Stations of the Tower - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As Sithar was undergoing his trials and tests with the fathers, Ki'a had to undergo her own with their mothers. She waited in a room for her mother to enter. Unlike with Sithar, her tests were not known to her before hand. She did not even understand yet that she was to be tested. Some might say that this was cruel. But as a Prince, Sithar had little to gain from Ki'a. If he wanted a bedmate, then there were easier ways to get them. They were gifted to him regularly. But Ki'a. She was to gain an empire. All that lay within sight of the great Princes tower. She was clad only in the kidskin garment she wore when working, her mother was to bring a dress for her. There was not another scrap of cloth in all the room, not a curtain, or bedspread, or even a carpet. Just she and the chair she sat in, and a single full length mirror at the end of the room, which covered the window.

The door opened and she sprang to her feet, heart in her chest, as her mother entered. She carried nothing and hurried over to Ki'a quickly and started helping her with the buttons and laces of her garment. "Quickly dear, we must get you out of this, the gown is soon to arrive. Quickly, quickly." She was nervous, but she complied quickly, stripping the garment off and handing it to her mother, who left the room by the door she had entered. There was nothing else. Kia sat nervously in the chair, chill in the high tower room three flights below the chamber where the wedding was to take place. She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered slightly.

Why was there nothing to wrap herself in? Why were there no gowns or garments to clothe her naked flesh? And where had her mother gone with her clothes? All these questions burned in her mind as she waited. An hour, then two. Finally she went to the door and peeked out, hoping to see her mother. Far, far below her Sithar was just completing his tests of the fathers, and Ki'a was just beginning her tests of the mothers. A hand pushed her from the room and the door closed so quickly is smacked against her backside. She was out in the hall and before she could even gasp, there was the sound of the door locking behind her.

She felt a chill up and down her spine. She knew, somehow, in her heart, that her mother had done this, pushed her out in not but her skin and hair, wearing only the ring in her navel from her coming of age, and the tattoo on her arm from her princes proposal. She felt hot tears slip up and down her cheeks as she looked. She was in a hall, the octagonal tower was all around her. And she was high up near the cloud room of the tower, where she was to wed Sither in a short time. And she had been cast out into the hallway in her skin. She had a choice, in one direction lay the stairs that led down, out of the tower and to safety. And up. There the families gathered. Twenty witnesses to her nakedness. She shivered as she wept, but she turned her feet to the stairs leading up.

She climbed slowly, and saw that there were soldiers lining the halls and stairs above her. With a gasp, she ducked back around the corner. She did not want to be alone with these men, not now, while she was bare to them. They were the high guard, the most elite of all the soldiers in the empire. Her own fathers' father had been one, when he was a youth. And he had died in that service, protecting the current Elder prince from an assassin. But alone, and in the hall above reproach with fifty armed men? She would be a sheep among wolves.

She shivered there for a bit, but then made up her mind. She would go forward, and if they tried to touch her, she would scream and fight, bite and claw, scratch and kick and raise such a ruckus that all in the city would take notice. She would not give into them easily. Or quietly. Arms across her breasts, one hand down to hide her sex, she strode through the hall more like a timid mouse than a princess-to-be. And she could feel the eyes upon her, assessing, looking, seeing. And it galled her that they would stare so openly at she who was to be their princess. Stopping, she closed her eyes and let her arms fall to her sides.

A shrill whistle of appreciation cut the near-perfect silence. Her eyes snapped open, and she turned with a scowl in the general direction the sound had come from. "Which of you did that? Who would dare to so openly ogle she who is to be your princess? Speak, or I will see you all stripped of rank and sent to slop the pigs." There was a real fury in her voice, and to the hidden observers, as well as the obvious ones, she was every inch a princess. One could practically see the mark of the blood upon her already. There was a tense moment of silence, and she was just about to speak wen one of the guards stepped forward.

"It was I, Milady. My blade and my life are yours, as is my apology." He offered to her his kukri and his arm, but she placed her hand upon it and shook her head.

"You have sincerely apologized, and that is enough." She had passed the first test without even knowing she was taking it. The guards snapped from their comfortable slouch to a position of attention as she continued up the stairs. She could tell they were no longer assessing her as they had been before. She had become their princess and would be protected like she was their own daughter. She continued up the stairs and came to the door of the cloud room. There was the Elder Princess, Amaterasu Kirashe. She was not a tall woman, but that didn't stop her from being any less imposing. She stood a full five steps higher than Ki'a and looked down her regal nose at the girl as if she were a piece of filth.

On the steps between them was a carpet. One of the royal, hand woven rugs that only those of the Blood were allowed to tread upon without proper invitation. Ki'a stopped and looked up at the Elder Princess. There was a smirk on the womans face and arrogance in her eyes. She was the most powerful woman in all the empire, and this was her place. The cloud room was hers, she alone held the key to it and she alone could turn that key and unlock it. "So, you are the chippie who thinks she will marry my son? Child, you are not worthy of that title, or the tattoo which you seem to have stolen from my house. The very tattoo that my husband gave to me, and I gave to my son. Howdare you presume to the throne?"

Ki'a said nothing, she morely stood there, looking up and past the Elder princess at the silver bound oaken door that barred the way to the Cloud room. She would wait. There was nothing to be done about this. She would merely wait.

Then Amaterasu spoke again. "Turn and go back, girl, or I will give you to my guard this day. You may have impressed them with your false bravado. But I am not so easily swayed. You do not love my son, you merely wish to ascend the throne. Oh, I know, girl. That is the way of common whores like you. But I have a secret for you. You will never... NEVER marry my son, never take all that is his away from him." It was common knowledge that when a man married, all that was his became the property of his wife. This went from beggars to princes.

And Ki'a knew this, it was one of the reasons she was so nervous. She didn't want all the water and riches that Sithar had to offer. She just wanted him. And she had a right as well. A right to decline all that was to be hers. It would make her little more than a concubine in the eyes of the people, but she didn't care. She looked down, gathering her strength, then back up at the Elder Princess.

"Then I rescind all my title by right. I abdicate my claim on all that would become mine should I marry your son, and will take any relationship that he chooses to maintain. If he chooses to make me his bed slave, I will wear his collar and serve him in what ever fashion he desires." she waited then, still afraid to step on the carpet, to confront the more regal Elder Princess. And Amaterasu spoke again.

"Look at you! Coming to this place, clad only in the skin that the creator gave you, without even the decency to cover yourself with your hands. A shame. A slip of a girl, likely already bedded by half the soldiers in the garrison, and likely bearing a bastard child she wants to push off on my son, aspiring to the throne. No, little whore, I think not."

This was too much for Ki'a to bear. She steeled her resolve and stepped up onto the carpet, first one step at a time, placing one foot at a time up, taking her time, gathering herself, but then she was taking them quickly, till she was face to face with the shorter, slighter elder princess. She seized the woman by the arm and forced it down to her thighs. "If you have a doubt of my purity, then see for yourself. But I will not have you insulting my reason or my integrity." She did not even flinch when the Elder princess took her up on the offer, running a single finger unflinchingly across her cleft to test her hymen. Her heart practically burst when the woman embraced her.

"I am gaining a daughter this day! Praise be to the creator! Praise be to the light, praise be to the clouds!" Then she turned, her right arm still around Ki'a and unlocked the great door to the cloud room with the silver key she bore. They entered and left the white stair behind, to await the coming of the prince.

Continued in Chapter 4