Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LXIV

Drua Maleeva sat fretting at the side of the bed, as the bedraggled woman entered the room, heavily escorted by the king's guards. Standing up in response, she turned and faced the strange seer. The two women eyed each other with mistrust. In her simple black clothing Maleeva looked just as much a sorceress as the unkempt woman now standing before her, though her powers were weakened by her despair for her son. Her poise and devilment lessened like a dampened fire with the worry. The black clothes that would normally give an air of severity taking on an air of mourning.

The blessèd Seaspell lay on the bed, frozen in form. A beautiful wax-like figurine. His shallow breathing, and the heat from his skin the only evidence of a living child. As the haggard woman looked down at the boy a protective glare crossed Maleeva's face. A hatred that, without permission, she had dared to look upon her precious and wounded son. "You said you could help him," she snapped, annoyed by the wild carelessness, and the clear unwillingness to give due respect.

"Let me see the boy, I will tell you what ails him."

The irritated Maleeva gave a nod to the guards and they allowed the woman to come closer to the bed. She cast her eyes across the boy slowly. Her matted and knotted hair almost brushing against his tender skin as she inspected his ears and eyes. His closed eyelids and delicate lashes rippling slightly in response to her natural breath. She placed her hand on his forehead. Maleeva leapt forward to interrupt, but then pulled herself back and refrained. Her eagerness to hear the diagnosis overriding her protective instinct. Though her beaded eyes remained fixed with hawkish intent. The sea-swept woman then gently ran her fingers around the neck of the boy's chemise, before moving back from the bed.

"The crown is killing him. It isn't his," she uttered, with complete confidence.

The words angered Maleeva.

"He doesn't want to be king," reiterated the strange woman, evermore insistent in her appraisal.

At this point Seaspell began to twitch and jerk in his fever, and a stream of blood began to run down from one side of his nose. Maleeva fell upon his body in a fit of panic, one hand gripping him tightly, the other caressing the warm white cheek of his face.

"Out!" she screamed in fright. "Leave Him!"

The guards violently dragged the woman away, and back towards the castle dungeons.