#ember cd

~

Somewhere in the depths of the ramshackle city that had grown up outside fortress Dorchadas, a rooster crowed.

Rosa groaned, dragging a hand over her face to scrub away her sleep. Her hair was a greasy tangled nest around her head. When she opened her eyes there was a brief moment of Where am I? when she saw the bare rafters above her head. She was not in the royal suite, that was certain. Then the night before crashed into her like a physical force and she sat up.

Ember's hand fell off her chest. Rosa glanced back; Ember, a mercenary, was still asleep, her scarred limbs spread-eagled and her cropped hair sticking up at the back. Rosa reached out as if to nudge her awake, but at the last moment her hand faltered and fell to her side.

Instead, she slipped carefully out of bed and collected her commoner disguise from the floor. The plain cotton clothing grated against her skin, which felt hot and sensitive from the night before. She carefully caught up her hair and wound a headscarf around it, wincing a little as the rough cloth touched the bite marks that trailed under her ear and down the side of her neck.

Finally, she laced up her boots and headed for the door. This was no royal suite; Ember was lucky enough to have two rooms to live in. Her kitchen was crowded against the wall, close to the bed. It made entry and exit easy and mostly unimpeded.

As she pushed the front door open, there was a rustle from behind her.

“Wait,” Ember said, her sleepy voice thick with confusion. “Hey, where are you going?”

Rosa left.

Hunching her shoulders against the gazes of the dragons who crowded the street outside, she set off back towards the fortress. As she went she passed by a seedy inn, where her own bodyguard, Myra, had been staying the night. Her armour hidden by a long cloak, Myra clanked a little as she ran to greet Rosa.

“Morning, Your Majesty,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You know, it would make my job a lot easier if you didn't disappear on me every night.”

“But you still found me,” Rosa said, beckoning.

Myra snorted, nodding. She was a large, no-nonsense sort of woman with a broadsword almost as long as Rosa was tall strapped to her back under her cloak. “One day I'll be waiting out here and you won't come back, and then I'll be out of a job.”

“Nonsense,” Rosa said, “any noble in the court would sacrifice a first-born to have you as their bodyguard.”

They approached the enormous fortress doors, which were currently held open to allow the flow of traders and handservants to enter the court for their morning rounds. Rosa and her escort blended in with the crowd. Myra eyed each passer-by with a practised look of suspicion.

“Who was the lucky lady last night, then?” she said.

“A wildclaw mercenary,” Rosa said quietly, her gaze set dead ahead. It felt as if her chest was slowly being crushed as she recalled the night before. She didn't want to go back to the court. She wanted to lie in Ember's arms all morning and have breakfast with her.

“Mercenaries, warriors, pit-fighters,” Myra said. “I'm sensing a pattern here, Your Majesty.”

Rosa simply nodded. She didn't want to explain why she tended to go for the rougher sort of woman when she could hardly walk down the street without spotting at least five girls she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. The trappings of femininity could be beautiful on someone else, but lately all they did was remind her of her own life, of the splendour of court, of everything she wanted to get away from.

Somehow, she'd thought that being queen would be different. She'd thought she'd have enough power, finally, to do whatever she wanted. But that was not what had happened. As soon as Corin was of age, she'd promised herself, it would be time for her to abdicate.

She and Myra made it back to the royal suite un-accosted. It was so early in the morning that there was no one of consequence around to see her slip back into her quarters; the nobles tended to sleep in.

Half an hour later she emerged from her room, dressed like a queen once again, cocooned in her finery. Her head held high, she joined her family in the breakfast room and took a seat, pushing her chair as far away from Atropa as she could. He didn't glance up as she entered, engrossed in some documents emblazoned with the Winterborn crest.

Corin didn't react much to her entrance, either, which was unusual for him. He poked at his breakfast, apparently deep in thought. There were dark rings under his eyes.

“Well, Corin,” Rosa said, trying to inject a bright tone into her voice, “what are you doing today? Meeting up with Prince Angelo again?”

Corin nodded. “Mm. Maybe.”

“You should invite him round for dinner one day,” Rosa said, with the fervent hope that no outside royalty would ever see what her home life was really like.

Atropa turned a page with a rustle, speaking without looking up. “You'd better not be neglecting your classes.”

Corin nodded again, then abruptly pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “I have to meet my tutor now,” he said. “Can I be excused?”

“Fine,” Atropa said with a wave of the hand. “Remember to pay attention to him, this time. He told me yesterday that you weren't...” He trailed off with a short sigh. Corin was already gone.

Rosa no longer had any reason to stay; she'd already made a point of never being alone in a room with Atropa, a habit established well before her coronation. After marrying Adair, she'd gone to live in the Winterborn hold with all his adoptive brothers, including Atropa. When she'd finally left, incredibly relieved at the prospect of never ever having to interact with Atropa again, she had done her best to forget about what she had witnessed in the hold.

Zaer had known, of course, that she was massively uncomfortable around Atropa. Which was exactly why he'd been sent over to marry her after her coronation.

“You're too soft on him,” Atropa said, folding shut his documents.

“Forgive me,” Rosa said, her voice icy cold, “if I refuse to take parental advice from a beast.”

He sighed, as if she was simply being unreasonable. “You know I'm right,” he said, “and in five years when he can't handle his own responsibilities, you'll wish you had listened.”

She paused with her hand on the door handle. “My son will be a king,” she said, a touch of pride in her tone, “not a spineless, glorified merchant - nor a filthy excuse for a dragon, like you.”

“He's my son too,” Atropa said softly, meeting her eyes for the first time. “in fact, he's more mine than yours. Once he's older he'll see that there's more worth in the company than there is in this archaic monarchy business.”

She wrenched the door open. “I'm not wasting my time arguing with the likes of you. Go fuck a corpse or something, we’re done here.”

“One more thing,” Atropa said, as if the two of them had merely been arguing about a stain on the tablecloth. “It's about Corin's bodyguard.”

Rosa had to linger on the threshold. “What about him?” She could only sort of picture the bodyguard in question; brightly coloured and small for a guardian, but deadly with a rapier. He'd always seemed amiable enough.

“He's unsuitable for the job,” Atropa said, the first shred of annoyance entering his tone. “He didn't turn up for almost three days, and now he seems constantly on the verge of falling asleep. He's not vigilant enough to be a bodyguard.”

Rosa was torn for a moment, between her desire to oppose every single decision Atropa ever made, and her common sense telling her that this really was not appropriate bodyguard behaviour. She compromised; “Fine. I will find a new bodyguard for him. Myra will know someone.”

“Very good,” Atropa said, opening his document again and reaching for his teacup.