Destiny's Queen by J.D. Rogers

  Chapter 9

  It doesn't snow in the Finger States, not even in the middle of winter. However, it does rain, and when it isn't raining, it's cloudy and windy. It was just that type of day, overcast, windy, and drizzling, when I was given a message. It was a message I didn't want to hear. Edgerton had taken a turn for the worst and wished to see me.

  I changed before paying him a visit, putting on a blue and green chiffon dress with belled sleeves. I tied my hair back with a matching green ribbon then headed for Edgerton's suite. According to the court physician, he didn't have much time left.

  He had recovered briefly following Iderra's arrival, trimming his beard, cutting back on his drinking, and eating regularly. That recovery turned out to be temporary. The closer the two statues of Catlett came to completion, the worse Edgerton's health grew. It was almost as if seeing her in marble reminded him just how much he missed her. I couldn't help but wonder if I had made a mistake in commissioning the statues, couldn't help but wonder if they were hastening Edgerton's demise.

  I found him sitting up in bed, propped up on several goose down pillows. That's where he had been for the last month, following the day they installed the two statues of Queen Catlett in the throne room. To say that he didn't look good was an understatement. He was skinnier than ever, looking nothing like the robust man that rolled me up in a rug and tossed me over his shoulder back in Adah.

  His beard was neatly trimmed, not because he kept it that way, but because I had ordered his servants to keep it that way. His sunken eyes had the same jaundiced looked that I saw in Catlett's eyes the day I met her. Only this wasn't caused by a poison someone had slipped into his food. It was caused by something much simpler, a broken heart.

  "If this is what falling in love does to someone, then I will never fall in love." I sat on the edge of Edgerton's large bed, then kicked my legs up and propped myself up on a couple of pillows, stretching out next to him.

  Edgerton took my right hand between both of his. Once his hands had been plump and strong, but now they were frail and bony. He flashed a weak smile. "All my life, I dreamed of sharing my bed with a queen. It's only been in the last month, when I've become too weak to do anything about it, that a queen has finally climbed into bed with me."

  "Get better," I teased. "And I'll give you a night that you'll never forget."

  Edgerton patted my hand. "I'm afraid it's too late for that."

  I smiled, a sad smile. "And I'm not the right queen."

  "No, but you are a great queen."

  "How would you know? You never leave this room. This bed."

  "You've flooded my room with pretty young maids. I talk to them. They talk to me. I hear them talk to each other when they think I'm not listening. They say there is an energy, a vitality, in this castle they've never seen before. This castle, this city, this country, are fast becoming the place where everyone wants to be."

  "Why don't you get better. Then you can resume your job as chancellor, and once again make this the place not to be."

  Edgerton managed a laugh, albeit a weak one. "How did the Queen Catlett's maiden race go?"

  We had just tested Idy's newly finished corsair against the Queen of the Sea, a standard caravel. "The corsair won easily. Just like Idy said it would. Sometimes, I think that you kidnapped the wrong sister."

  "Your sister's very smart. But she would not make a good queen."

  "Why not?"

  "She doesn't know how to relate to others."

  "How would you know? You've never seen her talk to anybody but me."

  "Last week, she told me that she had picked my brain of everything she wanted, and that I was free to die. She hasn't been back to see me since."

  I hadn't known that Iderra had stopped her evening visits to Edgerton, let alone told him that he was free to die.

  "I'll talk to her," I said. "Tonight, she'll come and see you. And she'll behave herself. You have my word."

  "It doesn't matter. The point is, your sister doesn't have the gift."

  "What gift?"

  "I don't know what you call it. It's that indefinable something that draws people to you, makes them want to be around you, work with you, work for you. Whatever you call it, energy, vitality, charisma, you have it. Iderra doesn't. As much as it pains me to say it, Catlett didn't have it either. She was kind and beautiful, but she didn't possess the fire and determination that it takes to be a great leader." Edgerton closed his eyes and paused to catch his breath. His breathing was heavy and labored. After a couple of minutes, he opened his eyes and continued. "My one regret is that I won't be around to see you when you're in your prime."

  "I'll be twenty-one in a couple of months. Many would argue that I'm in my prime now."

  Edgerton scoffed at that notion. "A woman doesn't enter her prime until she's thirty. You're still a good ten years from your prime, and if all my pretty maids are to be believed, you're already a better queen than Catlett. By the time you reach your prime, you'll be a sight to behold, sexy, smart, beautiful, confident, determined. All men will want you. All women will want to be you. All leaders will envy you."

  Now it was my turn to scoff. "I've heard that dying makes one delirious. Now, I know that it's true, for you're talking nonsense."

  Edgerton didn't argue with me. He just chuckled and changed topics. "The papers leaving the rest of my estate to you are in order. They're locked in a drawer in my desk. When I die, you'll own one-third of Vassa. None of the barons will dare challenge you. Not that they would want to."

  "I don't want you to die. I'm tired of losing people that I love."

  "The One God has plans for you, Lila. Some of us must step aside for those plans to be carried out."

  "What plans?"

  "First, there's something you must know. Something the One God has told me."

  "I didn't even know you were a religious man."

  Edgerton chuckled. "All dying men are religious men."

  "What has the One God told you?"

  "You have yet to discover all of your powers. There's one power that you have yet to learn about. You must master it if you want to defeat your enemies."

  "What kind of power?"

  "I don't know. You'll have to discover that for yourself. I do know that dark forces are rising, Maximillian Bedard and Roehl Tharrington are among them, but they're not chief among them. They're just pawns."

  "Who is chief among them?"

  "I don't know. I only know that it wasn't coincidence that brought you to me. It was ordained by the One God. Catlett wasn't strong enough to defeat these dark forces. You are. That's why the One God brought you to me, and why I brought you here. That's why your mother had to step aside as Queen of Adah. Why Catlett had to step aside as Queen of Vassa. Why the kings of Holt, Enid, and Tash had to step aside. And why I must now step aside."

  "I don't want you to step aside."

  "The Prince of the Air is bringing his king into play. The one the prophets called the Dark King. The One God is countering with his queen. The one the prophets called Destiny's Queen. You are Destiny's Queen, Lila. I can see that now." Edgerton saw the tears trickling from my eyes and raised my hand to his cold dry lips. "Be happy for me. I'm going to be with the queen that I love. The other queen that I love."

  "You'll tell her that I miss her?"

  "I will. And I will tell your mother that you miss her. I will also tell them about the queen you have become and will become."

  Edgerton didn't talk after that. He just closed his eyes and held my hand. I stayed with him for a couple more hours. Until his labored breathing softened, then stopped all together. Until the hands holding mine grew stiff and cold.

  When I left his room, I didn't feel like Destiny's Queen, I felt like a harbinger of death, for whenever someone's life came into contact with mine, death seemed to swallow them up.