The prompt this week was, “A covert trip into an attic reveals something unexpected.” Here is what came out. It’s not really an attic, but the equivalent in a castle, I suppose:

He hadn’t been to this part of the castle before. It was quiet and, judging by the thick layer of dust adorning the old chairs and tables along the length of the hall, no one had ventured there in years. Every step raised a puff of dust from the carpet and left a dim footprint behind in the plush fibers. The hallway seemed to go on forever, and several times he almost turned back. But he had no meetings or obligations that day, and he was desperate for some time alone.

The rooms along the way were all open. The furniture inside lay silent and unused, draped in white linen to protect it from the dusty, gritty air. The hulking shapes looked monstrous in the dim light of pre-dawn, their shadows taking on lives of their own when an errant breeze puffed through the crack in the window and ruffled the thin cotton curtains.

He passed several sitting rooms and an empty library before he reached the end of the hall, where he found a single closed door. He tried the latch, but years of disuse had left it full of sand, and it wouldn’t budge. He pushed against the door with his shoulder, but the latch held. It only took a few seconds of internal debate before he stepped back and delivered a hard kick to the door, successfully snapping the latch and granting him access. It was his castle, after all. He could have it replaced.

Pushing open the door, he stepped inside. Here, the furniture hadn’t been covered, and it looked like the belongings had been hastily packed: clothes were strewn across the bed, and dresses hung abandoned in the wardrobe beside the window. The only thing in the room that so much as hinted at who the former occupant had been was a small, hand-stitched journal placed neatly in the center of the desk.

He lifted the cover and ran his fingers reverently over the name written there in a now-familiar script: “Heletha, queen of Udoma.” The first page felt like stone as he turned it, heavy and oppressive. Part of him didn’t want to read his mother’s words, read about how she’d abandoned him and his father, or how she married another man and built another life for herself. But still, part of him longed to find a way to feel close to her, to connect with the mother he’d never met, and the one who had made him king of this desolate wasteland. He wanted to find an explanation for her choice that wasn’t simply about bitterness towards Leehab. He needed confirmation that he hadn’t just been a last resort and that just maybe, his mother had known what she was doing.

The first entry was only seven words long: “Private. By royal decree, do not read.” She’d been dead for almost a year. Somehow, he imagined that no one was going to care if he read it now.

When he turned the page, his heart fell. It was blank. Four more pages of the same, and he hurled the book at the wall. All he wanted was answers, but even that seemed too much to ask in this god-forsaken desert. He took a couple of deep breaths, hands fisted in his hair. Once he’d calmed himself, he rose and retrieved the journal. But when he went to smooth some crumpled pages near the middle, he froze, eyes running over the tightly packed words that spilled across the page.

He flipped frantically back to the beginning, paging through the blank sheaves until he came upon the first real entry almost a quarter of the way through the book. Whatever his mother had to say, she had really wanted it to stay a secret.

“For the first time in my life, I feel as if I’m an alien in my own homeland. For my people and my country, I have left the man I love and my child to marry another to rule beside me. Many a night I have lain awake and dreamed of stealing away to be with them, to be happy. But my first obligation must be to my people. They have been too long beneath the dark shadow of my father, and have been too long hungry. They need me.”

Theo rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read any more, but when he turned the page, he found a folded sheet of stationary, and when he opened it, he was surprised to find his own name printed neatly at the top.

“My dear Theonis:

“You are a month old today. I wish I could be there to see how you have grown and changed since your birth, but I cannot risk the travel.

“Eso says that I must never allow my intended to discover your existence. But how can I possibly endeavor to adequately conceal the way I ache for you? I long to have you feeding at my breast, to touch your soft hair, to kiss your tiny fingers, and to play with your tiny toes. I am loathe to think of any other woman being mother to you when it is all I ever wanted.

“I fear that I will never see you again.”

Eso had been right; he was more like his mother than even he had realized. She had sacrificed her family for her country and her people when they needed her most; he had sacrificed his search for love when they had needed food and trade more than they had needed a happy king.

Enjoy!