Chapter 20

“Be brave, my sweet girl,” Queen Elvira said, squeezing Annalise’s hand even as pain wracked her body. Annalise squeezed back, willing her mother to get better. Queen Elvira had been sick for several weeks—far too nauseous and with too fierce of a headache to get out of bed. She was six months pregnant, the longest she’d carried a baby since having Annalise. Guildmaster Trenk’s treatments hadn’t worked, and in desperation he summoned an old friend from the eastern border of Dovea.

The new healer was a kind old man named Lornan who wore a serene smile and always smelled like fresh forest moss. He was a former Master Healer, but had retired from the guild over a decade before to spend his golden years with his family in his home village.

With her mother ill, Annalise did what she could. She helped Lornan gather the herbs and make tonics and medicines. She filled the days reading books aloud and telling stories and embroidering an infant’s dressing gown so her new sibling would have clothes. She insisted on staying by her mother’s side and slept in the chair in the room just in case her help was needed.

Lornan had only been attending the queen for a week when she took a sudden turn for the worse and went into labor. It was far too early in the pregnancy for the baby to be born, and while Guildmaster Trenk and Lornan kept up a positive attitude, Annalise had seen their expressions when her mother had closed her eyes to rest. She’d heard the urgency and fear in their voices when they were discussing the case outside of the bedroom door. She knew the situation was very dire indeed.

Throughout the entire labor, her father, the King, was nowhere to be found, although Lornan, Guildmaster Trenk, and several midwives buzzed about the room working feverishly. From the look in their eyes, a pit formed in Annalise’s stomach.

Despite their best efforts, Annalise’s little brother was stillborn. To make matters worse, her mother had lost far too much blood in the delivery. 

“They’re going to take care of you, Mama, don’t worry. You’ll feel better soon, and then we’ll go out into the garden and we can sit and smell the roses. I know it’s been a long time since you could do that. Won’t it be nice?” Annalise asked as a lump rose in her throat. 

Queen Elvira closed her eyes and smiled, her face nearly as pale as her cream pillowcase, and her hair, which had once shone like the sun and glowed with health, now limp and greasy. “That would be lovely. It’ll be a warm, sunny day. We’ll find a patch of flowers, and I’ll make you a flower crown fit for a princess. I’d like that.” 

Annalise was refreshing the bed’s foot-warmer—her mother’s feet were cold even though it was the height of summer—when the door slammed open and King Evert stormed in. 

“Where is my son?” he bellowed. 

Lornan bowed so low his white beard almost reached his knees. “The young prince was stillborn, Your Majesty.” 

“Stillborn?” The king’s eyes flashed, and he stepped towards the bed, his hands balled into fists. “This is your doing. I told you that it was useless to laze around all day. You didn’t let your blood flow, and you starved my son of the will to live.” 

Lornan moved in between the king and Queen Elvira’s bed. His head barely came even with King Evert’s chin and his thin shoulders were stooped as though he carried the weight of the world. However, his brown eyes were still as bright and clear as a man a quarter of his age, and his clear voice didn’t waver. “Her Majesty the Queen has been greatly indisposed the past two weeks; it was at my recommendation that she rest. The pregnancy drew heavily on her life force, and the birth has severely weakened her. She requires peace and quiet to heal.”

Annalise marveled at the firm and steady way that Lornan spoke to her father, as if he was a shepherd guiding a belligerent ram away from a den of hungry wolves.

The king snapped. He drew his sword before Annalise could draw breath, and then Lornan was falling to the ground, slain by her father’s hand. 

There was a beat of silence, then her mother’s voice, quiet and weak in volume but with a conviction so strong she might as well have shouted. “You are an evil man.” Queen Elvira pushed herself into a seated position, reclining on the pillows behind her. Her golden tresses fell in lank hunks around her face, even as her eyes stared accusingly at her husband. “An evil man and an evil king. Do you have no kindness or compassion in your dark heart?” 

“Kindness and compassion are for those who are not powerful enough to command respect, wife,” King Evert spat the last words as if they were a mouthful of rotten fruit. 

“Lornan did nothing to you. He helped me out of the goodness of his heart and his love for our kingdom, and you repaid him with death. You are an evil, cruel man whose malice knows no bounds, and I will refuse to be bound to you any longer.” The queen raised her hand and began chanting in something that sounded like the Old Tongue, the language of mages and magic. Annalise’s tutors had told her about the Old Tongue, although none had taught her the language itself. Until now, she hadn’t known her mother could speak the language, and her mother spoke so rapidly that Annalise doubted she’d understand the individual words, even if she knew what they meant.

The sight of her mother’s long-sleeved dressing gown only reinforced the vehemence with which she spoke. Thanks to King Evert’s general absence while Queen Elvira was sick, the most recent bruises had almost all faded away but the reason her mother kept the sleeves of her dresses long, even in the hottest summer months, had more to do with her father’s temper than any fashion preference.

