53 A Boy In the Dark (2/2)
Isilla shook her head, ”No. Now that you've mentioned it, I don't know what became of the queen. I assumed she had passed but no one speaks of her. Arren only mentioned his mother once.”
”How interesting,” the woman replied. ”When I was still in the palace, the Queen was very important. I said that it was Ero's father,Luken, who had us put away and that is true, in that he gave the order but he did so at the behest of his wife, Queen Eider.”
”I'm sorry, I don't understand why that is significant to your situation,” Isilla said. ”Regardless of who holds you, I will release you.”
”It is significant because it is the working the Crown. Something that you should be familiar with or you will not survive it. Do not count on your husband to protect you from everything. His father, his brother, they will want to keep their power central and your husband, if he is not does not fight for that space, he will be destroyed by them. Because he is strong and it seems that he cares for something other than the crown.”
Isilla nodded, ”Thank you for the warning.”
”It is not much,” the woman replied. ”But when you have outlived your usefulness, they will dispose of you, just as Ero did to whoever birthed his children.”
”How do you know that she was disposed of? She may have passed on her own, or even left the castle all together. I do not get the impression that King Ero is easy to get along with,” Isilla said.
”It is a feeling,” Udane said. ”The intuition of a very old woman.”
”Then I will heed it,” Isilla responded.
”You think your prince is different. Why?” Udane asked.
Isilla smiled gently. ”It is complicated. When I met him I thought he was a monster, like his brother, but he had written me all of these letters that showed this other side of him. And he's begun to show that side more and more.”
”You give your trust for a few pretty words?” Udane asked, a dismissive sound in her throat.
”No, he is like that here too, that secret side of him. I can take you to him, the next time he is asleep and you can decide for yourself if he is good or not,” she said.
The old woman sighed, seeming to consider something beyond the nightmare before speaking again. ”There was a boy, once. Long ago. He was not like us but he stayed for perhaps five or six years in the dark with us. His name was not Arren, it was Nik. He was a very small thing, frail. They told us to give him nightmares, me and the others who still lived then, before the young ones' time. We did not and they took him back.”
Isilla tried to imagine Arren as a child, his height and broad build shrunk down into something small. The boy did not sound like he could be the same child. ”Could you find him now, in the dreaming?”
”I never tried,” Udane said simply. ”It was enough that he was no longer in the dark with us.”
”You must have cared for him,” Isilla said.
”He reminded me of my own little boy,” she said.
Isillalooked at her curiously but the woman did not seem to want to speak anymore of on the matter of the child.
”There is a ball,” Isilla said suddenly. ”It is to celebrate my wedding. There are people from my realm here. All of this will be over in three days. I will ask Arren then and if he cannot help me then I will be well enough to act on my own at that point. Please tell the others.”
Udane nodded. ”That is more than anyone else has ever promised us. We are counting on you, Princess.”
”Just, Isilla. My name is Isilla,” she corrected.
The old woman smiled, ”Isilla then.”
Isilla smiled and opened her mouth to respond when the numbness of waking washed over her, her eyes opening in the waking world.