Allegiance by Cayla Kluver
Indignation was transforming itself into anger at my father’s reference to Narian as “the Cokyrian boy.” Still, I did not let it show.
“You met with him in secret, without my permission, and I’m certain, without a chaperone, all of which is unacceptable behavior for any young woman in the nobility, let alone a member of the royal family. I had hoped that by the time you were crowned Queen, you would have grown up enough to meet your obligations, but a queen does not dress like a man, steal her father’s horse and disobey her husband.
“This cannot continue, Alera. Your actions have shamed me, dishonored the King and disgraced the kingdom. I would not fault Steldor for taking you in hand. Nor would I object if he locked you away until you can conform to behavior befitting his wife.”
As he uttered his final sentences, I glared at him. The fury building within me seemed to have a life of its own; it felt as if a phantom being was rising, pounding against every pore of my body, clamoring to be released. My father’s condemning words echoed in my mind, only to be supplanted by Cannan’s: You are the Queen, Alera. You no longer answer to your father.
Our identical dark eyes locked together, and I straightened my spine, then words came out of my mouth that, for once, suited the circumstances perfectly.
“If you feel ashamed, perhaps it is because of your own foolhardiness and not due to mine.”
My father’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. “Do not speak to your father in such a manner!”
“Do not speak to your Queen in such a manner!”
The former King was struck dumb, my passion a wall with which he had unexpectedly and painfully collided.
“You have the gall to come to me and say that I am immature, that I have disappointed you and that I am incompetent, when it was you who were too selfish to allow me additional time before taking the throne, you who would not hear that any man I loved could be a suitable king and you who pressured me into a marriage for which I was not prepared. All these things for which you are chastising me are of your design. I would not have met secretly with Narian had I thought you would accept him. I would not be an inept queen had you not charged me with the throne. And I would not be a distraction to Steldor had you not trapped me into being his wife.”
I had crossed the room to my father, who stood with his mouth open as if he desired to argue, to defend himself, but was unable to conjure words.
“I wish, perhaps more than you, that you had given these decisions further thought,” I bitingly added. “But I am now your Queen, and you will show me proper respect. You will never address me in this way again.”
His stunned eyes met mine, and I waited a moment while he stuttered incomprehensibly. Then I stepped around him and left the room.
That evening, I waited for Steldor in the parlor we shared, passing the time curled up in one of the leather armchairs with a book of poetry. My husband had missed dinner—along with my father, amusingly enough—and had not yet come to our rooms for the night, though the hour was late, even for him. I knew he was in the palace, for I had seen an oddly pale Galen once or twice throughout the day, and had the King been absent from his duties, the whispers of the servants would have been impossible to suppress. Instead, rumors were circulating to the effect that the sergeant suffered from a self-inflicted malady, although I was not certain what that meant.
I soon found myself reading without comprehension, my thoughts wandering while my eyes continued to scan the pages of the book. I’d been experiencing a strange sense of liberation in the aftermath of the quarrel with my father, for I was free of his judgments and therefore free of his expectations. This notion had bolstered my confidence to the point where I was willing to contend with Steldor in the hope of settling things between us.
In the past hour or so, however, doubt had begun its assault. My father was currently avoiding me, but he resided in the palace, and I would see him nearly every day. What would our relationship be? We would be on civil terms; I was not concerned about that. But would we ever be friendly toward one another again? Had I changed things irreversibly? And if I had, was that necessarily something to bemoan?
I laid aside my book, trying to concentrate on the matter at hand—what to say to Steldor when—if—he returned. It was possible he had either gone with Galen for the second night in a row or was waiting to come to our quarters until he was certain I’d gone to bed. In either case, he surely didn’t want to talk to me. Considering his recent fits of rage, perhaps it would be wise to stay out of his way.
As if on cue, Steldor quietly came in—so quietly, in fact, that I was not aware of him until he cleared his throat. I started from my pensive trance and looked to the doorway where he was smirking at me, and I felt like a child who’d been caught daydreaming while her studies awaited her. But when he stepped out of the shadows and into the lantern light, I noticed the abnormal pallor of his skin, tinged gray as if in sickness. He fell heavily onto the sofa, stretching out atop it, his hands clasped behind his head. I was unable to read his mood but thought he could not be feeling well.
“Are you all right?” I inquired.
“I’ve been better.”
“You missed dinner. Perhaps I could get you—”
“Not hungry.”
I paused, not certain how to proceed, then my eyes fell upon the jug of ale on the table in front of the sofa.
“Maybe some ale would help,” I suggested, wishing he would humor me in some way and tell me what was wrong.
“Ale is most definitely not what I need,” he pronounced. Before I could make sense of this statement, he asked, “Why were you waiting up for me?”
“To talk to you,” I answered, honesty seeming the best course.
