Page 2 of The Kingdom of Flames

The Famine of Flesh

12 YEARS LATER

Agrand meeting of the plain-folk and the gentry took place in the hall of Celestine’s father. The day was one of spring, though the horizon showed signs of autumn fast approaching. For two days travelers had arrived.

Celestine hadn’t slept since she woke the night prior. It had been halfway between midnight and dawn, and it was common she woke. She always felt someone watching her. When she had looked over to the mirror in her chamber, framed in white swooping wood, it felt like there were eyes behind it. Lust barreled through her body, and as she heard the guard outside her door, she slid one hand between her legs and watched the shadow of his boots. She stifled her moans with a hand in her mouth, but not well. As her cries grew in intensity, the slickness of her quim and her fingers, she saw the shadow of boots shifting. When she came, it was to the fantasy of those boots turning around and opening the door. Catching her. The guard replacing her hand with his own.

She lay exhausted afterwards. When she wasn’t here, she traveled around the Painted Realm. The warring of the seasons did not stop her. It was her duty to tend to the land, to help the suffering of the realm. From almost the time her mother died, women had slept in locked rooms. There were barely any left. Birthrates had plummeted for almost two decades, and pestilence and famine and flooding was incessant.

It wouldn’t be long until she too, could not travel. Even with her guards, too many men stared at her. In some towns it was too dangerous outright. Several banners had warlords leading groups of men. They would lay siege to towns for a single woman, carrying her off, selling the right to the key to her locked door for a fortune.

The world was ending, and the touch of a man was what she both feared and desired.

She pushed herself up from the bed and walked over to the mirror, watching her own body in it. Her hand crept down to her gown.

Will I be forever unseen? Are you the only eyes that will lie upon this protected flesh of mine?

There was no answer. There never was.

A grand meeting of the plain-folk and the gentry took place in the hall of Celestine’s father. The day was one of spring, though the horizon showed signs of autumn fast approaching. For two days travelers had arrived, and she had played the dutiful daughter of the host. No one dared bring their daughters, they were left under lock and key, those that remained.

Lords came from all over, men who ruled fiefdoms of wheat, of sea trade, of horseflesh. Their banners of the twelve colors streamed not so proudly as they passed within the gates. Mirrortower, her home, had one singular income. One sacred duty and sin.

They oversaw the Tithing. They were the staging ground for the flesh that fed the Seasons. When she had been a young girl, she had seen two hundred maidens carried away to that strange place. None ever returned from that portal to the other world. From Calendar.

In the great hall, everyone gathered around. Celestine stood next to her father, her hand on his shoulder. His other side was bare, for her mother had passed many years ago. It was bittersweet to see this many men, supposed rulers of their banners, for each wore a forlorn look. Several glanced at her repeatedly. It was said that for every woman alive in the Painted Realm, there were ten men.

It was time for the Aspiration. It was time to send the young women to Calendar.

The problem was they had none.

“There are so few left,” Duke Scalehall of the Red Banner said. “We risk the wrath of the Seasons with such a paltry offering. Twelve demigods hunger for flesh and we provide only famine.”

It was Count Suncrown of the Yellow Banners who countered, “Their greed has grown too much. Why send anything? They send us nothing. Not sun nor harvest nor sewing of seeds, not enough time to do anything. Let them starve and slay one another. Let a Season of winter or spring reign supreme, and we can at least learn to survive it.”

Many agreed with him. The voices of over forty landed men rang around the once great hall.

Celestine moved and served, filling cups with ale so watered down it could not quench sorrow nor anger.

“Maidens are kept under lock and key, while other lords barter them. They give nothing to Tithing,” the Chieftain of Willowort spoke. “Why should we send daughters we have saved, while others whore them?”

More rounds of agreement came. Celestine’s father, Lord Mirrortower the Unbannered shook his head at the head of the table.

“Let us send the Forgotten back. They were good enough to be hunted. Perhaps they could be hunted again?” The Earlman of Everstar spoke.

“You would send the bones that fall from the beast’s mouth back to them, thinking to slake their hunger?” Sir Harold Skye, of the Blue Banners scoffed.

The table broke out into more and more argument. More shouts. Someone threw a cup, and a knife was drawn.

Celestine stood back, watching the bickering of men deciding the fate of not just all women, but the entire realm. Men who seemed to know so little of both.

A cruel voice slithered out. The Earlman of Whitehall, of the White Banners fixed his eyes upon Celestine.

“In my realm, we have kept the noose from men’s necks, and their lust well sated. We still have maidens for the tithing.”

“The rumors of your land are horrid,” Sir Skye spat the words.

Whitehall continued, his eyes dancing around the curves under Celestine’s dress. She felt such coldness from the winterlander. Like she was a beast being weighed for purchase. Or slaughter.

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