Zan's chambers.

"Order us some lunch, Avery. I need my strength if I am to tell you of the further troubles your mother and I had." Father sighs heavily and reclines on his bed.

I open the door and motion for the servant outside that lunch is to be made. I call him back after a moment. "And see to it that Liz gets everything she desires for lunch."

"But your highness--"

"Do it. If you don't see to it that she is well-fed then I will personally hang you for treason against the crown." Steel in my voice must show on my face because the servant scurries away as fast as his little legs can carry him.

"Are they mistreating her?" I turn to see my father is interested in something for the first time since the news broke.

"They treat her like a murderer awaiting a hanging. Bread and water. They refuse to let her feed Vlastina by hand. I've sent Liz's milk out to her daily because they just throw it out. She may be a suspect but she is still the royal nursemaid and the baby still needs her."

"Of course." Father pales and sinks into his bed. "Tell them to all come in here. I need to speak to my children."

TBC

[DMartinez]

AN: Same warnings apply for domestic violence, rude language and non-consensual sexual activities

The Queen of Antar
Seeks aid from the Bawo

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

I am glad that my father is coming out of his depression. His children need him. They are all crammed onto the bed, eating lunch and getting crumbs all over everything. Even Killae made it back to mourn with us. When lunch has been cleared, Father addresses us all. "Mother is dead. Liz stands accused. Avery is Mother's champion."

Their little faces all reflect the same misery and disbelief that I know I have felt learning all of the same things. They wait for Father to give them orders because Liz trained us well that our father knows what's best for us.

"You will take care of each other. I will try to visit with each of you… but I have to participate in interviews to corroborate Liz's story. I can't talk to her. I can't see her until it is over. Avery will be the only one allowed in or out of her rooms. I know you miss her and you want her free from her cage but until Avery can prove her innocence, we will have to abide by the law. Tell me you understand."

From Danei down to Peyta, they nod. Regei bursts into tears. "I want my Liz!"

Father sweeps the boy into his arms and I can see Father is fighting tears. I know my father is torn. He is King, he is a witness, he is a father, he is a widow and he is a friend. He is a secret keeper and his secrets weigh heavily on his soul.

I open the doors and they all file out, Danei taking charge of distraught Regei. I shut the door as father shakes out the bed cover and takes a seat on the bare sheets. "I will continue, Avery, but I need a moment as these are memories I try not to recall often."

22 years ago.

It was a hard time. Disease was dying out but repairing our world was difficult. I was still required to be away often and I feared for my wife. I feared I would never get back the woman I married. That I was forever to be with this evil caricature who mocked me, who mocked my crown, who mocked my religion. I feared for her life because she was a pale flower of the person she once was. I stayed as long as I could to watch over her but I could not bring myself to touch her. Not even when she begged.

Still I had to go. I had to venture out and see what my people were doing to survive. To see if I could help and I could in many places but it did keep me removed from the palace far too often and I feared for Ava. That she might find another opportunist who would cave to her demands and steal from the chapel. I had begun to wonder what I had done wrong to make her turn from me like that. To Kivar. He was my head of security, handed down in power when I ascended the throne. I never approved of his ways and I kept him away from the bulk of my army. I thought maybe he had preyed on my wife because I held him back. A king of 21 at the time.

When I was home, I would often spend time in the chapel talking to Bawo Lodona about my thoughts and wishes. She always had the same advice for me. That it was up to me to save my marriage or to watch it shrivel and die. I tried. I slept in bed next to her. I started sleeping with her once we knew for certain she could not be pregnant by that double-crosser but… I had to force my way through our matings… for that's what they were. I could not call it lovemaking and I have trouble calling it sex. Any pleasure I gleaned was fleeting and though my wife blossomed into her old self, I had begun to feel worse and so I stopped touching her. We fought every day that I was in the palace. Every day we went to Bawo for counseling. I would spend more time away and Ava would spend more time on her father's estate where she was often catered to by her old servants. Pampered by the old ways. Her vibrancy returned but I couldn't take that as a good sign.

One day, after a particularly bad fight, we went to Bawo to find a solution. I needed an heir and I wished I could have got it on her in one of those times we had faked our way through it but nothing had happened. We met with Bawo Lodona in the back chapel where we were both placed under examination by Bawo and her crystals. That was one of the more difficult days in my life. "Please, tell us what is wrong."

Bawo stared at us each in turn with the crystal. In weak light, in strong light, always staring at us through the pink haze of the crystal. "The problem is not his highness. He is a virile young man. You will need a surrogate."

"What?" Ava blurted out, anger seeping out through her words. "A surrogate? He doesn't believe in them."

"If he wants a child, he will need one. You are damaged. You can't give him one." Her words were even and measured as she advanced on Ava. "The nectar may have kept you from getting sick but it was in you. You might as well have died with all the others when the sickness came. You're poison."

"Bawo…" I pleaded. The Lords and Ladies were just beginning to respect my choice not to have Y'Slida in the palace and with a gaze through a crystal… all that was gone. The news wearied my heart and mind terribly. "Must we?"

"Maybe I could have done something for her if she hadn't polluted her system with too much nectar but she's immune to it now. I shouldn't even allow her to have any during ceremony but I have to protect your defilements. We can keep it secret. Discreet as it was in the first days of Antar. No one would have to know. The three of us and the surrogate."

She was a crafty old priestess. She had someone in mind but Ava protested. "It will be my child. The child to hold up as my own. I will choose who I allow to know my husband's bed."

"What right have you? He didn't choose the bastard you allowed into yours." Bawo hissed at her.

Before the argument could escalate further, I jumped up. "It's fine. Bring us the candidates and she will choose one. I have to meditate on this."

"Fine. Go… pray the same set I always have you pray and if you need reminders…" She eyed Ava with a steely gaze. "We'll just start from the beginning again."

We stared at each other for the longest of moments. I found my anger well replenished. "This is all your own doing. You could have been cured of the sickness if you hadn't abused your privileges." Tears slipped down her face. "Maybe you should have died with all the others but I'm stuck with you now." The words were cruel but I could not stop them. My plans had been ruined and I had to rely on a practice I had hoped to phase out of our world. "I can only hope our surrogate is willing to prostrate herself to the will of the Granilith since I could not have a wife to do the same."

I shoved her out the door, unable to keep it inside me any longer. To have all these months of trying, of … all gone because there were no reparations to be made. My wife was still a whore but now she was barren as well and I had to go back on my word in order to keep the crown in my family's name. I could not allow Lady Nikas to ascend and as much as I trusted Lord Larek, neither could I allow him the power.

I shoved her into place and knelt, my raised hands to pray. I felt her scoot beside me. We began to pray but it felt useless after all we had been through. "How could you ruin us and all our aspirations?"

"I ruined them?" Ava whispered, her head turned slightly so she could see me.

"Yes. You. If not for you, I would have married Ecpi of Dorwanas. She might be ugly as sin but I know her to be loyal and religious." I thought it over but I thought I might have preferred making my wife wear a mask to bed and getting lots of children and respect than to have a beautiful wife with a vile soul. "Maybe she is yet unmarried?"

She gasped and lowered her hands a bit. "You would bed Ecpi over me?"

"I would. Sleeping with you now, is like rutting with an old sow."

"A sow! I am not a sow. I have 14 generations of Qeoni blood in me."

"Maybe they should have reached outside the Qeonilt for genetic material. Staying in the valley did nothing for breeding." I fired out the insults as if I had been thinking them for months. Maybe some part of me had. "Now I've got to trust that you'll pick out a suitable surrogate and not shame us further. Pick a young one, would you? The old ones could wear out before I get all my heirs on them."

"You would get more than one on a surrogate?" She hissed in shock.

"Why not? I won't be putting my dick in your diseased—"

"Silence!" Bawo stormed out of the shadows and pointed her finger at us as if we were bickering children.

