Chapter 1
A magnificent steed, a Lipizzan, squealed and snorted, followed by a ground-breaking vibrating thud. Its deep, short breaths formed small clouds that barely took shape before disappearing.
But none of that mattered to the bastard child of the king’s favorite consort.
Harriet threw herself over its chest, the rise and fall slowing. White, coarse hairs, their roots a vibrant coal, always reminded her of cobblestone drenched by rainwater. The beast was far longer and wider than her petite body, the scent of a babe still lingering on her flesh. Her arms thrashed, desperately reaching for the golden waves of sunlight peeking through underneath.
“Mother!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, so piercing and forced that it hurt. As if shards of her broken heart pierced through the meat and flesh, tearing and scraping her throat. “Mother, she repeated, lips trembling alongside her voice, tears sliding down her cheeks, “please answer me!” Ignoring the pain, still reaching, dying to feel the warmth. Her fingertips, always so close yet so far away.
The beauty of the country, Esmerelda, born to a prostitute named Gordina, in the back alleys infested with vermin and illness. At a tender age of eighteen, Esmerelda became a known enchantress, overshadowing all through the guidance of Gordina, who watched like a perched desert vulture.
Plucking and discarding anyone who tried to interfere. Esmerelda loosely laced each man around her fingers like a puppet master, until the man whose title to their unborn child should have been “father” but remained “your highness,” became permanently ensnared. She had caught the eye of the King, deep in his sixties.
Forced down on her knees to appease the lust, greed, and gluttony of those placed on stilts that bowed under them, their titles so heavy given to them by humans no different than they.
She swallowed their sins and crawled on cracked and broken fingernails, body bruised and torn, until one day she became with child.
Harriet, one of the countless bastard children, was conceived. On the outside, they named the mother-and-daughter relationship a bountiful love because Esmerelda loved and cherished the hegd-born child, but those within the castle walls witnessed the will of greed.
Esmerelda tangled and twisted Harriet in knots, laced tightly, no different than any of the other pawns in the palm of her hands.
A year later, Esmerelda’s faction had grown. She rose to power, gaining, finally, a seat next to Queen Celestine, crowned consort.
Like the moon itself, mysterious and gaunt, a gloom of beauty against the dark and blackness of night, Esmerelda’s pale grey eyes scorned and resented Harriet from afar, but deep down the child’s hope and attachment only rose.
So deeply that obsession stalked the tail end of her mother’s luxurious and expensive dresses tirelessly.
Harriet wanted her mother back the way she used to see her, but now her mother’s skin was greyed, her blood dark and thick like hot tar, and her eyes, empty and hollow, stared back, no longer full of tenderness and admiration.
Harriet blinked, vision fuzzy.
Was it truly those emotions that she saw in her mother’s eyes?
Esmerelda’s face shifted, her brows knitted together, and her lips pressed firmly into a flat line, displeased. Frightening Harriet to a standstill, wide-eyed and heart beating in her ears, shutting out the guests’ whispers.
Trembling, Harriet’s vision blurred as the tears overflowed until they tumbled out, forcing her to blink.
Her mother returned to a lifeless state. And Harriet’s heartbeat began to settle, which made her breathing less shallow. But the dread and sadness and emptiness of losing the only thing that kept her safe remained.
“Remove that thing from my wife.” Came a scorning, booming command. Goosebumps rapidly sprang and ran up her spine.
Servant boys, guards, and a few guests slowly made their way, encircling the three of them.
An eerie silence crept in. King Francis de Monie the Second dismounted a horse identical to Esmerelda’s rare-bred stallion just a few feet away. A sign to all that a prostitute’s babe from a back alley was more cherished than the refined, noble-raised Queen.
The group leaned down and grasped the long, stiff, heavy, lean legs of the great, majestic beast. Lifting, the strain evident on their faces, but they kept their struggles hidden, showing any sign of strain and weakness would offend the king.
A few more men stepped up, replacing the ones leaving, heaving off the steed for rationing.
Harriet screamed, cried, and protested as they shifted their work onto the royal consort. The words, at the tip of her tongue, remained there, never breaching the surface and instead repeated themselves in her mind countlessly.
Why was her mother so still, so muted now?
Where was the smooth velvet call of her name?
Her silence and stink of death were too hard for a child to understand.
Thick, short, sausage-swelling fingers layered with rings, their centers sparkled and shined with different colored stones, squeezed her shoulder painfully. She gasped breathlessly, forced to grovel into the disturbed earth.
Before she could think, her body flung roughly, landing hard against a wooden rack filled with different-length swords and shields. The noise caught the attention of those around who were watching the spectacle of the infamous consort who had grabbed and brainwashed the king for so long.
“I was referring to this half-breed...” spat the king, his beady, murky black-green eyes glared at her.
A memory flashed quickly before her eyes, one that had sewn itself tight around her fragile, sickly heart.
The scorn in those piercing eyes full of disgust and regret; Harriet denied and replaced them with ones that were soft and gentle. That awkward, loose embrace as she sat on Esmerelda’s lap, so icy and stiff, though Harriet only took in the softness and warmth of the skirts, just like the bed in her room.
An irritated soft sigh would rattle through her lungs and shake her mother’s nerves to the point that the visits became less frequent. And even the attempts of those lackluster embraces began to fail.
Harriet would trip, and Esmerelda would, without a single trace or worry, watch her daughter fall, while those who assisted and helped would brush off the dirt and grass stains from Harriet’s knees. She didn’t cry, just stared back with a trembling smile and threatening tears at the corners of her already swollen eyes.
Harriet trembled under her father’s hateful gaze, too frightened to speak or move until she caught movement from the edges of her sight, and instinctively she looked towards it.
One guard stood behind her mother’s back, lifting her from under her arms, careful not to touch any exposed parts, while two guards placed a palm beneath the curve of her knees. Her arms hung effortlessly swinging back and forth.
Harriet’s sight stretched over each detail until she stopped, unable to take her eyes away from her mother’s face, and her breath caught and formed in the back of her throat, reminding her of just how sore and raw her throat inside was.
But that didn’t matter. For her mother’s gaze was not that of tenderness and admiration... no, it was the deep scorn and hatred that had always been.
The king kicked an empty sheath that had fallen earlier near his foot; it flew past her, and Harriet jumped back, forcing her to look back at him and momentarily forgetting the mess of weapons and wood behind and around her.
“Get her out of my sight.” He hissed harshly, then turned, striding long and fast to brush away the three guards carrying his one and only true love. Her mother melted into her father’s arms; the golden long curls swayed far brighter and more vibrant than the dried hay fields just beyond the path leading back to the Cariveana Empire.
