II.
Michelle knows that even she is not safe when she returns to her room at the crack of dawn and finds her mother awaiting her there. The woman, whose proud brow is furrowed into a mournful countenance, does not speak for a moment as she beholds her daughter.
Michelle does not need to ask why her mother has come. The sinking in her chest tells her everything her mother's lips do not. Michelle allows the crumpled sheets of notes in her hands to flutter to the floor like withered, crumbling leaves.
“When?” She does not remember allowing the word to leave her lips, but it does nonetheless.
Her mother purses her lips and brushes a lank curl that resembles Michelle’s own away from her brow. The strong, proud woman is wearing away, and it shows. Her eyes are glassy from exhaustion, her hair falls limp, and the gown that was once fine seems to hang from her shoulders. Her mother’s posture has slumped, and the queen wears exhaustion in every line of her face.
“I did what I could to hold him off,” the queen murmurs, her voice a bitter apology as she looks upon Michelle.
In that moment, time slows for Michelle. She is aware of every little thing about herself: the loose, old clothing that she has taken to wearing, left behind by one of the male servants, her mess of curls, wild from an experiment in the humid laboratory, and the cold of the stone floor pressing up through the worn soles of her boots.
Though her mother wears the circlet and gown of a queen and Michelle wears the garb of a dismissed groundskeeper, they both know as they look upon one another that they are one and the same. They are women in a world governed by men, and they do not have a choice.
“Is it for military support?” Michelle’s voice is quiet, but it is cold as steel. The anger within is not petty or childish-- it is biting as frost, and precise as a dagger’s point. “Is my hand a barter for a few more soldiers to die at the border?”
Michelle has expected a scenario of this sort for some time. She is no fool; she knows the conflict with Terygen, the neighboring kingdom, has not gone well as of late. Their kingdom is wealthier, with access to many more ports than Michelle’s own, landlocked Enya. The enemy military is more formidable as well, and Terygen has acquired more and more territory on its own borders in recent conquests. Its network of alliances is strong, and so with each new battle, the odds have stacked against them. This battle has been uphill for longer than her father and the men of his council are willing to admit.
It is the slight tremor in her mother’s lips and the gleam of fear in her brown eyes that causes a cold chill to spread through Michelle.
“The war is over, Michelle. We have lost.”
The floor pitches beneath Michelle’s feet, and cold stone meets her knees before she even has a chance to fight to stay standing. Her mother kneels to the floor beside her, the fading violet of her skirts flaring like a warrior’s cape as soft hands find Michelle’s own. Their fingers are so different-- that is what she focuses on. Her mother’s hands are smooth, soft, where Michelle’s own are hardened, torn, and skinny. Michelle grips her mother’s slender fingers, searching them with her own until she finds a point of familiarity: the toughened tips of the queen’s fingers, firm and callused from hours spent at a lute or a harp, spinning sorrows and struggles into song.
“Breathe.” The queen’s voice is authoritative in the way her father’s will never be, and so Michelle forces a breath into her lungs. It is harsh and grating against her throat as she manages to stop the room from spinning.
“And he still wishes to marry me off?” Michelle doesn’t have time for scorn-- the words are quick, deliberate, and insistent.
“Do we not have more pressing issues to attend to? Our borders were pressed back by the conflict, too far. We were always fighting to lose, but we at least needed to gain back the ground lost.” Michelle may not approve of her father’s military actions, but she is no fool. She has probably read more of battle and warfare than he himself, though he did not deem it fit to include in her mandatory reading regimen.
“He does have greater issues to manage,” her mother admits, allowing her daughter to press against her fingertips. Michelle’s mother inhales, and all the breath seems to spill out of her body as she speaks. “That is precisely why he has chosen now.”
Michelle’s eyes snap to her mother’s, widening a fraction of an inch. There is only one marriage proposal that could be made in the face of such a loss, and the very idea steals all breath from Michelle’s lungs. Silence passes between them, and though her face remains stoic, Michelle’s grip loosens slightly on her mother’s hand.
“He cannot have accepted.” The words are swift and steady despite the tremor in her hands. “That would be a foolish thing to do in the wake of a surrender.”
“And yet the young king accepted your father’s proposal, and he seeks to honor it swiftly,” her mother murmurs. Michelle’s head rings hollowly, and as she struggles to stand and step away from her mother, the queen does not stop her.
“How swiftly?” The words hardly sound like her own anymore, as if Michelle is hearing herself speak underwater.
“In two weeks’ time, you shall be brought to his palace,” her mother replies. The queen rises, too, and her eyes do not hold sympathy or worry. They hold fortitude as Michelle looks into them, and she cannot look away.
Because as their eyes find one another, Michelle knows that they are one and the same. Her mother did what was required of her.
Michelle will too.