Lover

Love is a twisted thing. Good King Razz knew this. It longed to express itself, to overwhelm and constrict. To suffocate. It was also a transient thing. King Razzasbel knew that too. To reach out and show your wanting was to invite it to dissipate.

Many a girl in his harem had started as a love that burned to be seen, before turning to burn him for looking. An all consuming fire for touching. 

Were it not for Crisa one of them might have ended up on his right hand at the throne. 

She knew there was a love stronger than the kind that drove her boy, and most of them.

Her love for her boy Razzasbel and his father Sudinnabo and their realm. 

Ryheza was an expression of Crisa's love, and not her own. Her love for Razzasbel and for Sudinnabo, even in death, and for their realm. Ryheza was suitable as a vessel for Crisa's love because she did not reach out for her own and so love was able to accumulate in her, and be passed on. 

Crisa had seen her father's love overflowing in Ryheza and told Lek so, and that she had to have her for her King. And the villages for her realm.

When Crisa returned to the palace with Ryheza, King Razzasbel would not leave his bed chambers for weeks, not until Crisa told the palace guard to lock the door in the harem that led to his chambers. 

Razzasbel emerged from his chambers the next morning, demanding Crisa have the door re-opened. He did not want to tell the palace guard himself because he did not think they knew where the door led and did not want them to. 

She refused.

-You will have to come through the front door, she told him.

But he knew he could not do that. He had a bride awaiting him in the tower. 

And her retinue was camped on the grounds out front, along with the merchants Crisa had already hired for the wedding, so it was impossible to deny. 

Razzasbel relented and allowed Crisa to proceed with the ceremonies, giving her a letter of remit for the King's Treasury so she could pay the merchants and they could start their set up and work. 

Crisa let the King visit his harem afterward, but insisted on the privilege of her role as Governess to stay close to him and any of the members of the harem he was calling on. 

She then extended that privilege for herself into the chambers when the King was finally joined there by his Queen, sitting veiled in a corner to watch and make sure that the love was expressing the way she wanted, and that the King did not untimely bring another in.