Thoroughly abashed, I bowed my head to pray once more, though I could hear Bawo griping us out under her breath as she readied the altar for the following day's ceremonies. I was just getting into the cadence when a clanging and thudding sent candles rolling and cracking on the ground. I tried to ignore it but after a moment, Bawo called my name. Rising, I sent my wife a scathing glare, and loped up to the altar where Bawo held out a pair of arms… attached to Ava's bath maid. Her olive skin was littered with purple marks over green and yellow ones. I couldn't control myself, I spun and stormed to the edge of the pulpit. "Whore! What have you done? Beating a bath maid? She is here to serve you, not for you to beat." She opened her mouth to defend herself but I couldn't allow it. "Shut up, whore!"

"Your highness!" Bawo bellowed, her voice echoing throughout the chapel. "Show respect! You're in a chapel! This is not a place for your black words! Stand up. Pray."

I did as ordered, fuming all the while. That poor girl, left to the mercies of a woman who could not fathom the meaning of fear. I could not mean my prayers. I could not embody their meaning because I was furious. After our prayers, we walked in silence to our rooms. Once there, I gathered my things.

"What are you doing?" Ava demanded, pulling my bag from my hands. "You're going?"

"I can't sleep in here with you, knowing the things you do to the servants. The palace should be the one place in all the land where injustice does not happen. I've got beatings and adultery and addicts under my roof. I can't have it. Choose the surrogate and let me know when you're ready to begin. I'll be sleeping elsewhere until then."

"You can't just leave. Where are you going?" She tugged on my arms. "You're my husband."

"Husband." I laughed. "That word doesn't mean a thing without a wife and you are no wife. You're Queen because I can't afford a scandal but you're just a pretty picture for them all. I know who you are and I don't like you." Her face was blank as if she didn't understand my words. "When I saw you, spoke to you, asked you to marry me… I thought you were law-abiding, loyal to the Granilith, sweet and incapable of inflicting harm."

"She's just a bath maid."

"If you're beating the bath maid, who else are you beating? Who else do you think is of no consequence? Maybe a bath maid could never be Queen, but a bath maid can marry up. If she is widowed, she could marry up again… and again. She could gain power and strike against me for the wrongs you do to her. They all could. We made that possible." I gestured to myself and to her. "It was our first act as King and Queen… to make the classes blur so that we can have a world full of people instead of royals, lords, peasants and servants." The anger was gone. All I had left to feel was tired. "Bawo Lodona was a bath maid in the old days. If a bath maid can become Bawo…. What else could she be? You do us all a disservice to beat even one of the servants."

"You give the servants too much credit. They're stupid and the bath maid is slow and hard of hearing."

"Enough, Ava. Stop hitting them. I might not have the courage to expose my false marriage to the world but… If you hit the servants again… I will beat you."

"You won't." She whispered but stepped away from me.

"I swore that I would never strike you… but I've already broken that vow. I've never struck a servant. There have been no battles and practice at battle has been quite useless and so in all my life, I've only ever struck two people. One my wife and one my First Guard and I very nearly beat him to death. Don't tell me what I won't do. You won't make a mockery of me anymore. I'll guarantee that." I strode out of the room and into my bathing room. I had long ago done away with my bath servants, requiring only that the room be cleaned before I arrive and kept up after until I left again. I slept in a servant's bed behind a little curtain to block out the light.

Present Day. King Zan's Chambers.

"Father?" The pieces swirl around my head and I know what the picture will look like but I'm too afraid to pick them up and order them in my mind.

"It was a hard time for me. I had to prove myself to the Lords and Ladies. I had to prove myself to the Granilith. To my citizens. I had to prove to my wife that I meant business." He swings around to look into my eyes. "I don’t like talking about this Avery but I have to finish what Liz started. I hate that I speak of Ava this way. I hate that it all happened this way but it is the way it happened. I can't change that."

"If you could…" My voice is weak as if I have been the one talking all day.

"I can't change the past. Maybe… but only knowing now what I didn't then… I might reorder it but this specific way has given me so much more than it has taken."

22 years ago.

After receiving word from Bawo that the surrogate had been chosen and approved, I had to prepare myself. I meditated on it for hours in the chapel. Bawo left me alone to do it. She had spent all morning telling me about the girl, who was slight in build but older than she looked. She had had her family but lost her husband and one child to disease. Healthy herself, she was ideal for our purposes. Loyal to the crown, attended services on the Sabbath and though poor, did what she could to maintain herself and her family. I couldn't have chosen a better surrogate myself. She was blonde like my wife but her eyes were green.

When Bawo returned, we prepared the final steps together. Our ways are set. Trying to change them would most certainly kill us all. I said my prayers and prepared my nectar. It looked odd but there were changes made to it because now I was not making love to my wife for the first time, I was taking a surrogate and that changed the formula. I had never seen that nectar before but I took it. I rushed to my rooms as the sun dipped toward the horizon. By the time I had made my way up to my wing, I could see that Ava was disembarking for her father's and I felt relieved. It was bad enough to rely on a surrogate to but to go through with it when my wife was sleeping in the next room… it didn't sit well with me.

My vision had narrowed and my skin started to tingle. A lust that I had never known before coursed through my veins and I could wait no longer. I took the path deliberately, trying to prolong it. My eyes seemed not to focus any longer, another thing for which I was grateful. I stumbled my way to the bed and felt around for the body waiting for me. Her dress was a hindrance and in trying to ease her out of it, I ripped it several times. By the time I got it off her, I was fraught with carnal cravings.

I wasn't gentle. I was ruled by the lust incited by that infernal nectar. An animal inside me that leapt out and took control. Tasting and grasping soft supple flesh, listening to coos and moans. Well into things, after I had lost any semblance of control, she gasped and writhed uncontrollably. The heat crept over me and in waves I spilled myself into a surrogate, hoping that I could have my son and all this would be done with. I collapsed there until I regained control of my mind. Her breath hitched beneath me and she began to whisper words I could not understand. My head was foggy as I tried to get up. Slowly, one hand and then the other on the bed and shoving myself up so I could see what was going on. I stared at her face; the red veil had come off. Gradually my eyes focused and what I registered with my regained sight, stole my breath away. She wasn't recovering, she was sobbing because… it wasn't the new Y'Slida at all… it was the bath maid.

"Y'Antaru…" she sobbed and I shoved myself off her.

I covered my face with my hands. This little girl must have been terrorized by me. "No, no, no." I sank to my knees on the floor. I can't remember too much more of that night. Bawo Lodona later told me that I had showed up at the chapel drained of blood whispering. "She's too young. This is too wrong. What have I done?" over and over.

When I finally snapped out of it, I wore my robes from the day before and in my arms was a bundle that I'd refused to hand over when Bawo had asked on my arrival. The sheets from the bed smeared with virginal blood. The dress I had ripped off her body and the veil she had worn when I had stumbled into that room to defile that poor girl.

Bawo took the items from my hands. "Zan, talk to me."

"You said she was 27, a widow and mother." I accused the priestess.

"She was. What is all this?"

"She was a little girl." I hissed. "Far too young to be with a man the way I…" I couldn't finish the sentence. I rushed to the drain and let loose my stomach contents.

"You went to the wrong room." Bawo whispered, as if she didn't even believe her own words. "You took it too soon and you went to the wrong room."

"She was wearing this." I fished the veil out of the mess. "It came off of her. Why was she wearing this stuff?"

"I don't understand. There was a little girl in place of your Y'Slida?"

"Yes." I croaked out.

"Who?"

"The girl." I emphasized because I'd forgotten her name. "I'll show you." I pushed open the doors to her private chapel when she yanked me back and looked into the empty chapel before allowing my forward movement. "She may still be there."

"Zan. Are you sure? The nectar has strange effects on some people." She looked into my eyes. "Maybe you only thought it was a little girl with your nectar-eyes."

"When I saw her face, the damned nectar had worn off me and from the look of her…" I paused as it clicked. "She hadn't had any."

"No." Bawo shook her head. "You've got to be mistaken. Something like this couldn't happen. I met her. She's 27 years old. A widow. A mother."

"She was 14 if a day and she was wailing like she'd been murdered. She hadn't had any nectar." I waved my hands around, unable to keep still any longer. I could feel my face crumpling into tears because I couldn't change what had happened no matter who I told. "I turned a priestess-in-training into a whore."

