Ten years. I had been assured the throne for ten years. I had planned and dreamed, outlined exactly what kind of queen I would be. Now it had been ripped from me, stolen by this pitifully mewling... thing. My eyes were glued in horror to the damp and screaming gremlin in the bassinet, utterly disgusted by what I saw.

  It was grotesque in the way its mouth was devoid of teeth and its skin still had a layer of drying afterbirth coating its face and hands in spotty, white patches. This crying, wrinkled sack of flesh was taking my place in succession to an entire kingdom. This creature, too weak to even lift its own head, had just stolen every bit of my power. Every person in the kingdom would now forsake me and instead bend the knee of fealty to it. Not because I would not be an adequate ruler or lacked the necessary training, but simply because I was female and there was now a male to become the heir instead.

  There had been murmuring among the servants that perhaps the new sibling would be a male and how it would be so wonderful if the King would finally get a rightful heir. Their gossip had felt so preposterous that I had not given it much credence, though I could not understand how they could so shamelessly say such things within my earshot. Their words implied that I was not sufficient enough and that my father was left wanting. I was smart, cunning, and resourceful, all good attributes for a ruler.

  The thing screamed louder, its wail piercing through my skull. Mother was having complications in the birthing room, something I didn't quite understand, but the midwife had thrust the baby into my arms muttering something about bleeding. I had been more than kind and put it in the prepared basket with blankets. In hindsight, I should have strangled it or chucked it into the field behind the castle for the scavengers to find. Those impulses would have preserved my place as the rightful heir, but I was in shock and did nothing more than to set the usurper down and check that I had indeed just lost everything.

  Mother had assured me that the new child would be a girl, that all the women in her family had only given birth to girls and that she would be no different. She had even laughed off my worries and the constantly loose lips of the servants with a warm smile and smoothed the hair out of my anxious eyes. I was now left to wonder if my mother had known all along and was heartless or if this usurper would come as a shock to her as well. Not that discovering she was innocent of betrayal would do much to soothe the damage done.

  I had been raised as the only child and rightful heir to the kingdom, promised the throne and all the glory that would come with it once my father stepped down. All of those promises were broken now that a son had been born. Father would not allow me to be his heir now that there was a male bloodline to give it to instead. While he had shown his favor and had not outwardly been hostile to me, no amount of familial love would convince him otherwise. I could not remedy the fact that I was not the sex that traditions told him a true ruler should be.

  I didn't think it could possibly scream any louder, but it seemed to be growing more lung power by the minute. Though I was certain that I could likely soothe it somewhat by picking it up, I refused to hold the creature more than I already had. Let it cry, it deserved distress for what it had done to me. No hardship it would ever face would ever feel fair compared to the loss of my destiny.

  The great sitting room had a large fireplace and though it wasn't cold in the room, I threw in the extra firewood and stoked it to a roaring blaze to hopefully drown out some of the insufferable sound.

  “Toria,” the midwife chastised sharply, “were you going to just let him cry?”

  I passed my gaze away from the fire and towards the plump, blood-speckled woman who had just entered from the birthing room, but didn't give an answer. The fine lines around her eyes had blood still trapped in them, missed by the cloth she had used to clean her face. My mother’s blood had also settled into a small scar above her left eyebrow that I vaguely recalled she told me once was from falling down the steps when she was a small child. It was hard to imagine the middle aged woman as a child, especially since I couldn’t recall an expression on her face that wasn’t stoney and cold. She had birthed me as well, though I never particularly cared despite how many times she liked to bring up that fact like it held weight.

  “Your mother will be cross with you if I decide to tell her about this,” she stressed, picking up the screaming sack of flesh from the basket. “He is your brother and heir to the throne. You are to help with his rearing from this day forward.”

  “I was the heir until just an hour ago,” I said blandly. It took a great deal of restraint not to ball up my fists and knock him from her arms.

  “Thus is life,” she said with a dismissive sniff. “Sometimes what we once had leaves and we are left to make the best of the situation. You are still a princess, take solace in the knowledge that any other girl in this kingdom wishes they were you.”

