The purpose of this ceremony was to honor all of their hard work and training when they swore their swords to king and country, and commemorate their ascension to knighthood. The squires stood in a row before a sea of audience members, one of whom was, of course, Fie.
“It’s the queen,” someone whispered. “The queen is here.”
It was over a year since she had stopped being the queen, but the name still stuck. This was partially due to the fact that Roy still had not remarried and partially because Fie had caused such a splash by rising from public enemy number one to queen overnight. She’d done quite a good job of it too, in fact, so much that some people were still her fans.
Fie ignored their whispering and took a seat next to the former chancellor. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said.
“My schedule has opened up now that I’ve stepped down from my former role,” he explained. “And I am rather familiar, you might say, with many of these boys.”
Fie snickered. “We all used to say we were scared of you.”
Ever one to be strict, even after retiring, Zorace still periodically dropped by the dorms to check on the squires, to the point where they began to call him The Lecturer.
“I simply dispense good advice when I feel there is too much horseplay going on,” he insisted.
His air of nonchalance made Fie giggle even more.
“Oh, there’s the captain!” she cried. “It must be starting soon!”
Roy appeared in his king persona before the squires who respectfully sunk to their knees as one. Fie, who knew full well that the squires normally elevated half-assing to an art form, gaped at the level of coordination they displayed. Then, once her surprise faded away, she smiled.
The chancellor looked at her and frowned. “Do you resent me?” he whispered.
She tilted her head in confusion. “What for?”
“For what I did. Had I left you alone, it would have been you standing on that stage.” His words rang with something almost like remorse. As he grew older, he began to wonder more and more whether he should have left certain things alone, not meddled in so many affairs.
Fie did not answer him for a few moments. Then, a nervous line of sweat trickling down her cheek, she said, “Honestly? A little bit, yeah.”
As apologetic as she was, the words still hit Zorace like a brick. “A-A bit,” he said. “I see.” He hadn’t expected her to be completely grudge-free, but—no, damn it, it was time to be honest with himself. He thought that, knowing her, she would shrug it off and tell him not to worry about it.
“It was fun being a squire, sure. And sometimes I still think about what it would have been like if I had been able to become a knight. However”—and here Fie gave Qurio a squeeze—“after she was born, I started realizing that maybe the path I chose to walk down isn’t so bad after all. Yeah. It’s pretty great.” She nodded, looking down at the baby sleeping in her arms.
“And besides,” she added, “I do feel sad when I look back on it. But I’m also very happy that someone found me.”
Zorace wasn’t sure how to respond to this and so stayed silent. Still somewhat rattled from the knowledge that she was a little angry at him, he realized that years ago, he wouldn’t have cared. Perhaps he was growing soft in his old age. And perhaps, he thought, this softness was the very thing that brought people together.
As if it had just occurred to her, Fie asked, “By the way, how did you know it was me back then?” At first, she had assumed he had recognized her from a portrait, but once Fie looked into it later, she realized that no portrait of hers had ever made it to Orstoll. Frankly, she didn’t even remember sitting one for one. She found signs that someone back home had made a sketch of her and sent it to Orstoll, but the sketch didn’t look anything like Fie. This had puzzled her, but it went on the back burner as she became busy with the queen job, the wedding, and her pregnancy. Eventually, she forgot all about it.
The chancellor looked far off into the distance and reminisced, “There was an agreement, long ago, between him and...”
“Who’s him? Him and who?” Fie asked. “What are you talking about?” Unable to make heads or tails of this, her expression was a veritable sea of question marks.
But Zorace only smiled and refused to say more. Fie pouted and protested, but he remained unmoved. Finally, she gave up. Well, if I wasn’t mad at him before, she thought, I sure am now! But come to think of it, she remembered someone else asking her a similar question just a few minutes before.
✦ ✦ ✦
Prior to the ceremony, the squires huddled in a waiting room.
“It’s almost time for the ceremony,” said one. “Boy, am I nervous.”
“You’re telling me. What if I screw up?” another said.
Suddenly, a cheery voice called, “Hey, guys!”
“Ugh.” One of the squires groaned. “It’s Heath.”
“No, it’s Her Majesty Queen Fie.”
“No, no, she used to be the queen. Now she’s Her Majesty Ex-Queen Fie. Wait. Her Ex-Majesty Queen Fie? Her Majesty Queen Ex-Fie!”
Try as the squires might to capitalize on their connections to the royal family, their execution was a bit lacking.
“I came to see how’s everyone doing,” the intruder in their midst explained. “Also, I wanted to let Queen see the baby.”
“If you’re looking for Queen,” said a squire. “I think he’ll be back any minu—”
“Fie?!” Queen gasped. He had grown slightly over the past year, heightwise at least, but he otherwise hadn’t changed a bit.
When Fie saw him, she ran up to him, their daughter in her arms. “Look, Qurio,” she said. “It’s daddy.” She passed the child to Queen with a “here you are.” He accepted the baby awkwardly, but lifted her up like she was the most precious thing alive.
Qurio gurgled, looking back at him with adorable, round eyes. “Oh, she’s happy,” said Fie. “I think that’s her being happy, at any rate.” She wasn’t pitching a fit, so she didn’t seem to mind being held, at least.
“Sorry,” Queen said. “I meant to see you earlier, but I got caught up.” As a prospective knight, Queen had little time to see Fie; she, too, was likewise preoccupied with her work in running their estate. This made him nervous to even hold his own daughter, and so he had asked Fie to come bring her to him. Once he became a knight, he promised, he would be able to be stationed somewhere closer to his family and spend much more time with them.
Fie giggled. “What’re you apologizing for?” She wasn’t remotely concerned about the same issue that preoccupied Queen, so she genuinely seemed not to know.
“Hey, get a room, you two,” one of the squires called.
“Yeah,” echoed another. “It’s not fair to the rest of us to have to watch you lovebirds.”
The metaphorical light of victory coming off of their two friends was too blinding. How dare they date, marry, and have kids while the rest of the squires made zero progress in their love lives?
Fie blinked as the other squires filed away, leaving the little family alone in the room. “Oh, whoops, everyone left while we were talking,” she said. Then she perked right back up and turned back to Queen. “It’s almost time for the ceremony. Good thing we made it in time, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Even though it was supposed to be a happy day, Queen looked somewhat unsettled. “Are you nervous?” Fie asked.
“No,” he said. “Well, yes, I am. But that’s not what’s bothering me...” There were far more than just butterflies weighing down Queen’s stomach. He looked at Fie and asked, “Fie, do you regret choosing me?”
He faltered momentarily and then continued. “Back then, I wanted to be with you so badly, but I was only thinking of myself. I realize now that I never once thought about what you felt. I wonder sometimes if this is what you really want.” He paused again before saying, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you hate me.”
For a moment, Fie looked taken aback. Then she turned exasperated and said, “It’s a bit late to ask, don’t you think? Now we’re married and have a kid.”
He turned pale and gulped.
“Still,” she added, “I’m glad you asked.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a while, but I’ve never found the right time to say it.”
Queen wondered what it could be. Did she hate him? Was she unhappy in their marriage? Queen hadn’t been around much after the wedding—okay, scratch that, he hadn’t been around most of the time.
“You know, Queen,” she began.
Queen waited with bated breath for her next words.
Then she grinned, looked up at him, and said, “I love you more than anyone else in the whole wide world.”