A loud sob reached our ears. We stared at the altar where the corner of a dress peeked out from beneath the altar skirt.

"The bath maid?" Bawo whispered as she put together who I was talking about. "Her highness wronged the little bath maid. The surrogate too." She chided loudly as she knelt to see under the altar.

That little girl looked so…

Present day. King Zan's chambers.

"Broken." He finishes.

"What happened?"

"Bawo had us pray to the Granilith for answers. I remember that pretty clearly. She cried the whole time and I don't blame her." He looks at me. "I wanted to kill myself for what I did to her."

"What did Bawo Lodona mean? It was Mother's fault? Liz said the same thing."

22 years ago.

Bawo Lodona kept me away from Liz the next day. I felt I should comfort the girl but the priestess had a point in the girl's fear of me. I punished myself, shaving the hair off my head and face. It was evening when Bawo came to me in my rooms from Liz's quarters. She held out a plate of crumbs to me. "Your wife gave her a cake for her birthday. Smell it."

"Smell what? There's nothing but crumbs." Still, she thrust the plate under my nose and I could smell the pungent sweetness of nectar.

"She said her royal highness came in before sunset to tell her she was becoming a woman and she had a cake for her… and a dress. Liz doesn't remember much after that because when she woke up, you were on top of her, hurting her." Bawo stared at me, those eyes held something dark in them that I had never seen before. "Your wife has fooled everyone. Duschi says she came from the chapel to bake a cake that morning, for you. He thought maybe the royal family was celebrating something. I checked your bowl. It had the wrong nectar in it. She's been plotting this, Zan. She's rearranged the bottles in my closet. She's gone to her father's and she may not be back."

"She'll come back. She has to see the mess she made." I whispered. I knew my wife and, though only recently conniving, she was vain and proud.

"She's going to ruin everything. She's bonded you to the girl and the girl to you. She's smarter than I give her credit for sometimes." Bawo went on. "But before we get on to that subject. I have to tell you something that I've been hiding from you since you saw the girl."

"What are you talking about, old woman?" I was far too upset to decipher her riddles. I didn't believe it was possible to bond while bonded to another but there were levels of mysticism I didn't understand.

"Liz Paka is not who you think she is."

"What? Is her family from hidden royalty?" I snorted. That would have been the perfect ending to the whole debacle. Violating some secret sacrosanct law.

"It's worse than that. She's Tirera." My mouth fell open in utter disbelief. "We've had a few in the palace before. Your father's last Y'Slida was Tirera but we took precautions with her."

Somewhere in my mind I knew it was bad but I could not for the life of me remember why. "What's going to happen?"

"Maybe nothing. They don't have nectars and Geroa weed or any other sacraments because it would harm them. The nectar… it doesn't protect them the way it does us. She may need your help. I will keep her in the chapel until we know more about the damage done."

The waiting game had begun. While Bawo Lodona tended to Liz's broken body and spirit, I planted myself in the library and studied the walls. There were scrolls I needed but I had only seen them once. Father had shown them to me once but he had already begun failing in his health and I never believed he got around to telling me everything. Sliding the ladder to the far end of the room, I climbed to midway and surveyed the high shelves. Four books. Green, Yellow, Red, Blue. Under the picture window. I rolled to the window using my arms and I pulled out the books. The space wasn't overlarge; I could almost fit my shoulders in as a boy but not as a man.

Finally, I had the book in my hand. I sat at the top of that ladder with the book and just stared at it for the longest time. I had yet to open it when a servant came to tell me that Bawo Lodona needed me in the chapel. I raced down the corridors and into the back chambers of the chapel where the girl was fighting a fever and having delirious fits. I placed my hand on her head and focused, trying to calm my own racing heart so that I could see to the girl. Her eyes popped open and fixed on me. I feared for a moment she would start screaming but instead, a slew of words flew from her mouth with absolute pleading.

"Gida… Gida… moslokta? Gida… bosti nila neyda." She clutched my robes tightly.

"Bawo!" I called over my shoulder. "What is she saying?"

"Gida… Gida…" Bawo whispered to herself as she struggled to remember. "Gida is father."

"His name is Gida?"

"No. That is how you say father in Tirera. She's delirious. We have to bring the fever down."

"Bosti nila neyda." The girl blurted out again.

"She wants to go home." Bawo whispered in my ear as I tried to center my thoughts. I had never attempted a healing on anyone who wasn't Antarian. "I don't know where she's from."

"I'll take her home myself and pay restitution to her father." I muttered as I reached inside for the powers handed down from father to son throughout the royal Antarian line. She pulled me inside her somehow. Maybe it was because she was Tirera. Maybe it was because we had bonded souls. I cooled her core and the fever broke. Then I went about relieving any pain she still held, fixing old bruises. I withdrew myself to a degree.

"She's doing much better." Bawo sighed a breath of relief, watching as I did a cursory check over the girl. When my hand passed her middle, it glowed. "What is that?"

"I don't know. I've never---" I never got to finish that sentence because when I passed my hand over her belly, it glowed brightly and then I could sense what caused it.

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

"She was pregnant." I whisper almost to myself.

"Yes, she was. There was no way I could take her home in that condition. Not with what I had done to her. Not with the child in her belly." He looks at me and I look away. "Avery."

"No." I shake my head.

"Avery."

"I can't listen to this anymore." All the pieces are there but I don't want to hear the piece that will order everything else. "Not unless you say that I have an older half-brother living in the far reaches with his grandfather."

"Avery, you were born nine months later." He says it and I have to lean on the wall to keep from sliding to the ground altogether. "You are Liz's son as much as you are mine. Ava was just my wife, she wasn't your mother."

TBC

[DMartinez]

AN: Same warnings apply for domestic violence, rude language and non-consensual sexual activities

The Queen of Antar
Seeks aid from the Bawo

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

I am glad that my father is coming out of his depression. His children need him. They are all crammed onto the bed, eating lunch and getting crumbs all over everything. Even Killae made it back to mourn with us. When lunch has been cleared, Father addresses us all. "Mother is dead. Liz stands accused. Avery is Mother's champion."

Their little faces all reflect the same misery and disbelief that I know I have felt learning all of the same things. They wait for Father to give them orders because Liz trained us well that our father knows what's best for us.

"You will take care of each other. I will try to visit with each of you… but I have to participate in interviews to corroborate Liz's story. I can't talk to her. I can't see her until it is over. Avery will be the only one allowed in or out of her rooms. I know you miss her and you want her free from her cage but until Avery can prove her innocence, we will have to abide by the law. Tell me you understand."

From Danei down to Peyta, they nod. Regei bursts into tears. "I want my Liz!"

Father sweeps the boy into his arms and I can see Father is fighting tears. I know my father is torn. He is King, he is a witness, he is a father, he is a widow and he is a friend. He is a secret keeper and his secrets weigh heavily on his soul.

I open the doors and they all file out, Danei taking charge of distraught Regei. I shut the door as father shakes out the bed cover and takes a seat on the bare sheets. "I will continue, Avery, but I need a moment as these are memories I try not to recall often."

22 years ago.

It was a hard time. Disease was dying out but repairing our world was difficult. I was still required to be away often and I feared for my wife. I feared I would never get back the woman I married. That I was forever to be with this evil caricature who mocked me, who mocked my crown, who mocked my religion. I feared for her life because she was a pale flower of the person she once was. I stayed as long as I could to watch over her but I could not bring myself to touch her. Not even when she begged.

Still I had to go. I had to venture out and see what my people were doing to survive. To see if I could help and I could in many places but it did keep me removed from the palace far too often and I feared for Ava. That she might find another opportunist who would cave to her demands and steal from the chapel. I had begun to wonder what I had done wrong to make her turn from me like that. To Kivar. He was my head of security, handed down in power when I ascended the throne. I never approved of his ways and I kept him away from the bulk of my army. I thought maybe he had preyed on my wife because I held him back. A king of 21 at the time.

