The Queen of Rhodia Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  www.ninestarpress.com

  The Queen of Rhodia

  ISBN: 978-1-950412-78-5

  Copyright © 2019 by Effie Calvin

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2019

  Published in May, 2019 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at [email protected].

  Also available in Print, ISBN: 978-1-950412-79-2

  Warning: This book contains mentions of past child abuse.

  The Queen of Rhodia

  Tales of Inthya, Book Three

  Effie Calvin

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  For Freya, a cat who makes faces

  Prologue

  GAELLE

  Queen Gaelle of Rhodia—Great Mother of the Silence of the Moon, rightful owner of half of her country’s marble quarries, and wife of King Alain—regretted that she was not a dragon.

  It was not just for the obvious reasons: the terrifying size, the ivory teeth, the breath of fire, and the gift of flight—though that certainly would have been reason enough. What Gaelle really envied was the dragons’ abilities to lay eggs. What she would not give to be able to eject a child from her body and go about her business while it lay in a fireplace for a year!

  But it was not meant to be. And so, grudgingly, Gaelle had her children in the ordinary way. Her only comfort was the fact that she could hand them off to the nursemaids until they were old enough to hold an intelligent conversation.

  Her eldest son was Gael, crown prince and heir…and the only one of her six children whose name she could recall at any given moment. Gaelle disliked children greatly, but as Gael grew into manhood, his temperament pleased her. He was strong and solemn, as unshakable as a mountain. Like his father, he was blessed by Iolar, with a knack for detecting trickery, and had discovered every hidden passageway in the palace by the time he was ten years old. He would make an acceptable king someday.

  Next was Eloisa, firstborn daughter. She had Talcia’s magic, as any princess of Rhodia should. Like her brother and her father, she was even in temperament, with none of the shrieking rage that Gaelle was sometimes known for, though that was not to say she was not capable of vengeance. When it came to her blessing, her self-control was excellent and her magic a sparkling shade of ruby. If, Talcia forbid, something should happen to Gael, she would be a suitable replacement. If not, she could be married to another member of the Rhodian nobility for the sake of strengthening alliances.

  Eloisa had been followed by Matheo, second-born son. Gaelle could see no reason that her other children should not be regents. They could spread her power across Thiyra, and perhaps further still. When Matheo was only a year, she signed an agreement that he would wed the three-year-old princess of Dossau when the two came of age. Matheo was educated in the ways of Dossau as well as Rhodia to prepare him for the foreign throne he would ascend someday.

  Next came Esolene, similarly promised to the prince of Eskas and educated appropriately. Her blessing, the color of a sunset, was not as powerful as Eloisa’s, and so Gaelle would not be sad to send her off. Esolene was thin and fragile, with little outward passion. Gaelle had been disappointed at first, but then out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed things that piqued her interest—a tongue like a driver’s whip, little fingers that pinched and twisted, a foot that occasionally stuck out at just the right angle to send sisters or servants sprawling—and all this hidden behind a watery smile.

  The following year brought Esofi. Gaelle sent ambassadors to Xytae, to ask the Empress Irianthe if she would agree to a betrothal between Esofi and her son, Ionnes. But the Empress rejected the proposal, citing that the age difference between their children was irreconcilable. So instead Esofi was betrothed to Albion, Crown Prince of Ieflaria. Esofi had a placidity that bordered on laziness, but her mastery of magic came to her as easily as breathing, and she could perform maneuvers that the older princesses could not, even with a half-eaten biscuit clutched in one chubby hand. She killed her first wyvern at age eight, her first elf at fourteen.

  And last of all was Esybele. All babies were the same in Gaelle’s eyes, shrieking and squalling, but this one seemed to do more of that than most. If not for the nursemaids, Gaelle might have put a pillow over the girl’s face and let Adranus sort her out. When Esybele learned to speak, she had a carefully chosen insult for everyone who crossed her path. Furthermore, Esybele was not above throwing herself on the ground and beating her fists if she felt she had been wronged, screams ringing through the marble halls.

  Gaelle frequently thought of the Empress of Anora, across the sea. It was said she not only had two husbands, but also three wives. That, Gaelle supposed, must have made the production of heirs terribly convenient. She could not imagine how many alliances she could secure with that many offspring! But the Temple of Pemele in Rhodia forbade such practices. To Gaelle, this was an injustice. For why should Pemele’s laws be different in Anora than they were in Rhodia? She had never received a satisfying answer to that question and suspected the priestesses did not know.

  Thiyra was a small continent, a stony beacon in the midst of grey seas. It could take months, even years, for news of other lands to reach it. So the tale of what had happened in Ieflaria did not reach her until Duchess Tiphanie’s daughter arrived back home.

  On that evening, Gaelle stood before a fireplace with a glass of red wine, wishing she was out with the mages hunting elves who strayed too far from their own shores instead of trapped in her own palace with reports to review.

