I did not believe that that was true. But for the first time, I was grateful that I'd not drug her off and away when I'd thought to, to some southern town, because her people never would have been rescued. And the Cirali Warriors might never have gone to help defeat Akadia. And Lox might never have been stopped.
"Was that for battles?" I asked, watching Ellia touch the table, standing just where her father always had. And I didn't mind if guessing that gave too much away; anyways, there were papers and figurines, there on it, so it was obvious enough.
She picked one up, nodding.
"What will you do on that front?" I asked.
She looked past the small thing in her hand, to me, eyes flashing sharp. "Hopefully nothing."
"You mean no battling?" I laughed a little.
"At least not now."
I tipped my head, in a sort of shrugging motion. I didn't mean to be harsh, but to think you could begin a country without forming up some sort of protection for it. And simply because Garagos and his group of goblins had been bribed from that battle, there was no telling what they'd do now, if some of them would return here. Or there were others, not aligned with him. "There's a chance that some of your people from Akadia, will have been trained well, while they were there.... For fighting I mean."
"My people didn't fight for Akadia," she said.
And upon my raising my brow (seeing as I'd trained a number of them), even though I didn't think this was why she corrected herself—because she wasn't watching me—she did correct herself, "I mean, not many of them. Lox said they were opposed to it. Which makes sense, since..." she folded the figurine back into her hand, then showed her other arm raised. "We're not meant to fight with our hands here."
"That's true for many countries," I replied, recalling those many resistances I'd had to put up with, and not liking to recall my days of violent rages.
"In Yanartas, it isn't very much ill-thought of," she mentioned. "It's some of the Warriors skill, to use it. And then, to the east, it's even more common."
"In the far east," I remembered, "That's what they do best."
"So, Cole from Kanth, knows all again. And didn't you say they do hand fighting from your land?"
I didn't want to lie, just now, outright, pretending as if I were from there, but there wasn't much for it. I nodded.
She looked back down. "It's strange then,... that some places are for it, and some against, but I hope that not very many of my people will have gained a liking for it. There's one man of mine, Slark's his name. He was one of Uldin Keep's nobles. But he became a Lieutenant in Akadia."
"A man of mine," I quoted.
She eyed me. "I do mean, Shaundakul's, Cole."
"Alright. So long, as he didn't come to you with any marriage proposals, or the like." And I did say this, in good faith—for he'd come to me, offering to do that very thing, on my behalf. What had it been? Something like: Since you can't very well marry her, lieutenant. Not as you are at least, I'll do you the favor of doing so myself, so then to keep her from being courted by so many others. And all this, while I'd been lying half-dead in the ward in Akadia. There on the subject, of hand-to-hand combat, Slark had nearly gotten a fist in the face, and a threat, to say the least, that he'd better not be approaching Ellia with any sort of offer, and he'd better put his free hours into dissuading any others of his noble crowd from doing the same.
Ellia made a sound, rolling her lips in a puff, like Tosch did, when he was mad with me. "What a thing to think! Slark? He wouldn't dare. Don't you know, he refused to help me escape from Akadia at all, when he could have? He'll be lucky if he's allowed back to Shaundakul. And only then, for what he did in the battle."
I narrowed skeptic. Only since,... wasn't she madly in love with me, though I'd kept her, in Akadia, twice over. It wasn't really a good argument; but at least, Slark had fallen to my threat. That I could bank on.
"Cole, I'm not going to marry anyone," Ellia said simply. And with her expression and voice both strict and calm, so as to shred all hope for this poor Kanthian, if not his alter ego, though it was all, wildly unclear. "I mean to run it as my scholar suggested. On my own, as queen."
I heard it again, my voice. "You can't be a queen, unless you can get someone to marry you." And then we'd both laughed, and I'd helped her up on the wall, to watch the battle beside me. Now I only swallowed, and shrugged. "So long as you're taking advisors, I'll be alright."
She watched me another moment, cautiously. Then she glanced back about the great hall, then she tipped her head, and started walking. "Come on, there's more to see."
But she hadn't made it three or four, clipping steps, before I stopped her, tone light. "You need another one of those?"
It was to the figurine she'd wrapped in her hand, which I referred to. She looked at it, from me to it, then stepping back to set it on the table, "I didn't mean to," she said.
I dropped one brow. Still, I readied my torch to follow her. Then she took a step, then she looked at me, then added, "I don't have the other any longer."