When I was home, I would often spend time in the chapel talking to Bawo Lodona about my thoughts and wishes. She always had the same advice for me. That it was up to me to save my marriage or to watch it shrivel and die. I tried. I slept in bed next to her. I started sleeping with her once we knew for certain she could not be pregnant by that double-crosser but… I had to force my way through our matings… for that's what they were. I could not call it lovemaking and I have trouble calling it sex. Any pleasure I gleaned was fleeting and though my wife blossomed into her old self, I had begun to feel worse and so I stopped touching her. We fought every day that I was in the palace. Every day we went to Bawo for counseling. I would spend more time away and Ava would spend more time on her father's estate where she was often catered to by her old servants. Pampered by the old ways. Her vibrancy returned but I couldn't take that as a good sign.

One day, after a particularly bad fight, we went to Bawo to find a solution. I needed an heir and I wished I could have got it on her in one of those times we had faked our way through it but nothing had happened. We met with Bawo Lodona in the back chapel where we were both placed under examination by Bawo and her crystals. That was one of the more difficult days in my life. "Please, tell us what is wrong."

Bawo stared at us each in turn with the crystal. In weak light, in strong light, always staring at us through the pink haze of the crystal. "The problem is not his highness. He is a virile young man. You will need a surrogate."

"What?" Ava blurted out, anger seeping out through her words. "A surrogate? He doesn't believe in them."

"If he wants a child, he will need one. You are damaged. You can't give him one." Her words were even and measured as she advanced on Ava. "The nectar may have kept you from getting sick but it was in you. You might as well have died with all the others when the sickness came. You're poison."

"Bawo…" I pleaded. The Lords and Ladies were just beginning to respect my choice not to have Y'Slida in the palace and with a gaze through a crystal… all that was gone. The news wearied my heart and mind terribly. "Must we?"

"Maybe I could have done something for her if she hadn't polluted her system with too much nectar but she's immune to it now. I shouldn't even allow her to have any during ceremony but I have to protect your defilements. We can keep it secret. Discreet as it was in the first days of Antar. No one would have to know. The three of us and the surrogate."

She was a crafty old priestess. She had someone in mind but Ava protested. "It will be my child. The child to hold up as my own. I will choose who I allow to know my husband's bed."

"What right have you? He didn't choose the bastard you allowed into yours." Bawo hissed at her.

Before the argument could escalate further, I jumped up. "It's fine. Bring us the candidates and she will choose one. I have to meditate on this."

"Fine. Go… pray the same set I always have you pray and if you need reminders…" She eyed Ava with a steely gaze. "We'll just start from the beginning again."

We stared at each other for the longest of moments. I found my anger well replenished. "This is all your own doing. You could have been cured of the sickness if you hadn't abused your privileges." Tears slipped down her face. "Maybe you should have died with all the others but I'm stuck with you now." The words were cruel but I could not stop them. My plans had been ruined and I had to rely on a practice I had hoped to phase out of our world. "I can only hope our surrogate is willing to prostrate herself to the will of the Granilith since I could not have a wife to do the same."

I shoved her out the door, unable to keep it inside me any longer. To have all these months of trying, of … all gone because there were no reparations to be made. My wife was still a whore but now she was barren as well and I had to go back on my word in order to keep the crown in my family's name. I could not allow Lady Nikas to ascend and as much as I trusted Lord Larek, neither could I allow him the power.

I shoved her into place and knelt, my raised hands to pray. I felt her scoot beside me. We began to pray but it felt useless after all we had been through. "How could you ruin us and all our aspirations?"

"I ruined them?" Ava whispered, her head turned slightly so she could see me.

"Yes. You. If not for you, I would have married Ecpi of Dorwanas. She might be ugly as sin but I know her to be loyal and religious." I thought it over but I thought I might have preferred making my wife wear a mask to bed and getting lots of children and respect than to have a beautiful wife with a vile soul. "Maybe she is yet unmarried?"

She gasped and lowered her hands a bit. "You would bed Ecpi over me?"

"I would. Sleeping with you now, is like rutting with an old sow."

"A sow! I am not a sow. I have 14 generations of Qeoni blood in me."

"Maybe they should have reached outside the Qeonilt for genetic material. Staying in the valley did nothing for breeding." I fired out the insults as if I had been thinking them for months. Maybe some part of me had. "Now I've got to trust that you'll pick out a suitable surrogate and not shame us further. Pick a young one, would you? The old ones could wear out before I get all my heirs on them."

"You would get more than one on a surrogate?" She hissed in shock.

"Why not? I won't be putting my dick in your diseased—"

"Silence!" Bawo stormed out of the shadows and pointed her finger at us as if we were bickering children.

Thoroughly abashed, I bowed my head to pray once more, though I could hear Bawo griping us out under her breath as she readied the altar for the following day's ceremonies. I was just getting into the cadence when a clanging and thudding sent candles rolling and cracking on the ground. I tried to ignore it but after a moment, Bawo called my name. Rising, I sent my wife a scathing glare, and loped up to the altar where Bawo held out a pair of arms… attached to Ava's bath maid. Her olive skin was littered with purple marks over green and yellow ones. I couldn't control myself, I spun and stormed to the edge of the pulpit. "Whore! What have you done? Beating a bath maid? She is here to serve you, not for you to beat." She opened her mouth to defend herself but I couldn't allow it. "Shut up, whore!"

"Your highness!" Bawo bellowed, her voice echoing throughout the chapel. "Show respect! You're in a chapel! This is not a place for your black words! Stand up. Pray."

I did as ordered, fuming all the while. That poor girl, left to the mercies of a woman who could not fathom the meaning of fear. I could not mean my prayers. I could not embody their meaning because I was furious. After our prayers, we walked in silence to our rooms. Once there, I gathered my things.

"What are you doing?" Ava demanded, pulling my bag from my hands. "You're going?"

"I can't sleep in here with you, knowing the things you do to the servants. The palace should be the one place in all the land where injustice does not happen. I've got beatings and adultery and addicts under my roof. I can't have it. Choose the surrogate and let me know when you're ready to begin. I'll be sleeping elsewhere until then."

"You can't just leave. Where are you going?" She tugged on my arms. "You're my husband."

"Husband." I laughed. "That word doesn't mean a thing without a wife and you are no wife. You're Queen because I can't afford a scandal but you're just a pretty picture for them all. I know who you are and I don't like you." Her face was blank as if she didn't understand my words. "When I saw you, spoke to you, asked you to marry me… I thought you were law-abiding, loyal to the Granilith, sweet and incapable of inflicting harm."

"She's just a bath maid."

"If you're beating the bath maid, who else are you beating? Who else do you think is of no consequence? Maybe a bath maid could never be Queen, but a bath maid can marry up. If she is widowed, she could marry up again… and again. She could gain power and strike against me for the wrongs you do to her. They all could. We made that possible." I gestured to myself and to her. "It was our first act as King and Queen… to make the classes blur so that we can have a world full of people instead of royals, lords, peasants and servants." The anger was gone. All I had left to feel was tired. "Bawo Lodona was a bath maid in the old days. If a bath maid can become Bawo…. What else could she be? You do us all a disservice to beat even one of the servants."

"You give the servants too much credit. They're stupid and the bath maid is slow and hard of hearing."

"Enough, Ava. Stop hitting them. I might not have the courage to expose my false marriage to the world but… If you hit the servants again… I will beat you."

"You won't." She whispered but stepped away from me.

"I swore that I would never strike you… but I've already broken that vow. I've never struck a servant. There have been no battles and practice at battle has been quite useless and so in all my life, I've only ever struck two people. One my wife and one my First Guard and I very nearly beat him to death. Don't tell me what I won't do. You won't make a mockery of me anymore. I'll guarantee that." I strode out of the room and into my bathing room. I had long ago done away with my bath servants, requiring only that the room be cleaned before I arrive and kept up after until I left again. I slept in a servant's bed behind a little curtain to block out the light.

Present Day. King Zan's Chambers.

"Father?" The pieces swirl around my head and I know what the picture will look like but I'm too afraid to pick them up and order them in my mind.

