The Chronicles of Ki
Book 1: In The Beginning
© Copyright 2024 Frank Walters Clark ~ All Rights Reserved
Adjusting the pleats of her blue-silk nightgown, Queen Dal draws herself a cup of hot tinglee tea. Adding a dash of cinlemo, she sips and sighs.
Finding a suitable mate for her royal son is not an easy charge. Especially for one so fragile of character as Lord Dalu.
Sitting at her cosmeticountr, amidst throngs of jars and bottles, powders and odes that every lady of high-fashioned repute requires, she peers into the mirror. Deep blue, sleep-webbed eyes peer back.
Only a full blood royal may rule; she knows this by her own ancestry. Only the king’s legal son may be heir; kingship and crown a sacred dual trust.
Admiring this way and that, fluffing at jet- black hair, Queen Dal flicks away a lost eyelash, then pulls at the corners of her eyes. She hopes to excise the lines, growing in number by the day, across every curve and plane of her face.
A soft melodious chime sounds. She turns to the doorway and speaks.
“Who comes to my chamber, so early this hour?”
The shy voice of a young woman gives reply.
“Prime daughter of Lord Qox. At your request my queen.”
Queen Dal knows instantly who has come calling. Rushing to the door, she passes a hand over the touchpad at its side. The shiny mesh panel vaporshifts: just as she suspected.
Lady Qon beams radiantly at her royal aunt. Arms-length embraces, air-kissing cheek to cheek. Love-struck dancers, arm in arm and moving across richly carpeted floors to sit on the divan, snugged lazy against a chamber wall.
Smiling weakly, Queen Dal stands and gestures at her teacup. “May I serve you a cup of hot tinglee tea, my lady?”
Lady Qon arises, vague, as if to aide her queen in some proper fashion. “Thank you, yes, my queen. I would be honored.”
“Please sit.”
Drawing tea for her guest at the beverage e- port and refilling her own, Queen Dal places both cups on a low table in front of the couch.
She sits and sips, eyeing Lady Qon discretely.
“So cleave. Has he nicked you yet?”
Her face pinking, Lady Qon turns aside and hides behind her teacup.
“Lord Dalu has yet to glean a single drop of my blood, your grace. I fear he may never!”
Coy and regal, the queen’s response is evasive.
“Oh, my! Are you making use of the colodes I delivered you? Very expensive they are. Finely blended, and sanctified!”
“Yes, my lady, I have. May I be so bold as to ask one question of you?”
Queen Dal’s deviously nimble mind leaps to the possibilities. One hand splayed on her chest, the other fluttering fingers, she masks her face with duplicitous indignation.
Then, shaking with suppressed laughter, she loses control and lets it slip. “If it concerns the length of his member—I think not! I have not seen… it …since he was a just a little boy.”
Lady Qon gasps, her face shading deep pink.
“My lady—I would never!”
The queen enjoys herself. She has not had this much fun since Dal fell fully clothed into the royal swimming pool.
“What is it then, daughter? Are you faint?
Do you need to pass gas?”
Lady Qon titters. Her face fully red now, she plays at shy behind a corner of her lace mantilla.
“Neither my lady, I am well on both counts. I am curious though about Lord Dalu’s state of mind. At times he seems so distant of late, lost in his thoughts.”
The queen counters, overly familiar with her subject matter.
“At best he is a fully developed man, and yet an irritatingly spoiled boy. At worst, he is a monster. His lord father and his uncle Lord Qox brutalized him as a child, quite terribly.
The blue steel mist praxis, and all that martialing rot.”
Queen Dal shakes her head, and sighs with feigned sorrow.
“Oh, dear! Such were the ways of our progenitors, and theirs before.”
Lady Qon is perplexed. The conversation has somehow led to an abrupt end.
“My queen, I am at a loss for thoughts on this matter. I am a simple maiden with simple ways. What would a man of his preeminent stature require of someone like me?”
Serious to a fault when it suits her, Queen Dal states the obvious.
“A royal heir, my lady. Nothing more, nothing less.”