The Awakening Part 1 Ch. 6

“And there are rebels in the palace” Nelah had screamed at the Dulcate, her adopted father, as he was exiling her from her home and family. And precisely when she knew that they needed her most.

Her face flashed crimson, embarrassed at the torrent of emotions that had spilled out of her in that moment, that torrent that stole away a powerful goodbye.

She could still see Crowned Prince Mehmel, head shorn because he was not yet a man and needed whatever wisdom the great source would offer, desperately looking skyward to keep tears pinned to his eyes. Of course, her sisters from the harem had skipped the goodbye, having already washed her and delicately braided her hair with their most precious jewelry woven in. And last of all there was Prince Misha, wearing a wooden mask gilded with fiery gold from the Festival of Aldeena to hide the tears she could see spilling out from under the mask and crashing on the floor.

“I wish we were giving you the sendoff you deserve,” the Dulcate said patiently as he took Aldeena’s gloved hand and pulled her in to a tight embrace. For all of his courage and composure, Nelah could tell from his ruddy cheeks and swollen brown eyes, that he too had been crying. “You are the princess of this kingdom and the only one in the entire court that could ever best me in marbles,” he chuckled as he fished a velvet satchel from his robe. “That cannot possibly be what I think it is,” Nelah protested, shoving the satchel back into the Dulcate’s chest. “Why shouldn’t it be?” the Dulcate chuckled warmly. “You are far too giving. Besides, shouldn’t they be passed along to Mehmel?” she asked inclining her head to the crowned prince who had retreated to shadows at the edge of the corridor. “And pass them along to someone who wields marbles like great stones,” the Dulcate jested, looking down on Nelah with the mischievous eyes of a father sharing an inside joke with his daughter. “He’ll inherit a throne, so I should hope he'll be content." “Marbles or a crown,” a wry smile wrapped across her face as she accepted she the gift and wrapping her arms around the Dulcate in a warm embrace that felt like a summer's eve when the sun has long since vanished from sky, but its warmth remains.

“The fifth Dulcate of Aldir once said that every man who serves his country is owed a gift and a wisdom before he departs. Now that you have accepted my gift, please allow me to wax philosophical in our waning moments before you are to serve your country on a different kind of field of battle.” The Dulcate looked at her with the tired, yet still burning eyes full of a beleaguered hope and in that moment she realized why they called him the burning tiger. “ The people’s trust,” he pronounced “is more powerful than one hundred armies and their hearts are worth all the gold in all the royal treasuries in the world.” His gaze softened, and a smirk crept across his wearied face. “Live well and live generously. Heaven knows the family of Kazimir has enough gold to gild their great city thrice over.” The Dulcate gazed upon her once more. A tear chanced its way out and streamed down the Dulcate’s face. He swallowed, “It’s a long way to Chiram and you have many stops along your way. Travel safely and walk proudly as a member of the royal family on your way to becoming the wife of the next Elish.” The Dulcate turned, retreating from the grief that consumed him.

“I hope you’re okay with some company in that carriage?” Queen Kaireh asked. “You’re teasing me,” Nelah complained, not wanting to get her hopes up. “You’re owed a gift,” Kaireh chuckled easily as a beaming smile confirmed that she was joining for the ride. “Some dusty old marbles are hardly a suitable going away present for a princess of Aldir.”

“Now, I’ll hold onto those,” she said taking the marbles “while you accept this fan. You won’t have the normal adornments or ceremony that a princess of our house would normally receive when she is to be married. There will be no young girls throwing iris petals before your feet and neither shall the high priest be found waiting at the end of the city to bless your departure, but we still owe the people a proper goodbye.” Queen Kaireh wiped a tear from her eye and paused to travel to a memory she had buried deep in the recesses of her mind – “I have never returned to the twin cities of Paelah and Iro, so try to paint it with your minds eye so you have something beautiful to which to return when you miss the exotic traders in the Sunken Market or the way the sun hits the cerulean tiles on Aldeena’s Temple.” “Treasure it all,” she instructed, “and then let it all go. I will be waiting outside the city gates when you have finished your procession.”

