At the far end of the hallway was the door to my room, and right next to it, an alcove that had a second entrance with a set of stairs that led to the palace gardens. About a third of the way down was another alcove that led to the observatory. There would be people there tonight, studying the stars and the blue moon. Taa stood by the alcove next to my room. She was speaking to a short figure in a dark cloak. Taa’s head tilted in our direction as we turned into the corridor, but she quickly looked back. The man she was speaking to had the tan skin of a Chayan, but he didn’t look like he was from here. He wore a dark cloak with the hood down, and heavy pelt boots entirely unfit for the summer heat. You almost never found someone native to Chaya wearing pelt or fur. Long leather straps wrapped around his ankles, holding the cuffs of his trousers tightly around his boots. There was a second leather strap tied above his left knee, and he openly carried a hunting knife in it, a straight blade sheathed in a metal case. The man handed Taa a package. A round pouch tied with white rope. Taa looked like she was in a hurry to get rid of him.
Cecily walked toward us, satchel in one hand, two worn books in the other. One was on the history of alchemy, the other about the founding of the new continent and the creation of Raathism by Dh’hpur. Cecily was returning the books to the palace library. I hadn’t finished them, but I’d skimmed through enough to pass any quiz that Taa might throw at me. It’s not that I wasn’t interested—there were just other things that had caught my attention and I hadn’t gotten a chance to read all that Taa had asked me to before she left on her travels two months ago. She would be disappointed if I didn’t pretend I had done all that she asked. I had to lie. I’d feel too guilty otherwise.
“Cecily!” Iris yelled. She ran to hug her, sandals slapping against elder stone in echoing claps. Yephi followed, skipping in exaggerated strides. The bottom of her dress was already creased, folded, and torn. Lines of dust ran all the way to her waist, collecting around the edges of the threaded designs like decorated cobwebs. There were food stains on the topside of her gloves. Spots of yellow and brown spread out along the velvet black like brass rings. It was impossible to catch her and Iris acting that much differently if you watched them throughout the day, besides the way they spoke, yet at the end of every night, one looked ready for another round of a Royal Court meeting, and the other like she had lost a wrestling match against a clan of rabid porcupines.
Cecily gasped, pulling the both of them into a tight embrace. She hadn’t noticed us until we were only a few feet away.
“You haven’t slept yet?” I asked. Shallow bags dug into the bottom of her eyes, curving into crescent-shaped bruises around her pale skin. Her hands trembled gently, and the tips of some of the nails on her left hand had narrow ridges from being bitten on. If it was only her left hand that had those marks, it meant she had spent the day cleaning. One hand wiped and dusted and folded while the other kept her mind busy with the anxious habit. Her braid was still tied around her neck, but loose knots of hair poked out from the plaited design after being picked on for too long by nervous fingers.
“By Yuweh’s grace!” Cecily gasped. “I was worried sick about you three.” She held Iris and Yephi by their collars, wrapping her arms around their backs. Her eyes glistened, but they were bright with delight and relief. “Someone just told me you had returned. I was waiting in Dina’s room all day, then I spent hours pacing back and forth in this hallway. I even tried to use one of Dina’s telescopes to look at the forest. I thought I was going mad. I was too afraid to go to your mother. I felt like I had done something wrong.” She wiped at her eye with a sleeve, setting the books and her satchel down beside her. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I was going to go by the great hall to check.” She pulled back from my sisters, but held onto their arms. Absently, she began tidying Yephi’s dress. “First I heard the two of you were gone. Then I heard Dina was gone, too. Then I heard someone had taken the three of you. Right from the Cathedral grounds.”
She let out a sigh, bringing a hand to her forehead. “You can’t imagine what was going through my mind. These days. These times. They just don’t feel safe anymore.” Her eyes turned to Yephi’s dress, suddenly becoming more alert. “Yephi… did you get into a fight or something down there?” She grabbed onto Yephi’s velvet gloves and studied the stains. “Or is this what you wore to the forest?”
