Ameliehall, Hyrea, Riessany
The sky was dark above the high foreign mountains. Though it was perhaps more apt to say that they were the foreigners on the great snow capped sharps of stones. They were but there kind figures that climbed through the twisting paths that they have followed up from the massive great river that had run through the center of this strange land. Two men, each young and tall, and a woman, having reached the midpoint of her life as she road in the back of a donkey. They had never seen such mountains, while yes there were hills and some cliffs in Liegalla, there were no mountains.
Dziuginta had never been so cold. She was wrapped in a thick cloak, drapped in all black as dark as the cloudy night sky above her. Her white hair, long and swept back and pulled into a braid that went down her back, was striking against the darkness of her clothes— and her heart. For while Dziguinta was cold in her skin, a flame was ablaze with in, in her soul. For Dziuginta was no mere woman, neither common or noble or even royal. In her raged the fire of a dragon.
The former queen had been born into House Ojeras, the ruling family of Liegalla, a fierce and fiery breed of royals, famed for their silver blond hair and sharp tempers. Dziuginta’s parents had been the famed beauty, Princess Vainora, the Fair Maid of Vysla who had died in the effort of bringing her daughter into this world, and King Edgaras, whose somber reign was oft coldly forgotten, and had seen the throne snatched away from his daughters.
Dziuginta had been but a child when she became an orphan, left in the care of her stepmother. But contrary to what one might expect, she had grown close and found of her surrogate mother. And it had been under her guidance that Dziuginta had blossomed and been shaped into the picture of perfection for a princess of the realm. Tall and lean and elegant, with her silver blond locks and purple eyes. She had not only been beautiful, but intelligent, witty, well-read, and pious. It had been her quiet nature that had charmed the king, her uncle as he set to arranging the marriage of her to his eldest son and heir.
Their wedding had been wonderful, a grand affair that had been marked as the greatest in the history of their family and their country. Her husband was said to be the most handsome prince ever to grace this plain. But in truth it was farce. For from the moment she had married him, she had been the third wheel in his affair with his mistress. She had tried at first to win his affections. But the days passed with it becoming more and more certain that he would not love her. And then months, and then a year to years and then a decade. And she had resigned herself to be but an ornament to be shown off in public, and discarded in private.
It had been twelve years after their wedding that Dziuginta was surprised one night to find a great storm had forced her and husband together. They had long before taken to living separately. In truth he had been on his way to his own residence when the storm had forced him to stop at her own, and they had spent the night together. It was said her husband had been conceived on the single night his parents had laid together. So it proved true for Dziuginta’s own child.
Dziuginta had always considered her life to have truly begun with the birth of Dovydas. He had become her sun, the light of her life. And she had basked in it, and protected it with all her heart. All the love that she had lacked from the loss of her father, from the neglect from her husband, she had poured several times over into her son.
And then she had become the queen. Her husband’s ascension had been the first undisputed and peaceful transfer of power, the inheritance of the throne in Liegalla. As queen she had continued to stand as the loyal wife and mother, by her husband’s side even as he did as he wished, as she focused on bringing up the next king of Liegalla. She had vowed that her son would be the greatest king in their history. So she had smiled and waved, had given to charity and funded the raising of churches, the maintenance of monasteries and helping the poor. No queen, before or since had done as many acts of charity as Dziuginta. The people had loved her. And she had loved her son.
And then came that night, nine years ago when her husband had died, and suddenly her world had come undone. She had been quiet and kind and unaware of the enemies that had lurked around her. She had not seen the knives till they were out of the dark and drawing blood. She had not known, not till she was cradling her son, her only child’s bloody body with his throat slashed open. It is a hard thing to break a queen. But that…
Dziuginta would never forget that accursed sight.
Nor had it been one that would ever escape Vaisvydas’ mind. The taller of the two men, and the one who held the reins of the donkey. Vaisvydas Dudonis had been the Prince’s closest friend for years. Pulled from the lowest rungs of society he had become the Prince’s whipping boy, meant to take the punishment for his wrong doings. And thus Dovydas had grown protective of him, and he even more protective of the prince. He had been horrified to find the prince bleeding out that night, and had desperately held pressure to the gushing wound to hold the prince’s life to this world.
In this he had succeeded and had with Dziuginta and Dovydas escaped beyond the grasp of there would be killers. It was into exile that they had fled, and spent near the last decade of their lives, wanderers and guests, throwing themselves at the mercy of who would might help them. Vaisvydas had become not only the Prince’s friend, by his guard and as Dovydas was left mute by his ordeal, his interpreter. For Dziuginta, though exiled never forgot the truth, she was a queen, and her son was the true King of Liegalla.
They had last been guests of the Swyft family, a minor gentry house in the Kingdom of Caraintos, from where Dziuginta had hoped to win he aid of the Regent there in raising an army. But they had worn out their welcome when her son, who had grown into a vision of Ojeras beauty—not a surprise when he came from a long line of beauties, his mother, father, both his grandmothers and his great-grandfather— had gotten the Swyft’s daughter pregnant with child.
Dziuginta looked to the bundle of blankets that was nestled in the curve of the saddle that held her granddaughter, a small infant with thin silvery hair. Her son’s bastard daughter. His lust… It was a trait of her son that Dziuginta had chosen to ignore. It reminded her so much of his father. Stripped of his titles, wealth and voice, he found he had had little for himself. He had nearly died, put to the brink of it, nearly killed by his own brother. It made life all the more precious. And without a voice to charm, he had grown used to using other methods to charm. In making love, to him, he embraced the antithesis of death, life. And on its pleasures he was generous with his partners, both woman and men.
Amy Swyft had not been the Prince’s first. She had been lovely, and fun. But she had been the first that he had grown less careful with. The pregnancy had come as a surprise and not a welcomed one. Amy’s father had put them out, and sent them on their way. But Dziuginta had not been deterred. She had suffered so much, too much to give up. They had trekked across Caraintos, reduced to beggars, doing what they could and what they must in order to survive. When they had reached the coast of the Southern Sea, they had barely anything. Dovydas and Vaisvydas had taken to working odd jobs, as a server in a tea shop and aiding in the construction of new buildings, while Dziuginta cared for her grandchild. It was here that Dziuginta had gotten wind of the Spider.
Loris the Spider, said to be the wealthiest man on the continent of Meillur, was a prince whose ambition was unmatched, and his skill for securing thrones and ridding himself of enemies had earned him his dark sobriquet. To make a deal with him, was near like that of making a deal with the devil. And yet… to employ him and his talents was all but to guarantee one’s triumph.
The Spider’s lair was in the famous mountain top castle of Ameliehall, high in the mountains of Hyrea, from where he wove and set his threads of silk and poison, setting the course of history. And so it was there that Dziuginta had needed to go. They had had enough money to book passage on a ship that was bound for Caiserstadt, and from there, Dziuginta had sold off the last of her jewelry to get them the supplies needed to trek up to Ameliehall.
And now here as they approached it, it loomed over there, striking through the dark. They came before its gates and Dziuginta was helped down from her donkey by Vaisvydas while Dovydas held his daughter. The former queen held her head high as she went to the guards.
“Please,” said Dziuginta, “I am Queen Dziuginta, mother of the true king of Liegalla. We have come a long way, and suffered much to seek an audience with Prince Loris. We seek his help, in restoring my son to his throne.”
