So, she made the decision: a soldier for a city.
“Goddess.” Araes hinged at the hips in a bow that would make Euda and her etiquette lessons proud as he opened the door of the travel carriage and offered his hand. She flicked it away and stepped down, gravel crunching under her slippers as she made for the gardens. The sun beat down on the front drive, bleaching the periwinkle hydrangea bulbs that bristled in the breeze along the manor’s powder-yellow exterior.
“I should like a walk through the gardens,” she said. Before Araes could protest, she entered the hedge maze. Having been in the study all morning, they skipped breakfast, and she knew his emptied stomach must be growing uncomfortable as lunch approached.
As an immortal, she didn’t need the frequent sustenance that humans did. She and her godly kin could go days, maybe weeks, without eating if they preferred. She’d take her time in the gardens then, maybe even until dinner service.
“Goddess, should we not first take lunch? It’s nearly high noon. I wouldn’t want Her Highness to get dizzy on her stroll and risk collapsing,” Araes suggested, trailing Tethys with a slight curl of his lip.
“I’ve seemed to have lost my appetite, Lieutenant. Maybe I left it alongside my authority that was so rudely brought into question,” she spat, furiously rounding a corner of the maze.
“I simply meant to offer a soldier’s perspective on the matter,” he said with that incessant tone of satisfaction. He looked as if he’d won an especially challenging game of chess with victory dimpling at the corners of his full lips.
“Ignorance is not asoldier’s perspective. Feel that cramp in your belly? Hear the sounds your stomach makes in protest? The drought will kill off another third of our crops. Without those trade routes reestablished, there will be hundreds of citizens with the same emptiness that you feel now and a hundred more who feel it, if not worse,” she retorted.
There it was, that flicker of surprise in his eye as she justified her decision, not that she needed to. She was queen. She needn’t explain herself to this mere mortal man.
“If the routes are of highest importance, why didn’t the king then reestablish them? You immortals can snap a finger and be in another realm a heartbeat later. Why risk a messenger?” the soldier questioned, his accusatory tone sinking its teeth in.
“Because, Lieutenant, if you knew anything about the Canissaens, they’re stubborn people. Sure, they’d lift the embargoes, but Procyon barely has a grasp on commanding his council as is. Without a face to face meeting between the damned fools, they’d find more creative ways to subdue our trade alliance. Why do you think the war lasted as long as it did? Because we immortals simply turned a blind eye to you arrogant humans killing one another?”
“Yet you turn your backs on the men and women fighting on the front lines who pray for solace from the bloodshed. Those that pray toyoufor relief. What of them?” the lieutenant spoke rapidly. He couldn’t contain the words as they flooded from his parted lips like raging, turbid water. His loss of control was striking.
“The only man I shall turn my back on is you, soldier,” Tethys said, tending to the rage ablaze in her eyes. She turned away, storming through the maze with clenched fists and red tunnel vision.
“You are as naive as they say,” Araes snarled, the words a mere rumble in his throat.
She stopped with her foot extended, his voice interrupting its descent to the ground. Araes stood with arms crossed over his chest, no longer in the at-attention stance customary of a Venian soldier. With a strand of curly brown hair dangled down his brow and flashing amber eyes that looked like death, he was a vision of lethal prowess.
Tethys turned back and closed the space between them, consumed by her own fury, until only inches were left between their lips.
“Might I remind you, Lieutenant Araes, that you are speaking not only to your queen, but also to yourgoddess.I could kill you where you stand presently, and for far less than your blatant defiance,” she whispered. It was a shallow bluff, but she didn’t care.
Araes let out a smart chuckle low in his throat.
“Threaten all you wantGoddess, but you and I both know you’re powerless. After all, isn’t that why I was assigned these ridiculous orders? Why I mustn’t leave your side in fear of someone or something endangering yourlife? Your immortal siblings don’t have bodyguards, do they?” His eyes darkened into golden pits as they met hers.
“No, they do not, but do not underestimate me,” she whispered. His words hit her like the sharpest of Aquilaean blades—swift and relentless. She was, in fact, powerless. Everyone, even the loyalist of lords in her court, questioned her decisions as a ruler. Araes simply reiterated the truth.
“You may follow because those are your orders, but we shall walk in silence. I do not wish to hear your mouth open again,” she commanded, whipping the hem of her skirts as she turned another corner. They were closing in on the maze’s center now.
“As you wish,” was the soldier’s only response. His voice was gruff and vicious in the springtime sun.
The center of the maze was her favorite spot in the garden, and today she yearned for its soothing air. A fountain bubbled lazily, surrounded by a pond of vibrant green lily pads with peach-colored flowers. Granite-carved benches, positioned equidistantly around the pond’s edge, offered a peaceful perch in the warm, rustling breeze. Tethys found her usual seat and watched a hummingbird jitter from flower to flower in the adjacent thickets of honeysuckle.
She smoothed her gossamer skirt and watched the folds of fabric pool at her ankles. Kicking off those godsdamned slippers, she dipped her toe in the cool water. It swirled around her skin with the crisp feel of early spring. A group of minnows drifted along the pond’s sandy bottom, nibbling on mossy green algae.
The fresh garden air quieted her distraught thoughts as she inflated her lungs with it. Fine, the council could keep taking her reign so flippantly. Let them make decisions for themselves. So long as she had this garden and this pond and these fish, they could do what they pleased. She hadn’twanted to be queen anyway, right?
And as for the lieutenant…he could insult her all he wanted. Araes was a brainless shell of a man, a weapon and nothing more. She wasn’t sure how he burrowed his way so deeply under her skin, but nevertheless, she’d shake him off if he tried again. He was a mortal after all. He had an expiration date. He would wither and die, just like everything else on this godsforsaken continent. Everything except her.
Tethys sighed and leaned against her palms. The lieutenant, a silent wraith, took up property at the hedge maze’s exit. It was infuriating that this horrid, self-entitled brute was right. Shewasdefenseless.
While her brothers trained with shields and wooden swords in the yards of their childhood palace, she and her sister practiced dancing and curtsies in the ballroom. When she asked her father one lazy afternoon why the boys got to play warrior while she and Polaris served imaginary tea to their hand-sewn dolls his response was simple, matter-of-fact: “It is their place in this world, just as this is yours.”
She hadn’t questioned him further on the subject, but she felt the inequality deep in her core. Just like her dolls, they dressed her in soft pink gowns with delicate lace and pearly beads. Was this her place? Submitting sweetly to a council of men and keeping quiet when her husband planted bruises all over her body? Silent tears fell to her lap. Surely there was more to this life than being a powdered puppet.
How much could she take until finally she snapped? A heartbeat more? An eternity more?