"It was a hard time for me. I had to prove myself to the Lords and Ladies. I had to prove myself to the Granilith. To my citizens. I had to prove to my wife that I meant business." He swings around to look into my eyes. "I don’t like talking about this Avery but I have to finish what Liz started. I hate that I speak of Ava this way. I hate that it all happened this way but it is the way it happened. I can't change that."

"If you could…" My voice is weak as if I have been the one talking all day.

"I can't change the past. Maybe… but only knowing now what I didn't then… I might reorder it but this specific way has given me so much more than it has taken."

22 years ago.

After receiving word from Bawo that the surrogate had been chosen and approved, I had to prepare myself. I meditated on it for hours in the chapel. Bawo left me alone to do it. She had spent all morning telling me about the girl, who was slight in build but older than she looked. She had had her family but lost her husband and one child to disease. Healthy herself, she was ideal for our purposes. Loyal to the crown, attended services on the Sabbath and though poor, did what she could to maintain herself and her family. I couldn't have chosen a better surrogate myself. She was blonde like my wife but her eyes were green.

When Bawo returned, we prepared the final steps together. Our ways are set. Trying to change them would most certainly kill us all. I said my prayers and prepared my nectar. It looked odd but there were changes made to it because now I was not making love to my wife for the first time, I was taking a surrogate and that changed the formula. I had never seen that nectar before but I took it. I rushed to my rooms as the sun dipped toward the horizon. By the time I had made my way up to my wing, I could see that Ava was disembarking for her father's and I felt relieved. It was bad enough to rely on a surrogate to but to go through with it when my wife was sleeping in the next room… it didn't sit well with me.

My vision had narrowed and my skin started to tingle. A lust that I had never known before coursed through my veins and I could wait no longer. I took the path deliberately, trying to prolong it. My eyes seemed not to focus any longer, another thing for which I was grateful. I stumbled my way to the bed and felt around for the body waiting for me. Her dress was a hindrance and in trying to ease her out of it, I ripped it several times. By the time I got it off her, I was fraught with carnal cravings.

I wasn't gentle. I was ruled by the lust incited by that infernal nectar. An animal inside me that leapt out and took control. Tasting and grasping soft supple flesh, listening to coos and moans. Well into things, after I had lost any semblance of control, she gasped and writhed uncontrollably. The heat crept over me and in waves I spilled myself into a surrogate, hoping that I could have my son and all this would be done with. I collapsed there until I regained control of my mind. Her breath hitched beneath me and she began to whisper words I could not understand. My head was foggy as I tried to get up. Slowly, one hand and then the other on the bed and shoving myself up so I could see what was going on. I stared at her face; the red veil had come off. Gradually my eyes focused and what I registered with my regained sight, stole my breath away. She wasn't recovering, she was sobbing because… it wasn't the new Y'Slida at all… it was the bath maid.

"Y'Antaru…" she sobbed and I shoved myself off her.

I covered my face with my hands. This little girl must have been terrorized by me. "No, no, no." I sank to my knees on the floor. I can't remember too much more of that night. Bawo Lodona later told me that I had showed up at the chapel drained of blood whispering. "She's too young. This is too wrong. What have I done?" over and over.

When I finally snapped out of it, I wore my robes from the day before and in my arms was a bundle that I'd refused to hand over when Bawo had asked on my arrival. The sheets from the bed smeared with virginal blood. The dress I had ripped off her body and the veil she had worn when I had stumbled into that room to defile that poor girl.

Bawo took the items from my hands. "Zan, talk to me."

"You said she was 27, a widow and mother." I accused the priestess.

"She was. What is all this?"

"She was a little girl." I hissed. "Far too young to be with a man the way I…" I couldn't finish the sentence. I rushed to the drain and let loose my stomach contents.

"You went to the wrong room." Bawo whispered, as if she didn't even believe her own words. "You took it too soon and you went to the wrong room."

"She was wearing this." I fished the veil out of the mess. "It came off of her. Why was she wearing this stuff?"

"I don't understand. There was a little girl in place of your Y'Slida?"

"Yes." I croaked out.

"Who?"

"The girl." I emphasized because I'd forgotten her name. "I'll show you." I pushed open the doors to her private chapel when she yanked me back and looked into the empty chapel before allowing my forward movement. "She may still be there."

"Zan. Are you sure? The nectar has strange effects on some people." She looked into my eyes. "Maybe you only thought it was a little girl with your nectar-eyes."

"When I saw her face, the damned nectar had worn off me and from the look of her…" I paused as it clicked. "She hadn't had any."

"No." Bawo shook her head. "You've got to be mistaken. Something like this couldn't happen. I met her. She's 27 years old. A widow. A mother."

"She was 14 if a day and she was wailing like she'd been murdered. She hadn't had any nectar." I waved my hands around, unable to keep still any longer. I could feel my face crumpling into tears because I couldn't change what had happened no matter who I told. "I turned a priestess-in-training into a whore."

A loud sob reached our ears. We stared at the altar where the corner of a dress peeked out from beneath the altar skirt.

"The bath maid?" Bawo whispered as she put together who I was talking about. "Her highness wronged the little bath maid. The surrogate too." She chided loudly as she knelt to see under the altar.

That little girl looked so…

Present day. King Zan's chambers.

"Broken." He finishes.

"What happened?"

"Bawo had us pray to the Granilith for answers. I remember that pretty clearly. She cried the whole time and I don't blame her." He looks at me. "I wanted to kill myself for what I did to her."

"What did Bawo Lodona mean? It was Mother's fault? Liz said the same thing."

22 years ago.

Bawo Lodona kept me away from Liz the next day. I felt I should comfort the girl but the priestess had a point in the girl's fear of me. I punished myself, shaving the hair off my head and face. It was evening when Bawo came to me in my rooms from Liz's quarters. She held out a plate of crumbs to me. "Your wife gave her a cake for her birthday. Smell it."

"Smell what? There's nothing but crumbs." Still, she thrust the plate under my nose and I could smell the pungent sweetness of nectar.

"She said her royal highness came in before sunset to tell her she was becoming a woman and she had a cake for her… and a dress. Liz doesn't remember much after that because when she woke up, you were on top of her, hurting her." Bawo stared at me, those eyes held something dark in them that I had never seen before. "Your wife has fooled everyone. Duschi says she came from the chapel to bake a cake that morning, for you. He thought maybe the royal family was celebrating something. I checked your bowl. It had the wrong nectar in it. She's been plotting this, Zan. She's rearranged the bottles in my closet. She's gone to her father's and she may not be back."

"She'll come back. She has to see the mess she made." I whispered. I knew my wife and, though only recently conniving, she was vain and proud.

"She's going to ruin everything. She's bonded you to the girl and the girl to you. She's smarter than I give her credit for sometimes." Bawo went on. "But before we get on to that subject. I have to tell you something that I've been hiding from you since you saw the girl."

"What are you talking about, old woman?" I was far too upset to decipher her riddles. I didn't believe it was possible to bond while bonded to another but there were levels of mysticism I didn't understand.

"Liz Paka is not who you think she is."

"What? Is her family from hidden royalty?" I snorted. That would have been the perfect ending to the whole debacle. Violating some secret sacrosanct law.

"It's worse than that. She's Tirera." My mouth fell open in utter disbelief. "We've had a few in the palace before. Your father's last Y'Slida was Tirera but we took precautions with her."

Somewhere in my mind I knew it was bad but I could not for the life of me remember why. "What's going to happen?"

"Maybe nothing. They don't have nectars and Geroa weed or any other sacraments because it would harm them. The nectar… it doesn't protect them the way it does us. She may need your help. I will keep her in the chapel until we know more about the damage done."

The waiting game had begun. While Bawo Lodona tended to Liz's broken body and spirit, I planted myself in the library and studied the walls. There were scrolls I needed but I had only seen them once. Father had shown them to me once but he had already begun failing in his health and I never believed he got around to telling me everything. Sliding the ladder to the far end of the room, I climbed to midway and surveyed the high shelves. Four books. Green, Yellow, Red, Blue. Under the picture window. I rolled to the window using my arms and I pulled out the books. The space wasn't overlarge; I could almost fit my shoulders in as a boy but not as a man.

