Page 4 of The Kingdom of Flames

“She is magic.” The mage of the black banner raised a glass. “She travels to my lands through winter and autumn. The children flock to her for her stories.”

“There is no greater maiden in all the realm,” Lord Hivewell agreed. “Though I have a long line of suitors for her that grow after every visit.”

“None braver.” her father touched her hand and looked at her. “Hers is the courage of hope. Of rightfulness. Long have I tended marriage requests and dowries and offers for her hand from each of you.”

Celestine blushed a bit. Her father, though he had never said it, knew that if he married her to a son of any of these lords, it would be seen as favoritism.

“Aye,” the Brown lord said, his bearskin about his shoulders and tattoos all along his muscled form. “And wars any of us would wage for her hand. She is a light in the darkness. For her heart is purer than fallen snow.”

“She knows and tends to all your realms, bringing help and succor, bringing labor and medicine. They say my lands are unbannered. But my daughter is the true painted realm. She has taught me more than I her, and for that reason, all women in my lands decide their own destinies. In my lands, women choose. That is what my daughter taught me. And I have decided… that she will decide.”

There had to be some mistake. If her stomach had fallen before, it now ran from the hall on horseback. She turned to stare at the number of faces around the table. These same men spoke of the brightness within her, but they didn’t know. They knew only what she did for them, not the sadness and loneliness she felt.

Never had she worn grand dresses. Her hands were rough from the plow and her lap sometimes was stained with the blood of the wounded in these men’s pitch battles. The solitude of her own bed felt like a banishment, and her chastity was born of duty.

Her entire life had been a service to fixing the folly of men, and the anger of the Seasons. By what writ and warrant did faceless gods control their skies? She did not resent her life of service, but she watched her own wishes and desires frozen away, so thick was the ice she couldn’t even peer within to see what may lie inside.

But Celestine also knew she was no grand hero, nor pure hearted. She felt lust. She felt jealousy when seeing finer things. There was anger, and more than anything she felt a bleakness and melancholy each morning, as if she were a candle burning too fiercely. It was through helping others, ignoring herself, that she could breathe.

I was born with such bleakness. I’d rather have been frozen in my mother’s arms than bear this dying world without her.

“Lords,” Celestine said to the table, looking at each of them. Even Whitehall, even the leaders of the Scarlet realm who looked more like fiends than men. She saw the nobility in Skye, the greed in Suncrown, the honor and soldierly order in Scalehall the Red Banner. She saw the girth in the midriff of the Amber lord and the lusty aggression in the bear skinned man of Brown.

“Long have I tended to your twelve realms, your daughters, your sons. I have chopped wood in the morning and burned it all the next day for a sudden winter. I have seen your sons die in their cradle from the cold. From starvation. I have seen the wombs of our daughters and lands grow barren from starvation and famine.”

Celestine smiled at her father, but her eyes filled with tears. Try as she might, the lump wouldn’t settle down in her throat.

“I never wanted to serve any of your realms. But the people needed help. I tended to my childhood friend this last week who was set upon by a pack of men. Some say they were ruffians. Others say they were landed men.”

Many cleared their throats as eyes went around the table.

“Each of you would take me as a bride. Though I am not the fairest, nor stoutest, nor slimmest. You say I am brightness, I am your Painted Realm, and you have ruined me. But each of you would take me as a bride.” Celestine looked up and set her jaw. “Do we send fourteen women to die, or live in harmony, or depraved death? How many souls do we send to Calendar, that place we cannot reach, to demigods who don’t hear our prayers? Do we sell our souls and saddle women as animals like Whitehall wants? All roads lead to ruin.”

“This is true, Lady Celestine.” Scalehall spoke. “But the Tithing leaves tomorrow. Whom do we put upon the carriages to Calendar? Who faces the Seasons? Even when we have attempted to send emissaries, the guards from Calendar do not permit them. The Seasons demand to be fed, nothing else.”

“We should fill it with fighting men,” growled Brown. “And slay these Lords.”

Celestine held up her hand. “You cannot kill winter, nor summer. Nor any Season.”

Astris of the Black Banners leaned forward. “Then what do we do, Lady Celestine? Whom do we send?” His skin was a sickly gold pallor and his eyes glowed with witchlight.

“You send me,” Celestine whispered. “I will be a bride for all the Seasons.”

Her father shut his eyes, knowing that this would be her choice. The men erupted into argument.

Blackdawn held up his hand to quiet them. “Only a Season might kill another, if that is even possible. If they choose her as a bride, we may have stability. Perhaps they might even see how their conflict has ruined this world.”

“We may have eternal winter,” the Brown Bannered lord growled.

“Or spring,” Suncrown said.

“Or nothing,” a noble of scarlet spoke, his eyes black like coal freshly burned. “If they kill all who travel there.”

Lord Mirrortower rose and placed his hands on the table. “Celestine has decided, and so it will be. She will go to Calendar alone. She will both relay and be the message. Our final one.”

Fear flooded her veins, but there was elation as well. No matter what happened when those strange guards took her to Calendar, the place no man could find, and whose influence no one could escape, the world would change.

“This will be the final Tithing,” her father declared. “None after this. If I am to lose that which is most precious to me in the entire world, that is the price of it.”

---