Enjoy this story by LitLinks Achievement Award winner Alexandra, a Year 11 student and budding author.

 
Tacenda: ‘something better left unsaid'

Sedona’s boots clicked against the tiered steps of the throne room. The chambers cast golden floors shone with the heat of the arid desert sun, reflecting painfully into her dry, tired eyes. She dug her fingers into her palm, though her anxiously bitten fingernails offered no pain nor relief. Sedona was not scared, at least not of this. She had stood before the king many times, woven each audience into a tapestry of past grievances and new grudges, something that became more deformed with each vellum summon.

The sight of the king when ascending the last step into the cavernous audience chamber caused Sedona’s mouth to twitch with a scowl. He was sprawled lazily in the golden throne at the centre of the chamber, framed by great plinths and shadowed with extravagant mosaics of his predecessors. A massive bedazzled emblem of the One hung piously above him in a grandiose display of piety. The afternoon sun shone through the open doors, striking the throne’s jewelling and making the room, and the king, appear as though they were cast in gold. He looked close to God himself. A joke, considering his wicked heart.

But still I kneel at his feet, Sedona thought, hiding her scowl with a bowed head, I await the day he will kneel bleeding at mine.

Princess Kazula stood at the foot of the throne, swallowed by an enormous brocade dress that appeared more a pile of rich fabrics than a proper gown. The ensemble made her look small and sickly, her collarbones jutting out of paled bronze skin. It was only when Sedona approached when she noticed Kazula’s slim face was red and puffy. When she tried to catch Kazula’s eye, the king's sister quickly glanced aside and smothered a choking sob. Sedona noticed the guards and servants were absent too, an act reserved only when utmost privacy was needed.

“Sedona,” The king spoke, and his voice boomed throughout the throne room. Sedona stood, waiting for his command, but none came.

“My liege, how may I serve?” She responded dutifully, dropping to her knees and bowing her head low. He ignored her deference, flicking a speck of lint from his trousers.

“Treason trickles down the streets of my kingdom, war rises between my allies,” He raised his palm before grasping it into a fist theatrically, his face the very picture of knightly vigilance, reminiscent of his court issued posters that clung to every streetcorner, “and I find I cannot tell friend… from foe.”

Sedona raised her head incrementally, exhaling a small puff of air. Though her lips pursed instinctively at his pompousness, she quickly schooled her features into something of mild surprise. “My liege-”

“Sedona, my sister has told me concerning things. Things, should the commonality hear… there would be riots in my streets. Nevertheless the temple. I understood I subverted that particular cult of… zealots… though it seems one rat fled from the nest.”

Subverted. How eloquent. Decimated would be a more accurate term. That ‘cult’ had contained her mother, her friends, her temple. But that home was gone. No more mother, no more friends. Those were taken by her other home, her other friends, the life she’d kept one foot in for the pitiful sake of revenge. Only the great heathen temple remained.

Sedona glanced at Kazula, her eyebrows pinched in confusion. Kazula, who she dined with each night, sucking on cherries and sweet syrupy pastries. After worship, when Sedona was quiet, Kazula would lead her into the garden and they had lain amongst the bright desert roses, basking in the rare oasis grass. Whatever they had been — it wasn't enough to warrant trust. Love is a useless facet anyways, Sedona decided stoically.

Kazula’s sniffling and whimpering was incessant and awkwardly loud in the echochamber. Despite her pitiful display, she glared at Sedona as though she were some vile creature.

Stop staring at me like I'll grow claws, Sedona thought. You're the traitor here.

“My liege, I’m unsure of what you imply.” They couldn't threaten her, her life was safe. They needed her, she was necessary. One of the very pillars that kept this very throne room from caving in on itself. Besides, Sedona wasn't finished with them yet.

The king sighed. “Sedona, let me be blunt. You are a fierce commander and a… faithful subject.” Sedona forced a curt smile.

“I'm willing to forgive your past… transgressions, if you swear your loyalty to me, and my sister.”

Sedona flinched slightly, she could feel Kazula’s gaze cutting into her flesh. Blind loyalty meant her disdain would become treasonous.

“Why do you hesitate?” Kazula spoke up, voice thick with tears but whetted like Sedona had never heard before. “Why do you falter at the thought? Tell me, was it the word of your past or loyalty that has you stammering?” Kazula spat.

In the glint of her black eyes, Sedona recognised a rage she’d known all too well. Standing before the king today suddenly felt like it had ten years ago: under the desert sun, staring down a row of forty armored knights, hoisting lances and tall banners emblazoned with the One. The only structure for miles had been her temple, alone in the Badlands and heretic in all its glory. She had been young and naïve then, her mother hobbling next to her, muttering some religious verse. But her mother’s prayer was silent against the cold and unwaveringly blunt command from a honeyed, feminine voice: “Nock, draw, loose!’ and the thunk of an arrow deep into flesh.

I have heard that voice again since, haven't I?

The same banners that had flown on that day hung limp from the audience chamber ceiling. The long-rejected memory kindled something hungry in her. Her necessary composure was engorged by a bridled hatred fiercer than the desert sun, overcoming any rationality, like someone was poking the coals in a cold forge, nursing a flame that burned hotter than the ruins of her faith.

“Loyalty?” Sedona spat, ire overcoming any rationality. “I curse the word.”

Kazula’s betrayed facade suddenly shattered, overcome by shock. Her eyes widened and her face grew pale. Her previously quivering mass of fabric stilled, and oddly — it reminded Sedona of the Kazula she had first met 10 years ago; golden skin gleaming with the heat of the sun, arms corded with muscle thicker than a blacksmiths, shoulders that pulled the toughest of bows and reared the unruliest stallions. After the One conquered the desert, eliminating settlements big and small in the name of Oneness. As cities died and war crept away from the gates of the oasis, nobody needed women to command their armies.

Kazula had crawled into herself. I understand, Sedona thought, I understand the thirst for revenge, against those who think you are weak.

“What are you, Sedona? Some treasonous creature? Or ours? I don't understand.” A lamenting inkling of hope chimed in her quivering voice.

But this will not make you commander.

“Neither. I was never yours, no matter how desperately I served you, so how could I be treasonous? I owe you no loyalty.” Sedona stood from her knees, fingers clasping at the blade slid into her sleeve. “You killed my mother, didn't you? I have heard your voice, haven’t I? You ask how could I betray you? When you laugh all I hear is the battle camps cheering over burnt bodies. When you joke, I hear how the knights jested over her crippled form. Do you know what that's like, do you know how it feels?”

Kazula’s disturbed expression remained static, though the king rose cautiously from his throne, appearing to suddenly regret his dismissal of the guards.

“No? You don't?” Sedona spat, as the blade slid from her sleeve “Well, I hope your children will.”