Nelah, clad in a ceremonial white robe with the Aldir crest embroidered with beautiful lapis and cerulean woven in, strode out the palace gates unsure of what to expect. For all of her fear, she was surprised to be greeted by irreverent silence. The ante courtyard to which she entered was a place of ideas, debate, and art. She should have guessed that the fashionable artists and the cunning philosophers would distance themselves from the Dulcate as much as possible. Still, the frustrating irony gripped her. They weren’t too good to beg for patronage or miss one of the banquets the Dulcate hosted. She shook her head with disgust; you are all rodents who will come crawling back on your bellies to sup again. It will be like nothing at all happened.

Outside the palace, Nelah determined to follow a route that would take her by her favorite places before she left. The Sunken Market was her first stop. Although many in the royal court eschewed the market as a den of avarice and gluttony, she saw something more in the grand marketplace. She knew that even on holy days, when monks from the Order of Nostros would solemnly march on their silent procession throughout the city casting judgmental glances on all less pious than them, that she would find the greatest curiosities and most fantastic stories exchanged by merchants and traders from Ijn Alusia to the Iccolesean Isles. She had dragged a handful of the other daughters of the harem to purchase churem rolls baked with lychee jam from a baker who’d traveled south from the Butterfly Kingdom and received a stern tongue lashing from the matron of the harem. Queen Kaireh had laughed it off and sent a royal courier to fetch rolls for the jealous harem girls who weren’t willing to risk the trip.

And then there were the men at the market. The boastful Iccolesean traders wearing their blue and white checkered ponchos and stone colored trousers. The bronze men of Sirua, who trafficked serpents and salamanders to trade with the medicine men from the Butterfly Kingdom and the Witch Doctors in the local villages. You could see the whole world from atop the Sunken Market. That was the miracle of this old, terraced quarry. She stood atop the outermost ring and whispered, “Goodbye world.”

Nelah’s final walk through Aldeena ended with an ironic omen that brought her full circle. Queen Kaireh, then Princess Kaireh, happened upon Nelah struggling to lift her jug after filling it from the spring in much the same way the girl in front of Nelah struggled. The girl was unraveling from her quivering lip to her threadbare hand-me-down robes. “Here, let me help you,” Nelah offered politely as she moved to stand aside the young girl, who looked up at her with praise filled eyes. “Are you Aldeena?” she asked humbly. “I don’t think Aldeena has visited this fountain in some time,” Nelah chuckled airily.

“She’s not Aldeena. She’s a withering flower too long in the sun. See how she wilts, droopy petals and all” a woman interjected with disdainful pity, as she slithered herself between Nelah and the young girl. “What brings her vauntedness to fetch water? Has the crown truly condescended to such depths, or have they sold this rotten little servant girl?” the woman asked with bitter derision as she stroked Nelah’s raiment. Nelah introduced herself politely to ease the tension “She’s a princess?” the girl chirped excitedly. “She is a desert jackal who promises protection but runs and shuts herself in her den at the first sight of trouble.”

Nelah had started to become aware of the crowd that had gathered, their glances like an unrelenting sun beating down on her. “Before she could respond,” the woman ripped the jug from her daughter's hands and doused Nelah. The approving laughs removed all doubt from her mind. For the first time, she realized the lack of regard in which her family was held by the common folk. Of course she had known that there were dissidents, but she had always been told they were a minority, an amphibious scorpion in an otherwise placid pool of sapphire water. Deep shame washed over her, and cold water intermixed with warm salty tears. Nelah wiped her damp hair from her eyes and asked herself how the Dulcate would respond. He was always so quick to disarm people to deescalate fights before they could start. At least, that's how he was with the children of the court. She shivered and then an idea came to mind as she reflected on when the High Priest was installed by the Herald. The Herald had "inadvertently" insulted the Dulcate by sitting in his place at the head of the table. Not wanting to appear subservient nor escalate the tensions between the two, the Dulcate acted quickly; he announced they were to feast outside under the moonlight. Without a honorific place to sit, the Herald was left awkwardly wandering around the courtyard and inserting himself into conversation.

“You have recognized that I am much afflicted by the sun," she announced loudly for the benefit of the crowd. "So do not hesitate,” she said with a practiced sincerity earned through years growing up in the Dulcate’s court as she handed the jug to the woman, “Dip your vessel into the fountain a second time and douse me. I fear that I am still dry in some spots, and I should like to bathe in the cool waters of Aldeena one last time.”

