My smile tipped watching her, remembering the sight of them in the desert myself, Silos placing my hand against one's chest. "Maybe. But not as bright," I answered.
"That's what I would guess as well," she replied. "but then think of the chimera. They're not constellation animals. But their wings shimmer so colorfully—maroons and golds. Even their fur."
"Well, the chimera are special," I remarked.
Ellia leaned back straight, smiling. "Too bad Luffie's not here to hear you say that."
"Why? Does she dislike me?" I asked, humored by Ellia's posture, her hands resting on her knees, her arms straight out.
"No. She doesn't dislike you." Ellia bit her lip. "But she doesn't particularly like you either. I'd prefer that she did."
Mmm. Not being liked by Ellia's granted animal was something I'd been through. Unless Luffie planned on roasting me twice over, I figured I could handle it.
"But, Cole," Ellia broached, still chewing her lip. "What do you think the Black Tortoises would be good for. I mean... we hardly knew they were there till the one popped its head out. It was buried half in snow, wasn't it? They looked as if they were leisurely wading in a pool of snow."
"I should hope we'll be able to find that out from the rulers," I replied. "They're constellation animals, aren't they? Dragons, White tigers, Vermillion Birds—they really are the most powerful. The tortoises have to be good for something."
"I thought they were adorable when they made that sort of gurgling sound."
"That's very like you, Ellia. But I should point out that most people don't consider things of such a size adorable. Haven't you heard Minstrel's song about the giant spiders? Legs a'long like furry trees. Eyes so big they—"
My recitation was cut off short as Ellia stretched her hand forward, clamping it over my mouth. Over my hood, and over my mouth. I was a little too stunned to react. While she only brought her free hand up, putting her finger to her lips and shushing me. My eyes were wide. And she must have noticed it in a moment, because hers went wide as well. Then she quickly pulled her hand away, but didn't pause in her narrow, still leaning towards me. "Don't say that. Not the "m" word. Don't you know what will happen if they hear you say his name?"
I narrowed. Then I glanced at the nearby Genbuans as she was. A few of them waved in our direction, or grinned, as they always seemed to—or simply smirked.
I thought... well of course I thought of Echren. But I didn't think...
"What? Why not?" I asked her, tipping my head close. Smiling beneath my mask, enjoying her nearness.
She looked back at me, grimly. "He's absolutely famous. If you speak his name, or mention his tunes, you'll end up singing them. You'll have to sing them all. Do you know how many he has by now?"
"How many does he have, Ellia?"
"Hundreds. Maybe thousands."
"And you think they'd have heard of him all the way up here in Genbu?"
She scoffed, ducking back. "Joke if you like. You weren't in Byako when Lucian got stuck having to do it for the whole table of rulers. It was horrid. Or Selket, where poor, grim Lodan was forced to try his hand at it. I myself had to go through at least a score of them in Echren. And you should know, that's an utterly out of the way place."
"But you probably did it pretty well, didn't you?" I replied.
Ellia blinked at me. One of her shoulders started to lift in a little shrug. I pulled my gaze away before it could get trapped there, back to her eyes. "So maybe I'd like to mention Minstrel, and hear you for myself?"
She scowled at my even saying his name. But then, almost imperceptibly, the scowl turned to a narrow. Then very perceptibly, it turned to a frown. She blinked her eyes clear, looking away from me, about the room, and then straightening back, arms straight in front of her again. She took a great sigh, with the whole of her body, then smiled at one of the Genbuans that called a greeting to her.
"I was only joking, princess," I said, locking my jaw, expecting that her change in demeanor had come at the thought of me. Me, Cyric me.
She turned her sweet smile my way, then it fell to something plain. "Yes, well... I was with, with, with Cyric in Echren, so..."
She looked away almost just as quickly, her chin turning sharp so that it fully exposed her neck and racing pulse. I scooted my foot back from her chair and reached my hand across instead, taking hers, hunching close to her. "He'll have loved it, Ellia," I said. "As he loved your magic. He would have loved being with you there. Did he get to watch you sing? He would have loved that too."
