I lifted my body from the waist, coming elegantly out of a bow. Before me, the court looked on, one face replicating another-an unnerving duplication. Below me, a small hand linked fingers through my own. The fingers were paler than my own, more fragile and easily breakable: my sister's hand. Aurelia looked up at me, eyes wide with fear beneath her thick blonde fringe. I squeezed her fingers gently, and she gave me a wobbly smile, completely false yet brave. Such braveness from a seven-year-old.
"The Court will rise." Movement as everyone behind me rose. I didn't follow the movement with my eyes, I relied on my ears to tell me that it was happening. Aurelia moved closer to my side, pressing her thin arm against my own, as if she could walk right into me and vanish from the court. If she could have done that, I had no doubt that she would have. "The Court may sit." Again with the movement.
A sharp silence washed through the room, like a hand passing across a face. I remained standing as everyone else sat. Aurelia's hand convulsed around mine so tightly I looked down at her. In her clear, soprano voice, she spoke to me, making no pretence of what she was saying: "Tell the truth, Fire. You're a good person, the best sister ever, and I believe yo, even if these..." She paused, her face creased with a look of distaste, odd on one so young. I willed her, silently, not to say anything foolish. "Even if they," she jerked her head towards the panel of judges, "don't."
As she turned to leave, her hand tightened one more time, and I felt something cold and hard, metallic, being pressed into my own. I didn't dare see what it was, but shoved my hands into my pockets, releasing it there, and lifted my eyes to face the Court.
"Fire. You have been accused of being the causation of the death of Sir Charles of High-bridge, a death which was declared as murder on February the 19th of this year. We have listened to both the case of the defendant and of the accuser. Our verdict is this: through a four against three poll, you have been decided as guilty of the crime committed." A gasp ran through the room, and the hairs on my back stood straight. "Order, order." The judge continued in his smokers'-voice: thick and hoarse from one too many a cigarette. "Your punishment, however, is not to be death, but is to be banishment, on account of your high status. You will leave this kingdom, and never return unless summoned by one of the High Family-one of your own kin. Do you accept your fate?"
Silence.
My heart sounded so loud to me that I was certain everyone else would be able to hear it.
I was to be banished. For murdering my own mother.
"I accept."
In my pocket, my hand tightened around the ring Aurelia had given me: it was my mother's, I was sure. The kin-ring she had given Aurelia the week before she had died. She had given me a pearl of the same golden hue, but it had been taken from me when I was accused.
I heard Aurelia saying my name, the saying turning to wailing, the wailing to screaming. I had never wanted this to happen.
I closed my eyes and wondered how this had ever happened. How I had been accused of killing my mother and my queen-the woman I had loved all my life.
Aurelia had been removed from the court chamber.
I opened my eyes, no longer as a princess of the land, but as a banished nobody, an accused murderer.
~H
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