“Go change into something more comfortable and I'll start the drinks. Meet me in the student lounge in about fifteen minutes. It should be cleared out by then,” he said.
Almost everyone would be studying or trying to get some sleep by then. In fifteen minutes, she was in her fluffy, pale pink pajama pants and matching top. Anj had put on his green plaid pants and white t-shirt. They both got comfortable in a chair.
“I don’t want to have to force you to talk. So I’m hoping you’re going to tell me without having to play twenty questions,” he said, blowing on his mug of coffee.
She took a small sip of the hot cocoa, having never been much of a coffee drinker. He knew her too well. Hot cocoa was one of her comforts. “I wasn’t planning on making you play with this. I was actually going to tell you about it regardless of whether or not you decided to inconveniently pop up.”
“Would this be before or after you ran away?”
She didn’t know what to say. If he hadn’t shown up, she might have run after her father. “That’s not the point I was trying to make.”
“I know I shouldn’t have intruded. But I honestly thought you were going to meet up with Denver or someone else and…” He shook his head. “And then you went to our place with him. I didn’t know what to think and when you kissed him I lost it.”
“You followed me to the restaurant? Are you kidding? How did you get there?”
“I stole Zes’s license and drove. I behaved like a total stalker and dined on three plates of cocktail shrimp.”
“I don’t know how to feel about this. If need be, we can talk about it later because what I need to tell you is going to take a long time and I’m tired.”
“I won’t distract you anymore. I promise.”
“So, that was my dad.”
“Yes, so I’ve learned.”
“He’s a king,” she said softly into her mug. “No place you would have ever heard of, of course. One of those smaller nations, an island off the coast of Canada. Sort of. If I pointed the area out on a map, all you’d find is water. It’s a part of one of the Divinely protected countries of magic and myth. The average Joe can’t stumble upon it easily.”
Anj nodded. “Because Joe can’t handle the existence of the supernatural.”
“Right, exactly.” She sighed. How was she supposed to even start this story? “I have a step-mother and a half-sister. I grew up in a mansion overlooking the ocean. I owned my own horse. I had, well, everything.” He didn’t say anything, so she decided the story of her biological mother could wait for another day. “The thing about my father’s kingdom is, it's part of a much bigger empire…”
Chapter Eight
“The empire is, well, was, divided up into five different portions.” Jewl said, getting the ball rolling. “There was one for my father and each of his siblings and my grandfather ruled over them all. The nations were given to the family as gifts so each child could have their own independent land and household to run without feeling the pressure of their father on them as they tried to live adult lives. After all, what grown up wants to be under constant watch and control of their parents? My grandfather, the emperor, understood this. What he didn’t understand or foresee was that his good intentions didn’t work well in the world of politics and sibling rivalry.”
So far everything was going well. She had Anj's attention. He leaned forward with his chin propped up on his hand as he listened.
Jewl continued. “The first to pass away was my Uncle Thad. He liked his food and it caught up to him. Uncle Thad also liked my Aunt Eyde. Those two were the oldest of the five and were only a few years apart before the big age gap between Aunt Eyde and my next uncle. My father is the youngest in the family so this automatically puts him close to the bottom of the sibling totem pole.
“As I was saying, Uncle Thad and Aunt Eyde were close. Thad didn’t have a wife or children of his own to leave his kingdom to, so he left the entire thing to her. Logistically it made sense. Their lands were close to one another and they had good relations already. Whenever we visited, it was always referred to as Uncle Thad’s and Aunt Eyde’s. It was seen as one entity, not two separate places. Maybe it was planned all along, but after Uncle Thad died of his heart attack and gave his dear sister the taste of more power, she had a hard time letting it go.
“I know you’re not entertained by politics, but it’s important to understand the basic backdrop of what’s been happening politically for a while over there. One by one my aunts and uncles either passed on, flat out disappeared, or gave up their land to my Aunt Eyde. I think it’s safe to say they were coerced into it, or their deaths weren’t exactly natural. There isn’t a lot of evidential proof tying it all back to her though. The sad thing is, my grandparents are completely unaware of the whole thing. Or if they aren't, they’re ignoring the facts.”
Jewl paused, so she could take a drink of her hot cocoa, and winced as it burned her tongue. She didn't want to continue, but she knew she had to. Stopping now would be like trying to halt a freight train with her bare hands.
“She tried to kill my dad long before I was born,” she said. “He went off on a bit of a business venture by boat, and just like in the classic literature he was shipwrecked on a mysterious island. There, he met a woman and we’ll leave it at that. I popped into the picture a year later. Taking me with him after being stranded for nearly two years, he finally made his way back home again to his wife. Nine months later my half-sister Sonnet entered the picture, and that’s the complete background for the story here.”
Anj opened his mouth to speak. Jewl held up an index finger. She was able to keep him quiet with a shake of her head. “For the sake of keeping on track, save all of your questions until I’m done, please.”
He nodded and returned to his previous position.
Jewl took in a deep breath and continued, her nerves slowly leaving her. She'd dodged a bullet there. Hopefully he'd forget or be too occupied with another part of the story to ask her about her mother.
