Avalyne Series 01: The Queen of Carleon (6 page)

‘
No!’ Arianne's cry was almost on the verge of hysteria. ‘I will not allow this! There must be a way to stop this abomination!’

‘
There is,’ Lylea nodded. ‘The Enemy cannot perform the ritual to resurrect Mael until your babe is strong enough to accept such a spirit. It is too young and too fragile inside you to make such an attempt now. You must stop it before two full moons have passed. Arianne, only you can do this because as much as the Enemy hates us all, it cannot allow any harm to come to you. You are the mother of its future master, and while it may kill all others around you, you are beyond it's reach.’

‘
Dare cannot know then,’ Arianne declared meeting the eyes of the other women in the garden. ‘If he learns of this danger he will insist on fighting it, and the Enemy will destroy him.’

‘
Yes,’ her mother nodded gravely. ‘This is
your
quest, Arianne. The fate of your child lies is in your hands alone.’

‘
No,’ Celene stated, not understanding all of it, but enough to know that her friend was not going  on a terrible quest alone. ‘I will go with you Arianne. I will pledge my sword—as the Lady of Gislaine and as a Princess of Angarad—to the service of my friend and my Queen.’

‘
And I’ll come too,’ Keira started to say when Arianne cut her off.

‘
I cannot ask you both to do that,’ Arianne spoke, her voice very small in her ears. ‘This is my doom.’

‘
All the more reason for you to have help,’ Celene retorted, her tone indicating that she would tolerate no argument on the matter.

Arianne
closed her eyes, feeling tears of anguish rising up within her. She wanted to scream and shout at the unfairness of this, but she could not waste time with such displays. Inside her body her son needed her to be strong for him, stronger than she had ever been in her whole life. She could not falter now not when his soul was at stake. She would accept their help because she was not foolish enough to think that she could do this without her friends at her side.

‘
Tell me then mother,’ Arianne said finally. ‘What must I do?’

Upon returning to the Great Hall where her friends and invited guests were presently continuing their revelry into the night, Arianne
realised that it was no easy thing for a Queen to preside over celebration that gave her no joy. How could she, after having glimpsed the terrible future that awaited their son?

Even as she took her place next to her king, her heart was pounding so hard beneath her breast
that she feared he might hear it through the din of chattering voices around them. Try as she might, she could not force away the terrible memory of what her mother showed her. Surrounded by a sea of voices belonging to the people she cared most for in the world. Arianne felt like an island of loneliness, forced to endure her despair in secret.

To their credit, Celene and Keira attempted
to support her wherever they could throughout the course of the evening. They interjected when she could not think of a thing to say and offered her pregnant state as an excuse when she lapsed into her own thoughts. If not for them, Arianne did not think she would have been able to maintain the gracious mask she wore for the benefit of those around her.

Lylea had chosen to withdraw for the evening, perhaps realising her continued presence at the banquet was only adding to her daughter's melancholic state. It was she who had brought this doom upon Arianne
, and she could well understand if Carleon's queen chose to look at her with resentment for spoiling what should have been a day of celebration and rejoicing. Tamsyn had watched her depart, wanting to speak to her and learn how it had gone, though it seemed obvious enough by Arianne's sedate manner for the rest of the evening that the news had not been received well.  As if it ever could be received any other way.

Arianne was glad that Dare was not paying her close attention
, because he might have noticed her troubled disposition. Fortunately, the King was occupied with the company of his old friends as he, Aeron, Kyou and Celene spoke of their adventuring days. Under any other circumstance, she knew that if he had asked, Arianne would not able to hide her anguish from him. They could read other too easily for anything of this magnitude to be concealed from each other indefinitely.

She longed to tell him the danger threatening their child, to feel his strong arms about her
, and hear him say that nothing would harm either her or the babe while there was breath in his body. And he would be true to his word. He would put their lives before his and as surely as she had seen it come to pass in Lylea’s pool—Arianne knew he would die because of it.

The thought of his
existence being cut short, taken from her so soon before they even had a chance to live one lifetime together was more than she could stand. It stabbed at the heart of her deepest fears now that she had chose to live a mortal life with him. Forever was now a few decades when time was once unlimited. Her mother warned her about the hazards of mortal existence. Her own father was human, and it had near killed Arianne to watch him wither and die as his mortal existence reached completion. She vowed she would not to do it again and it had made the choice so much easier when Dare had come into her life.