The king grabbed Annalise and pulled her roughly in front of him as her mother’s chanting reached a crescendo. Suddenly, every word felt like a fiery brand on Annalise’s skin. She cried out and tried to wrench herself away, but he refused to let go, holding her in place until her mother collapsed back on her pillows, face pale and hands trembling. 

“Nice try, Witch, but it will take more than a little magic to hurt me. I hope you rot in that bed until the darkness of the underworld comes for your soul,” King Evert said. He shoved Annalise away from him before storming from the room. He slammed the door so hard it rattled the medicine vials on the cabinets, apparently uncaring that his only living child was on the floor groaning in pain. 

“Mama, it burns. Why does it hurt?” Annalise cried, crawling to her mother’s bedside and pulling herself to her knees. It felt as though someone had written invisible words of fire on her skin all over her body. Once she’d fallen asleep in the garden on a sunny day and had a sunburn so terrible she’d barely moved for a week; the pain she now felt made that sunburn feel like a warm hug.

Her mother helped her into bed with a thin and pale hand. “I’m sorry, dear one. I expected many things from your father, but never for him to do… that. Still…” Queen Elvira paused, taking a laboring breath. “Perhaps this is for the best. I love you, my sweet child, my darling girl. Never forget that. I’ll always be with you, even when you can’t see me. I know it burns. Here, let me sing you a song. With any luck, it’ll help you feel better.” 

Something about her mother’s touch soothed the worst of the burning. As Annalise curled into her side, the queen sang over her in the Old Tongue. It was a lullaby that Annalise recognized from when she was a little girl, and her mother’s soft accent gave the song a soothing lilt. 

“Will you teach me the Old Tongue one day, Mama?” Annalise asked. 

Her mother smoothed her hair and kissed the top of her head. “Your father forbade me from ever speaking to you of this, but one day, if you make it to the Valley Between the Walls, my home kingdom of Murana, my people there will teach you our ways and our language. That is your birthright, as much as any plans your father may have for you. In Murana, you will always be welcome.”

Annalise fell asleep to husky singing, which cooled the burning and stinging on her skin. 

~

Annalise opened her eyes to the sight of the cloth walls of her tent tinged with frost. In her half-awake state, she turned on her side and allowed the tears to fall freely. Even separated from the death of her mother by nearly ten years, the wound of her loss still felt fresh and her grief raw. 

After falling asleep that fateful night, she’d awoken the next morning to shrill screams. Queen Elvira, beloved monarch of Dovea and Annalise’s doting mother, had died during the night. In the chaos that followed as the room filled with lady’s maids, healers, and servants, Annalise learned that her father had forbidden anyone from entering her mother’s chambers until dawn on pain of death.

Amid the flurry of activity and mourning, her father strode into the queen’s bedchamber. His eyes were as red as the last of the coals in the hearth, and the alcohol on his breath was so strong Annalise could smell it from nearly across the room. 

“No one will mourn the queen. I forbid it.” He turned his baleful gaze on Annalise, who cowered away from him. “All that useless woman did was give me one girl and a few stillborn sons. She no more deserves to be mourned than an old nag who breaks down on the side of the road before it can fulfill its duty.” 

“Oh, you poor girl. You must be so heartbroken,” one of the court ladies said to Annalise. In the intervening years she’d forgotten the lady’s name, but she remembered it was one whom her mother held great animosity towards and only allowed as part of her retinue at the request of the king. The lady folded a begrudging Annalise into her arms. However, just as she pressed Annalise’s head to her ample bosom, she emitted a shriek and shoved Annalise back so hard the princess nearly fell to the ground. 

The skin of the lady’s chest and bare arms was red. As everyone looked on in horror, the skin turned purple and her veins black. The lady shrieked in pain and pointed an accusing finger at Annalise. “You did this. This is your fault, you cursed child!” She tore at her clothes and ran from the room as if chased by demons, her shrieks echoing down the hallway. 

Several hours later, Annalise overhead two guards talking about the noblewoman who had touched the Princess and paid for it with her life. 

A scuff of boots by the front tent flap and then a clearing of a throat alerted her to the presence of someone outside her tent. “Princess Annalise, are you awake? My apologies, but we need to move,” Soren said on the other side of the canvas.  

She allowed herself one more moment to feel, then sat up, dried her eyes, and tied her mask in place. “I’m ready, Captain Soren. I believe it’s more than time to leave this terrible place.” 

Author’s note:
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this far and coming on this journey with me. My readers are the BEST 🫶🏻. Feel free to leave a comment about what you’re thinking below!
…

We have now reached the end of the first arc (ie, Part One) of The Masked Princess. Will Soren ever confess his feelings? Will Annalise ever make it to Rhinnea? Will her curse ever be lifted? Keep reading to find out!