The Story of the Trees - Sword, Ring, and Crown Book One

Chapter Fourteen

Luke took us through an archway on the left. We traveled down a long hallway decorated with portraits of women who resembled my mother with their golden locks and meadow green eyes. 

"What do you know about Yos?" I asked, still feeling uneasy about Parson and his son.

"Sir Parson's son, Ios,  has been raised in another realm for the last twenty years, but I understand that he's quite beautiful. I have never met him, myself, so I can't verify that. He only arrived in Aleria in the last few days, My Lady." He looked at me with a careful expression, "Why? Are you thinking of adding him to your court?"

I shook my head. No, I had wondered at the odd timing of me coming to this place just a few days after Parson's son arrived.  "Do you know where he lived?"

Luke clasped his hands behind his back as he walked and looked thoughtful. Finally, he shook his head. "No, I don't recall him ever telling me. Sir Parson Metovis and I are not very close. I only have dealings with him on governmental matters."

I grimaced in disappointment and worry. But with nothing more to learn about Ios, my eyes turned to the pictures of the women. "Why are there only women in these pictures? Where are all the kings?"

He stopped in front of another painting of my mother. In this painting, she was wearing an intricate tiara of diamonds and curling golden leaves. "In Aleria, it has also been decreed by our Mother Oak that only women can rule over all of Faerie. And for as long as there has been light in the sky, the Principi has always been in your family by order of the prophecies, My Lady."

"But, you're the king. Aren't you?"

"No. I am simply the regent. As a man, I am unworthy to hold the place of the Principi, My Lady."

I scoffed at that. "Well, that's not right. I believe in having equality between the sexes. That's as sucky as what women go through on Earth."

He bowed his head slightly but said nothing on that. I had a feeling he didn't agree.

"How did you become the regent?"

"When your mother chose her court, she made my brother the king. There are one hundred families that traditionally are part of the Court of the Brigid. The Principi chooses seven from the one hundred every one thousand years, which is the life of a Brigid's rule. My family was part of the seven that had the honor of being chosen, and with the advice of the Counsul, your mother chose my brother, Falston, as her royal consort. He was just returned from a war with the Winter court when they held your mother's Becoming ceremony. Everyone considered it honorable to give the hero of Lars the hand of the Principi."

"Lars? Is that where we're at? I thought this place was called Aleria?"

"The world is Aleria, but the ruling country is Lars, and its capital city is also called Lars."

"Oh. Okay, continue."

He touched the painting of my mother with a loving caress. "Your mother was the first to choose an outsider to be part of her court since your stepfather was not a Sidhe. He was a Ghillie Dhu, a type of Fae, but could be considered more like a forest elemental than a Sidhe. He was tall and attractive compared to most of their kind. Although your mother had made my brother Falston be her royal consort, she ran away with your stepfather, Arjhan, the Ghillie Dhu."

Yeah... and then Dad disappeared one day, and she let me know he wasn't my real father. It was my first betrayal, but the memory was so old that it barely hurt anymore.

"When your mother died, he married your aunt but died within months of a strange fever.  There is a tradition that if one son dies, another son takes his spot in the court. As I am the second son, I serve as regent and care for all the ancestral lands, including the palace in Lars.