Princess Triumvirate

by Catherine Banks

  “Does Marin know about this?” I asked as we headed back towards the arena.

  “She knows about me and what I go through because she can feel it through our bond.”

  “Fun,” I whispered. “Something to look forward to.”

  We went back to watch the fights, but I could hardly pay attention. What had happened between Finn and Faxon? Now that I thought about it, they had been at odds since the trip to Drimla. I needed to know what had happened. I considered asking Faxon, but I knew he wouldn’t tell me and Finn would likely be angry that I had asked Faxon instead of him.

  “Tilia,” Favian whispered.

  “Hm?” I looked up and realized that everyone had left and only Marin and Favian were here with me. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Come on,” Favian said and nudged me with his shoulder. “Let’s get some snacks and we can brainstorm on our wedding trips.”

  Marin draped her arm across my shoulders and squeezed me. “We could go find some ogres to kill,” she offered. “That always makes me feel better.”

  I smiled and felt my shoulders relax. “Thanks for the offer, but knowing us, we would get into trouble somehow and then we would have to sit through lectures from the boys about not doing dangerous things without them and blah blah blah.”

  “True,” she muttered.

  “You two are definite trouble magnets. I have a feeling that you two staying in one place too long will draw enough trouble to end the world,” Favian teased us.

  “Maybe that is why they are making us live together on that island and train. It will draw the enemy to us, which will save the rest of the world from trouble,” I said.

  “I’m going to get us some snacks. I’ll meet you in the room,” Favian said and then walked in the direction of the kitchen.

  “So, you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” Marin asked.

  “It’s Finn. He’s so angry lately and apparently, something happened between him and Faxon, but he hasn’t told me. Favian thinks if we perform the binding now it will help mellow him out. Finn thinks I’m going to leave him, which is absurd,” I told her and then sighed and dropped my head forward.

  “I noticed that his jealousy is getting a bit out of control,” she told me.

  “When?” I asked.

  “When he was about to attack Alex for catching you in the stables,” she answered.

  “Men are so ridiculous,” I grumbled. “Why can’t he believe me when I tell him that I’m not going to leave him?”

  “It is hard to fully trust another person. You never really know if they are telling the truth or not. Favian could have lied about where he was going for all I know,” she said and shrugged. “Trust is hard to give.”

  “Did the binding help you and Favian?”

  She nodded. “Immensely. Although he was, no is, still very jealous of others being near me. Tradition is that once you begin sleeping together you isolate yourselves or the male will be overly protective and it is difficult for him to distinguish friend from foe. Some call it the mating fog.”

  “So, that means that there is more reason behind waiting until marriage then just morals,” I said and laughed. “Whoops.”

  She stopped walking and looked at me in shock. “Did you?”

  I blushed. “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  We resumed walking and she laughed. “He was in a better mood this morning, much more than usual. And he didn’t kill Jovian for looking at you like he had. You are right; whatever happened between him and Faxon is really what is eating at him. As soon as he saw Faxon all of his logical thought disappeared. He was gripping his sword as soon as Faxon appeared.”

  We entered her bedroom and she ran around picking up stray clothing and tossed it all into one corner of the room. I sat on her bed and leaned back against the headboard. Marin grabbed some paper and a writing utensil and asked, “Where do you think about going when you picture your wedding trip?”

  “A small island with clear blue, warm ocean water,” I answered immediately. I had a brief flashback to our trip to Carlos the Crusher’s island and the one after.

  “Warm ocean water?” she asked.

  “It’s so clear you can see to the ocean floor! And the water is warm, like a bath. We sat on the shore where the water came up to our waist while we sat. It’s heavenly.”

  She wrote down a few notes and then asked, “Where else?”

  “Sometimes I think we need to go to the middle of the forest in a cabin where no one else lives within a hundred miles,” I replied.

  She made some notes and then tapped her fingers on the paper as she thought.

  “What do you picture?” I asked her.

  “The forest,” she said, “but I like the sound of warm ocean water and a beach.”

  “You started without me?” Favian asked as he entered. He set an assortment of foods on the bed and a pitcher of water on a side table.

  “We figured it would help speed the process along,” I told him.

  “What do you picture when you think about the wedding trip?” Marin asked him.

  He smirked at her and a blush rose on her cheeks.

  I laughed and she cursed. “You’re terrible. We have a guest and you are being crude.”

  “She laughed,” Favian pointed out.

  “Come on,” I urged Favian. “Answer the question.”

  “A field of grass surrounding a small house,” he said.

  Marin made some notes and then handed them to Favian. He read them over and sat on the end of the bed. “Warm ocean water? I’ve heard of it, but I thought it wasn’t real,” he said.

  “It is very real and very nice,” I told him.

  “Hey,” Finn said from the doorway.

  “Come in,” Marin urged him. “We are discussing wedding trip locations.”

  He hesitated a moment and then walked around the bed to sit beside Favian. He took a piece of dried meat and chewed on it.

