Black Forest: Kingdoms Fall Read Free Page A

hurried to do her job, movements suddenly too clipped, too quick, too perfect as she unbuttoned the fasteners
    with haste beyond her failing fingers. "Why are you acting so strangely?" the queen demanded.
    "Am I acting strangely, Ma'am?" Lemi asked in return, the question increasing the queen's ire.
    Watching Lemi's hands tremble against the garment, Queen Ino knew there was something the handmaiden had not revealed. The snag was nothing. Scanning the
    boudoir, she searched for signs of that which was amiss.
    "Where are my colors?" she asked upon the realization that Lemi had come to her with only half of what she had been sent to fetch.
    When Lemi went arrow-straight at the question, Queen Ino knew she had hit upon the source of the woman's anxiousness. "The curist had a bad delivery of
    pigments, Ma'am," Lemi rushed. "He says they would harm your skin. He knew you would not want them as such."
    Displeasure rolling through her, Queen Ino's eyes narrowed, and Lemi further shriveled from her gaze. "So, Santine could find the color for this
    monstrosity." She fingered the sleeve of the dress with repugnance. "But the curist could not find the colors for my face?"
    "He did apologize," Lemi said quietly.
    "Oh, I am sure he did," Queen Ino replied, taking a step toward Lemi, watching the woman struggle not to run away. "I thought he came highly recommended."
    "He did, Ma'am," Lemi's voice shook, worry etching new lines into her already overly-wrinkled countenance.
    Another step closer, and Lemi looked as if she had been beaten before the queen raised a hand to her.
    "Well, I am sure I will think of something," Queen Ino declared, watching the frightened swallow travel down Lemi's throat. "Now, get me dressed," she said
    again, and Lemi's fingers fumbled once more at the appalling costume.
    The agreed upon time brought another knock upon the door, and Lemi was again most eager to meet the caller. Where the page had stood humbly before, King
    Kardon graced the doorway with assurance, a sight to be seen in his fine whites, offset hideously by a cravat and silk waist tie in the same eye-damaging
    pink as the queen's dress.
    "You look glorious," King Kardon said, and Queen Ino could only endure the compliment from within the confines of the endless supply of ruffles and
    too-tight bodice.
    "Only the best for our daughter's special day," she returned, watching her husband beam.
    "It is near time for our entrance," he reminded her unnecessarily, for the queen was always where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there.
    It was part of the position.
    "There is just one more thing I must do," Queen Ino said, and King Kardon nodded, turning his back to the door, always a gentleman, giving a lady privacy
    in which to make her final adjustments.
    When it came to these particular embellishments, the queen never could tell if King Kardon turned a blind-eye, or if his eyes truly were blind to them,
    but, on occasion that called for it, his ignorance was the queen's bliss.
    "Lemi," Queen Ino said quietly, and Lemi came to her without fail, fear tempered into expectation. Holding out a hand, Queen Ino waited for Lemi's to
    settle atop it.
    Marred with old scars, the suffering of Lemi's hands was readily apparent. Hand gentling beneath the older woman's, it occurred to Queen Ino that Lemi's
    hands worked harder with each passing year, the woman driving herself toward her own grave for no other reason than that she didn't know what else to do.
    The notion most unbidden, the queen's hand tightened with a growl, as she wondered why she had suffered such a thought. Reaching beneath the low fall of
    her dress, she pulled the antique silver dagger from the band at her calf, slicing across Lemi's palm without pause, and the old woman's mouth barely
    opened on a puff of air where there should have been a scream.
    Blood coming fresh and red to the surface, Queen Ino felt the familiar surge through her veins, her own blood pressing at her skin,