“This is how she regularly looks, in case you haven’t realized it yet,” Iris said, wrinkling her nose at the stains. “Rather shameful for a princess.” She spoke without looking at Yephi.
“It’s not my fault.” Yephi groaned, scowling at Iris. She turned back to Cecily. “It’s just these times, like you said. It’s been hard for my kind.”
“Your kind?” Iris asked. She paused for a moment, considering, then tilted her head back as understanding washed over her face. “Ohhhhh right.” She looked out the glass walls, pointing to the kingdom below. “It’s a blue moon. Aren’t you going to join them? Or you could stay here and use Dina’s telescopes to help you find your real parents.”
Yephi pinched her menacingly above the elbow.
“I’m sure everyone always feels their era is the one where the world is ending,” I interrupted. Cecily gestured for me to come forward, then she hugged me too, pulling in Yephi and Iris once more. The three of us struggled a bit in her embrace, trying to keep from bumping into each other.
“All right, all right,” Yephi yelled, grimacing at the wall while breathing loudly. “You’ll do that witch’s job for her if you suffocate us in this hug.”
“You sound more worried than Mother,” Iris said.
Yephi nodded solemnly. “Most definitely. She spent most of her time yelling at Dina. Not even checking to see if we were okay.”
Cecily jerked her head upward, then sniffed the air in front of me. “Dina, your breath smells like wine.” She scrunched her brow suspiciously.
Yephi threw her arms up, pointing both of them at me. “Right, that! Almost forgot to tell you. This one’s turning into a drunkard.” She turned to me, shaking her head while holding a finger to my lips. “Don’t trust anything it says.”
“You drank wine?!” Iris asked, mouth agape in awe. She leaned forward, studying my expression as I leaned away from the two of them. “What is it like?” she whispered. “Could you give me some? I tried to steal some from Taa the other day but she saw.” She looked away as Cecily glared at her. “I was just curious...” Her voice trailed off.
Footsteps thumped from the hallway behind us, saving me from any more questions. Boots. Heavy ones. Three pairs of them. Three soldiers walking in a hurry, not bothering to step in unison. Shields and swords clanked against their cuffs and belts, making the heavy clapping sound of iron against leather. They had to be Father’s King’s Guard. Soldiers of the army or the guards of any of the guest kingdoms would have moved less sharply. At first I thought they might have been going to see Taa, but they would have been walking more formally then. No, these were here to deliver a message to Cecily.
Cecily looked up, noticing the sound a few seconds after me. She picked up the two books and her satchel. Her breath came quickly and her eyes were still swollen, but a smile had quietly inched into her expression and her cheeks had turned warm with relief. The tension in her movements had eased, and her hands rested a bit firmer over her things as she gathered them. I hadn’t thought it through when I left to chase after my sisters. I wouldn’t have chosen differently, but I may have treaded more carefully in the forest knowing how many people I was probably tormenting with my disappearance. It wasn’t just my own family and Cecily either—I’m sure I got Mawlik and Jahlil into enough trouble to keep them away from the palace for weeks. It wasn’t that I was an inconsiderate person. When you were running through the Dwah Forest on the sunset of a blue moon, there were things that crossed your mind and things that didn’t. You couldn’t always look before you leapt. That was the kind of thinking that kept your eyes perpetually locked to the floor.
> I turned around just as the guards appeared.
“Cecily, ready to go?” one of them asked. Raldor. A boyish looking soldier who had begun his training in Father’s guard only six months ago. He was one of the three soldiers often charged with guarding Mother whenever she ventured into the market square. He watched over my sisters and I a few times when we were out there as well, with Cecily. He always moved his hands about awkwardly as he walked or stood. Eventually, I thought, he’d come to the habit of resting them on the hilt of his sword like everyone else. He was kindhearted and fun, if a bit too nervous around Father. Like Cecily, he wasn’t a native of Chaya, but he had spent most of his life here. He had light skin like a Xenashi and dark freckles covering most of his face. A shock of brown hair spilled out from the front of his helm, covering his eyes. He had a skittish temperament, regularly overreacting at the slightest hint of something suspicious. Another symptom of being new. I had seen his superiors reproaching him for it several times. He was improving, albeit at a painful pace. It had made for several awkward encounters in the palace.