  “It seems that we are tied between the ocean with warm water and a cabin in the middle of the forest,” Marin said to update Finn.

  “I prefer the ocean, but it might be nice to have a different view for a while,” he commented.

  “What about the island?” I asked and looked up from the piece of bread I had been mutilating. “We could go there and build our houses and live there.”

  “The ocean is cold there,” Finn reminded me.

  “Oh, right.”

  “We could go back to the island I took you to,” Finn suggested.

  “I wonder who is running Carlos’ island now?” I murmured as I resumed tearing up the bread roll.

  “I could find out,” Finn offered, “but I would rather go to the island we went to afterwards.”

  “Bad memories?” Favian asked.

  Finn nodded. “Tilia was kidnapped by Carlos. He drugged all of us and sent me and my crew away from the island while he had her. I came back, but she had already tried to escape him and was hurt when I got there.” He froze a second and I saw fear, pain, and anger cross his face before he looked up again. “Plus, that wolf might be there still.”

  I had forgotten about the wolf that Carlos had kept and trained. “He is probably there, unless the crew killed him.”

  “You have the most interesting stories,” Marin told us with a smile.

  “Says the woman who fights ogres,” I countered.

  “You fought chimeras,” she countered back.

  “You fought shapeshifters.”

  “Ladies,” Favian said to end our discussion. “It seems we have decided on our location.”

  “We have to find a ship,” Marin said.

  “I can teleport us,” I offered.

  “That would give us more time to spend on the island versus traveling,” Finn added.

  “We could always go to the Isle of Respite,” I whispered.

  Finn frowned and then said, “There will be too many there who know us. We’d never have a moment of pea
ce.”

  “There would be a lot of drinking too,” I added and agreed. “We will go to Siladen then.”

  “Siladen?” Marin asked.

  “That’s the name of the island,” Finn explained.

  “Okay, Siladen it is,” Marin said with a wide smile.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After a fifteen-minute battle with Queen Amadis, Marin finally convinced her to let us meet with the seamstresses alone. The two seamstresses were female Elves with soft voices and soft smiles. Their smiles never faltered, not even when we showed them our sketches and explained the inner straps and their purposes.

  “Will it be solid white?” one of them asked.

  “Yes,” Marin answered. “I don’t want to give Mother a heart attack.”

  The seamstresses laughed softly.

  “We will get to work on it immediately,” the second one said. “We will bring it for a fitting in two days.”

  “Thank you,” I said happily.

  They curtsied and left with our sketches hidden within their bag of tools.

  “You think your Mother will freak out when she sees us?” I asked softly as Queen Amadis walked in.

  “She might, but she should know me well enough to agree that the dress is fitting to my style.”

  “Is everything set?” she asked.

  “They will come in two days to have us try them on and fit them,” Marin explained.

  “Will I be allowed to see them then?” she asked.

  “No, you have to wait until the wedding like everyone else,” Marin told her.

  “You’re impossible,” she muttered.

  “Ah, a queen never mutters,” Marin teased her.

  “Have you decided on your bouquet yet?” she asked us.

  “Oh, oops,” I said and looked at Marin.

  “We will go tomorrow to find our flowers,” Marin promised.

  “Four days until the wedding and they haven’t even figured out their flowers,” Queen Amadis muttered to herself as she walked away.

  “Men have it so easy,” I complained.

  “I bet they still haven’t taken care of the rings,” Marin said.

  We headed out of the Queen’s drawing room and out to the arena in search of the boys. Surprisingly they weren’t there. “Where could they have gone?” I wondered aloud.

  “On a ride maybe?” Marin guessed.

  We went to the stables, but Ice, Favian’s horse, was in his stall. We walked out and looked around the grounds.

  “Can’t you sense Favian?” I asked her.

  “He is blocking me,” she said and slowly turned in a circle as she tried to locate him.

  “What could they be doing that he would block you?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. Can’t you find Finn’s magical signature?”

  “I should be able to, but I can’t right now. He must be masking it. I didn’t even know that he could do that.”

  She and I looked at each other and I saw the same reaction on her face. They were up to something.

  “You think they’re in trouble?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Favian would not hide that he was in danger. Plus, I would have felt his fear or anger when a fight began.”

  “What could they be doing then?” I asked grumpily.

  “Well, let’s go look for our flowers and if they aren’t back by the time we are done, then we will go find my Father and ask him if he knows where they went.”

  I followed her into the fields and pondered over our futures. At some point, we would both become Queen of our Kingdoms. How often would we be able to see each other? I shook my head. We had to live through our upcoming battle first. After that we could worry about the future.

  We crested a small hill and she asked, “Which colors do you want?”

  The ground before us was covered in flowers of every color, more colors than I ever knew flowers could be. They were beautiful. “Wow,” I said as I continued to take in the beauty of the sight before me.

  “Come on,” she urged and walked down towards them. “Let’s get our bouquets ready.”

