Ch. 3 I'll Still Belong to the King

I was standing on the balcony of the Southern edge of the Villa, my hands resting on an intricately carved banister, the wood sliding smoothly across my palms as my hands moved comfortingly over the familiar surface. I'd just arrived a few minutes ago, having sent one of the other mages to fetch mother while the wind I was heating up whipped through my hair.

"Lyra," my mother said in greeting and I turned my head to the side to offer Sylvren, the Queen Mage a nod and a small smile. The events of last night still hung around her eyes and my heart clenched.

"Good morning, mother," I offered soflty and the queen mage came to stand beside me, joining me in looking out over the expanse of swirling mist that separated the mages island from the mainland.

"I've received a reply from the kingdom of Scepterfall," my mother began. Straight to business, like always. There was no need to fill time with small talk whenever Sylvren Belle was involved. 

"Kingdom?" I asked, shooting her a glance. "I didn't even know that you had reached out to any of the kingdoms."

"I reached out to every Kingdom, Duke-dom, Lord-dom and every other family of power that our couriers could reach. And I only sent word to the Lords and Dukes as a kind of fall back. My plan had always been to create an alliance with a king or queen, somebody who could actually get us results." The Mage Queen said, matter of factly.

I was stunned and continued to stare at my mother. "So what are the terms of this alliance then? What do we have to offer a King? Surely my hand in marriage isn't worth as much to a king as it would have been to a Lord or lesser noble."

"It's not," my mother said and I felt a small weight lift off my shoulders. I had been prepared to fill the role of dutiful wife if necessary to secure the future of my people, but I would be lying if I said I had been hoping to avoid such an outcome. "He also requires loyal fighters to help secure his own lands. We create an alliance through a marriage, our royal blood joins lines with his bloodline, as a symbolic gesture to the people that mages and humans can coexist." 

My shoulders sagged ever so slightly again. I'd always known my life would never belong to me. My people were my life. And within the last two years, I had come to terms with the fact that I would probably end up having to marry a stranger in order to secure a future for my people. But it didn't make it any easier to deal with when faced with the reality of it actually being set into motion.

"The King will be sending out a representative to speak with us, they should be arriving later today or tomorrow morning at the latest. To go over the contract between our people among other things. Once that is signed we'll make the announcement to our people."

"Today? How long have you known that the King was interested?" I asked, trying to keep my temper in check. I didn't like being left out of these schemes.

"I just got word from their messenger this morning. I believe it was the King's way of ensuring that we didn't have time to prepare a trap for his people. He's still not entirely sure we're trustworthy and won't trust us until we hold up our side of the contract." She said. 

"I see," I sighed and looked back out over the abyss. 

"Lyra, our people need this. We're too secluded out here. This island was only made to support around 50 or 60 mages. It's not large enough to support the few hundred we have living here. With us not having enough nature elementals left to speed up the growth of plants and food, we can't continue to support such numbers. As it stands, we only have about 20 strong elemental mages left in our ranks, only four of which are nature-based ones. They're running themselves ragged to keep the rest of us alive. Aside from our twenty generals, the rest are all mediocre. I hate to say that, but it's true, we cannot rely on them to keep us alive. We, as the Royals need to do what needs to be done to keep our people alive. To ensure that they have a future, that their children have a future.

"This king, he isn't as conservative in his beliefs as the other kingdoms are. He's willing to work with us, Hells he is even willing to have a mage marry into his family... into his bloodline. There aren't many humans that would even consider allowing us a place in their court, let alone their royal line these days." My mother said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder.

"But he's only willing to do so, so long as we pay with our lives," I shot back at her. I wasn't sure I wanted to send any of my people, let alone my best soldiers into a war waged by humans, for humans.

"Have you seen the state of our aisle? Lyra, have you really gone out and seen the state of our people? I'm sure going to war to secure a better life for their families, for their children is a price any of them would be willing to pay. There's nowhere else for us to turn. There is war and bias on all sides of us. King Turrent is offering food, medicine and any other supplies our people will need to survive throughout the war. And until we can reclaim our lands on the mainland, which he also mentioned in his letter that he would be willing to help with once the wars on his border have been taken care of, we're lost. This is our answer, and it's a better offer than I was expecting."

"So, this is a goodbye to the way of our lives, then," I said, my voice quiet.

"You'll still be queen, I'm sure you'll be able to-"

"Mother, I know you're not that naive. Even though I'll be queen, I'll still belong to the King. We all will."

"You, my daughter, have never, and will never, belong to anyone but your people," My mother said, holding out the letter to me.