Yephi gave a low bow. The three guards stifled a laugh as she snapped back up to a stiff salute. Her hair, straight and well oiled at the beginning of the night, was now a tangle of stray knots. She pulled her hands up and patted her head at the sides, checking to make sure her ears were still hidden.
Raldor returned the salute with equal stiffness, lifting a gauntlet to his chest while keeping his eyes pointed straight ahead. His lips bent crookedly at their ends, hinting at a smile.
“Yephi, don’t be wise,” Cecily chided. “They’ve had a long night as it is. Running after the three of you across the marshes.”
“I mean… they had horses,” Yephi grumbled. She drew her eyes away, turning to the walls with an angry look.
“Thank you for bringing us back from the woods,” Iris said, stepping forward. She bowed her head again, bending an inch lower than the first time and tugging on her dress in a curtsey. Cecily wrung her hands together while watching her, eyes dancing with motherly pride. Behind the two of them, Yephi silently mimicked the motion with a contorted sneer, stretching her lips to an alligator grin.
“To be fair, I still don’t really know what happened,” Raldor replied. “We didn’t do much besides rush into the forest and escort the lot of you back.” He shrugged against the weight of his pauldrons, arching backward to stretch his neck as he did so. He looked at the other two guards. Both shrugged in the same way, backs cracking in unison. “Walin told us we had to get your grandmother and the three of you from the forest. Said his son was there, too. Bunch of orders were being shouted. People were running across the stables in panic. Mixing up horses, grabbing anything they could. There was confusion around the whole of our pavilion. It was a drill of sorts, I heard some people saying. We were told to treat it like we had a real crisis on our hands. No questions.” He looked to me, then Cecily, eyes expectant. “Couple of soldiers are still missing from tonight. Probably slipped out to avoid their shifts.”
I nodded with a reassuring smile, though it didn’t seem to convince him. “It’s my grandmother. Taa. Whenever she comes, she has Father do all of these drills. She’s a bit paranoid. Always thinks our kingdom and our family aren’t careful enough.” I pointed a look at Yephi and Iris. “Especially my sisters and I. You know how the elderly can be about these things. Overprotective of their children and grandchildren. Can’t blame them, I guess, times being what they are. Many of them have been through the Bloodless Purge, remember? That kind of thing clings to your memory.” I hung my head low, shaking it in what I hoped looked like a solemn gesture. I folded my arms for added effect.
Raldor looked surprised, turning for a moment to the other soldiers. He looked back at me, nodding absently. “I can understand that well enough,” he said, the skepticism beginning to disappear under his narrow features. “But you could have been in real harm, you know. I mean… it was a blue moon. Still hadn’t gotten that late, but what if we couldn’t make it in time? If she’s protective over you three, shouldn’t she have asked us to do this drill in broad daylight on Lunaday or something?”
Once Raldor got talking for a few minutes, the formality of his tone would fade away and his youth would shine through. Father liked these types. The ones who spoke their minds freely. They were always a bit rough around the edges and hard in the head, but those were the ingredients you could use to make courage. Taa looked for something different. Made from the same cast as Father, but she looked for guts, not courage. To most people, the difference was too refined to be anything worth noting. For Taa, it could make one person a student and another an onlooker. One did better in stories, the other in alleyways. One wore ornate plate armor and carried gleaming swords, the other had teeth.
I darted my eyes left and right, then leaned in, bringing my voice down to a whisper. I stepped to where the moon shined brightest on the elder stone, hoping I could borrow some of the eeriness in its blue tones. Yephi and Iris edged closer, feeling the delicate pull of a secret being shared nearby. Cecily looked to the side, rolling her eyes where no one but me could see.