Her mother
preferred to take men as her consorts largely because they had a finite lifespan. Lylea had no desire to be tethered to anyone for thousands of years but on occasion, even the High Queen of the elves required company. Once they were gone however, her mourning was quick and then she continued on as she always had, until the need for company overtook her again and she ventured out of the Veil for a temporary salve. Arianne did not blame her for it, as she understood that Lylea saw these men as transitory elements in her life..

Arianne knew that she
could never feel the same way about Dare. To face all of eternity without him was unimaginable, and so she accepted the price her older brother could not—to live one short span of life with a man she would die without. It made Lylea’s demand to keep this from Dare all the more reasonable. If the Enemy required her child for its dark purpose then Arianne was the only person it could not harm. Any force capable of drawing a god from the Aether was more than capable of killing the King of Carleon.

She would
not risk Dare for anything.

The voice of Imogen, one of the fairest singers in Sandrine, carried through the hall as she performed her song for the
King and his guests. She sang a sweet melody of love and courage, of great deeds and tragic losses. The audience listened in rapt attention and Arianne studied Dare as he too was mesmerised by the enchanting music.  He caught her gaze and turned to her, favouring Arianne with a smile as he covered her hand with his.

In that moment, she knew he was happy.

Becoming King had been hard on him. For years his goal had been to free Carleon and Avalyne from Balfure but she realised he had thought little as to what came after. He was so accustomed to moving about freely, going on adventures and sleeping under the stars with his companions. For so long he had driven towards their liberation from Balfure and now that peace had come he was finding the adjustment from warrior to king difficult to make. 

However, for now he appeared finally at peace with his life, in a way she had not seen since before his coronation.
Her heart soared at this knowledge, but also plunged because she knew how much of a knife edge that happiness stood upon.

Her
course was now clear. This quest was hers to fulfil.

Whatever the outcome.

*****

‘
It was good to see everyone again,’ Dare sighed happily as he lay contented against the cool sheets of his bed and held his wife’s warm body in his arms hours later.

It was in the small hours of the night and their guests had either turned in or were still sprawled under tables w
here they had drunk themselves to a merry stupor. When Arianne had spirited Dare away to their bed chamber, the king of Carleon was certain he had seen a pair feet protruding from beneath the table that either belonged to Ronen or Aeron. He was not certain which. Meanwhile, even if the folk of the Green did not think much of interacting with the other races, they certainly knew how to drink.  Tully had shown a remarkably lusty appetite for ale and had held his own quite impressively against Kyou and Ronen in this endeavour.

The king himself had indulged and a
s he rested his head against his pillow, he knew he was going to suffer tomorrow. He prayed his wife had some elven remedy to spare him some the torture. Then again, she might just as well let him suffer to teach him a lesson.

‘
Yes it was,’ Arianne agreed, savouring the feeling of lying in his arms and in their bed, secretly aware that it was going to be the last night they would share together until her quest was done. ‘I had forgotten how much I missed them all.’

‘
So had I,’ Dare replied, breathing in the heady scent of her hair into his lungs. ‘Sometimes I think everything before the war happened to some other man, because it seems like a lifetime away from where I now stand.’

‘
The world changes my love,’ Arianne smiled, her fingers tracing small circles against the bare skin of his chest with her finger. ‘You have simply changed with it.’

‘
Until tonight, I did not know I could be happy as I once was, although I wonder if I was ever truly content. I always had the dream of the alliance to drive me and I do not think I gave any thought to what I wanted for myself, other than us being together. I had so much freedom as an exile and none now that I am king. I have yet to decide which is better. Still I have you and soon our child, so I think I can be happy as king,’ he admitted.

‘
I am glad,’ she said softly, her eyes fixed on his. ‘I want to see you happy, Dare. You deserve it. You have brought pride to the House of Icara and its line of kings. When our son is born, he will have a father he can look up to.’

Dare looked at her with mischief and remarked with a brow raised,
‘How is it so that you are so sure it’s going to be a boy? It could be a girl.’ he teased mimicking her own words from the day of her announcement to him.

‘
It will be a boy, ‘Arianne replied softly, saddened by how she had come to know this fact, ‘I
know
it.’

