Page 68 of Threaded
“Being raised … what? A commoner? A peasant from Andburgh? Regardless of our blood, Ryenne, the Goddess chose us—bothof us—to be queen. And while I certainly didn’t think I wanted that title at first, I’m here now. And I intend to rule.”
Mariah’s voice was harsh and punishing, her anger still thick and heavy on her tongue. Ryenne simply hung her head in defeat, Kalen’s hand on her shoulder tightening once as he levied a cold look at the younger woman.
“You should know, Mariah, that you are no mere commoner to us.” Kalen’s voice, filled with an uncharacteristic chill, snapped her attention to him. “However, before throwing your anger like a knife, I would encourage you to think for a moment about what all is at stake here. This is not some mere play for power; perhaps it is for some, but is not—and has never been—for Ryenne or myself. The people of this kingdom arereal. And a good ruler cannot afford to dismiss options that may help her in the name of pride.”
Mariah kept her sharpened gaze on Kalen as he spoke. Once he was done, she simply stood, turning sharply on her heel as she strode towards her bedroom. She didn’t yet possess the authority to dismiss the queen, or her consort, from her presence, but also didn’t wish to remain sitting there for a single moment longer.
“A good ruler cannot afford to dismiss options that may help her in the name of pride.”
No. This was not a matter of pride. This was a matter of taking back power from men who never deserved to wield it.
Before she slammed the doors to her room, Mariah chanced a glance back at Ryenne. Mariah watched her lips move, and despite the distance she could still hear the Queen’s next words.
“Perhaps this is why the magic left me early. It no longer wanted to be kept a captive in this palace and wished to find one who possessed the strength to do what it had been created to do.”
At those words, Mariah set her shoulders and turned back around, her bedroom doors closing behind her with a soft click.
CHAPTER32
The night was cold, the stars twinkling above Mariah as she sat alone on her open-air veranda off the living space to her suite, the wind rushing off the Attlehon Mountains whipping her near-black hair around her face. She pulled her wool blanket tighter around her shoulders, taking a deep sip from the glass of ice-cold whiskey in her hand.
Sebastian and Drystan had poked their heads back into her suite as soon as Ryenne and Kalen left, but she’d promptly dismissed them, requesting the time to be alone. She felt her emotions, her anger, her stress rising in her like a tidal wave; all that which she normally suppressed and buried deep within her threatening to break the dam she’d been building inside her mind since her very first memories. She didn’t tolerate emotions well—she preferred to remain unfeeling, hardened, ignoring anything beyond immediate gratification of the flesh and her instincts.
Love is a weakness.
Mariah thought about how much had changed in only a few short weeks. No more than a month ago, she’d awoken with a hangover on her twenty-first birthday, expecting her only challenge to be how she would pull off her unnoticed escape from the town, grandfather’s dagger in tow. Instead, she’d walked out of her room to a silent table, an unopened letter in her mother’s hands that would alter the course of her life forever.
Now, she sat there, on a balcony in the queen’s suite of the golden palace of Verith, feeling both that she was always meant to be here but also like she had no business calling this her home.
She tilted her head back, her green eyes shining in the starlight above, the bright light from the gold and silver moons bathing her in their glow. Her attention lingered on that silver orb, feeling the panic start to rise once again, but shoved it down before it choked and drowned her. That fear of what might lie inside her could petrify her, consume her, if she let it.
And there was no chance in all the heavens she would let it.
She then turned her gaze to the golden moon that hung beside its twin. And as she stared up at that golden sphere, she decided to do something she’d not done in a very long time.
Mariah prayed.
She prayed to Qhohena, to the golden goddess whose magic she carried in her veins, magic she’d not been born with but had been Chosen to bear all the same. She prayed that no matter what happened, no matter what she did or who upset her or how far she was pushed, she would never forget who she’d been on that night with her family, drinking whiskey around a fire crackling with the promise of change.
She hoped beyond measure that her prayer wasn't too late, that there was still a part of her left to save.
Despite the brightness of those moons above, she couldn’t help but think that no matter how hard she prayed, how desperately she wished upon the stars above … no one was listening.
* * *
Mariah slept soundly, falling into a deep slumber.
And as she slept, she dreamed.
In her dream, a silvery figure appeared, clothed entirely in light, its features concealed completely by the bright glare radiating from it. At first, Mariah could hardly tell if it was male or female, but as it moved closer to her, she caught the shape of hips, the dip of gentle feminine curves.
The female shape moved closer, Mariah’s subconsciousness ensnared in a trance, until the being stood before her, silver light burning into Mariah’s soul. The figure reached out, and Mariah could’ve sworn she felt a featherlight touch stroke softly down her cheek when a voice, a voice both ancient and youthful, feminine and masculine, a voice filled with dark power, echoed in her mind.
“Wake.”
It was as if someone dumped a bucket of cold water over her entire body. Mariah’s mind went careening back towards consciousness; the ghost of that silvery touch lingering on her cheeks, her eyelids flashing open to reveal the darkness of her room. She remained motionless in her bed, adrenaline coursing through her veins, her senses and her magic reaching out into the space around her. When she felt the brush of the fall breeze across her face, her blood ran cold.
Her bedroom window was open.