  When Tiphanie knocked at the door, Gaelle could not even bring herself to pretend to be irritated by the distraction. She watched as the duchess entered the room, followed by a younger woman.

  “My Queen,” said Tiphanie with a curtsy. “Forgive the intrusion at this hour, but my daughter has just returned with…shocking news.”

  Gaelle turned her gaze to the girl, who was still dressed in her travelling clothes, and found she could recall nothing about her.

  “Lexandrie accompanied Princess Esofi to Ieflaria,” said Tiphanie helpfully.

  “Ah, her,” said Gaelle, only partially enlightened. “Yes.”

  Tiphanie touched a hand to Lexandrie’s shoulder. “Go on,” she said. “Tell her majesty exactly what you told me.”

  Lexandrie met Gaelle’s eyes. “Princess Esofi has a son.”

  Gaelle pursed her lips, somewhat disappointed. After an introduction like that, she had been anticipating something interesting. “Is that all?”

  “No,” said Tiphanie. “Perhaps…perhaps my queen ought to sit down.”

  “Be silent,” commanded Gaelle. Then she looked at Lexandrie. “Continue.”

  “He is not a child,” Lexandrie glanced at her mother anxiously, who only gave a nod of encouragement. “That is…Esofi’s son…
he is a dragon.”

  The wineglass fell out of Gaelle’s hand and shattered on the floor.

  Chapter One

  ADALE

  Generally speaking, Ieflarian hair wasn’t very good at holding a curl. But that wasn’t stopping the ladies of Birsgen from trying. And it was not just the nobles or merchants. In the last month alone, at least three different servant girls had cut off their long braids and attempted to sear their hair into careful ringlets, the sort Princess Esofi wore.

  Crown Princess Adale regarded the trend with a mixture of derision and pride. She had thought it would die down after the wedding, but now the alchemists were even selling some sort of potion that would turn dark Ieflarian hair blonde. Lady Brigit had nearly killed herself with one just a week ago, thinking she was meant to drink it instead of pouring it onto her hair.

  Esofi, for her part, wasn’t reacting to her many imitators. These days, she spent most of her time seeing to the construction of the university or caring for Carinth, the baby dragon that she had been given to raise a year and a half ago.

  Carinth had done a great deal of growing since then. He stood just below Adale’s knee when he was on all fours. If he balanced on his hind legs and stretched his neck out, he could almost reach her waist. His wings, when unfurled, were twice as wide as the length of his body, though he had made no real attempts to fly yet. Despite his length, he was rather thin, and not nearly as heavy as one might expect. Adale and Esofi supposed that this was because he would some day be able to fly.

  He knew his own name and the meaning of “no,” though he sometimes liked to pretend that he did not. He ate meat, raw or cooked, as well as sweets and pastries from the kitchens. He refused all vegetables and most fruits but would also go after moths, crickets, and frogs if they caught his eye. He had his own room, fully furnished (though Adale wasn’t sure what he was meant to do with a writing desk) but preferred to sleep on a single blanket near the fireplace. Adale had learned to shake her boots out before putting them on every morning, because there was a good chance one of them would contain a silver fork or a jeweled necklace.

  Adale’s primary fear had been that the Ieflarian people would reject Carinth. After all, he was a member of the species that, until very recently, made it their goal to rid the world of Men. But she had not seen anyone react badly to him. In fact, he seemed to be quite popular. He was not at all afraid to accompany the royal huntsman on his rides, or help the maids with their washing, or join Knight-Commanders Glace and Livius in their morning meditation in the chapel. When he went missing, he was usually found hovering around the feet of the kitchen staff, waiting for something good to fall from the tables above.

  The only real problem was that most people regarded Carinth as a very interesting dog, rather than an intelligent creature that would someday be able to speak.

  Adale and Esofi’s wedding had been eight months ago, in early spring, so early that traces of snow melted in weak sunlight and acolytes from the Temple of Eyvindr were hired to make the flowers bloom. All her life, Adale had always assumed that marrying would mean a loss of her own identity, somehow. She wasn’t sure where or how she’d developed this notion, but she’d been expecting marriage to transform her into someone she did not recognize. And some things were different now, certainly. She was living with Esofi in the rooms traditionally reserved for the heir and their spouse, rooms she’d spent her entire life thinking would someday be Albion’s. Alongside that, she was raising a baby dragon as her own son.

  But at her core Adale was still herself.

  Now it was autumn. The harvest was long past, and there was a chill in the air, though it was still a few months to midwinter and Esofi’s nineteenth birthday. That day, she found Esofi and Carinth out in the garden, sitting in a patch of weak sunlight. They were accompanied by Mireille, one of Esofi’s two remaining waiting ladies.

  Esofi held a primer designed for very young children and was reading to Carinth in an authoritative voice. Carinth rested in her lap and gazed up at her with bright golden eyes. Esofi wore an Ieflarian dress today, for Carinth had a bad habit of pulling the jewels out of the bodices of Esofi’s beautiful Rhodian gowns, as well as shredding the petal-soft silk with his claws as he climbed up onto her shoulders in the same way that a cat might. Still, Adale could see the tiny pockmarks all over the fabric. They were the same marks that now marred Adale’s own dresses, and the clothing of many members of the castle staff.