“Ah.”
I began to understand that this conversation would be mostly one-sided.
“I want to apologize,” I continued, swallowing the lump that had risen in my throat, “for several things.”
“Apology accepted. You’re forgiven.”
I frowned, twining my hands together in my lap.
“I haven’t even said what I’m apologizing for!” I protested.
He winced and put a hand to his forehead in reaction to my raised voice. As he did, his right shirtsleeve slipped to his elbow, and I caught sight of a bandage wrapped around his forearm.
“You have my attention,” he groaned, motioning with his arm in my general direction. “There’s no need to be shrill. By all means, explain.”
I decided to start at the beginning, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my feelings for Narian. It was wrong of me to keep that from you.”
I was hesitant to broach this particular topic, even though I knew it was probably the most important one, but Steldor did not react; rather, he seemed content to simply listen. Courage bolstered, I forged ahead.
“I’m sorry for leaving the palace without telling anyone and for not taking guards. I’m sorry for being unreasonable and refusing to come back with you, and…” I grimaced as a pang of remorse shot through me. “I’m sorry I bit you.”
Still Steldor was silent, only now I found it unnerving instead of emboldening. Nevertheless, I persisted.
“And I’m terribly sorry that, due to my obstinacy—” I struggled to avoid blatantly stating that he had been scolded by the captain, finally settling upon “—you and your father had a disagreement.”
I was again met with silence and wondered if he had fallen asleep. With a sigh, I rose to go into my bedroom, but his subdued voice arrested my movement.
“You’re forgiven,” he said, repeating the words, only this time with conviction.
I smiled slightly, then proceeded to my room, not naïve enough to expect a reciprocal apology from him.
“Alera,” he said, stopping me, and I turned to see that he had pushed himself into a sitting position, his brown eyes sincere. “In the future, if you would tell me before you leave…”
He pa
“I promise,” I said, allowing his sentence to remain unfinished. He again fell back on the sofa, and I stepped into my bedroom, for once having affectionate feelings toward my husband.
Three weeks remained until we would host the celebration for Miranna’s birthday, and during that time our lives fell into something of a pattern. When I awoke, I would breakfast in my quarters, proceed to the Royal Chapel for morning prayer and meet with the household staff in my drawing room. When necessary, I would also meet with the palace scribes to arrange for letters, invitations or announcements to be written and dispatched. In the afternoons, I would meet with visitors or host a small palace function, such as a tea party, then do as I wished—go shopping, walk in the garden, read, work on my embroidery or spend time with my sister or mother. I would share the evening meal with my family, my father having finally regained pride enough to sit at the same table with me, although Steldor was always too busy to join us, a fact my parents found baffling. Apparently during my father’s reign, the King had never been so consistently occupied. Whether this was a sign that Steldor was inventing excuses to avoid me or that my thickly built father had simply been more devoted to the consumption of food, I could not be certain. I would retire shortly thereafter, to begin the same routine with the rising of the sun.
I knew little of Steldor’s daily activities, except that he kept exceedingly irregular hours. He sometimes came to our rooms in midevening to change clothes, only to leave again without a word, never returning before I went to bed and yet already departed when I rose in the morning. At other times, he would not return at all at the close of day, and I would instead hear him enter to change clothes at sunrise, then immediately depart to undertake his duties, as if neglecting to sleep for nights on end were the most natural thing in the world. I saw little of him, and we spoke fleetingly at best when our paths did cross.
Despite our minimal contact, his testiness toward me had noticeably increased since his tender response to my apology—it had begun to seem that, for every nice or sensitive action Steldor took toward me, he felt the need to compensate with a turn for the worse. Needless to say, such fickle behavior did not increase my desire for his company, and he likewise did not, for the time being, seem to yearn for mine. I wondered if he was this variable in temperament with everyone or if he reserved it for me.
Just a few days before Miranna’s birthday, I visited my favorite retreat, the garden that extended from the rear of the palace to the northern section of the walled city. At this time of year, the flowers filled the air with a rich fragrance, while the elm, oak, chestnut and mulberry trees offered cooling shade. I walked along one of the footpaths that divided the garden into four sections, listening to the chirping of the birds and letting my mind wander. I stopped to examine one of the four double-tiered marble fountains, its splashing water sparkling in the sunlight, almost hypnotizing in its sound and motion. I became lost in thought, oblivious to my surroundings, until a voice pulled me from my reverie.
“There you are!” Miranna cried, springing down the garden path toward me, looking cheerful. When she reached me, she took my arm and pulled me toward the palace, speaking so quickly that it took all my concentration to understand her.
“I’ve been searching everywhere for you, Alera! I just spoke to Father, and he hinted that he’s going to make an announcement at my birthday dinner. I hardly dare hope, but I think I know what it will be, in which case this is one birthday I’ll never forget!”