  She didn't understand. How could she? Commoners never seemed to understand that in the world of royalty and nobility, you were nobody unless you were at the top. Perhaps no one else would understand what it felt like to have their kingdom stripped from them before they even had a chance to rule it.

  The dour woman frowned at my reluctance to speak any more with her. Thick wrinkles arose along the corners of her mouth and her sagging neck skin bounced up and down as she tried to soothe the traitor. It was particularly unattractive and I had to bite my tongue from saying so.

  “I hope that you will be in a better humor and remember your manners by the morning. Your mother will want to see you and your great aunt will be arriving,” she said with a warning tone. “Your mother is from a very powerful and refined family. I can only imagine that her great aunt will not be so patient with you if you still insist on acting like an insolent brat.”

  I thought I would bite right through my tongue as I stopped myself from lashing out at being called a brat. It was a term that people seemed to enjoy throwing at me whenever I asserted my own feelings or opinions. I fully believed that had I been born a male, I would instead be praised for being bold or confident. It felt like she was intentionally rubbing salt in the already festering wound, but lashing out now would only fuel her to further insist that I was being unreasonable. Besides, she was just a common servant and even if I was no longer the heir apparent, I was still of royal blood and her words meant nothing.

  With a final disapproving “tut,” the midwife left the room to present the golden male child to my traitor of a mother. I wondered if she would coo and cry over finally giving my father another child and, even better, a new heir. As much as my heart yearned for me to believe my mother would stand by my side, intuition begged me to see reality.

  The wretched nursemaid had left the door to the sitting room open, an unspoken command to follow and play happy family, but there was no threat or punishment that would convince me to join in on that moment of ultimate betrayal. I stood firm in my position before the fire, trying not to give the world the satisfaction of my tears escaping the corner of my eyes. I would not face them tonight.

  Unsurprisingly, no one came to fetch me or tell me that my mother wanted my company. Those days were over, there was a replacement to fret and fawn over. If my mother cared for me she would have sent for me, pulled me into a soft embrace and whispered promises of how to set things right, but there was nothing but the crackle of the fire and the sound of the lonely wind outside the castle.

  For the first time in my life I fed, bathed, and put myself to bed. It was not that I was incapable of these simple tasks, but before this night I had been special enough to have lavish treatment. My mind was full of anger and sorrow as I washed, then dried, and pulled on my soft nightgown. This was not what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to also be a girl and then I would still be the eldest heir, my position undisturbed and the benefit of a younger sister to entertain me.

  Studying my image in the mirror of my vanity, it was almost shocking that I looked no different from that morning aside from the bitter scowl upon my lips. This very morning it was accepted that I was heir, now I was nothing. Anger rose up my throat and caused me to smash the mirror with the bone comb, taking a bit of satisfaction in watching the glass crackle with a spiderweb design.

  The rage rolled through me, setting my jaw hard and I threw my eyes wide and stared to the ceiling to force the tears down. Those that had wronged me did not deserve to have the pleasure of knowing I felt sorrow. I would not shed a single tear if I could help it, this betrayal called for revenge, not tears.

  Though my bed was still lavish with exotic, soft materials for blankets and goose feathers like a cloud, on this night it felt like a prison cot. My mind mulled over how I had been happy at the thought of welcoming a little sister as I drifted off to sleep. I had considered even allowing her to be an adviser in my future court, powerful sisters that would come to be venerated. Now, I was left to wonder how I would even be able to cope with being surrounded by traitors who could see no wrong in what had happened.

  My dreams were filled with violence. My mind let its anger out by proposing each and every way I could have rid myself of the problem before the midwife had arrived. In my dreams I laughed in triumph as the life faded out of the usurper, its blood running down my arms and feeling like it gave me life by seeping into my pores.

  What would they have done? They would not have risked ridding themselves of the only remaining heir. I had never been a particularly dark or disturbed child. In fact, I had been quite the opposite with always a laugh and a smile. Sure, I had tempers and moods like any other small child, but after pulling back the bloodied blanket and seeing the betrayal something had snapped like a tensioned string deep within my chest. I was suddenly hyper-aware of how unfair and brutal reality could be.

  “Child, why do you look so sullen?” my traitor of a mother cooed the next morning when I joined them for breakfast before the fire.

