by Ian Madison Keller
With a thought and a wave magic flowed from Queen Seuan’s hand and into the wood of her throne, reshaping it to a more comfortable configuration.
“Continue.”
The supplicant droned on, and she stifled the urge to abandon her royal duties and merge minds with her bonded, Tukura, who was out romping through the ornamental gardens. The blossoms at the end of her vine-hair curled open in pleasure at the thought, but her duties… always her duties first.
The sunlight tasted of autumn harvesting. Her seedling-children, growing tall in her hidden nursery plot, were almost ready to pull up their roots and become sproutlings. At least, all the seeds she’d bothered with. Not all her seeds got planted; cracked or blackened seeds never grew right.
A spark of panic through her bond jolted her out of her reverie, and she mentally left the throne room and linked her thoughts with Tukura.
Tukura sniffed the ground outside in the hedge maze; her hackles raised. <Intruders.>
<My seedlings?> Seuan sat up in alarm, the supplicant forgotten. Not again. She’d inherited her throne right after her first blossoming and was the last of her line, yet every year her garden was poisoned by saboteurs.
She came back to herself and signaled to her adviser to halt the proceedings.
Seuan didn’t wait; she stood and strode away. As soon as she passed through the vine curtain separating the private corridors from the public areas she broke into a run. A guard trotted after her although she ignored him.
<I’m sorry, Seuan.> Grief stabbed her but she couldn’t concentrate enough to see through Tukura’s eyes.
The maze passed in a blur of green and cobblestone paths. Her garden was tucked in a dead-end around a blind corner. A stone archway guarded the entrance. She’d spelled the arch to inform her of intruders, a spell which now hung in tatters.
Tukura crouched on the cobblestone by the tilled dirt, her ears splayed and tail curled around her feet. The double row of her seedlings, which just the night before had been tall and green now drooped to the ground an unhealthy shade of brown.
Seuan slid to stop on her knees in the dirt. Her fine court robes would be ruined and her adviser would scold her, yet she was beyond caring.
A healing spell tumbled from her lips by sheer instinct, and she held trembling hands over the head of the closest seedling. Her palms glowed deep red, the same color as her own blossoms, but the magic pooled with no-where to go. Dead.
She tried again and again, a dozen times, but every time the result was the same.
The sap in her tears stuck to Tukura’s chocolate brown fur. She hadn’t even known she’d started crying or when Tukura had embraced her.
“We’ll try again next spring,” Tukura whispered into her vines.
Seuan trembled. “I don’t have the strength for this.”
“It’s your duty to produce an heir. Succession fights will tear the Empire apart.”
The guard looked around, ears pressed flat. “Your Majesty, you should return to the safety of the palace while we investigate.”
Tukura pulled a sobbing Seuan to her feet and led her towards the archway.
“Momma, no cry,” a high-pitched seedling’s voice said.
Seuan stopped and looked around. Her children remained brown and still in the middle of the square.
“Who dares!” Her tears dried as her anger grew. She might be young, but she was still Queen and would not tolerate tasteless jokes.
“Momma!”
The voice was close. She peered into the green growth on the edges of the garden. Movement caught her eye, and she headed towards it.
The guard’s outstretched paw stopped her. He bounded over and roughly shoved aside the leaves of a broad-leaf thyme revealing the smiling face and shining eyes of a seedling.
Her mind jumped back to planting. She’d had thirteen seeds originally, but one had been black; she’d tossed it away into the bushes and forgotten all about it.
The seedling looked up and wriggled his fingers at her, struggling to move but still rooted. With a determined look he tugged one leg free and then the other, tottering in his new freedom.
Seuan scooped up her newly sprouted child, giving thanks to the Sun God while she cried tears of joy.
* * *
Originally published in Flower Buds.
About the Author
Ian Madison Keller is a fantasy writer currently living in Oregon. Originally from Utah, he moved up to the Pacific Northwest on a whim a decade ago and never plans on leaving. Ian has been writing since 2013 with nine novels and more than a dozen published short stories out so far. Ian has also written under the name Madison Keller before transitioning in 2019 to Ian. You can find more about him on his website, http://madisonkeller.net