A cold rain was falling, turning the walls of the red city grey. The king held the queen's hand and led her firmly across the muddy yard to where their crimson litter waited with its escort. The only noise around them were the chiming of the golden bells and the patter of the rain.

Ding Dong. Those bells brought a striking sense of reality to the king. One he did not wish to believe. The queen's death was a devastating news for Melik, and for him the most. The bells reminded him of his late lady mother's play room. The boards, the games, the instruments. There were always instruments, especially bells. Her favourite were the bells. She made lively or soft tones with nothing but dings and dongs.

Now those bells were announcing her death. Ringing to the whole city, your beloved queen is dead. The irony made Arthur want to cry, laugh, and cry again. But he could not, he was the king now, not a weeping suckling.

"You ought to be brave. Tomorrow you shall be made King of Melik." These were the words of the Queen's Hand the day before. Lord Rufys had visited him minutes after his lady mother was taken for consecration. He had come to prepare Arthur for the journey ahead. For the throne. "You ought not give your people any chance to hate you. You ought not let them know." You ought to do this, you ought to do that. Arthur knew the rules already.

All his life was prepared toward this moment. The moment he thought he would not have need to see till years to come or at least till his lady mother's hair was grey. His childhood and life was about giving the people what they wanted. What they needed him to be, a Cætin Prince of Melik, not the son of a greek god.

A memory came to him, when he was little, not more than three name days. His grandfather—King Wiliems then—would always throw a fit whenever he saw Arthur, "That false god's child. Away. You should have been burnt. You and that daughter of mine. Unbelievers, you both." Then, Arthur did not understand. And times he wished he remained like that.

Inside the litter, The now queen—Zhollo—settled back against her pillows and peered out at the falling rain. “Your Melik gods are weeping for the queen. In Yanzi, it is said, the raindrops are the gods' tears.”

“The Yanzi are dead or in slavery. If the gods, or any god, were alive, they would have stopped her death. Rain is rain. Close the curtain before you let any more in. The pillows are wet as it is, would you have them soaked?”

Arthur’s mood was dampened. Not only because of his mother's wake but also the constant reminder of gods. Of spiritual beings that never helped him when he was shoed by most of the royals, or his mother when she was dying. Her face. Her eyes. They would always haunt him in his dreams.

The litter made its slow pace towards the Cætidran. Two guards rode before them, crimson knights on dark horses with crimson cloaks fastened with gold over their shoulders. Behind them came seventy lord guardsmen in various house colours—some green, some purple, some white— Zhollo peered through the drapes at the filled streets. “I thought there would be no people. It is a rainy day.”

Arthur thought so too. The love for their queen made them come out, no rain or storm could stop them. Some of the smallfolk were crying—mostly women; others had flowers—red rose, the queen's favourite—and candles lit in memory of the greatest queen of Melik.

At the Cætidran, the high marble building atop Melik's highest hill—Dawn's Hill, the little nut of mourners were outnumbered by the crimson cloaks that Ser Wiel Flowers had drawn up. More will turn out later, the king told himself as he helped his queen from the litter. Only the highborn and their retinues were to be admitted to the morning service; there would be another in the afternoon for the people, and the last prayers in the evening were open to all. Arthur would need to return for that so the smallfolk might see him mourn. "The people must have their show." Lord Rufys's words filled his head, "You ought to please them. Give them what they want."

The Pæstor met them at the top of the steps. A mid aged man with a greying beard and hair. The silver cross necklace rested on his cloth. He was dressed in the Pæstors' usual white overalls with the stuffed necks and long sleeves. At first, Arthur mistook him for the Popæi but he remembered his last visit to the Cætidran. The Popæi was wearing a funny hat—maufs. Tall and white with red, yellow gems. This one wore no maufs.

The Pæstor nodded as he escorted them into the Cætidran. They made their way through the Hall of Mæmoris beneath colored paintings on glass, Zhollo's hand in his. The highborn were behind them, water dripping from their wet cloaks to puddle on the marble floor.

The Pæstor walked slowly, counting beads off a white chain with a cross. Seven of the Devouts attended him, shimmering in cloth of silver and black, also with a cross chain. Beside him Zhollo held his right hand tightly for balance. Her a gown of black lined with pearls, as befitting the occasion, draped over the floors. Arthur thought the black and pearls complimented her smooth brown skin nicely. The king was in an old cloth of black velvet lined with pearls, just like Zhollo's. He had not much black and there’d been no time to have a new one made, he decided to wear the only black cloth he owned—the one he wore to his grandfather's burial.

The royal procession passed through the inner doors into the heart of the Cætidran, and down a wide aisle. To left and right, highborn mourners sank to their knees as the king and queen went by. Many of the queen's bannermen were here, and knights who had fought for and beside her in battles. The sight of them made him feel more confident. I am not without friends. Or without enemies either. Some of these bannermen suggested the queen re-married, and claim the child she would have as her heir, and not Arthur.