  She looked weak and pallid. Her normally lightly tanned skin was almost bone white and her revered red locks were greasy and tangled. Deep, dark purple circles ringed her eyes and it looked as though the pillows propped up under the little usurper in her lap were more to allow her to hold it at all rather than for its comfort. Her hands trembled as she readjusted the blanket wrapped around the wretched creature. For a brief moment, I found myself feeling satisfied that at least she was suffering for her treachery.

  “Still have not found your manners?” the midwife asked rhetorically, casting me a withering look as she set a plate of porridge before me. “She fancies that it is unfair that she is no longer the heir.”

  Recognition flashed across my mother's face. A swiftly fleeting appearance of sadness or guilt crossed her features next, but quickly it softened into a look of what I could only interpret as some type of amusement. It was as if she found my plight somewhat humorous.

  “It is just life,” she began, echoing the midwife's blathering the day before, “you had to know that this might happen. While it is true that the women in my family have not had a male child before, that surely could not last forever.”

  I said nothing in return and ate my morning porridge while keeping my eyes trained on the floor in front of me. Counting the cracks in the stones kept me from losing it and flying into an emotional outburst..

  “It is the way of things,” she continued despite my silence, “just how the traditions have been established to maintain harmony and order. Men are the leaders and women must defer to them. It is nature.”

  “I never thought I'd hear something like that come from the mouth of a daughter of Evonia Yser.”

  A woman who looked a bit like my mother except she had straight, raven black hair down to her mid back had appeared in the door that connected the small dining room to the long hallway. She seemed as taken aback by the statement as I had been with her hand to her chest like she had to steady her internal feelings.

  “Aunt Mari,” my mother said, weakly reaching out warmly to the guest. Quite a feat it seemed in her current state. “I am so happy to see you. You are earlier than we were expecting you. Please, come meet my new child.”

  The woman who should have looked quite a bit older, yet somehow looked much more fresh-faced and younger than my mother twenty years her junior, stepped into the room, eyes scanning around as if carefully assessing her surroundings.

  “I have heard it is a boy child,” my aunt Mari said. Though her tone did not change, there was something in her voice that caused me to focus all of my attention squarely on her angular face. Her words seemed to cut through the air, I could tell that she was suppressing anger.

  “Yes, the King has decided to name him Florin,” my mother said wistfully. Perhaps unable to rise to her feet, she held out the vile usurper towards my aunt and gave a small smile of offering for her to step forward and hold it.

  Aunt Mari made a sound from somewhere deep in her chest and shook her head. “I have held my tongue the entire time you have settled to live a subservient life. I have never approved of your life, but since you were not actively damaging our bloodline or House I have allowed your mistakes to continue.. However, while I initially came hoping to celebrate another daughter brought into the world, now I must ask what your intentions are for your eldest.”

  My mother blinked, her tired blue eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep and physical exertion. “What do you mean?” she asked. “She is still my child.”

  “You are not this dim. Is she still the direct heir?” my aunt bluntly asked. Her lips had drawn into a harsh, thin line.

  “The King would never allow that with a male heir.” My mother sounded confused, like such a question was silly to ask. “Florin must be the heir, it is just the way of things.”

  Though I had already reached the same conclusion, it stung that my mother had already accepted the outcome with no desire to fight against it for my sake. Adding to the insult, iit seemed that she herself thought it fair. It confirmed my feelings that this had all somehow been a direct betrayal.

  “So she is just to be cast aside though she has been raised all this time to expect to be ruler?” my aunt scoffed. “Is she to just accept that she is not considered good enough because a boy has been born?”

  “I see now where the child gets her stubborn ideas about fairness,” the midwife muttered a bit too loudly.

  Mari's eyes quickly locked onto the midwife, her right hand twitching with agitation. There was something threatening about the glance, though I was certain that no one would dare do anything violent in my father's castle.

  “Hold your tongue, servant,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “While you may have accepted your position as a lesser, a stain upon the boot of your King, my great niece does not need to debase herself in the same way.”

  Mother's face paled, her eyes darting between the two women. “Please, this is not how this meeting was supposed to go. This is a happy occasion,” she pleaded quietly.

