Deliverance

Ethereal watched her sisters look through their cards, both exaggeratedly hiding them from the other’s view whilst snickering as though they were resisting the urge to tell an awful joke.

‘Ether?’ prompted Lumer, the older of the two.

It was only then that she realised, after several long moments of total silence on her part, that it was supposed to be her turn. With a flush warming her face, she hastily chose a card and set it down on top of the pile to resume the game.

‘Bad luck!’ Neptune crowed as she all but threw down her card. Her last card. The game had been won, all by the graciousness of a Green Eight.

‘Awww,’ said Lumer. ‘I only had two left.’

She gathered up the deck and began to shuffle the cards for another round. Ethereal’s eyes were the only thing moving as she watched Lumer’s hands slide back and forth in a kind of numb dreamy haze, as though nothing else existed in the universe. Even though her eyes followed, her brain kept drifting away. She was hyper-aware of how terrible her body felt, slow and aching, as though she had flu – even though she hadn’t actually gotten sick in years. The physical sensations were matched by a feeling of yawning dread and… hopelessness.

‘Are you OK, Ether?’ piped up Neptune. ‘You’ve been really quiet.’

Ethereal had to physically force herself to focus her gaze. Neptune’s big eyes, as purple as her own yet filled with a childlike innocence she herself had not felt in years, stared back at her. Lumer was still shuffling.

‘...I’m fine,’ she said, making her voice soft and reassuring despite a strange intuition telling her to scream.

‘Really?’ Doubt was written all over Neptune’s face, a bit of the innocence giving way to shrewdness.

Stop noticing things, Ethereal thought. Her ears were ringing; she could hear her own pulse inside them. Nausea had begin to lurk in the pit of her stomach and she couldn’t fathom why. Stop noticing. Just play the game.

‘Youhave been quiet,’ Lumer remarked, which did not make her feel the slightest bit better. She wasn’t looking at Ethereal, but as she dealt out cards to everyone with practised ease, her face was contemplative. ‘You know you can tell us if something’s wrong. Maybe we can help.’

‘Yeah!’ said Neptune.

‘Thank you,’ she said slowly, ‘but it’s nothing, really.’

Nobody spoke while Lumer finished dealing out the cards, but Ethereal could tell that her sisters’ silence was not acquiescence. She watched her own arm extend forwards like a robotic limb to pick up what she’d been given.

Neptune started the game by putting down a Blue Five. Lumer followed it up with an identical card, then looked to Ethereal, her gaze both expectant and somehow challenging. Ethereal looked down, letting her eyes be veiled by her lashes, listening to her heart thumping dully. She felt everything. She felt nothing.

‘Ether!’ said Neptune, sounding a little annoyed this time.

Jolting out of her stupor, she slowly placed a blue reverse card down on the pile, turning the order of play back towards Lumer.

‘Tell us what’s wrong,’ said Lumer as she put down her card. She was a master at making her voice both soft and firm; she had a touch of sternness in her, yet it was balanced out by the power to be gentle. Her compassion was likened to her father, her strength to her mother.

She would be a wonderful Queen, Ethereal thought, and immediately, for reasons she could not quite grasp, felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Either of her sisters would be better at ruling than she would, yet she could never pass the horrible responsibility onto them. All her life, she had been informed that queenhood was her destiny, reassured by so many that she’d do a good job – the unspoken ‘all else’ being the thing that persuaded her to keep plodding forwards. She could not disappoint her mother. She could not turn her sisters’ lives upside-down by forcing something so vast upon them. There was no discussion.

‘No,’ she said, making her own voice a quick, sharp bite. ‘Can we just play?’

‘No,’ said Lumer. The tension in Ethereal’s mind increased like an elastic band pulled taut, about to snap. Her sisters were both prepared to halt the game just to get an answer out of her. She hadn’t done a good enough job at reassuring them. Now they were really concerned and wouldn’t leave her alone until she told them the truth. She began to scan the room for all possible escape routes.

I could run out of the main door, then go up the main staircase and get to my room – once I lock myself in, they won’t be able to reach me. But they might wait outside. I can’t stay in there forever. Perhaps the window – she stopped, with effort. What’s wrong with me?

Neptune scooted across the floor to get a bit closer. ‘Something’s really bothering you.’

‘Yes, we can both tell,’ said Lumer. ‘We’ve been seeing it a lot lately. Not just today, but… for weeks.’

A war was being waged between the need to run and the need to not make a coward of herself.