‘
I did not lie when I said I did not care what it is Rian.’ He raised her chin so that he could look into her eyes. ‘Any child that comes from you will fill me with joy, no matter if it is a girl or boy.’

‘
I know,’ she smiled and leaned forward so that she could kiss him.

There
was no terrible darkness waiting on the edge of her consciousness when her lips touched his. As always, they were two creatures perfectly attuned to each other's needs as he rolled over and covered her body with his, taking charge of their intimate exchange. Their intimacy as husband and wife always felt deeper than flesh. Arianne did not care what tomorrow would bring. All she knew was that she loved him and that this was possibly their last night together if she failed in what she intended to do.

Shrouded in each other’s heat, their need for one another became an agonizing game of pleasure an
d pain, of touching and tasting, of animal lust, wrapped within the complexity of deep abiding love.

And when they were both complete, when he lay against her breast, the air soaked with the scent of their lovemaking, she watched him sleep.
There was no trace of Alasdare Icara. the King of Carleon but just that scruffy young man who appeared at her mother’s court and stole her heart away.

*****

Celene's farewell to Ronen was nowhere as passionate as Arianne's, but she did not mind it terribly.

Unlike the Queen, Celene did not believe their quest would fail
, and so she considered her parting with her husband a temporary thing, for she fully intended to see him again. He had won her heart because he understood that even if she was warrior born, there was still a woman beneath the armour who wanted all the same things as her mother before her. However, wanting a home and children of her own did not make her any less of soldier, and his understanding of that simple truth was what made her love him so.

Of course that love was sometimes tested particularly
when he was in the company of his
friends
.

She watched him snoring in their
bed, dead to the world, certain to suffer spectacularly for the excesses of the evening. Even if she could rouse him from his drunken slumber she doubted she would get any sense from him at all. Accustomed to brothers who loved their ale, Celene could not fault him for enjoying himself in the company of Tully, Aeron and Kyou. It was not often that he could forget his station and be himself amongst people he could truly call friends.

Celene
stayed at his side all night, if only to make sure he did not drown in his own vomit should his body revolt against all the ale he imbibed. Fortunately, Celene was spared that indignity, and only when dawn’s first light finally peeked over the horizon, she left his bed to embark on the journey ahead. The previous night’s revels ensured he did not notice her departure with Arianne and Keira.

Even though she was now the Lady of
Gislaine, she was still at heart a daughter of Angarad and her travel garments reflected that past. She wore a dark red leather jerkin with a belt at the waist to hold her scabbard. Her breeches were of similar colour that were a variation of the combat uniform of an Angarad soldier. With the same boots she had worn when she followed Dare’s Circle across Avalyne, Celene strapped on her vambraces and took up her sword, a blade of the falchion design favoured by the Angarad, and she was ready to go.

She
returned to the bed where Ronen continued to snore in deep slumber, and she found a little smile stealing crossing her lips as she took in the sight of him. Leaning forward, she kissed him lightly on the lips and then frowned because his black sleep made him oblivious to it. With a sigh she drew away and hoped he would not be too upset at her when he awoke to learn what she had done.

Whatever his reaction, she knew it mattered little. Arianne needed her and Celene would not fail her Queen.

*****

If Tully knew what she was about to do, he would have thought her mad.

To him, she wasn't an elf princess like Arianne nor was she a soldier like Celene. She was a farmer's wife whose days were spent cooking, cleaning, growing vegetables on their farm and occasionally going into the village to hear the latest gossip. She had no doubt that he would have considered none of these skills terribly useful if one was embarking on a quest to fight an opponent planning on hijacking an infant’s soul and replacing it with the spirit of a god.

This moment was what she had been waiting for
. The words had escaped her lips before there was any time to consider how she would embark upon the quest with Arianne without Tully protesting her participation. Fortunately, the urgency of the situation required secrecy and they would have to be away from Sandrine without revealing the intention to anyone which suited Keira fine. The less Tully knew the better.

Keira knew that Arianne and Celene probably expected her to turn back and return to Sandrine.
They may even be relieved, she thought silently. After all, what was she but a provincial woman of the Green who spent her days growing things and looking after the needs of her husband? She had stood on the periphery of world changing events while they had been in the thick of it. Save for that one incident with the Disciples, Keira had little to do with the defeat of Balfure.  She was certain that they expected her to turn back before they were even half way there.