  “It is not at all happy,” my aunt corrected. “Is it, Toria?”

  My eyes snapped to her face at the sound of my name and I peered into the deep brown eyes of the mysterious woman for the first time. There was intelligence and darkness in her eyes, a danger that bubbled beneath the surface. I could feel the power she could command and was restraining herself from using in this very moment..

  “No,” I answered truthfully, “it is a horrible day.”

  While my mother let out a soft gasp, a smirk spread across aunt Mari's face. She gave me an approving incline of her head and broke eye contact with me to turn back to my mother.

  “Well, now that you have made your choices, bore a male child, and forsaken your daughter, I see only one, obvious choice. A solution that will right some of the horrific wrongs you have decided to commit.”

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  “Please don't,” my mother whimpered, setting her eyes fully on me for the first time since the new heir had been born.

  “Don't pretend that you have some sentimental attachment now,” my aunt said with an annoyed roll of her eyes. “If you truly loved and cared for her, then you would not cast her claim to the throne aside because a male was born. Or, more practically, you would have not have bore a male at all.”

  “She is my first born, of course I love and care for her,” my mother pleaded as tears began to fall from her eyes. “She is my daughter, a light in my heart, I have always and will always love her.”

  “Then name her the heir. Here. Now. Declare it and stand by it,” Mari challenged. “If you love her as much as you love that boy in your arms, you will fight to protect her rightful claim to the throne.”

  The silence was deafening.

  “Precisely,” aunt Mari snarled, “you never had her best interests in mind and are content to allow her to live in misery from now on. She will mature into the powerful, intelligent woman she is capable of being under my guidance. Under yours, she would diminish her worth and eventually be married off to some far away prince for a pittance of a trade deal or political alliance.”

  “You cannot take her!” my mother shouted, finally finding her voice. “I will not let you! She is my daughter and she stays here where she belongs!”

  Raising an eyebrow, my aunt took a step towards my mother, causing her to shrink back in fear. For a long moment nothing was said, but even the vile creature in my mother’s arms was wise enough to have gone completely still and silent.

  “You are weak and always have been, Rela,” my aunt hissed, a low growl escaping at the end of each word. “While you are a daughter of Yser, I also suspected that your father's blood had tainted you a bit too much. It is apparent that I have been correct. We both know that if you try to stop me, you will not survive.”

  “Are you threatening the Queen?!” the midwife screeched, face reddening in indignation. She jumped to her feet as if to run to get the guards but stopped short when my aunt’s head snapped to glare at her with a dark and withering look.

  “It's not a threat, but a promise that she knows to be true,” she replied dispassionately. “I will have the child without a fight, because the Queen values her own life and that of the new heir above her first born.”

  Giving no chance for a reply, aunt Mari reached out an inviting hand to me which I took with no hesitation. I didn't care where she was going to take me, there would certainly be no further happiness possible for me within the castle.

  “No...” my mother moaned, but made no movement to snatch me away from her grasp. “Please don’t take her…”

  Mari rolled her eyes again and gave me a look that communicated that she thought my mother's distress to be an act. “Come child, let me show you true power and strength. Though you have the final choice of your own destiny, you can stay if you'd like.”

  “Let's go,” I said barely after she had finished speaking. There was no doubt in my mind that I did not want my destiny to be some sort of political pawn for the kingdom.

  My mother cried loudly as I stood up from my set at the table and intentionally did not look in her direction as I walked out of the room with my aunt. The midwife made a huffing sound under her breath, but I did not even think for a moment that she would be sad to see me go.

  The exit from the castle was a blur, my aunt moving swiftly like she couldn't stand being within the walls for any longer. Almost disappointingly, no guards made any move to recover me. I was certain that if my mother had raised the alarm, the guards could have surely returned me. While I did not want to stay and was glad to be leaving, it still hurt to know that my mother did not care enough to even try.

  Outside the gate to the castle entrance, my aunt sharply called for her horse and mine, tapping her foot with impatience.

  “Have you ever been traveling before?” she asked me as we waited.

  “Only to the surrounding area for festivals or jousts,” I replied. For all I knew there wasn't much of anything beyond our borders. I certainly had little proof that anything existed from beyond.