She turned her eyes back on me, in a defeated sort of motion; now they were glossy.
I couldn't help myself. I brought my hand up to her neck, then dug my fingers into her hair. I wasn't sure what I was about to do—or maybe I was, because I was thinking about her crown. But before I could, I heard a low hush of voices come from one side of us, the tabled part of the inn. The voices quickly rose, like a hum, into calls. Then I looked over to see almost the whole lot of Genbuans looking mine and Ellia's direction, grinning, smirking, shouting encouragement for me, or merely clapping.
Ellia ducked her head down, her skin beneath my hand going hot. While I narrowed at them. Only once someone had shouted something about the lucky Kanthian, and I saw Ellia's cheeks pinch to a smile, did my expression switch. Then I started laughing, then she did, shaking with giggles as long as their calls carried on. Which was quite a while.
#
"So, what do you think?" Ellia asked, her throat thick. "It feels quite odd, doesn't it? but then when you go back as you're meant to be, you'll find your mind working much better than it ever has."
I blinked a few times, taking in the sight in front of me. Below there were lamps, stuck to the stone floor like half-globes and emitting soft blue light. Around the base of the floors was molding decorated with pictorial carvings of tortoises, and clouds, and mountains. The walls were lined with lights as well, torches with their handle pointing up and their flames pointing downwards. These came in all different shades of blue. Against one wall of the room there was a fireplace, stuck to the ceiling, dropping yellow light downwards. Just beside me was a bed with a distracting number of turquoise, blue, and silky blankets, with pillows to match. Then on the ceiling, a long rectangular midnight blue rug, covering the stone, and decorated with designs of golden embroidery, that looked quite a lot like the swirling clouds before the snowstorm.
"Well, it might feel weird," I replied, my throat just as thick. "But it looks pretty great. And I could do with my mind working better."
Ellia giggled. From her upside down position on the couch beside me, I could feel it shake the cushions. She wasn't an inch away. Our arms were touching, since I was upside down just as well. I would have liked to say that it wasn't my first time, since, she'd asked me to do it so many times before, back in Uldin Keep—ever since Scholar Padril had told her about the trick of it. But I hadn't. What had it been? Something like, Cyric Dracla doesn't sit upside down. My hair would look stupid. Then when I was older. Are you still doing that, Ellia? You'll lose your chance at winning a husband.
"I wish I'd done it a while back," I added, thinking of the advantages a clearer mind would have earned me in those days.
"Oh Cole," scoffed Ellia. "You make it seem as if you're the most muddle-minded sort. The things you say, sometimes I think your mind must be laid out like a map."
I started laughing; quite hard I started laughing, my hands on my stomach, shaking.
"I think you've grown light-headed now, Cole. You've lost your wits the way you did when I guessed you might be in love with Amalia."
That stopped my laughing short, causing a groan instead.
"What's that about?" Ellia asked. "It wasn't two weeks ago you were stuttering in front of her. I told you I had good reason for thinking so."
"And I told you I just liked her hair. Maybe because it's long, blond, and always braided."
Ellia actually made an audible sound at that, something like a hiccup, or m
aybe a backwards gasp, as if she were clamping all the air back inside her, rather than releasing it.
I smiled, satisfied that I'd aimed the subject matter back where I wanted it. But now that Amalia had been mentioned, I was thinking, inevitably of dresses. I took a glance at Ellia's bags of things in the corner of the room; just hers since I was staying in another room, across from this one.
"So, princess, do you mean to change into a dress when you meet the rulers?"
"What?" she replied. Her voice was still breathless from my previous comment.
I knew she'd heard me, so I pressed on. "I thought you would have changed before you went to see them today, but then you didn't. Isn't that only the proper thing?"
She didn't reply for a moment. When she did, she laughed short. "Isn't it just as well if I'm recognized as I am? My Warrior's uniform—"
"Surely you used to wear dresses as some point in your life," I argued, "You realize as long as I've been on Yanartas, you haven't worn one. Minstrel said—"
"Minstrel said, this. Minstrel said, that. Cole, you and Minstrel must stay on endless nights talking."
