Idols in Ashes

I remember the first time that my heart was broken.

It was the morning of the Frostfyre Festival, once my favourite time of the cycle. I was about 12 cycles of age and had woken up somewhat earlier than usual, excited about the preparations around me, the servants quietly buzzing around the moderately-sized mansion my now somewhat status-challenged family had owned for generations. I rushed out of my room still dressed in my sleeping attire, barely taking the time to grab a pair of slippers to put on while dashing across the hallway to my father’s study.

The door creaked open and like one of those spies one would read about in the royal pamphlets, I slipped in and shut the door behind me with a soft click, eyes darting around the room to make sure I was, indeed, alone and undetected.

A few swift steps took me to my father’s desk, where my young, sharp eyes had already spotted the sole reason for this early quest. On top of a mess of parchments — letters of important business, no doubt — lay a neatly wrapped box with my name neatly written on a tag hanging from the bow.

I stared at the box, my curiosity and desire to unwrap the present then and there making my spindly body ache. But I didn’t. I was a good girl back then, only one feeling was stronger than my curiosity, or anything else for that matter, and that was the almost obsessive way in which I wanted to make my parents happy. I knew that they would be disappointed, should they learn that I snooped and found my present early, and they wouldn’t be able to see my reaction when I opened it.

So there I stood for a good few moments, contemplating the little box in front of me, a battle of want versus conditioning raging inside me. As I stared at the desk, my eyes inadvertently caught a few words written on the parchment just to the left of the box. My focus shifted from the box to the letter and I leaned over the desk to read the written text more closely.

The letter was in a foreign language I had been learning from my tutors since I was of about four cycles, but it was one my father didn’t master, which is what had drawn me to the letter in the first place. He usually had his scribe write official letters in other languages, it was what every noble of somewhat decent standing did to ensure that there were no misunderstandings in matters of business or diplomacy.

But this letter… It was his handwriting. And his mistakes. He had tried to learn the language over the years, even sitting in on some of my lessons, but never quite managed to grasp it and its convoluted syntax. He always made the same mistakes in the order of the words. Foreign languages were not his strength and he was a little jealous of mother for it. A talent I had been lucky enough to inherit from her.

I sat down in his rather opulent, comfortable chair, sinking into it, the letter now in my hand. I tried to control the shaking of my body as I read it.

“My dearest, beautiful Marita,

miss I do you, with my all heart what forever to you belongs. At the Frostfyre end of Festival, I will be wait for ship to bring you me. I will be there fastest, to your arms feel around me…”

I remember sitting there reading the letter for what felt like half the day, but in reality I’m sure it was but for a few moments. The letter was much longer, but those few sentences will forever stick with me as the moment my heart shattered for a few reasons.

“Marita…” I uttered the name, not with disgust, but because of the wave of purely naive shock that rippled through my entire body, that somehow almost pushed it forcefully out of my mouth. That was not my mother’s name. Yet there they were, words that my father would only utter to her during my lifetime. Or so I thought.

The entire concept was nearly impossible for me to grasp at that moment. I was aware that my family was far from perfect, my parents tended to fight a lot, and loudly so, but they also always made up. We were respected in the community, at least so I thought back then, and my brother and I always had everything we wished for. Yes, my mother could be somewhat overbearing, she always needed everything to be done her way, or else we would never hear the end of it. But my father was no godly aspect either. Clearly…

Learning of the betrayal of my mother was of course crushing. But I think what was even worse for me at that moment was feeling myself lose all respect for my father. The father I had adored, the one I’d barely get to see because his business took him away for longer periods at a time, the father for which I’d cry at the pier every time he sailed away. Not only was he betraying my mother, he was also apparently an idiot. That letter was so full of mistakes, it sounded like the love declaration of a five year old. I didn’t know at that moment what hurt me more.

Through the fog that had settled over my spinning mind, I heard the door to the study open. This would normally have given me a start, thinking it would certainly be my father coming in to take care of his daily business, but I suspect that it is at that moment that my first rebellious thoughts started to form. I almost hoped it would be him, so that I could ask for explanations, or yell at him, or…

No, I wouldn’t have done any of that. Not then, not yet.

My brother poked his head through the door and saw me sitting at the desk. Unaware of my mood, he smiled, thinking I was yet again daydreaming about what it would be like to one day assist my father in his business affairs and hopefully grow up to be like him. My brother couldn’t have known that just minutes prior, that hope had soured and turned into fear instead.

“Come, sister, there is time for playing pretend later, for now our parents are waiting for you to attend breakfast.” my brother said lovingly to me, and his words made my heart sting a little more. Indeed, my skills in playing pretend would be put to the test more often from then on.

I don’t remember when I stood up and put the letter back on the desk. I barely remember leaving the study and going down to the dining room for breakfast, and what I did for the remainder of the day is a blur. My father gave me my present later in the evening after the celebration and inside the box I had found the beautiful, fiery red quill I had been coveting all cycle. Unfortunately, for the rest of my time, all I would see when looking at that quill were those bumbling words on the parchment resembling a love declaration for the wrong woman.

A woman that would later not only nearly destroy our family, but even play a hand in the downfall of our beloved kingdom. A story for another time.