by Ann Denton
“What?” I stopped dead on the plush red rug and stared. “I thought that bird was a person under a spell. Why the sard would we want him with us during negotiations? What if he’s from Gitmore or something? Sent as a spy?”
Connor grimaced. “I don’t necessarily want him there the whole time. Cerena spelled a cage for him so he can’t attack. I want to see Isla’s reaction to him. He basically arrived when she did. So, I want to see what her reaction is.”
When we went into the hall, Connor asked one of my guards to run up and put the bluebird in a cage and then bring him to us.
The young man ran off, and I whispered to Connor, “Cerena’s sure this thing isn’t out to attack me? It’s not just another Abbas?”
“We spoke with him at length last night, it doesn’t seem so.”
I laughed. “You spoke at length. With a bluebird?”
Connor shrugged. “He was able to answer a lot of yes and no questions. He has a family. Didn’t get to his official species yet. Not troll, giant, two dozen types of fae, or mer-person. He didn’t directly see who cursed him. But he knows who it is. The specifics were a bit difficult to get at, of course.”
I sat back, impressed. Connor really could talk to anyone. Even a bird. It almost made me laugh. But he was so earnest. And he hadn’t slept. So, I bit down on a grin and tried to hold my face steady as I asked, “Really, and what else do you know about this bird?”
“He claims to have been on the grounds for several days, pinning down exact times made him shrug. We asked him about where he came from and when Cheryn came up he went into a tizzy.”
“Could Abbas have done this to him?”
Connor shrugged. “Maybe. But djinn typically deal in wishes. Why wish for someone to be an animal?”
I shrugged. “Hatred?” If I could turn Abbas into a fat little gerbil, I might consider it. It would only be the start of his punishment.
“Well, if Abbas did this to him, then he probably came here for revenge. Though how the hell he thought he’d pull that off—”
I smiled, and my heart grew warm. Someone else might hate the sarding prince as much as I did. “I’d love to let him try sometime.” I imagined letting him peck at the prince’s face down in the dungeon.
“Fat chance, Quinn’s locked him away in the mage’s tower so no one can find—”
“Good morning,” Ember bounded up to me, her black wings bouncing. She was far too excited for what was about to be a mind-numbingly boring event. “Did you hear about the parade later? Of course, you heard. This is my first official state visit. And it’s all so exciting!”
“Yes, it should be great fun later,” I responded, wishing I had her enthusiasm. “Did you and your father get settled into the ambassador’s quarters?”
“Oh, yes. Dad loves them. They’re so nice. I think he’s going to really like this. Change of pace, you know?”
“Wonderful. Well, I’m happy to have him. And I hope you’ll visit often,” I said.
“Of course!” Ember giggled and went to grab my hand. One of my guards stopped her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m probably not supposed to touch.” She backed up and gave a half-curtsy.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask before, but how’s your family?”
Ember’s face fell for a moment before she pasted on a smile. “They … they had a bit of an accident on a trade route. It’s just my father, Donovon, and me now.”
I pulled her into a hug, breaking protocol.
Behind me, one of my guards coughed loudly. I sighed and released Ember, stepping back so the guard wouldn’t have a fit.
“I’m so sorry.” I knew her pain. Losing your family was awful.
Ember’s eyes teared up for a second. “All we can do is move forward and make the best of it. Learn from what happened and try not to let it happen again, right?”
I nodded.
Ember gave a small curtsy. I could tell she wasn’t long from truly crying. “Well, have a wonderful morning, Your Majesty.” She walked away swiftly.
“You too.” I smiled sadly and turned to Connor. “I botched that. I had no idea her parents had passed.”
Connor took my hand and said, “Not your fault, Bloss Boss.” He waited until she rounded the corner to say more. “Her parents caught the bad side of the Sedarian navy. Accused of smuggling.”
My eyes widened. “Was it true?”
He shrugged.