  “If we pick the flowers now, they’ll die,” I reminded her.

  She smiled smugly. “No, they won’t.”

  “Are you going to tell me how the flowers will continue to live once we pluck them from their roots?”

  “No, but once you have your bouquet I will show you,” she said.

  We sat at the edge of the field as neither of us wanted to risk stepping on any flowers, and picked an assortment of colors. I picked teal and white colored flowers while Marin picked red and white colored flowers. We arranged the flowers into the grouping that we wanted and then she pulled out two long pieces of ribbon for us to tie the flowers together with. We each tried to tie a bow, but they were rather pathetic looking.

  “Do you think Queen Amadis will be able to fix our bows?” I asked as I looked at the droopy one I had tried to make.

  “I am certain that she can,” she said and frowned at her small bow.

  “Okay, now that we have them, what are you going to do?” I asked her.

  She held her hand over my bouquet and then her entire body started to glow. The glow spread to my flowers and then the light disappeared. “Now these will never die or wither,” she explained.

  “Really?” I asked as I examined them. They did not look any different. I did not sense any magic on them either.

  “My dad showed me how to do it,” she said and repeated the process on her bouquet. “He did it to a flower and gave it to me. When I came back into the castle with it, Favian started to get incredibly jealous because he thought another man had given it to me. Well, another man had given it to me, but he doesn’t count. You should have seen his face when I called him out for being jealous.”

  “He seems rather calm compared to what you have told me he was like before,” I noted.

  “Honestly, I think I have you and Finn to thank for that. He was calming down, but after we met you two and Malavar was defeated, he relaxed fully. I have watched how he interacts with you and I have to tell you that I never thought that I would see him return to the kind, soft-hearted boy that I loved as a girl. My life being in constant danger, and our falling out, put a strain on him that caused darkness to swirl around him like flies around dung. He’s no longer bitter or angry and he let you two into our lives with open arms. I think he feels like Finn fully understands him due to encountering so many similar issues.”

  “And they’re both equally stubborn,” I added.

  She laughed. “That as well.”

  “I don’t think Finn and I would be in a great spot emotionally, if it weren’t for you and Favian. Favian is helping him deal with the emotions and events that he won’t confide in me. I’m sort of jealous of Favian for that.”

  “Every man needs a brother and every woman needs a sister that can share and empathize with their issues. We have each other and I know Finn wishes he could understand you like I do,” she told me.

  I leaned back on my elbows and looked up at the puffy clouds as they passed by overhead. “Have you heard from Sebastian or Deana?” I asked.

  She copied my position and said, “No, but he has been keeping his thoughts to himself lately.”

  “You can hear his thoughts?” I asked in shock.

  “We have bracelets that were spelled by the Queen of the Pegasi, Silvermist, that allow us to communicate telepathically while wearing them. He either removed his bracelet or is blocking us.”

  “Do you think it is because he is worried what your parents will think about him and Deana’s relationship?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. He hasn’t been back very long and he does not know Amadis and Cesar very well. He might worry that they would not approve of the relationship.”

  “Will they?”

  “I think they will just be happy that he found someone that he loves,” she said.

  “Will there be any people who rebel at the fact that the royals of the Elve
s are marrying non-Elves?”

  She sighed loudly. “Definitely, but that won’t matter to our parents.”

  “What happens if your child’s children continue to marry non-Elves and the royal family ends up being less Elf than anything else?”

  “Who knows?” she said nonchalantly. “Our child might end up being with an Elf and then returning the lineage to mostly Elves. Or Sebastian might not end up staying with Deana. They haven’t known each other that long and he hasn’t had much time with the Elves. There are many beautiful and kind female Elves here.”

  “I saw,” I said. “And lots of males too.”

  She smirked and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “See some good-looking Elves?” she asked.

  “Only constantly,” I said and laughed.

  “If Finn didn’t exist and you came here, who would you seek to court?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Ehere are so many attractive males and I don’t know any of them.”

  “I wish you could have attended an Elven ball when you were single,” she told me. “You get to dance with all of the single male Elves and I know you would have an amazing time.”

  “Finn crashed my birthday party,” I told her. “He came in a suit and danced with me without letting anyone else cut in.”

  “Did you dance all night?” she asked.

  “No, my Uncle chased him away because he saw us kiss and he didn’t like that,” I said and laughed.

  “That was when he was a pirate, right?” she asked.

  “Yes, when he was Captain.”

  “Do you ever worry that he will miss it enough to leave?” she asked me softly.

  I nodded. “He had even considered going to become King after my father died,” I told her. “We had a huge fight about it because he didn’t tell me until another of our comrades went to take the title.”

  “He was going to leave you?” she asked in shock.

  “He claims he was going to take me with him, but we both know that I couldn’t just leave Crilan like that. The King of Pirates travels all over the seas and the new one will be in constant danger of those wishing to take the title from him.”