“You summoned me?” he says, hovering just inside the door.
“Why are you so far away?”
There’s a hesitation before he approaches. How dare he act as though he is doing her a favour?
“Crawl,” she says.
He gets to his hands and knees. That gives her some satisfaction, except that he is still too slow, and …
“Are you weeping?” she says, leaning forward.
He mutters something.
“I am your queen,” she says. “Speak properly.”
“I farewelled her this morning,” he says between sobs.
“Who?”
“My sister.”
Cecilia does not like the sharp sensation that goes through her chest at the mention of Lorena. She had been informed that her farewell ceremony was today, but she did not see the point in attending. The Perfugians are so maudlin. There are so many events around death. There is the burial, usually performed on the day of passing, before the body starts to bloat in the heat. Then there is a sacrifice to the mountain, where the family gives thanks for keeping their relative safe while they lived. That is followed by a lengthy series of pronouncements at different points in the city, where tales of the dead’s life are told by seasoned storytellers and attended by friends and family. And, finally, the farewell ceremony, where dried meat and iced wine are consumed around the grave and the stone is fitted and planted with seeds so that flowers and fragrant grasses cover it as the years pass. Cecilia has never liked passing those cemeteries of coloured hillocks. When a person is gone, they are gone. Why should she honour them when they were weak enough to die?
“It has been a moon or more. Your grief is over,” she says. He flinches from his position on the bone floor, as though she has kicked him.
“I’m trying to help,” she says, and she really might kick him soon. Such instructions always helped her to get past her girlish emotions when she was younger.You’re not upset any more, her kingly father would say.What use are tears to royals?Or More’s gentler:Do you think you are being hysterical, princess?
Over time, she learned that they were right. These are weak emotions, and she does not suffer them.
“She was my sister,” Florin says, looking up at her. His eyes are bloodshot and he wears an ugly sneer.
“And she was my best friend, butIhave not been pathetic about it for days and days. I was the one who had to make the decision to sacrifice her. It was very hard for me. If anyone has the right to be upset it is me, not you.”
The boy has the nerve to laugh. Cecilia rises, drawing herself to her full height. She was always tall for her age, lauded across the continent as a princess worthy of a divinely blessed family.
“Come here,” she says.
Miserably, the boy crawls towards her.
“You are a worm,” she says.
He hesitates, then drops to his belly and pulls himself forwards. She will punish him for that pause. She has the perfect needle for the task. When he reaches the lowest of the steps up to her throne, he stops, awaiting her instructions on how to proceed.
“Say you are sorry,” she says.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty.”
“Tell me you love me.”
His lip quivers, but he holds back the tears. Good. “I do love you,” he says.
The sight of him like that, as though she is a goddess and he is worshipping her, makes her wet. This is how it’s going to be once she returns to Elben and claims a palace (whyis it taking so long to procure a crew? Oh, her jaw clenches just thinking about it all over again). She will have no need of needles: she will have divine power to wield in sharp points of pain.
She sits back on her throne and spreads her legs. The boy knows what to do. She takes hold of his hair, moving his head to the points that offer most pleasure. This is why she keeps him despite Lorena’s death. She was his first, his only lover, and she has trained him to please her body alone. This is how it should be: just as she was mentored in the way of lovemaking before she sailed for Capetia to be married.
“No one else will ever give you what I give you,” she says on the whisper of a moan.
His fingers dig into her thighs in reply. “Harder,” she says. She wants him to leave bruises. Love notes, like the ones she leaves on his skin.