I didn’t bother trying to persuade her to confide her suspicions, for she would tell me if she wanted me to know. Given her enthusiasm, however, it was easy to guess it involved Lord Temerson, the shy young man in whom she had been interested for almost a year.
She led me all the way to her quarters, rambling about the need to choose the perfect gown, how her hair had to be styled impeccably and how she needed to decide on both of these aspects before a tiara could even be considered. Her cheeks were flushed, and her blue eyes danced while she recounted her worries to me. I was amused as she flew about her bedroom, her strawberry blond curls bouncing every which way. She was probably the only person in the entire kingdom who ever thought she could look anything short of beautiful.
After we had sorted through her wardrobe three times, I managed to convince her one of her newest gowns would be most fitting, and it wasn’t by chance that the dress I picked went well with only one of her tiaras. The decision about hairstyle would have to wait, as Ryla, the personal maid I had recently hired for her, would be assisting with that aspect of her preparations.
Though Miranna continued to waver over her choices, she was more satisfied than she had been, and we moved into her parlor, where I sat upon her sofa while she settled into an adjacent armchair.
“I don’t know how I’ll make it until the party,” she said, unable to sit still and twirling a strand of hair around her fingers with such earnestness that I feared for her scalp. “I haven’t seen Temerson in five weeks! Can you believe it? It feels like five years!”
“The Military Academy has been keeping him busy then?” I asked, though I knew that was the impediment. The school year ran from the beginning of November through the end of June, and the only reason Miranna had been able to see Temerson five weeks previously was because of my wedding. It was odd to think that the wedding might have been Miranna’s had I foregone my claim to the throne and refused to marry Steldor, and it was heartbreaking to imagine the effect it would have had on Temerson. He would have had to stand by while the woman of his dreams became the wife of a man who had always outranked, intimidated and eclipsed him, and whom he undoubtedly viewed as more deserving of her companionship than was he.
I wondered if Narian, wherever he was, knew that I had married Steldor. If he did, what must he think of me? I had given Narian my heart but had then pledged myself to a man he knew me to detest, and from whom he’d assured me I could escape. While Narian had been the one to depart, I believed he had good reason and would return to Hytanica when he could. Why hadn’t I waited for him? At the very least, he would be disappointed in me; at worst, he might not want to return, unable to bear my betrayal. In the end, if Narian ever did come back, what he thought of me would not matter. I could never be with him, for my marriage vows would eternally divide us.
Miranna had continued to chat away about her “dearest,” as she now referred to Temerson, and had not noticed that my mind had wandered. I tried to push my bleak thoughts aside, not wanting my frame of mind to affect hers.
“But the thirtieth of June marks the end of the schooling year,” Miranna happily babbled. “Then we’ll have the whole summer together!” She stopped playing with her hair, and a touch of anxiety entered her voice. “You do think he’ll want to spend it with me, don’t you?”
“I have no doubt he’ll want to spend every free moment he has with you.”
“You’re right, of course,” she agreed, with a blush. “He’s hopelessly in love with me.”
“Well, someone’s hopelessly in love,” I said with a laugh.
She sank back in the armchair, face shining with joy, spinning her fantasies out loud.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Marrying Temerson, having a beautiful wedding—as beautiful as yours! And then we’d have children, lots of them, and they’d all be beautiful, too, and look just like him.” She paused, frowning a little. “Except for one. One will look like me. One can look like me, right?”
“Yes, one can look like you.”
“Oh, Alera,” she gushed, leaning toward me. “What will your children
She trailed off, imagining my future offspring with a dreamy expression, but I went red, knowing that the way things were, it would be a very long time before there would be an heir in the offing.
She caught the change in my expression, and her eyes grew wide, drawing a conclusion I did not expect.
“Alera, are you…are you pregnant?”
“Certainly not!” I blurted, a little too vigorously, revealing how appalled I was at the idea.
Miranna sat up, the tiniest bit startled by my reaction, and I tried to smooth it over with a more acceptable response.
“I’m not pregnant, not…not yet.”
“Something’s wrong, Alera. Is he not treating you well?”
“No, nothing like that. Everything’s fine, really.” I tried to keep my voice light, although the color in my cheeks was refusing to wane.
“Is this about Narian?” she asked, moving to sit next to me on the sofa, the concern in her eyes making me squirm.
“Steldor’s not upset about that anymore,” I said, averting my gaze, for the problem was with me, not my husband. “I just don’t think I’m the wife he envisioned.”
“But you are the wife he envisioned,” Miranna insisted. She sat in silence for a moment, contemplating me, then her skin flushed to match mine. “You are acting as a wife, I mean in every way, are you not?”
I was disconcerted by her boldness, but my lack of denial was answer enough.
“You aren’t! Oh, my, you aren’t!”