Under the lofty dome of glass and gold and crystal, Queen Evelyn of Melik's body rested under a pyre. It was stacked with woods and dry bush, the smell of the oil poured over, still fresh. She looked almost unrecognizable, except the few strands of hair outside the pyre.

Beside her body was a bright fire torch. They meant for him to burn her. And burn her quickly. Arthur led Zhollo up short steps. Her eyes welled with tears.

It was gloomy with the sky so grey. If the rain ever stopped, the sun’s rays would slant downward through the hangings to drape the pyre in rainbows. She deserves rainbows. A great queen, sister, daughter and mother.

Arthur held the torch tightly. Until the next world, mother. The pyre was ablaze, at first it was soft cackles then it touched the oil, growing stronger and brighter. Arthur had not noticed the singers but he could hear them now. Soft and griefful.

"O Death is a terrible thing,

How oft we experience it,

Grief and pain,

Heal us O Creator.

The loved ones pained,

The ones left behind in disarray,

Heal us, O Creator, heal us.

We must be strong,

We must carry on,

O Creator, O Creator."

The Popæi stood behind the glowing altar with his maufs . The Pæstors and their Devouts beside him. Beseeching on The Creator to judge Queen Evelyn justly. When they were done, seven Devouts gathered before the altar of the Reaper and Giver and begun singing for mercy and a peaceful passage to Tihu—the spirit world. The singers behind joined them in the traditional Melik tongue. Their voices rose like ashes, swirling up into the Cætidran's high golden roof.

"Beyond the door,

We hope for peace,

Hope our beloved hath no,

Tears in heaven.

Beyond this world,

Please guide our beloved,

through death's path.

Lead our beloved,

For the way is dark and slippery,

To eternal peace."

It was a sad relief when the singing finally ended. The smell of burnt wood and flesh grew faint as the fire slowly died out leaving behind only ashes. His lady mother's ashes. The Devouts gathered them up into a crimson ash pot. Arthur was to spread the ashes into the Death god's pool when he would have gotten back home. The ceremony was over. He and Zhollo walked down the stairs, the ash pot grasped tightly in his left arm while the right held Zhollo's.

Out the Hall of Mæmoris, thick as flies the mourners buzzed about them, eager to shower their condolences. Arthur did not trust some of them but his lady mother had, and he was willing to walk into his lady mother's path just like she did, blindly.

A Snoow twin kissed Zhollo's hand as he expressed his deepest sorrow for the queen’s departure. Lord Pykels told her that he had hired a Mæster of stone carving to make a statue of the queen, standing beside the Rose Gates. Ser Turnbosh appeared with a patch over his left eye and scar under the right, recounting the wars he fought beside the queen and how splendid she had been with a sword or two. Hællyn the skygazer promised that the gods would send a flaming rose in the sky tonight.

Zhollo liked his condolence best. Arthur found it anything but best.

No sooner had they escaped that fool than they found themselves cornered by Lady Wanter of Roselyn and her husband, Ser Rouse Glayze. “My lady mother sends her condolence, Your Grace,” Wanter spoke softly.

“My younger sister has been taken to bed with a girl and she felt need stay with her. She begs that you pardon her...my mother and sister admired the late queen above all others. It is Poppee's wish that we name her child Evelyn, if...if it pleases you.”

Zhollo answered, swift and graceful as a queen. “Indeed. It would be an honor. The queen was quite fond of both their companies."

After many many condolences, they made for the doors. Outside, the rain had finally stopped. The autumn air smelled sweet and fresh. Arthur had the urge to take his crown off, and feel the breeze between his golden locks. He always did this after a royal visit or his lady mother's court.

Back inside their litter, the queen held the king's hands tightly but soft as well, like a lover. "Are you well?" she was concerned. His mother's death had taken a toll on both Zhollo, who was the queen's bedmaid and him, her only son and heir. Mostly him, Zhollo knew how deep their bond was even before the queen became a queen.

Zhollo, at the age of nine, only a servent's daughter, would spot them playing together whenever the then princess was not occupied with suitors and council meetings. Zhollo sometimes envied that, because she had lost her mother to the war. And her father rarely had time for her, being a servent.

Arthur did not know how to respond, so he said instead, "Your markings are fading." And they were, the Yanzi had tattoos on their hands to represent their group, or benders, as they called it. When Zhollo first came to the house, hers were as bright as the sun. One of the reasons Arthur took a liking to her.

"With magic gone. Bending is not powerful as it was and so the mark fades," Zhollo sighed. It was the only poor judgment Arthur and Zhollo had known the queen make. At the dawn of her rule, she had prohibited any type of magic. Light, dark, forest, bending. It made no matter, they were all gone.

When Arthur was a child, a traveller from the west had shown him magic. It was fun and refreshing to see. But as soon as his mother caught the news. She was so furious she had the wizard executed without trial. It was only Arthur's sobs and plea that made her change her mind. That day the Magic Ban came to life.

"It will be the first thing I undo as a king. I want your support at court." His fingers trace Zhollo's fading white tattoos.

"You will always have my support."