‘Is it about… what Mum said?’ Neptune’s eyes were wide and her question could have been referring to anything. Luckily, Lumer jumped in to translate:

‘She means when Mum was discussing the future of the kingdom. She mentioned that she’s intending to step down as Queen in a few years so that you can take over. Spectrum wants to see its newest guardian soon.’

‘It will be really weird when Mum isn’t the Queen anymore,’ said Neptune, twisting up the corner of a stray card. ‘Like, she’ll just be a normal citizen! She’ll be able to spend more time with us!’

While Ethereal would be distanced from everyone she loved by the crushing weight of honour and responsibility. Fighting her own social anxiety to be the best monarch possible, giving up everything for her land, her people.

‘She’ll still be a member of royalty, just like us,’ Lumer reminded her younger sister. ‘So she’ll probably still be busy.’

Even her relationship with Adder would suffer. Would he even want to speak to her once the crown fell upon her head? Would he consider it too risky to fraternise with the ruler of the country in the way they had been doing for years? Or just not worth his time?

She was going to lose him. She was going to lose everything. She would become nothing more that duty personified.

‘Ether?’ This time, Lumer’s voice could barely be heard over her raging thoughts and fluttering heartbeat. ‘I know you’re not confident about being the next Queen, but you’re going to do an amazing job, OK?’

‘Yeah! A great job!’ piped up Neptune.

I can’t do this anymore.

‘I can’t do this anymore.’

Total silence fell over the room for five seconds, before being shattered by Lumer.

‘What are you talking about?’ Sharp and fast, her questioning words hit Ethereal like tiny darts, almost accusing.

‘I can’t! I don’t want to rule, I can’t be the Queen, I’ve never wanted to! It’s not just about self-confidence. I’m not the right person for this!’ Her intense efforts to hold back the flood of emotion had only made the inevitable outburst stronger. Warm tears rolled down her face and her nose felt blocked. ‘I know that I don’t have a choice; I must do what is best for the kingdom. But I don’t want to.’

The flood had destroyed any hope of coherent speech, trailing her words off into a wreckage of sobs and whimpers. She was clinging to a scrap of driftwood in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight.

‘Ether…’

Neptune was too shocked to move, but Lumer – after a moment’s hesitation – shuffled forwards and pulled her older sister into a hug. Compared to the sharpness of her previous words, this hug was unbelievably soft. Her arms, clad in woollen sleeves, wrapped around Ethereal and clamped tight. The cold ocean spray seemed to lessen.

‘Ethereal, nobody ever said that you had to be Queen,’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s expected of you, because you’re the oldest child – but that doesn’t mean you can’t refuse the throne. You do know that Mum’s sister did the same thing?’

‘B-but e-everyone will h-h-hate me,’ she cried. ‘I-if I don’t – If I don’t be Queen, you or Neptune will have to instead. Mother will be disappointed, and you’ll have to take my responsibilities.’

‘And have you ever even asked me or Neptune how we feel about this?’

Ethereal didn’t respond. Lumer pulled back enough to look at her properly, while keeping her hands on Ethereal’s upper arms.

‘Ruling the country would be a lot of work… but I’m not opposed to it. In fact, I would love to be able to do more. For so long, I’ve felt as though… I don’t really have a purpose, next to you. Sometimes it really bothers me.’

Ethereal had never considered that her sisters might be going through mental turmoil remotely similar to what she was experiencing.

‘I will not force you or Neptune to take my place,’ she said. She was on her last reserves of strength, but she had to do the right thing. Lumer was probably only saying all of this to make her feel better. It wasn’t right that she was putting her younger siblings into this position; they were supposed to rely on her.

‘You don’t need to force me. I will happily take your place,’ said Lumer. Absolutely nothing suggested that she wasn’t being entirely sincere. In fact, Ethereal had never seen her look more serious. ‘But we’ll need to talk to Mother about it.’

A worm of dread crawled through Ethereal’s gut. ‘I don’t want to talk to her…’

‘Well, you must. Get up.’

Without thinking, she allowed herself to be dragged to her feet. Neptune jumped up as well, clearly excited by the unexpected and dramatic turn their simple card game had taken. Ethereal had a vivid flashback to last night. Gazing at the starlit city from atop her private balcony, feeling Adder’s comforting presence beside her and smelling the dry stench of his cigarette, totally unaware of what was coming.

She wondered if Lumer was purposely trying to show her that she was more than capable of living up to their mother’s legacy as she was firmly led out of the room, up the staircase and into the Queen’s Quarters.

Ethereal couldn’t bring herself to knock, so it ended up being Lumer who raised her hand.

‘Come in,’ said Queen Nox.