  She made a disapproving sound with her tongue in her mouth and shook her head. “We will be going far beyond anywhere you have been before and the ride is not always pleasant.”

  I nodded in understanding. Even though I had never met her before that day, I knew that I could trust her intentions with me. Her words carried a silent weight to them. I could feel that the heft that told me she was being completely forthcoming and truthful.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the Hall of Yser,” she replied offhandedly like I should already know what that meant.

  I looked up to her with a puzzled expression. I knew that my mother's originating house was the Yser, but nothing beyond the name and that they were well-respected had been explained to me. I could see the darkness begin to gather in her eyes as it dawned upon her that I did not know what or where that was.

  “Your mother truly has lost her way,” she snarled, “she never intended for you to be the queen if she never even told you about the blood that flows through your veins. I had suspected before... but now I am certain of what she's done.”

  “What has she done?” I asked.

  “She has meddled with that which she knew not to interfere with and has intentionally removed you from the line of succession,” she answered with a disdainful sniff.

  I furrowed my brow and tried to imagine what exactly my aunt was implying. “She told me that all the women of our family have only borne girl children, but it was only a matter of time before one produced a boy.” I didn't know why I felt the need to protect her image. It wasn't like she had made any efforts to preserve my station.

  “I'm sure that's what she said to you, but they were empty, pacifying words,” Aunt Mari said with a bitter laugh. “My first lesson to you is perhaps the most important: never believe anyone who is telling you what you want to hear.”

  My frown deepening, I searched for how my mother could have been possibly deceiving me. “Is it not true that women in our family typically bear female children? If that is true, then she would have thought she was telling the truth.”

  A soft look washed over her face and she placed a comforting hand on my shoulder while shaking her head. “It is true, the only way to change it would have been through magic.That is how I know she must have interfered and willed the child to be born a boy.”

  “Magic? Like in books and those old stories the servants tell?” I half laughed in disbelief despite the fact that she seemed completely honest and sincere.

  Magic was something that I had years ago placed in the same realm as the Tooth Gremlin and fairies. Idle fantasy dreamed up by bored servants without enough duties to keep their minds occupied.

  “Yes, that kind of magic,” she confirmed. “Your mother shares the Yser blood and though she is a weak strain of the bloodline, she could have gathered enough strength to change the rightful destiny.”

  I squinted my eyes closed at the information, like I had to block out the rest of my senses to be able to parse it into understanding. If my aunt was being truthful, then I was going to have to first accept that magic was real and then accept that my mother had intentionally unseated me as the rightful heir.

  “It would be something incredibly frowned upon by our family and will likely lead to her being shunned or worse, but it is the only likely explanation,” my aunt continued. “I would assume that she would be upset by the gender if she was not the cause of it. At the very least she would have seemed surprised and she did not appear surprised at all.”

  Yes, it all made sense now. The soothing words and platitudes had all been to appease me during the later half of her pregnancy. She knew that I would be angry and hoped to make herself look innocent and that it had all just been an act of ill-timed fate. This entire time I had been being manipulated and deceived. My mother had never intended to keep me as the heir and had been plotting to replace me with a male child. Confusion was quickly replaced by fury.

  “Hold onto that feeling,” my aunt instructed with humor in her voice, “it will drive you to be better than those who have wounded you.”

  The stable boy returned with my chestnut mare and the ebony gelding belonging to my aunt. Her horse was a stunning masterpiece of breeding that I would have surely excitedly asked her about if not for being at the depths of a foul mood. I swung up onto my horse, gruffly shooing away the unwelcome help offered by the stable boy. It felt insulting to have any servants of the castle act like they felt any lingering loyalty towards me.

  “Boy,” my aunt bellowed from her impressive stance on the imperious beast, “you will ensure that the Princess' belongings will be sent to the Golden Swallow Inn by dawn tomorrow morning.”

  She gave no time for him to question or even assure that he knew where the inn was located, swinging her horse around and motioning for me to follow and leave this wretched place behind. I gladly spurred my mare into a trot behind her. I did not care if any of my things ever made it to me.

