Page 56 of Light Locked #1

“You want me to be ready to take the throne and be a symbol to all this in such a time of crisis? I can’t fill in all the space that you and Mother and all my sisters and brothers are leaving behind.

It’s too much to put on me and too soon.

You’re planning this without a second thought,” she said, looking out at a full city and all its working cogs, needs, demands, and politics.

There were thousands of lives out there looking for some symbol of hope.

“There has been more thought than you know,” her father said from behind her.

A voice that had often scolded, controlled, or berated her felt softer than she remembered.

Perhaps after all this time she was strong enough to ignore its barbs.

“We raised you up as their powerful light. Had you not…run, had you gone through with the marriage we’d arranged, you’d already have children now. ”

I would be dead , she wanted to say. She’d once wanted to hide her illness, now she wanted to hide her healing.

They just wanted her to have children quickly before she died.

She hadn’t yet revealed that she was completely free of it, not wanting to bring up further questions she couldn’t answer.

People had already remarked how healthy she looked compared to her father, estimating that she had many years ahead of her still.

Luckily, no one had insisted on checking the extent of her illness yet. That would come next.

“It was all fake,” she replied instead.

“None of it is fake. Do you think your mother or I are half of what they perceive us to be? Half of what they need us to be? Tell me, Clea, am I so invincible, a picture of the Lodain walls themselves?” He quoted comparisons given to him by others, not titles he’d given himself.

She turned where she stood, light cascading over her shoulder, and looked at this man who now felt more like her equal than ever before. She looked at him in his illness and in his weakness, and knew the answer.

“You needn’t be everything they believe you to be,” he said. “Just give people a chance to believe and they will do the rest. We are servants of their needs, not the other way around. The people need to hope. You will give them the spark they need to light such a powerful fire.”

He almost sounded poetic, and she got the faintest glimpse of a tenderness her mother had spoken of on rare occasions, an almost romantic view of the world that she’d fallen in love with. Her mother had sometimes referred to her father as a romantic. Clea and her siblings had never believed her.

“The final years of The Decline are coming,” Clea whispered.

“And I will be at your back, sharing everything I know. We have access to the world’s strongest Veilin, an alliance with Reudom, and an entire host of world-worn advisors.

You will have access to your mother’s armory, her study, all her resources and all of mine.

This will not be an undertaking you take alone, but you must soon be the face of it.

Already, you’re not just a symbol of light, but of returning back from the dead.

This city will see you as its path back from The Decline.

We will tell your story of revival, and the city will see its own story in that. ”

Already, in just a few hours since her return, he’d thought it all through. She stood there and observed in silence, as if her lack of reaction might help pause it all. The moment continued to move on regardless.

What could she say ?

She looked back out at the city, but this time, she searched beyond it, staring out at the vastness of the forest.

She would be the symbol of Loda’s might.

In that, she’d become the target of every enemy that sought to break her city’s spirit.

Her every act would be scrutinized, every word she said would carry weight, and it would all be curated by a group of advisors, sitting in a back room, calculating and recalculating her direction.

She’d dealt with some of this as the princess, but as a queen, these demands would be so much more.

As if sensing her hesitation, her father continued, “Clea,” with that same, unusual softness in his voice.

“Only hours before you arrived, all the advisors, along with a representative from Ruedom, were in this room, trying to determine the city’s next direction.

The people’s religious observance of the bloodlines that originally fought the Warlord of Shambelin had pushed us to two options.

We would be required to elect a distant relative with little understanding of this post and with limited support of the people, or we would have to bring in someone from the royal family of Ruedom. ”

Clea turned, knowing the long and tumultuous relationship between her father and the city of Ruedom and what it meant that he’d considered handing the throne over to them. Though she could not grasp the desperation in his appearance, she knew it from the state of his actions.

“I’ll consider it,” she said, knowing what her answer would have to be.

Her father seemed to know as well, because he did not object .

They simply waited there in the quiet, and Clea looked back out at the woods.

She felt the faintest ping of longing as the weight of responsibilities she could hardly muster settled onto her shoulders.

Her heart turned in her chest, reaching for the woods, and she steeled herself for what was to come.

Her mind flickered briefly to the dark figures that she and Ryson had seen in the castle, enemies lurking in a foreign land, targeting the royal families.

She wondered briefly if her father knew about those too, but quickly pushed the thought from her mind.

She’d save those deliberations for later.

“I’m a healer,” she breathed, looking out at the city, seeing its strong walls, and streets filled with warriors. Loda was a powerful beast that required powerful reigns, and there was so much at risk in mishandling it.

“Then heal the world,” her father replied with simple acceptance.

Arms still crossed, she looked over at him over her shoulder. “Before I left, you thought me little more than breeding stock.” She spoke without malice. She’d thought through it too much to have any anger left, and so she delivered it like a fact.

“Before you left, you were,” he replied.

There was no apology, only the simplicity of his truth.

He too, spoke without derision. She’d once been unable to suffer a protest under his gaze.

The unfeeling nature of his logic, the sharp swing of his demands had been too much to battle in her ignorance of the world.

She wondered if she’d become a healer to be the farthest thing from what ruling had made him .

“If I rule,” she said, “I will not be shaped into you, nor everything you expect.”

“You could not rule if you did,” he replied, “and you will rule.”

“You’re so certain,” she shot back firmly with an edge of warning in her voice.

“Clea Hart,” he said. “You traveled weeks through the dark forests with the Deadlock Medallion, and a diseased body, facing peril and turmoil to bring it to our doorstep despite your own life. You act surprised when I wonder if you came for the throne, but what else do you expect?”

Her brows furrowed as she faced him. She disagreed with the grandness of his proclamations. If only he knew her doubts and failures along the way, he would not be so intent to praise the accomplishment, but she could not hide the seeds of truth in it.

“You are much more ambitious to change this world than you realize,” her father said.

“When we tried to shape you, you divorced from the world, telling your secrets to plants and escaping into meditations. When the disease came to claim your siblings and yourself, you practiced healing against all urging, popularity and recommendations. When we tried to marry you off, you escaped. We never hid the truth from you because of your weakness. We hid the truth from you because of your strength. You have my stubbornness and your mother’s compassion, our greatest faults and most severe qualities.

Your potential for devastation is profound. ”

She steeled herself against his words, words he spoke with severity and honesty .

“You were always unfit to be a princess,” he confessed, at last delivering the line that reshaped the lens of her past, “but you very well may have the makings of a queen.”

Clea digested the words in silence, looking a final time beyond the windows, beyond her city, beyond the walls.

Her responsibilities were clear.

She imagined that girl in the castle, lying out upon the altar, and knew she must leave her there forever .