  Esofi smiled as Adale approached. Carinth lifted his head and ran over to greet her, standing up on his hind legs to check if she had anything interesting in her pockets.

  “How are we?” asked Adale, rubbing her hand over the tiny nubs that would someday be curling horns on Carinth’s head.

  “He swallowed a lizard,” sighed Esofi, setting the primer down. “That’s practically cannibalism. Sometimes I swear he only does it to hear me scream.”

  Adale and Esofi had only a rough idea of what normal dragon development was like, informed by old, half-forgotten books kept by the Temple of Talcia. They knew it would be a while before Carinth learned to breathe fire, but they had no idea when to expect speech from him or if he was the correct size for his age. Their books had also said that he wouldn’t begin attempting to fly until he was about a year old, but his first birthday had passed, and he was still showing no real signs of trying, no matter how often Adale tossed him up into the air.

  Esofi worried about this constantly, and she wasn’t reassured by Adale’s claim that Talcia, Goddess of Magic and creator of all dragonkind, would probably let them know if something was seriously wrong. Talcia was the one who had given Carinth to them in the first place, so Adale did not think such a thing was unreasonable to expect. Fortunately, Esofi also had the new university to distract herself. And Carinth was unquestionably happy.

  “My parents have summoned us,” reported Adale. “Apparently there’s important news they want to discuss.”

  Esofi stood and brushed off her skirts. “Do you know what it’s about?”

  “I have no idea. They only said they wanted both of us there.”

  Esofi nodded. “Mireille, can you take Carinth while I see to this?”

  “Of course!” Mireille crouched down so he could easily climb on to her shoulders. “Oh, when did you get so heavy?” she asked, struggling to right herself. As she walked away, Adale heard her informing Carinth that she expected him to give her rides in return once he was large enough.

  “You really don’t know what this is about, then?” asked Esofi, once they were out of Mireille’s hearing range.

  “No, they wouldn’t say.”

  “Did they seem angry?” Esofi looked a little worried, and Adale felt herself smile at the absurd notion that her parents might ever find fault with anything Esofi did.

  “I don’t think so. Why? Have you done something scandalous lately?” teased Adale. “Something I ought to know about?”

  Esofi smiled faintly. “No, nothing like that. I just hate to think I’ve disappointed them somehow.”

  “I’d find that unsettling as well,” said Adale. “Disappointing my parents is my responsibility. I’d thank you not to steal it from me.”

  Esofi’s weak smile turned into a soft laugh. Nevertheless, she said, “Must you always speak so harshly about yourself?”

  “I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking.”

  “That is not true.”

  Adale would never believe that, but it warmed her to know that Esofi thought so highly of her. So many members of the court could not see Adale as anything other than the wild young woman she had been for the first eighteen years of her life. She expected they never would.

  When Adale and Esofi arrived at King Dietrich’s study, they found both of Adale’s parents waiting for them, as well as both of the Order of the Sun’s resident knight-commanders: Commander Glace, who led the Ieflarian paladins, and the exiled Commander Livius who had done the same in Xytae until Emperor Ionnes expelled the e
ntire Order several years ago. Standing just beside Knight-Commander Livius was another paladin, a young woman in chainmail that Adale did not recognize.

  Paladins, with their rigid adherence to law and order, were never Adale’s favorite people, but they had been instrumental in helping defend Ieflaria from the dragon attacks before Esofi’s arrival. There had been no further attacks since the Emperor’s death, but everyone knew that could change at any moment, and so Adale was grateful for their continued presence.

  “What has happened?” asked Esofi. Adale found herself equally taken aback by the size of the gathering.

  “Today I have received a letter from Princess Ioanna of Xytae,” explained Livius. “It is…unexpected, to say the least.”

  “Princess Ioanna?” Adale frowned. “Isn’t she…what, four years old?”

  “Seven, actually,” said Livius. “She will be eight this coming winter.”

  “What does she want?” asked Esofi.

  “You may see for yourself.” Livius passed the letter over to her. Adale and Esofi both leaned in to read it. The handwriting was a little awkward but still legible.

  Knight-Commander Livius,

  I do not know if you remember me, but my name is Ioanna Isinthi. My father is Ionnes of Xytae. I have been wanting to write to you for a long time but did not know how to find you.

  I will probably not become Empress for a very long time, but when it happens, I want to bring the Order of the Sun back to Xytae. I also want to end my father’s war with Masim. We do not have any right to their lands. But the Temple of Reygmadra is already telling my father that my sister would make a better Empress.

  I think something bad is going to happen. If it does, I hope that the Order of the Sun will help me. I am not asking for a promise from you right now because I know it is too early for that. But I want the same things for Xytae that you do. We will be stronger together than we are alone.