“For my entire childhood, I lived a blissful existence. I had no cares in the world and focused on the things all little princesses do: horses, dresses, toys, and themselves. I guess I was a brat, but my father was good at keeping our heads level despite the seemingly unending amounts of wealth and luxury we had. But the wealth and luxury he had set up for us was not as plentiful as our little minds had thought. I began to notice something was amiss when I was about twelve years old. Stress is not something my father wears well, and the constant fighting I heard between him and my step-mother did not do much to reassure me. I knew they were fighting over my half-sister and me, but I didn’t understand what it was about.
“I remember the night all too vividly. Neither of them were aware I had been listening in. I had hidden outside of the door, wanting some kind of comfort from a nightmare, but I was too afraid to go inside when I heard the raised voices. It had never been a good idea to interrupt Mommy and Daddy time. Ever. The last thing I wanted was to get in trouble.
****
“I just don’t feel comfortable with the girls going to stay with her,” Jewl's step-mother, Rachel, had said in as quiet and as calm a voice as she could achieve. But her anger was still prevalent as her voice shook and rattled. “What if she tries to take them both from us for good? I can’t live through that again. Losing them to her would be even worse than when I’d lost you.”
“You don’t think I know this?” Jewl's father had snapped back. “Do you honestly think I want to send them away from here to be with that monster of a woman? She doesn’t want anything to do with either of the girls on a long-term basis. She’s made that clear every time we’ve talked about the issue. She knows the situation is dire and that we don’t have any other options. Who else is going to look after them and keep them safe? She’s untouchable by Eyde and her armies.”
“What if we never see them again?”
“Would you rather not see them and know they’re safe? Or would you rather
they die with us and have it all be lost?”
“Does she know about Jewl?”
“Who Eyde or—”
“Eyde, obviously.”
“I don’t know. I'm not sure what she knows, but I think she suspects. It’s kind of hard to miss. Just look at her. She looks exactly like her.”
“I know.” There had been obvious bitterness in Rachel’s voice and that had certainly brought a lot of things into perspective for Jewl as she listened in, even at twelve. She had always wondered what had happened. The most she knew was Rachel wasn’t her real mother and Jewl's real one couldn’t take care of her. In reality, her mother didn’t want to. But Rachel had loved and treated Jewl just like her own, for the most part. Jewl could always tell Rachel didn’t hold her to the same kind of level as dear, precious, Sonnet. Neither of her parents ever would. Jewl would always be the sin spawn to them.
“You’re never going to let that go are you? Are you ever going to forgive me? It wasn’t my fault.” Her father had said.
“I know, but it’s hard for me to look at Jewl and see you and that woman… inside of her and be left completely out of the equation. I don’t want them to go there, because I know she’ll flaunt that Jewl is hers and not mine. Once more she’s giving you more of what you need than I can and—”
“But I’m not going to be there with her ever again.”
****
“From there I decided to deal with my nighttime dilemma on my own. I had never known my step-mother resented me so much, or that she had such a hard time even looking at me. Naturally, the next morning was awkward. While I waited for them to officially break the news of this great misfortune, which required both Sonnet and me to leave our comfortable home, it never came. In fact, it was never mentioned again until four months later, just after my thirteenth birthday. Of course, by then I had forgotten about it for the time being,” Jewl said.
****
The whole thing had been brought up again casually over dinner. There had been no one else around, at least as far as Jewl's family had been able to tell, so it was as safe of a time as any to discuss what needed to be done.
“We’ve got a trip planned for you. A long vacation,” her father had said. He was talking to the girls like they were five, which Jewl didn’t appreciate. Sonnet was only ten, maybe eleven, at the time. Maybe that’s why he’d done it. Maybe Sonnet had needed to be talked to like she wasn’t going to understand it. Sometimes she wasn’t exactly the brightest light on the string.
“Where are we going?” Sonnet had asked, her eyes completely lit up with excitement. The family hadn’t gone anywhere in a long time, and Jewl didn’t think she remembered the last trip out of their homeland. Sonnet got easily excited about everything.
“You get to go to a special place. It’s got lots of animals and a soft beach and places to play. And you get to go there without Mom and me. You’ll probably eat anything you want every day, and have lots of fun,” her father had said.
“Wait,” Sonnet had said quietly. “You’re not coming with us?”
“No, we have some things to take care of here. It’s boring adult stuff and we wanted you to be able to have fun. So we’re sending you off to go see—”
“Your other mother.” Rachel had given Jewl a cold and evil stare as she had said it. It was so unlike her, but it had been enough to keep Jewl quiet for the rest of evening.
****
Jewl swirled the liquid in her cup, glancing at Anj to see how deep into the story he was. Not surprisingly, he was still engrossed, so she continued.
“We were to pack up a bag of our things and leave the following afternoon. Sonnet, of course, still didn’t understand this was going to be a dangerous time, and she didn’t care. She continued to babble on about all of the possibilities of this new and interesting place and wonder about how she could possibly have two mothers. I understood, but there was no point to explaining any of it to her. She wouldn’t listen.