Nelah studied the woman, whose gleeful smile had transformed into a wretched scowl as she had her prank turned around on her. The crowd's demeanor softened toward Nelah; they obviously wouldn’t come to her defense, but neither would they parade her to the stockyards, where the city kept the unclean animals for quarantine before they could be blessed by the priests of Nostros. All things considered, she could accept that.

“But if you think we should spare the water,” Nelah continued. “I will suffer under the sun a little longer. What think ye?” she goaded the gathered crowd, whose interest dissipated and each member went his or her way until it was just Nelah along with the mother and daughter pair.

Without a word or even acknowledging Nelah, the woman marched her daughter away. “You didn’t fill your vessel,” Nelah called after them, immediately regretting potentially drawing the woman’s ire for a second time – it didn’t matter, she didn’t so much as break stride.

Nelah breathed a sigh of relief as she took a moment to clean herself up. I’ve got to get out here.

---

Two days removed from her city and family, all she wanted was to return. Maybe that would remedy the motion sickness that turned her stomach over and the guilt that eroded her brittle mind. As the day wore on, Nelah pretended to gaze out the window, studying Mah Adeane (The Holy Pinnacle of Aldeena) in order to conceal the shameful crimson that spread across her face. Her mother reached forward pulling the cerulean veil down that Nelah had been using to shield her face. “You know he doesn’t blame you,” Kaireh said, employing that motherly intuition that unnerved Nelah. “Knowing him,” she chuckled, “I don’t think he would have respected you if you hadn’t volunteered to fall on sword. That is why, out of all of the daughters of the harem, you were selected. Do you see how that pains him?” Kaireh cried gently as she wiped a precious tear from her eye. “That his own daughter isn’t his own.”

“Adopted daughter,” Nelah inserted while trying to hold back tears. “You belong to the kingdom just as he does. Just as I do.” Kaireh placed her hands on Nelah’s chin and lifted her face. “Remember, a strong monarch commands fear. A just one commands respect. One who is holy, reverence. And a good one does not command at all. He, or she,” the queen smiled as she delicately corrected a stray hair in Nelah’s face, “offers himself up for the kingdom.”

Kaireh stewed for a moment, trying to swallow an uncomfortable truth that threatened to choke her if she didn’t let it out. “Now I will not sit here with you and gild the histories to tell you that the Dulcate will be remembered well. I should think,” her voice strained, “that he will be called The Unfortunate Dulcate. And if fate is truly cruel – The Last and he will pass away to an afterlife of half truths and morbid legend.” Nelah leaned forward and took the Queen’s hand in hers and watched as both hands were wetted by shared grief.

“He’s made choice after choice that rent his soul,” she admitted finally allowing the weariness in her face to dim her regal poise for a moment before mustering a brave smile that betrayed how much the Dulcate and Queen Kaireh had been keeping from the children of the palace.“Save the kingdom or save its people. He’s bankrupted the royal treasury doing both and accomplished neither. I fear the price he paid to secure this marriage. Rather how he mustered the funds for your dowry.”

“Then why am I being married off?” Nelah asked incredulously, reviving the buried argument. “We can’t afford not to marry you off," Kaireh chuckled uncomfortably before steeling herself again. "Unless wisdom and fortune have truly abandoned your father, the rebels of the kingdom will be solved by full bellies and promised reforms.” Kaireh winked at her daughter, “The journey is long, so after you are consecrated for marriage at the Holy Sanctuary of Aldena, I’ll tell you about how your father turned his most dangerous adversary into the Royal Interpreter of Dreams.” 

Kaireh raised a hand to preempt any further protests and leaned in close, gazing intensely in her daughter’s eyes. “Your father and I have salvaged worse. But he cannot keep our heads above the water for long without help. And neither can he win allies while adrift in a sea of adversaries.” “As I said, we can carry the day. But it is tomorrow that frightens me. The Karavijn are an unstayed hand. Only His Serenity of the Iccolese answered our call when the the Southern Kingdom and the grand city of Tamarlane were ripped from our people. And now the Karavijn loom again, an avaricious shadow overtaking us,” she whispered behind eyes that foresaw a grim future. “Our hopes rest in you and your father. If he can just buy us enough time to get you and Prince Kazmir married, you will be able to prevail upon them to help us. They might not help us reclaim the city of Tamarlane, but they are not so shortsighted to let the Flowering City of Aldeena fall into enemy hands.”