Finally, I had the book in my hand. I sat at the top of that ladder with the book and just stared at it for the longest time. I had yet to open it when a servant came to tell me that Bawo Lodona needed me in the chapel. I raced down the corridors and into the back chambers of the chapel where the girl was fighting a fever and having delirious fits. I placed my hand on her head and focused, trying to calm my own racing heart so that I could see to the girl. Her eyes popped open and fixed on me. I feared for a moment she would start screaming but instead, a slew of words flew from her mouth with absolute pleading.

"Gida… Gida… moslokta? Gida… bosti nila neyda." She clutched my robes tightly.

"Bawo!" I called over my shoulder. "What is she saying?"

"Gida… Gida…" Bawo whispered to herself as she struggled to remember. "Gida is father."

"His name is Gida?"

"No. That is how you say father in Tirera. She's delirious. We have to bring the fever down."

"Bosti nila neyda." The girl blurted out again.

"She wants to go home." Bawo whispered in my ear as I tried to center my thoughts. I had never attempted a healing on anyone who wasn't Antarian. "I don't know where she's from."

"I'll take her home myself and pay restitution to her father." I muttered as I reached inside for the powers handed down from father to son throughout the royal Antarian line. She pulled me inside her somehow. Maybe it was because she was Tirera. Maybe it was because we had bonded souls. I cooled her core and the fever broke. Then I went about relieving any pain she still held, fixing old bruises. I withdrew myself to a degree.

"She's doing much better." Bawo sighed a breath of relief, watching as I did a cursory check over the girl. When my hand passed her middle, it glowed. "What is that?"

"I don't know. I've never---" I never got to finish that sentence because when I passed my hand over her belly, it glowed brightly and then I could sense what caused it.

Present Day. King Zan's chambers.

"She was pregnant." I whisper almost to myself.

"Yes, she was. There was no way I could take her home in that condition. Not with what I had done to her. Not with the child in her belly." He looks at me and I look away. "Avery."

"No." I shake my head.

"Avery."

"I can't listen to this anymore." All the pieces are there but I don't want to hear the piece that will order everything else. "Not unless you say that I have an older half-brother living in the far reaches with his grandfather."

"Avery, you were born nine months later." He says it and I have to lean on the wall to keep from sliding to the ground altogether. "You are Liz's son as much as you are mine. Ava was just my wife, she wasn't your mother."

TBC

[DMartinez]

The Queen of Antar
Becomes a mother

Present Day. The Chapel.

I sit in the front pew and stare at the rain as it hits the windows over the pulpit. I've been in the chapel all night. My mind tells me that Father lied to
me last night. My heart finds the truth in it but it's hard to reconcile that all I have believed about my family is a lie. I mourned the death of a woman who played a role I called Mother when my real mother was a woman I called Liz, the nursemaid.

Lord Larek finds me in the gloom of the darkness and sits behind me. "I think your father's royal pew is the longest in the history of Antar."

"It is." I whisper, my voice hoarse.

"Do I take your seclusion to mean you've learned the truth about the other day?"

"Not yet." I clear my throat and turn to face my father's most trusted friend. "There are other things on my mind just now. Do you know Liz well?"

"Not nearly as well as you do." Larek shakes his head. "I met her years ago, after you were born. I was given to understand that the pregnancy was hard on your mother. She was secluded the entire time to protect her from disease. You were immediately turned to the nursemaid for care, she having just given birth to a stillborn." He smiles at me. "Your father cared for her very much, your mother. He never allowed her unprotected or unguarded. Always with a companion, Liz, I believe. I suppose they were very close. I do concede that I find fault with the idea of Liz being our main suspect but until the evidence points elsewhere…"

"I try to weave my way through their riddles but… nothing makes sense."

"Do you think she is guilty?"

"No."

"Then why don't you declare it?" Larek leans forward, his blue eyes shining at me from under a flop of gray hair.

"Because she does have motive." I sigh heavily and sit back in my seat. "A strong motive to want Mother dead but there's no proof she did it." I watch as the Bawo hunches over a student at the altar and instructs in the placement of the candles. "I wish Bawo Lodona would speak to me. She's refused my company since it happened."

"She's an old funny woman… She was an old funny woman when she taught Zan and I our lessons so long ago."

"What do you know of the Tirera, Lord Larek?"

"Not much." He shrugs and props his chin on his hand as he watches the girl scramble to Bawo's instructions. "My father didn't tell me much other than they are not allowed to marry with Antarians. Y'Antari and all within would fall down. King Aperys was the expert on the Tirera law but I don't think he told it to Zan."

"Why not? Father said about the same thing to me."

"Your grandfather was quite old when Zan was born. He was a good King but only got his son when he was 43, I believe. On his second Queen. He lost the first to the disease that eventually swept Antar, killing him as well at the ripe old age of 64. It's really the type of thing a Lord… or a King, would pass on at the rite of manhood." He grins as he remembers something. "It got put off because Zan refused to take a woman to bed out of wedlock. So instead of getting this talk at 15, he was damn near 20 and your grandfather was very sick." Larek laughs softly. "All of Y'Antari could learn a thing or two about duty from your father. He is a good man and I hope when this is over, he will recover."

--

I watch my siblings play from a hidden doorway. Danei has them all playing children's games to while away the rainy day and all the questions from officials. It hits me then that I don't know everything. I don't know that I am the only one born this way. I didn't wait to find out. I only know for certain that I am a half-breed prince. I don't know if Danei and all the others are Liz's or Mother's… Ava's. The way Father has talked of Ava, I find it hard to believe that any of them are hers. But why would Liz allow my father to use her so? If I were Liz, I would hold a burning hatred for the King of Antar and never allow him near me. Mistake or no, the deed was done and I am proof of that. Everyday looking her in the face, a reminder of that horrible night.

When I finally find myself standing in front of Liz, I don't know how to act. Do I embrace her as I always have? Am I painful for her to look on? Instead, I crawl onto her bed and pull the blankets up over my shoulder. She crawls in behind me and holds me to her body and I want to cry. "He told you then." She whispers and kisses my face. "I wanted to tell you but we agreed so very long ago that you should hear it from him."

"How could you stand to have me inside you after that?"

22 years ago.

It was all a blur after Bawo took charge of me and asked me all those questions about what had happened. I wanted nothing more than to forget it all. It was hard to absorb everything she said but I was moved to the chapel bedroom and when I woke up I learned that it had been days since I had fallen asleep.

I didn't feel as if I had been sick but Bawo insisted that I rest. She catered to me, pampering me with good food and not allowing me to do my chores. I knew something was wrong but she wouldn't say and I still cried myself to sleep, afraid that it would happen again, even inside the chapel. One morning, I woke early and saw him sitting at the foot of the bed,
asleep in his chair. I was too scared to move but I couldn't take my eyes off him.

His skin shone in the early morning light. All of his hair was gone. The Tirera only cut off their hair like that when someone died. My father did the same when my mother died. I was curious but cautious. Suddenly his head fell forward and his head jerked back up, his eyes blinking wildly. Then he saw me. His eyes filled with tears and he reached out for me but I shrank back into the pillows behind me. "Liz, soturu. Soturu."

I had heard that word in service but I still didn't know what it meant. I watched him weep openly at the foot of the bed. "I want to go home."

His head whipped up at that and turned his face to the doorway. "Bawo!"

I was crying then because he couldn't understand me. "I want to go home. To Parkston."

"Dorlio! Batsa nista. Ni Tirera!" He called out.

Bawo Lodona swept into the room and motioned for Y'Antaru to be quiet. She held me in her arms and kissed my head. "Liz, poditso detsa." I sobbed because she said I had to stay at the palace. She rocked me. "Liz, batsa nista. Wafir alina amasta nacisa?" I nodded and tried to calm down. "Alina xoco tifana ebis?" I nodded again. "Kinate dine li dechko…" I started to cry again because I knew what she was talking about. "Liz, Y'Antaru na misa dine… Liz." She made me look at her. "Y'Antaru lianto ebi." I shook my head and tried to push away from her. I didn't want to believe it. I scrambled off the bed blindly only to have him catch me before I could reach the door.