"We talk of you," I replied fluidly. "But as for the dresses—"
"Oh, Cole. What shall it be?" Ellia countered. "Something silky? Something with lace? Something with jewels? I've worn them all. They don't make a difference."
"That's absurd. In negotiations such as this; it's the most basic thing. You could get one of the Genbuans to agree to help for your figure alone."
Ellia scoffed, deep then light. I was still staring at the ceiling. "So when you said earlier that the leaders would do as I asked, you meant because of my appearance," Ellia asked.
"Of course not. That's two different issues. Didn't you wear a dress to beseech the Echrians? Picture it simply. You could wear a blue dress. It should be soft of course, and silky and everything, since water is also soft. Then y ou should let your hair down since—"
Ellia interrupted me with a third scoff. "Not this about my hair again. You make it sound as if I'll save the entire war with my hair alone. And as for the dress, you think just like a man choosing out blue. Perhaps you aren't a thinker after all."
I narrowed. First, because I was trying to get over cases being made in my mind that said that letting her hair down might really be able to win the war; and the second because her scoffing at my choice of blue just didn't make sense.
"What do you mean? Blue, for Genbu. Look at the lights; look around you. It's obviously their thing, not to mention about the water."
"Yes. Their thing. That's it exactly. Am I meant to be representing them or myself? It should be silver, or purple, or perhaps a metallic blue that I wear. Or else I'd be as good as telling them that I belong to them, not Shaundakul."
My narrow only deepened, as I pictured in my mind's eye, not just Ellia as I had been: with a silky blue dress, and her hair down, but also a roomful of Genbuan rulers, supposing her dress color meant that she belonged to them.
"Princess, I really think you're missing the point," I said incredulously, sure now that her hair really could win the war, if that's what gaining what she wanted from the Genbuan rulers meant.
But then, at the sound of her sigh, the picture still fresh in my mind, I heard my own thoughts repeated. A roomful of Genbuan rulers, supposing her dress color meant that she belonged to them.
"Actually, princess, I think it's best you do wear a silver dress. I can do that. And you don't have to have your hair down, but you could..." I frowned, having switched to the silver dress, inexplicably worse; I jerked up with a start, causing an ache in my head, but I ignored it, putting a hand there, so that I could go on clearly. "Actually, you'd better just wear your Warrior's uniform. Forget the dress. And keep your hair braided. Ouch."
"Cole," Ellia chastised, turning right around. "You're not meant to jump up so quickly. It will... Ouch. Ow. Ouch." She put a hand up to her head; to stop the pain, I could only guess, that I was feeling. But she forced herself to speak on, just as I had. "And you're not making sense about the dresses. You really must be like a man; it turns them inside out and backwards in the head. Someone told me that a long time ago."
She closed her eyes tight to block out the head-ache. I had been doing the same, but now I opened them, dropping my hand down. I could see now, that she was sitting just beside me on the couch, both of us aright, but with our legs underneath us. At her words, my mind was clearing up; either that or because of Scholar Padril's trick, but either way, I recalled that the someone who'd told her of the effect of dresses on the male type had been me. All for good reason, of course. She'd been something like fifteen, and what else was I supposed to do to keep her safe from those pesky nobles? Slark at seventeen. Ha. To watch them dance had been bad enough—but once I'd told her the truth of it about men and dresses, she'd taken much greater care with hands and eyes and other such trailing things. If Ellia was the most virtuous princess that lived—and I liked to think she was—than I may as well have been half-responsible for it at least.
To call it self-serving would only be mincing words; I'd done the lands a service either way.
"Wait. So this is also about Cyric?" I asked, clear-voiced, if no longer clear-minded.
Ellia's eyes popped open. Her hand dropped down. "Why would you say that?"
I let out a short breath. "Well, you make it pretty obvious. Someone told you long ago. Who else would have told you?... Your father, I suppose..." or doubted. I would have bet good money Savras Solidor had never spoken with his daughter about dresses.
