Heart of Leoth: [HAITUS]

Part VIII ~ Dura

Had she expected to be invited into the solar with Valdr's Lords? Perhaps. She had no mind for politics or war but she felt foolish sitting on the dais alone. The eyes that glanced her way were a mix of confusion and apathy.

They had little love for Zybarian's here. She'd sensed that the moment she set foot in this realm and they had not warmed to her upon announcement of her and Valdr's marriage. They viewed this marriage much as Valdr did. As a war pact and nothing more.

She'd hoped for something which she now knew to be almost impossible. She'd hoped that in time he could grow to care for her, that once she announced she carried his heir, he would look at her as something precious and important. Not just to him but to his realm. But how was any of that possible when he barely looked at her? When he had not come to her chamber once since they had returned from Alathy.

In her braver moments, she'd thought of going to him. Of entering his chamber and slipping into his bed, but the thought of finding him there with a mistress or courtier was too awful to bear. Like claws in her heart. She knew that kings took mistresses of course, but she also knew that kings must bear heirs to ensure their supremacy and it was on this she hung her hopes.  It would also help ensure her survival here. For she knew just how easily the wind changed in war, and it would not be long before the next change, of this she was certain.

But if she carried Valdr's child then he would not send her from him. Could not send her from him.  With her father gone, and her brother's fate as yet unknown, she expected each moment here to be her last. Expected each time her chamber door opened it was the Nati come to escort her to a ship and send her home. Unwanted. Purposeless now that she was no longer the daughter of a king. And so as she prayed for Valdr to visit her, she prayed too for Zhoron's victory.

She clung fervently to the hope that the night of their wedding union would bear something fruitful inside her. Though her knowledge of such relations was embarrassingly meagre, she was certain what they'd done could result in a child. She considered - more than once - to ask Fara, but nerves and fear of humiliation had prevented her from doing so.  In any case, she could only imagine that Fara would have no desire to discuss her brother's intimate relations. She knew what she must do, and that was to make him lie with her again.

She glanced now at the door through which Valdr, his lords, and his sister had disappeared some time ago.  She'd watched as his serious-faced Commandant arrived at his side and leaned close to whisper something which had caused Valdr's face to change completely. Loose and free one moment, tight and serious the next. Then, without a glance in Dura's direction, he'd risen from his seat and charged from the room calling for his lords to follow.

Of course, Fara had been invited into the council. For it seemed there was nowhere she was not permitted to go. Nowhere Valdr would shut Fara out of. But then, she had returned to him from the dead. He had mourned her and grieved her and she had come home to him alive and well. She could bear little grudge against his joy at having his sister beside him once more.

Also, Fara had been a more true friend to her than she could ever have imagined. She was warm and kind and nothing at all like the version of her Dura had conjured in her mind. Their daily walks through Prissia had come to be Dura's favourite part of the day. She listened diligently as Fara explained how the newer parts of the great glass palace had been constructed. Of how the rarest metal had been mined on the Isles of Dacian and shipped to the mainland, of how it was heated and stretched and flattened before being transported on huge landships pulled by a hundred horses. The golden beams which held the palace up had been purchased at unimaginable cost from Azura during her grandfather's reign, and to imagine its worth now was impossible. It was priceless.