My bluebird arrived in a birdcage just as we reached the green salon, which Connor had chosen for negotiations. Connor took the golden cage into his hand as he allowed the guards to clear the room before we entered.
My knight turned to me and put on his ‘lecture’ voice. “It echoes in here, Bloss. This room is full of stone. So, no shouting or everyone will hear you for miles.”
I rolled my eyes, “You chose this room on purpose.”
“Yup. But you know and Isla doesn’t, so if she loses control, she’ll be a bit embarrassed,” he shrugged.
“Manipulative little sucker, aren’t you?” I grinned, swelling with pride.
“Just doing my job,” he winked and led me by the arm into the room.
We got situated and waited for Isla while servants brought treats into the room. Rolls baked with cheese on them, a traditional breakfast in Rasle, arrived.
The bluebird twittered at that, fluttering in his cage.
“Do you want breakfast?” I laughed and asked the little creature.
He nodded solemnly. I grabbed a roll and broke it, placing little bites in his cage. I looked at Connor, “Did you get a name for him?”
Connor rolled his eyes, “Is that a yes or no type of question?”
I stuck my tongue out at my knight. “You’re chippy this morning.”
Connor poured himself more coffee. “Yup.”
I turned to the little bluebird, who was scarfing up the bread. “Careful, little man, or you’ll choke. You are a man, aren’t you?”
The bluebird nodded.
“Good. Well, then, my I call you Mr. Blue?”
The bluebird shook his head.
“Unfortunately, since you can’t talk, you don’t get a choice.”
The bluebird scolded me in chirps.
“Sorry, what was that? Can’t hear it, you’re enchanted.” I made a face at the bird.
“Leave the poor man alone. You’d hate it if you were stuck as an animal.”
I yawned. “That’s true. Guess I’m chippy, too.”
I set my finger through the bars of the cage. “Truce, Blue?”
The bird nipped my finger lightly but then rubbed his head against it. The feathers were soft and light and soothing.
“Do you know Queen Isla?” I asked softly.
Blue wobbled his head side to side. I wasn’t sure if that meant he knew of her, or if he sort of knew her. And I didn’t have a chance to ask. Because the door opened a moment later, and my first official royal negotiation began.
Four hours later I was considering gouging my eyes out with my teaspoon.
Isla had argued all morning that the hills near our river were originally entirely Rasle’s land and should be returned.
“They were lost during the third Fire War,” Connor sighed, repeating himself for the third time. “They’ve been part of Evaness for nearly a century.”
“That agreement was supposed to be temporary,” Isla snapped, setting her teacup down with a jolt and ignoring the way her voice echoed.
“Well, tell that to your ancestors. They failed to rectify it.”
“My people ended up on the dry side of the mountain with no rain and no water. They can’t grow, they can’t travel easily. They can’t trade what they do grow without river access. They struggle to support themselves.”
Isla’s people were mostly part mer-person or part-troll descendants. Human blood really diluted either of their race’s magics. It made Rasle one the least magical of the seven kingdoms. Farming and goat herding were their mainstays.
Connor spoke for
me. “Again, the current residents on our portion of those hills are Evaness citizens. While we’re sorry for your plight—”
“Our plight is your plight! Don’t they raid your villages each winter? Don’t they bring their starving children here to beg?”
Connor responded with an annoying level of calm, which only set Isla and her diplomatic staff off further. The echoes started as their voices grew shrill.
I pulled Blue’s cage closer and set my finger through the bars. He rubbed his head against the pad of my finger. He looked just as miserable listening to this argument on repeat as I felt.
I swallowed a sigh. I understood what Isla wanted. When people couldn’t support themselves, they turned to lawlessness. It wasn’t good for Rasle or Evaness.
But to just hand over entire towns was foolish. It wouldn’t make Evaness safe in the long run. It would make me look weak. Make our country look vulnerable to invasion.
“What your people need is more access to water,” Connor said. “I’ve offered before and I’ll offer again, we can help magically create a lake in that area to collect rainwater.”