He held me tightly though I fought as hard as my small body would allow. "Liz. Qienta. Soturu. Qienta. Ni usta beida Liz." I went limp in his arms because I couldn't fight him off and he was powerful, Y'Antaru. He could send someone to find me. I didn't even know how far from home I was. He picked me up and put me back on the bed where I wept. His seed grew inside me. I was young and naïve but I knew he wanted the baby.

--

My life changed in a whirl that I barely recognized. Depression settled heavily on me so I almost didn't notice how much it had changed. My chambers moved from Y'Anri's bathing room to Y'Antaru's. The bed was the softest I could have hoped for. I spent a lot of time in it following my birthday. I didn't have any chores. Meals were brought to me by the Bawo. I couldn't stomach eating but if I didn't, Bawo Lodona would sit and make me eat. Every night, Y'Antaru would come to me and put his hands on my head and my belly. It felt odd and I had no clue what he was doing but I always felt better the morning after, though I had hardly realized that I was feeling poorly.

It was a spring day when Y'Antaru came into my room early to pull me out of bed. He took me to the bathing house outside. The bath servants were instructed rapidly and then I was alone to endure the longest bath of my life. I was dressed in new clothes and clucked over by all those women. I could hardly understand a word they said though sometimes they shared looks with each other as they murmured amongst themselves.

When I was clean and dressed, Y'Antaru came back for me with a carriage and Bawo Lodona. I sat quietly inside with them and stared out the window. They were mostly quiet as well. If they talked, they whispered
so low that I couldn't decipher a thing. The carriage stopped in a village where a spring celebration was going on. They looked so happy dancing that I had to smile.

"Dimo." Y'Antaru told me. I looked back at him and he gestured to the door next to me. "Dimo." I didn't wait to be told again. I escaped that carriage and made my way to the circle. The village wasn't all that different from Parkston but it was larger and it seemed to thrive. Girls and boys danced around a maypole while the musicians played away. Parkston had rarely had cause to celebrate in my recollection but the one or two times had been reminiscent of that day. These people had little to celebrate but the green in the fields seemed to be the cause.

I don't remember how long I stood watching when a boy grabbed my hand and pulled me out. At first I resisted but watching everyone smile and the way he looked at me… I blushed and let him lead me to the line where the girls were taking the long ribbons from the pole and dancing around in circles. When the boys all had their ribbons, we moved, weaving between each other. Two by two, couples gave up and danced together. My ribbon was tied off and the boy who had pulled me out gripped my hand. "Bawila. Na Kylo."

"Bawila." I ducked my head a little. "Na Liz."

With one hand, he flashed a bunch of fingers and moons at me. He was 15. I responded in kind. He only grinned when he learned I was older. His blue eyes studied me intently. "Batsa conila?"

I stammered because I didn't know what to say. I probably shouldn't tell him that I was Tirera. I lived in the palace but I didn't feel that was where I was from. So I pointed to the carriage on the hill.

"Ah." He nodded and took me to get a biscuit and something to drink. "Michada Y'Antari dosna valco anyoa nila. Coti pili nilo?"

I could only nod. He spoke so fast that I could only catch his question. I used to work in the palace but I hadn't done much in three weeks. He smiled and brushed his sandy brown hair out of his face. I tried to keep up with his conversation but my Antarian stuttered off my tongue in such a way, I feared he thought I was slow and stupid. I met his father, the magistrate, and his aunt, the baker. She pinched my cheeks and gave me a basket of muffins. Kylo rolled his eyes behind her back and whispered to me that she thought I was too skinny.

The smile on my face faltered and my hand skittered over my belly because I knew that I would not be skinny in a few months time. His smile widened and he winked at me before he told me he'd help me eat them
if I was going to stay longer. I only smiled and looked away. I knew that I wouldn't be in the village overnight and I might never see it or Kylo again. The carriage was still on the hill and neither Bawo nor Y'Antaru had emerged.

I stayed with Kylo and his family until dark fall. They tried to ask me questions but they all talked so fast that I couldn't understand their tongues. Bonfires and music lit the night air. Then the fireworks went off. I sat with Kylo's family and stared up at the bright bursting colors against the black night. I was so absorbed, I didn't notice that everyone around me had quieted and none of them were watching the sky. When Kylo's father jumped up, I looked after him. He bowed in the clearing at
Y'Antaru's feet.

Watching the two men talk, I hoped and I prayed that maybe he was getting rid of me. Maybe hiding me away. I could live in the village with Kylo and his family. I could raise the baby as Antarian amongst people more like my own. The magistrate turned his face toward us and snapped his fingers at us. Kylo and I rose to join them. Kylo immediately went down on his knee. When I didn't, the magistrate made to strike me but Y'Antaru stopped him, shaking his head sternly. Bawo joined us and placed her hands on my shoulders. "Iska macha nacisa adontia. Y'Antaru uik popli chana… wodui ebi."

Whatever she said made Kylo's head snap up to stare at me. She had mentioned the baby but it didn't explain why he looked at me that way. He wasn't disgusted by me but he might have pitied me. I averted my eyes while Y'Antaru and the magistrate exchanged more pleasantries. As we turned to go, a cheer went up behind us. "Pechasa Y'Antaru Zan! Pechasa Y'Antari!"

I froze and whipped my head around to Bawo Lodona. Then I eyed the villagers while they all chanted the same thing. Y'Antaru lifted his hands and nodded to them before turning to follow us. His eyes caught mine and I knew he saw something in my face that must have given away my surprise. I turned and scurried ahead of them to the carriage and climbed inside before the driver could help me. My mind was whirling.

Present Day. Liz's Chambers.

I look at her, confused. I don't understand what was significant about what the villagers chanted that day. I've heard it succeeding and preceding Father everywhere. "Long live King Zan. Long live Antar." I say to her and she nods sadly. I sit up to stare at her. "What?"

"My Y'Antari is still not the best. At that point, I had come in contact with few people and none of them spoke of your father by name, only by title and I didn't know that Y'Antaru is the highest title an Antarian could have. I knew that the King was Zan but I did not know that Y'Antaru was Zan. That the man who had impregnated me was King Zan. I thought he was a nobleman, afforded luxuries for his station. I didn't know the Antarian world well at all."

22 years ago.

Once inside the carriage, I made myself small and tried not to talk, not even when engaged. I had prayed that he would never come to me the way he had on my birthday. Even after he moved me to his bathing room, I held hope that he would tire of my fear and send me away. I knew he wanted my baby but until that night in the village, I was sure there was some way to get away from him and take my baby with me. Even in my depression, I had come to terms with my condition and I figured that I might raise my child up to be a good person… away from Antarian influence. Once I learned that my child was royal, I lost all hope. If I ran, all of Antar would be on my heels.

When we arrived at the palace, another carriage sat in the square. Its trunks were being unloaded and carried out toward the washhouse. Bawo took me to my room. Y'Antaru raced ahead of us and before we reached my little room, we could hear their heated voices. I fell into bed, weary and sad. Bawo fussed over me, whispering words I didn't understand but thought were supposed to comfort.

It was very late when he burst in with a pillow and blanket, muttering under his breath as he made a bed on the floor. Bawo shook her head. "Dorli doshwa?" He only waved her off. "Botsi?"

He nodded and shifted around on his blanket. "Na wotsa ebi."

"Na gornei." Bawo spat and hugged me to her.

"Ni dorli doshwa. Y'Antaru dorli nila." I offered meekly. I was slightly startled when he smiled at me and shook his head. I hated that I found his smile kind and his face handsome. "Ni kishka."

He only shook his head again. "Liz a ebi dorli ando meya."

"But he's a king." I blurted out to Bawo in my own tongue. She caressed my cheek and nodded. "He won't take the bed from me?" She shook her head. "He won't… come to me?" Again, she shook her head.

"Ni kolki aischa hu tsi, sig Zan na kolki dinette. Na qienta, Liz."

"What is qienta?" I asked because I kept hearing that word and I had never learned what it meant. "Soturu?"

Bawo sighed heavily and turned to Zan who only nodded and turned on his side to sleep. She kissed my head and motioned me under the covers. "Votsu."