“Taa likes her tests to feel… authentic,” I sputtered. “Very authentic. It’s why we need new recruits every now and then when she’s around. The old ones…” I let my voice trail off as I looked over my shoulder. I turned back to the guards and slid a single finger across my throat and made a dry gurgling sound. I nodded gravely at their expressions. “I agree. It’s not the safest of practices.” I shook my head, then muttered loudly to myself, “Always putting my sisters and I in danger like that. It’s not fair at all that we have no say in it. I don’t think Mother’s too happy about it either. Father’s the one who allows it. In the palm of my grandmother, that one.”
It was always easy to throw Father under the bus. People expected a king to make unpopular decisions. It made for good conversations in taverns.
“Aye,” the guard to Raldor’s left said. She inclined her head in understanding. A woman named Terethy. A dark haired and tall Chayan who often visited the Cathedral to talk to Mother Mendhi about alchemy. I saw her fight one of the priests in training once. As quick as a candle flame, but her hands moved impatiently, always desperate to find something to hit. She was in a guild before she joined the King’s Guard. An uncommon path. The alchemical guilds all paid much better than our kingdom’s stipends. It was more noble, some said, using your alchemical abilities for the kingdom instead of as a mercenary, though I’m sure most who made the switch did it because working for the guilds was much more dangerous in a time of peace.
That would change after today. I’d never seen Chaya in a real war, but from what I imagined, it involved the Church, the guilds, and the army together. Our last small conflict had ended more than eight months ago, a border dispute with three Serpentine tribes over the Fennel Coast River. We had won, but Father still offered them the other side of the river. A show of respect for an honorable opponent, he had said. A few of the noble houses that would have benefited from the lands weren’t pleased, but Father was insistent.
“Your Taa picked a rough day to do all this,” Terethy said. She toyed with the sigils on her gauntlets, pressing on its center while thumbing an outline around its crest. The tentacles on the octopus were made with dark green threads, woven with the precise flexibility of the creature’s arms inside of a deeper blue background. The colors of the Royal House of Anasahara. Dark green for the jungles at the bottom of the oceans, midnight blue for the color of the water. The eye of the octopus was a tiny ruby, glinting so faintly against the rest of the armor you could have mistaken it for a hole in the iron of her bracers. It was correctly placed near the top of the creature’s head, but the size was wrong. Although, you wouldn’t expect otherwise. To make the eye correctly proportional, you’d need a gem the size of an iron coin.
Terethy continued, “We already have all the King’s Guard working triple shifts to keep the palace in order. With all the nobles here tonight,
we’ve had to watch every nook and cranny in the palace. And all of the preparation. Getting weapons in order, figuring out patrols, memorizing lists of protocols for what is or isn’t allowed. Not to mention how much trouble Xenash’s Queen’s Guard gave us. Blue moon doesn’t help either. It’s been a long, long day. Will be glad to see this wrapped up.” She yawned and blinked, as though saying it made the rest of her body realize how tired she was. She glanced at her companions, then Cecily, then suddenly shuffled her feet and stood straighter, throwing a gloved hand into the air. “Not that we’re complaining of course. Just that—”
“Your words are safe with us,” I said, cutting her off. I curled my right hand into a fist and held it over my chest. “I agree wholeheartedly. We ask enough of you, having you devote your lives to the defense of Chaya. It isn’t fair to put you through unnecessary ordeals or make your job any more difficult than it needs to be. Yuweh knows… these coming years are going to be hard enough as it is.” I shuffled my feet and straightened up just as she had, then spoke in a whisper again. “When I’m queen, don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with anything like this.” I waved a bored hand to the side, gesturing to the windows. “We’ll get you more chances to make a real difference in the city, and maybe I can even convince the court of Chaya to give higher pay to our soldiers. The difference between what alchemists make in the army and what they make in the guilds is getting embarrassing. You may as well be working for the Church. We’ve got to work harder to appreciate the magical talent we have.”
Vermilion Dreams (Book One of A Vampire Fantasy Epic) Page 26