“A lake doesn’t do me any good,” Isla huffed. “Let’s say you help with water, and my people aren’t starving. What if they actually have excess? It takes two weeks to go through those hills and get to my other townships. We need more of that land so we can reach the Gorgonite River. We need to be able to trade.”
I chewed on my tongue, thinking. Given enough time, Declan might be able to reduce enough dirt in the area to help create a new tributary. But that would pull him away from helping Evaness. From ensuring our own people were fed. A lake was quicker. Less of an investment.
“What if we agreed to a lake for now, with the possibility of gradually building a tributary to link to the river?” I threw out as I opened Blue’s cage and let him out on my finger. I petted his soft little chest.
Isla and Connor turned toward me. I was pretty sure Connor wanted to boil me alive based on the blank stare and carefully calm look he was giving me.
I was offering something we technically didn’t have to offer. I was potentially offering more than Declan could take on. I was pretty sure he’d tell me I was ‘giving away the castle.’ But there were people going hungry. Not my people. But people. We couldn’t try nothing.
“How would that work?” Isla’s scribe asked.
“We’d have to discuss details, but perhaps my knight, Declan, could visit to assist over the next few years—”
“Years!” Isla shook her head, the pearls in her crown rattling slightly in their settings.
“We can’t wait years. We need his help now!”
I bit my tongue from telling her that her people could always add more fishing to their repertoire if they needed more food. Her part-mer communities would never hear of it. They’d rather starve or steal than possibly kill kin.
I took a deep breath through my nose. “Isla, I just began my reign. I want to work with you, but you have to understand that Declan is—
“What if you sent him for a month? Just a month? Surely, you could spare him now that harvest is over.”
I sighed, “I’m trying to compromise.”
“Two days. What if you send him back with me for two days to simply work out a preliminary plan?” Isla countered. “I need to be able to tell my people something.”
Connor intervened. “Perhaps we should break for the day. Give everyone time to mull over the options as they’ve been presented. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll have time to develop more potential solutions.”
I stood, not waiting for anyone to respond. I grabbed Blue’s cage and put him onto my shoulder as I strode out of the room. I was halfway back to the royal wing when Connor caught up with me and my guards.
I cringed, not wanting to hear his critique, but needing to know at the same time. “How bad was it?”
“Well, you basically offered everything she wanted on a platter,” Connor shook his head at me, and I shrugged.
There was nothing for me to say. He was right. I had just wanted to yell at Isla and tell her what she was doing wrong. Suppressing that impulse had made me blurt out something else.
Connor rubbed my shoulder, “At least you didn’t agree to ship Declan off yet. We still have time to backpedal.”
I put a hand to my forehead, forgetting about Blue. He fluttered off my shoulder and flitted down the hall. “So … poorly is the answer. I did poorly.”
Sarding idiot, Bloss, I told myself.
Connor sighed, “Try not to kill Dec by giving everyone exactly what they want, okay? She’ll see you as a pushover. Word will spread. And Declan will constantly be gone, pleasing these other assholes’ every whim. They have a lotta’ whims.”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead as I said, “Alright. Sorry.”
He put an arm over my shoulders. “It’s fine. And if it makes you feel any better, when your mother was younger, she nearly gave away the rights to all our minerals to a fairy from Gitmore. Part of why she hated them so much.”
I gave a little grin at that, “At least I’m not the only fool, I guess.”
Connor smiled and kissed the tip of my nose. “I need to go mingle and get a read on Isla’s people. But you’re not a fool, Bloss. You have a heart. The problem is, Isla and most of these other royal assholes don’t.”
That was a problem.
A big one.
And I had a feeling that it was one of those other royal assholes who was controlling Abbas.
I just didn’t know who.
Chapter Nine
The parade was as awful as I expected.