“In my family’s royal guard, there was no one my father trusted more with our care than a boy who was considered, well, a knight but he would be equivalent more to the secret service in job description. The boy was just on the verge of being a man. He was eighteen and even though he was young, he was honest, and good at what he did. His name was Zacheus, but he was always referred to as Zach. Everyone in my family loved him. He was the one who was placed in charge of our care.
“It was clear the others in the service were not fond of this decision. Wouldn't we be better in the hands of someone older and more experienced? Zach had a bond with both of us girls that went a lot deeper than purely business, and that was what made him so trusted. Again, you know how politics work, so I don’t think I need to explain how the decision to leave a boy in charge of the most precious cargo a king owned, as well as the men who were hired to guard them, wouldn’t have gone over well.”
Jewl swallowed, biting back tears because the next part was by far the hardest part of the story to tell.
“Our trip was scheduled to take three days. One to travel to a secure port, then two days by sea to take us to my mother’s home. She lives in a separate nation, I guess you could say. We never made it to the port though. Four hours into our trip, our car was attacked and everyone was taken prisoner.
“I still don’t know if that was just a fluke or if we had been betrayed. I’m not sure if I’ll ever know. Too bad, because I have a nice list of things to do to the person responsible for ruining my life.
“I’ll skip the gory details. All we could do was hide and watch until we were found by our enemy. Quite traumatic for two young girls, but I stopped reliving it a long time ago. Thankfully, there hasn’t been a lot of post-traumatic stress over it all. I’m not sure what that says about me as a person. The important thing to note is Zach never left our side once — not until he was forced to.”
****
Several hours after the attack, Jewl and Sonnet had found themselves in a room with their Aunt Eyde. She was truly the coldest human being on the face of the Earth. Just being in the same room as her made Jewl shiver.
Aunt Eyde didn’t like children and she didn’t have any of her own, which was clear in how she had talked to the girls.
“Darlings,” Aunt Eyde had said with rich and heavy sarcasm. Sonnet didn’t understand it. “What an unexpected and delightful surprise. I heard you were leaving on a trip, off on your own, as big girls, and nobody knew when you’d be back. I had to see you for myself before you were gone for good.”
“Hello, Aunt Eyde.” Jewl had been polite, just as she had been raised to be. Though that was the last thing she wanted to do. If Eyde had cared, she wouldn’t have sent the mass carnage out to retrieve Jewl and her sister.
Eyde had walked to the girls and had touched their hair, staring between the two of them. Sonnet and Jewl didn’t looked anything alike. About the only thing they had in common were the curls in their hair, but Sonnet's was much looser and flowing. Rachel had dark hair like Jewl's father did, so Sonnet had dark hair as well, chestnut eyes, perfect tan skin and just the cutest face ever. Jewl was pretty much destined to be the odd one out.
“Where were you going, girls?” Aunt Eyde had asked.
“We’re going on a vacation. We’re going to see our other mom,” Sonnet had said, still shaken up.
“You’re other mom you say? I think it would be better if you stayed here with me. Don’t you? We’ll have a lot more fun than you would over there with her. After all, you haven’t even met her. How do you know what she’s like?”
“Well, Dad said…”
“Your dad doesn’t always tell you the truth,” Eyde had said, shaking her head and giving a fake smile. “Girls, your dad isn’t smart. I don’t mean to be harsh, but it’s time you came to this reality. Even Grandma and Grandpa think something needs to be done about him. I think you’ll be better off saying he’s an idiot, too.”
“But he’s not,” Jewl had protested. The last word she would ever use to de
scribe him was dumb.
“Let me rephrase that then,” she had said, staring at Jewl. “You will say he’s an idiot and you’ll have nothing to do with him anymore or I will hurt people, particularly your pretty little sister here.” She had continued playing with Sonnet’s dark curls . “I don’t want to, of course, but she’s easily expendable, just like all of your guard friends. Do you know what expendable means?”
“Yes,” Jewl had said, thinking she had understood at least the general definition. Aunt Eyde was going to kill them, but not Jewl. She couldn’t because of the power her mother had held, but the thought of anyone else dying because of one of Jewl's mistakes had been scary. The idea of acting out of honor and standing up for what’s right hadn’t been something most teenagers thought. She was only thirteen.
Chapter Nine
“Even now, I still think I would have made the same decision because I can’t fathom the idea of someone else paying for something I did — even at the cost of my own beliefs, but especially someone so young and innocent and…” Jewl shook her head. That was a good enough place to stop. Hopefully, Anj got the picture of what was going on from there. She wasn’t sure she could keep all of her emotions in check long enough to finish the story. Even then, she had left out so many details. She was afraid of boring him or running on longer than she should have. It was already late enough. He couldn’t possibly have been interested in staying up all night listening to every single small detail of her life. She knew them all too, down to the color of her Aunt Eyde’s socks. No longer traumatized over the events, she could see them as if she were still right there experiencing it again.
After a long moment of silence, Anj shifted and finished the last of his coffee. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Is that the end?” he inquired with a raised eyebrow. “It can’t possibly be the end.”
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