  We rode in silence away from the protection of the castle walls and into the fields being toiled in the mid-morning sun. I had not really seen the servants at work, there had been no reason to view their labor and any time I had ventured outside the castle had been during their days of rest. I wrinkled my nose in disgust at the sweat and dirt that seemed to cover every bit of their clothing and skin. My own skin crawled and itched just thinking about what it might feel like to be that dirty. There was a part of me that felt for them to be born into such a plight, but there was an even larger part of myself that was thankful that I would never be one of them.

  “They hate the King, you know,” my aunt said suddenly, swinging her arm around her at the people pulling weeds and watering withering plants.

  “But they always seem excited to see him during festivals, they throw feasts in his honor,” I countered. While I was definitely not on good terms with my father, I could not deny that every interaction I had seen between him and the people had been positive.

  Aunt Mari let out a trilling laugh that seemed to carry across the fields and echoed back. The sound startled many of the serfs who looked at her with suspicious, arched eyebrows.

  “Such is the guise of the so-called 'benevolent' ruler,” she tittered. “I'm sure he's thrown a breadcrumb or two their way and therefore they know they will benefit from pretending to be happy with their lot in life and ruler.” She stopped her explanation to laugh again, as if just saying the words prevented her from keeping a straight face. “But trust me, when they lay their heads down to sleep, they feel nothing but dark, growing hate.”

  “Without a ruler, they would have no guidance,” I offered. Everything I had ever been taught told me that everyday, ordinary people had little more than enough wits to know which end of the plow to hold.

  “You have so very much to learn,” she mused as we began to approach what looked to be the edge of a small village. “I think we will both look back on this nasty bit of your history and consider it for the best.”

  “I don't think I'll ever consider losing my position to take the throne as for the best,” I grimly replied.

  “Oh, but don't you see, there is more than one way to take the throne.”

  I opened my mouth to continue the conversation, but found myself unable to reply. My brain whirred to life with the possibilities. Sure, I was only ten years old and still a child, but one day I would be older, wiser, and more powerful. It seemed like it might be a silly, far-off dream that would require challenging one of the strongest armies in existence.

  “We have much time to discuss those methods,” she added, sensing my thoughtfulness on the matter. “Before any of that happens, you have much to learn.”

  Stopping outside of a dirty, weather-worn looking building made of gray stone we dismounted and handed the reins of our horses to an elderly man who appeared from the attached stables. He hesitated after taking the reins, seeming to expect something from Aunt Mari, but she shooed him away and wrapped a guiding hand around my shoulder as she walked us inside.

  My eyes took a moment to adjust to the stark difference in brightness from the outdoors to the dank, foul-smelling atmosphere of the building. There was a tiny dining area with a pathetic, sliver-ridden bar, and the floor was nothing more than bare dirt sprinkled with a bit of straw. By the smell of it, I wasn't too unconvinced that the building was not a barn or at least had been used as one in the not so distant past.

  “Welcome ta the Golden Swallow,” a dirt-covered, middle-aged man welcomed from behind the bar. His hair was streaked with silver, clothes marginally better than the people we had passed in the fields, and his hands seemed to be caked in grim. “Would ja ladies be liking a room?”

  Aunt Mari put on a charming smile, though she made a small sniff of disgust. “Yes, your best room,” she said with a lilting accent that made her sound even more noble, “we are members of the House Yser.”

  At the mention of the house the man went pale beneath his layer of filth, the corners of his lips falling before artificially rising again. “Of course, of course, I am honored to have such regal guests,” he said with a strained voice. “I'm afraid that I must be honest in that I have no rooms fine enough for such noble blood.”

  Aunt Mari put her hand up and flicked away the thought. “Yes, yes, I am quite aware, but it will have to do. I insist that we will have whatever passes as your finest room.”

  The man gave an uncertain incline of his head, sweat beginning to roll down his crooked nose. “I see, well if ya will give me just a moment then.” Before giving either of us a chance to answer, he disappeared into the kitchen behind the bar, the door leading to it appearing to be barely attached to its hinges.

  I had to agree with him, I certainly felt that the both of us were certainly above staying at such a place. There was not a single redeeming quality I could perceive about this place, even the dogs that hung around the back door to the castle kitchen waiting for scraps would deserve a better place to lay their heads. It was beyond my understanding why my aunt would choose such a disgusting establishment.