A jester, wearing a long-nosed mask that constantly poked me in the back, rode on a wagon with Isla and me. He tossed coins at the children and then shot little colorful sparks of magic into the sky. The crowd was enamored. I was annoyed. I had to stand wedged between him and Isla and wave, a fake smile plastered on my face as I tried not to fall while we bounced over ruts in the road. My knees hurt like hell.
There were half-clothed dancers in front of us who constantly made our cart start and stop because they’d pause to do some ridiculous lift that showcased the women’s splits. The men in the crowd loved it. After the fifth time my ass hit the back of the wagon because we jerked to a stop, I ceased to be impressed.
Soldiers marched behind us, their trumpets and tubas blasting my ears with noise. Blue huddled close to my neck, scratching me whenever the screaming children or loud bursts of sound startled him.
“Stop that,” I scolded him between my teeth. “You aren’t really a bird so don’t let those bird reflexes take over.”
I was pecked for that.
I clenched my teeth and fists, telling myself I couldn’t snap a bird’s neck in front of children.
Quinn had insisted I let the bluebird ride on my shoulder, partially to see who might react to the bird and give us a clue about him, and partially to test my patience, I’m sure.
Isla didn’t even bat an eye, I told him. This is stupid.
You’re the beast-tamer, Dove. The crowds will love it.
Why I caved to him, I wasn’t certain. Perhaps it was because he’d left to sneak into Cheryn and search for Avia. I missed him already. Or maybe it was the fact that Connor and Declan, who were both riding on horses behind me scanning the crowd, agreed with him. I hated when my husbands ganged up on me.
The parade lasted a gods-awful two hours.
But the afternoon festivities had only just begun.
In honor of Rasle, and the end of harvest, plow races took place next. Isla and I had to stand on a dais and watch a line of brawny men race to plow a field as quickly as they could. No horses or donkeys. Only men making asses of themselves.
Each man wore a colored ribbon on his arm, as did his cheering section in the crowd. It was amusing. More so than the parade. One large man had a white ribbon and seemed to have more fans than the rest. They were the most organized, at least, so it made his group seem more impressive. They’d even m
ade up a cheer, “Straight lines! True hearts! Plow through! New starts!” It wasn’t the best cheer. But it was better than the wolf-whistle and simple name yelling the other groups did.
Connor and Declan stood beside me and I leaned closer to Declan to ask, “What time should Ryan arrive? I thought he said he’d be back sooner?”
Declan stroked my hand, “Return trip just took a bit longer. He’s been in touch with Quinn. Don’t worry, Peace.”
I nodded and turned back to watching the sweaty men rip off their shirts and growl like bears before leaning into their tasks once more. Their concentration and dedication to this foolishness was admirable.
But then a little lilac rabbit made a mad dash through the plows, tripping up men and causing gasps from the crowd.
“Don’t hurt the bunny!” a little girl cried.
The grey-purple blur of fur doubled its speed after a plow nearly clipped its back leg. He tumbled head over heels in a furrow but somehow managed to right himself and bolt forward. Then he made a mad leap for the dais. He overshot a bit, crashing into the temporary wall erected behind Isla and myself to block the sun.
Immediately, Blue flew off my shoulder and at the rabbit, tweeting and chirping like a madman.
Connor and Declan pulled me back and got between the bunny and me. Isla’s guards did the same, sheltering her.
I peered around them and watched as the rabbit batted away Blue, ignored the short sword that Connor had drawn, stood on his hind feet, and bowed directly at me.
A gasp went up around the crowd.
Wonderful. This stupid Beast-Tamer nickname was bound to stick after that bow. No chance of Bloss-the-Beautiful. No Bloss, the Dragon-Tamer—though that was clearly a false name. Sard it all.
Blue fluttered back to my shoulder, quick angry little chirps still issuing from his beak.
“Do you know this bunny?” I asked him.
Blue nodded.
“Is he here to kill me?”
Blue shook his head.
“Do you like him?”
Blue shook his head again.
I sighed.
“Is he here to harm me?”
Head shake.