It took me forever to fall asleep with him in the room but eventually I must have. I woke at dawn and oddly felt like a new person. I wasn't startled to find his hands on me but I couldn't say I trusted him either. I couldn't remember when I realized it but I knew when he touched me like that, it was because there was something wrong inside of me that only he could fix. I had heard of the healers but I had never met one or seen one at work. When I woke that day, I was bound and determined not to spend the day inside. I had to go outside and feel the sun on my face. I had to see more of the palace I lived in. I had to experience the world I lived in because I hadn't realized how important the people around me were.

When he left, I cleaned up in the water basin and I went to the dining hall for breakfast. I was ravenous. Hungrier than on any day in Parkston that I could remember. I cleaned my bowl and I yearned for more. I tried to ask someone but they just stared at me as if they had never seen me before. So I snuck around until I found the kitchen and I took a bag from a closet, filling it with whatever I could sneak into it. I ran out into the fields with a bag of food. I felt delightfully naughty as I roamed the fields munching
from my little store. Sweetbread, crusty and buttery, melted in my mouth. Carrots, tart and crunchy. I was starting on a sour apple when I heard the hoofs of a large horse. Heartened by my newfound strength, I didn't even try to hide. I squinted up into the sun when horse and rider approached. They slowed as they reached me.

"Bawila!"

"Bawila!" He called down to me but the bright light kept me from seeing his face. "Liz Paka?"

"Ne Liz Paka." I called back up, biting into my apple.

"Y'Antaru misot ne washtli Liz Paka bostu nela." He reached down a hand for me.

"Batsa?" I ignored the hand. "Ni elto."

"Ne Davi Peyrs, jicto nena Y'Antaru."

"Oh." I only nodded and began the walk back to the palace. King Zan had sent guards out looking for me. I bit into my apple and chewed thoughtfully as I walked, aware that Davi was following on his horse. "Ne nela quaroro cardini."

He laughed and glanced around us. "Y'Antaru kishka Liz Paka nela nei qaeni."

"Liz. Ne Liz." I tried to get him to call me by my first name only but he persisted in using my full name. "Liz ne …" I trailed off as I had not yet learned numbers. I awkwardly flashed my age around my apple core. He tilted his head at me and flashed to me that he was 19. "Davi Peyrs, batso cardono?"

"No. I'm not hungry." I nearly tripped over my own feet when my native tongue flowed out of his mouth. I glanced around for spies. "What's wrong?"

"You are like me?" I couldn't help but feel someone was going to catch us.

"If you mean Tirera, then yes." He smiled warmly down at me. "You would be right to fear someone could hear us but you wandered quite a ways from the palace. I'm surprised you got this far."

I was nearly bursting with joy. I tossed the core into the fields and hugged his leg. So unseemly for a bath maid to hug a soldier but I had been so far from home for so long, I needed someone who understood me. He
patted my hair and reached for my hand again. This time I let him haul me onto the horse behind him. "Please, don't hurry back. I needed to get out of there."

"Okay. A leisurely ride, it is then, Liz Paka." The horse made us sway a little as he moved but slowly so I could enjoy the ride without holding on and so I could enjoy my cookies. "How long have you been amongst the Y'Antari?"

"Almost two years. You?"

"Seven. I can't believe they let you go. When I got picked up, my village refused to let go of their daughters."

"Parkston is small. Three of us came. The boys went to train and I was sent to the palace. Did you know King Zan and Y'Antaru are the same person?"

"When I arrived it was King Aperys… That was confusing at first but it didn't take me two years to figure out."

"At least people are talking to you. Everyone ignores me. I ask questions and they just stare at me."

"They don't know you. Your inflections are strange. They don't know what to think. It took me a while to speak their tongue without Tirera accents slipping in." he explained it to me and it seemed to make sense. "Parkston, huh? I'm from Whittenton."

"That's… three leagues from Parkston?"

"Four." We rode slowly but I knew the ride would be over too soon. "You don't look 16. King Zan told me you were 14 and that's what I thought you were."

"Bawo Lodona told him four times already. I don't look that young, do I?"

"You're just short. Maybe you'll grow."

"Mother was short… that's what my father says, anyhow."

"Would I know him? Whittenton and Parkston worked together years ago."

"Jeffery Parker."

"Parker? What happened to Liz Paka?"

"Bawo gave me a Y'Antari name. Elizabeth Parker was too Tirera for her comfort. She told King Zan that I was going to be a priestess."

"You're not?"

"No." I shook my head. "I have to give up a lot of things to live here. I can't betray my father that way. What's your Tirera name?"

"David Pierce." He took a deep breath and turned to look at me, his blue eyes glittering. "Though no one has called me by it in far too long."

"Are there more like us? Hiding?"

"I don’t know. They drag us from our homes to give us food and jobs but they don't let us be ourselves. I still pray our way… but late at night when no one can see me."

"I tried but… she makes me spend so much time with Y'Anri and in the chapel that… It's just too much to hide." I held up a cookie for him to take. He smirked at me and took it between his teeth, making me blush. He winked and turned back to guide the horse. "I won't ever forget our ways though. No matter what."

"Good. I'm afraid that I will go out to the far reaches and find they are gone… blown away like dust in the wind. Some of us should remember it for them." He chewed the cookie for a moment before turning his head again. "Where were you going with all that food? Are you sure that you weren't running away? I've never been sent out to look for just any girl by order from the king himself."

"I was hungry. I've been in bed for three weeks and hardly ate a thing. Now I'm starving and they wouldn't let me have more at breakfast, so I stole some food and went for a walk." I explained as it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I would have come back."

"Were you sick?" The question hung between us until we came to the edge of the fields and closer to the palace.

"I guess you could say that. I never felt bad but now that I feel good…"

"Three weeks is a long time to spend in bed." He commented and cleared his throat.

"Will I see you again?"

"That depends on how urgent it was that I get you back. If we're in trouble then probably not. If we're not, then maybe. I've been here about a week. They'll probably send me away in six months. It's what they do." Inexplicably, I found myself clinging to his back in tears, not wanting to go back to the palace. He turned to face me but I buried my face in his shoulder. "Liz. You have to learn their tongue. You have to fit in. If you run, he may look for you again. I don't know what you've been through and you don't know what it's been like for me… but I can tell you that this world is not kind to Tirera when they don't hide. Promise me that you will try."

"I will."

"When they hit you, just… don't provoke them further."

"They don't hit me anymore." I whispered. "King Zan doesn't let her hit me. He took me away from her so she won't."

"I suppose he's not a bad man." I didn't answer the question in his eyes. "Be safe, little Liz Paka. I will be around."

When the horse stopped, its head bowed and David slid off in front of me before helping me down. He guided me through the front doors and into the library where Bawo Lodona and King Zan were pacing and talking in low voices. "Y'Antaru, Liz Paka."

His head spun around so fast, I thought he was going to fall over. "Nila dis batso, Liz?"

I shrank back and hid behind David who made no move to aid or stop me. "Ustila."

"Ishtil?" He growled and I was afraid to peek around David but I did. "Liz?"

"Davi vier ne."

"Davi?"

"Davi Peyrs, Y’Antaru." David introduced himself. "Ustili quaroro netsi."

“Jicto Peyrs.” Y’Antaru held out his hand for David to take. I watched, as the soldier was hesitant to take his King’s hand but did. “Hustiro.”

“Opisto.” David inclined his head. “Na meytsa?” Then he gestured to me. Zan shook his head but motioned me to join Bawo at a table with several books laid open. “Na Bawo nisa?”

Bawo and Zan stared at David for the longest time but neither answered his question. “Hustiro, Jicto Peyrs. Liz Paka votsu menitir.”

“A-yei.” David bowed and turned on his heel to exit.

I was petulant. I sank into a chair and pulled out more cookies to munch on. I expected a lecture that I wouldn’t understand. I expected some stern looks and much questioning.

Present Day. Liz’s chambers.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. They just… looked at each other like I wasn’t there. I told them I wasn’t trying to run away but they seemed to just… let it go.”

TBC