"No," she replied, sounding sad now, looking down at her hands. "You're right. It was.... You know, as far as it concerns you, you're probably lucky he's not here," she said, ringing her fingers together. She shook her head, eyes snapping up to me full-weight. "I think, if he were, he might kill you, clean through, without even giving you a chance to explain yourself."
I narrowed, then put some effort into formulating what she meant, but it was difficult imagining killing myself. "I don't..."
"He was jealous, you know," Ellia explained. "He didn't say so.... But I could tell." Ellia turned her gaze off. "When I danced with other men, or when I attended meetings with them, even if my father was there, even if they were twice my age. Sometimes he wouldn't speak to me for days afterwards. Sometimes he would come to find me straightaway, then start to argue with me about nothing at all. At the best of times, he would take me off alone, and then be kind. But he only did that if it was really someone backwards for me. As if they'd only excited his interest, without causing any worries that they might actually win me. When it was someone that my father would have liked for me to marry, though, that would be the worst of all. Because he would tell me that I should marry them. Not nicely, he would tell me. But I knew he didn't mean it. That's why I always told my father, that I wouldn't. That's why I didn't mind waiting."
My head, it was replaying the last words I'd spoken, wanting to use them as a response. "I don't." "I don't." Finishing the sentence off with different things like, I don't think that's how it was. Or I don't remember that. I don't recall getting jealous. And really I didn't. But then I did recall doing the things she'd just listed. And now that I thought about it, I couldn't really think of why I had. As far as getting married, it had seemed to me, the only right thing for the son of a murderer to suggest to a perfect princess who would someday marry someone not him. Did that make me jealous?
"There was a time, when I was the same," Ellia said, still staring off. "By that I mean, that I would be jealous for him, for myself. And that's, perhaps why I shouldn't like to wear dresses any longer. I don't mind thinking of myself, as his, as much as he did, and letting anyone else know it. And I certainly shouldn't like to feel anything else for someone, or discuss my feelings about Cyric with them."
Ellia looked back at me.
"But you see now, that's what I'm doing, isn't it? But it doesn't feel the same as it did. It doesn't even feel like I'm forgetting him. Still, I don't think
he would have liked it. That's why I say he might have killed you. Sitting as we just did, I wouldn't have shown it to anyone else. The last time I sat in such a way, I was with Cyric in Echren, and I asked him to stay with me."
She glanced off, blinking now, and still ringing her hands; her face lit with blue. "He was lying in his bed, just there, and his face was hidden. But I knew he heard me. He just pretended not to." Ellia narrowed, then shook her head, while I tried to ignore the words ringing in my memory, the feeling of warmth all around, the wear of travel in my body, and then Ellia's voice, I don't want to go back to Akadia, Cyric. I don't want you to go. I want you to come to Yanartas with me.
Pretended not to hear? I'd never tried so hard to ignore something.
"I think there must be something about these places," Ellia went on. "Genbu, and Echren. I feel the same as I did then, even though I shouldn't. Like there's nothing else. No wars. No danger. Just souls like you speak of, and memories; and it's not at all unhappy." Ellia looked back at me. "I know I can't stay here. And I don't think I could have stayed then either, not with the wars, and Luffie, and everything, and I think Cyric knew that, so that was why he didn't answer me. He always knew better what I should do."
I frowned, watching her. How could she come up with these things, endlessly, making much more of me then I deserved? "Ellia, you asked him to stay with you. He could have. He could gone to Yanartas with you; it didn't mean leaving the wars."
She started shaking her head. "Maybe he knew better. I'm not sure I would have if I could have had him. I'm tired, Cole. I've been tired since the day the goblins attacked Uldin Keep. When Tobias offered to let me go, would I have said no if Cyric were with me? I don't know. I always thought that I would like battles, but that should have been when I was fighting them with Cyric. I didn't once I was fighting against him. And I always thought that I should like to be queen, but that was when Cyric was with me, now I don't know if I'd be fit to do it all."
Fallen Warrior (Fallen Trilogy book 3) Page 36