Braddon leaned over to his son and pointed him towards Jularra. As Korden ran over carrying a cloak, Braddon shouted to the guards, “Hail our new sovereign, Queen Jularra!”
The guards responded crisply. Their shout seemed to carry on forever through the frozen forest and mountains.
“Hail, Queen Jularra!”
Korden unfurled the hefty cloak and wrapped it around her. “Your Majesty,” he whispered. “Please let us return home so that we may steal you from this cold.”
She looked out at the guards and down the path, feeling no sense of urgency.
“If I survived that,” she responded with a small flick backwards of her head, “then I will survive the cold.”
Korden swallowed and immediately nodded.
“Yes, Your Majesty, of course.”
Jularra swallowed her annoyance and nodded appreciatively at Korden.
Still, she felt anger boiling up within her. She looked at Braddon with a stern gaze, leaving no ambiguity in her feelings.
“Why did no one ever speak of this to me?”
“It was an order of your mother’s, my queen. We served at her pleasure, and her command, just as we do yours, now.”
Her anger remained, but it was aimless. She dropped her eyes from Braddon and shivered beneath the cloak. The lingering cold made the wound along her spine throb. She was now bound against her will to something terrible, and understanding was as foreign to her at that moment as when she was in the belly of the Vacant Grave.
She looked back to the guard and his brazier. He must have known where she and her mother were going, and what would happen to them both. She stared at him. She needed him to look at her. She would not surrender her lost innocence to him, or anyone else. She turned completely, slowly, to make it plain what she wanted. She stood, and stared.
“Queen Jularra…” Braddon pleaded.
She did not acknowledge him. She continued to stare at the guard. She was his queen, and he would look at her.
Finally, his eyes flicked towards her, so quickly she thought she might have been mistaken. But just as his brazier’s fire flickered, so too did his eyes. This time, they held hers. He looked back at her, noticeably collapsing in on himself with regret. Jularra waited until she knew he had been weakened; waited until she saw the power leave his eyes. Then she turned back to the path, to Braddon and his son.
“Very well, Braddon. Let us go home.”
“Yes, my queen,” he replied.
Korden wrapped an arm around Jularra and escorted her to a horse Braddon had waiting for her.
“Bedrock! Spire! Fall in behind your queen!”
While the two groups assumed their escort posture, Jularra looked over at the great cedar. Hanging from its largest branch was the companion of the man whom the guard had killed to stop from entering the mountain.
Jularra stared at her, wondering if her body was still warm. She could not take her eyes off her. She was desperate to see some sign of life—not out of a fear of death, or from being fazed by the woman's fate. No, she just needed to know whether she was truly dead yet. The seconds passed with no evidence, and as the realization that all life had seeped from her became more and more apparent, a thought grew louder in her mind.
Jularra envied her.
Beneath her, the frozen mud, previously a worrisome challenge, was now laughable to Jularra. The path back home would be far less intimidating than the trek here. She'd entered the mountain a child, but had emerged a queen.
***
While Jularra entertained her memories, the trail back to the capital leveled out. She realized Korden had been trying to talk to her.
“What?” she asked.
“What’s got you so distracted?” Korden wondered.
The trees thinned. Morganon’s outer walls could be seen through the branches.
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head, “it’s nothing.”
Two
Three days later and the slice in Jularra’s leg still seeped.
Fresh out of the bath, she prepared a new strip of cloth for it. She bent over and wrapped a few loops around her thigh, tucking an end inside the bandage. Good enough.
She reached for a tunic and dropped it over her head, pausing to consider the rose, plum, and blueberry bruise across the left side of her rib cage. She had to touch it, of course. A small wince was the price for checking the pain level. She let the tunic fall and finished dressing.
Today's destination was the home of one of Jularra's most revered treasures. Vylas, a trusted teacher of magic, was a vanishing rarity. The art of magic had been falling out of favor in Acorilan ever since the pact was begun, and the motives for practicing magic were shifting. Fewer and fewer were those who sought to serve something greater than themselves. Fewer still were those who held a proper appreciation for magic. It was no longer used as a means of growing closer to someone or something in the world, but to cater to the trivial and material.
Vylas did not practice that type of magic. He and his arts were grounded. While not unique in his empathetic motivation, he was the only respectful practitioner Jularra knew of for many hundreds of miles. Learned in the ways of harmony and respect, his knowledge and power were rooted in the humble awareness that his body would one day return to the ground from which he sought inspiration in life.
Jularra arrived at his home, equidistant from the Vacant Grave and Honor's Crest, late in the afternoon. A few ribbons of direct sunlight were still winning against the highest western peaks, but the temperature had already dropped. With a paranoia that was equal parts