  Through the rickety door, we heard the innkeeper whispering harshly to someone. “Spic and span, I tell ya! Go up to the first room and clean everything with soap!” A chubby looking boy barely older than me came hobbling out of the door carrying a sudsy pail of water and a rag. He seemed to take no notice of us as he disappeared towards the stairs.

  “Right.” The innkeeper had returned from the kitchen. “If ya would be so kind as ta allow us a few minutes to get a room ready for ya. Of course at no cost.”

  Aunt Mari acknowledged him with a smug half-smile and motioned for us to go sit by the soot-coated fireplace. I wasn't thrilled at the idea of sitting in any of the chairs, but standing on the filthy floor was problematic in itself.

  Why are we in a place like this?” I asked, finally finding a voice to express my displeasure. “Surely there must be something better around.”

  “It would not be difficult to find anything better,” she sniffed, dusting off a soot-stain that had appeared on her skirt, “but of course there is a reason for everything I do.”

  “What is the reason for this?”

  “Tell me what you think it is,” she challenged.

  My eyes roamed over the filth around us, trying to wrack my mind for why she would bring us to something so beneath our station. It seemed counter to what she had been saying thus far.

  “I don't know,” I admitted, “it seems out of place.”

  She pursed her lips together in a thoughtful line and gave a nod of her head. “I suppose it is a bit to expect that you would understand seeing that your mother seemed to intentionally stunt your knowledge. Tell me, do you think the people who live in this town are good?”

  It was a tough question, one that I had never thought of before. I had never found reason to ponder much about the difference between good and evil. Of course the kingdom was good, there were no nefarious torture rooms for those who didn't truly deserve it and it wasn’t like the dark kingdoms in history books with sacrifices for better harvests.

  “Well the kingdom is good, so I guess the people in it are.”

  “Is this kingdom good? What does good even mean?” She asked the questions, but the look on her face told me that she didn't really expect me to answer. “If you believe that these people are on the side of righteousness, then why do they live in such squalor?”

  Another fair question. One that I didn’t even know how to start forming an answer for.

  “That is just the way of things…” I said before trailing off. They were the same words that had left my mother’s lips that morning. They had not stood up as a valid argument then and I wasn’t sure it was valid in this one either.

  “Is it now?” My aunt’s face was amused, though not in a patronizing manner. “Is it fair or good to have your entire destiny determined solely on where and to whom you are born? We do not choose our births, otherwise no one would be a peasant.”

  I did not venture to try a reply, nothing I thought of felt that I was on the right track. These were questions I had not been given reason to ponder before. They reminded me of my tutor’s logic questions designed to sharpen my mind, but only I got the sense that my aunt was not necessarily looking for a singular, clever answer, nor would she provide any sort of relief by telling me what the answer should be.

  “Think about these questions as you have these new experiences as we travel and ask yourself if perhaps it is always in your best interest to be on the side of good or what it means to be good.”

  The portly boy from before appeared before us. He was noticeably damp and out of breath with soapy suds sliding down his forearms.

  “Yer room is ready, ladies,” he puffed. I could smell his rancid breath even from a comfortable distance away.

  Aunt Mari gave an acknowledging nod of her head and the boy awkwardly waddled away. I had not noticed before, but his legs were both noticeably bowed outwards, making his walk crooked and labored. I was starting to see what she meant, what had being “good” done for this boy or the grimy innkeeper or the exhausted and filthy peasants in the field? I would never wish to be like any of these people thus far and they far outnumbered anyone of royal or noble blood.

  I followed Aunt Mari up the stairs, careful not to touch any part of the greasy railing. She seemed to know exactly where she was going, like she had been to the hovel before. I couldn’t imagine a woman of her standing willingly choosing to stay in such a place more than once, but she found the room with no issue without waiting for the innkeeper to guide the way.

  The room, though recently cleaned, certainly didn't feel clean. While the dust and dirt from the floor and surfaces had been removed, there seemed to be a dingy haze over every surface from years of neglect that no amount of scrubbing would ever remove. Not every part of the castle had always been completely clean, but I knew for a fact that even the royal stables would have been a cleaner place to stay for the night.