She turned on and kept walking, without waiting for my answer. And even though I had to move on without pause to keep pace with her—so that I only had a second to glance back at the table—I could tell by her face, and its severity, what she meant that she didn't have it. Because it was the thing that she'd left at my father's grave.
#
"No, don't look. Don't look, yet."
"Princess, you don't have to increase the suspense for me... I'm already excited enough."
Ellia made a sound, maybe a scoff, or a snort, or just a fierce sort of yelp—I couldn't tell very well, since I couldn't see her, since she wouldn't let me follow her, yet, into her room, here in the high tower.
"It's not for increasing suspense!" she shouted. "I'm afraid it's a mess."
"Of course it's a mess. I don't care."
She bolted up straight to glare at me—and I saw it well, since I'd just braved pushing my way through the door. She was there at the front, bent over towards a fallen chair, some broken bits of wood, as if she'd actually been attempting to straighten up.
The rest of the room. Did she think it was a mess? To me, it seemed like some sort of paradise come to life—and all, almost fully, because she was standing there, at the center of it.
There was something about those days that had passed. That, once all those things had happened that did, with Akadia, like nothing we did could ever get them back. I'd felt that... the strongest just after I'd let Tobias die, then when I'd let her go, then ever since. And maybe that was why it had been so strange, especially, to see that memory of hers (of ours) in the caves back on Yanartas. Those two kids... they weren't us anymore. I'd lost them somewhere. But this room, where I could look to the left, and see her window—it's wind-shielding tapestry torn, but still in place—where I could see that and remember jumping through it a dozen times over, and more even than that. Where her fireplace was there, unlit, of course, and stuffed with age-old bits of coal, but where we'd sat; her always bent carefully on her knees. That same place, she'd cried for me, for my father. She'd cried other times, for me, there, even other places. Hadn't she cried for me, quite often? Then there was the rest of it. Turquoise walls, made from fine paper hung in places, but then mostly stone, so constantly kept clean that it looked like polished silver. Those turquoise rugs. Furniture, all about, where she set this or that object, always carefully. Then her closet full of clothes—a whole entire room it was, and the dresses had been so thick in there that it had made a good place to hide when her maidservants came up earlier than expected.
I remembered the last time, I'd stayed the night here. I'd been fifteen, or sixteen, or something; probably a lot too old to be doing so with the sneaking in any longer. Sadly, I'd only made it up, when someone had come to ready her for bed. So, she'd hid me in that closet, as usual. I'd spent a few seconds, despising the blackness of it, wondering what the dresses all looked like, just so that I could tell the room in my min
d—then it would be like I was seeing something even if I wasn't. But that, I supposed, was why it had been so easy when the door wasn't fully closed, to push it open further and watch through there. She'd not changed of course, which she wouldn't do at all when I was there, not anymore, but the maidservant was behind her, while she sat in front of her mirror. The maid was loosening Ellia's hair from its many braids, and then she was brushing it. It had been like a trap, I supposed, since one second I'd just been looking out into the more interesting lighted space, for light's sake, and the next second, upon hearing her laughter and talking, upon guessing that that added brightness to her eyes, and tapping of her feet, meant that she was particularly excited for the boy who now resided in her closet —this all added in with her hair, and something about the way her clothes smelled, and being the age I was, and with the prospect of the night in her room, my stomach had turned to knots, and my chest had gone congested—like I very much might have just come down with something.
Had that been the first time I'd begun to get that feeling when I saw her—even continuing on to that day I'd seen her in the square at Akadia—when I'd thought I might have lost her—even on to watching her look up from kneeling at the palace at Karatel in chains? I did not know. I only knew that it was the last time that I'd gone up to her room, and then I hadn't even stayed that same night.
The bed, pressed against the inner wall, seemed just the same as it always had been. Tapestries hung over the top, and down pillars at the sides. The ceiling was low, just there above it, so that it made a sort of cove. The window I'd always climbed through, was not the only one in the room, and the others hadn't been so fortunate as to keep their guards. The sky outside was bright silver and it turned the room grey, bright enough even for my eyes to see. But maybe not so bright that I was seeing things right, as they were now, and not as they had been. For in truth, all the furniture was gone or smashed. The rugs were missing. And the bed a mess of mattress and blankets.
"It's not as it was," Ellia said.
I turned my gaze to her. I still had our pack of food over my shoulder, but I'd left the torch outside. Seeing her, I realized, as well. Ellia's not as she was. Not a little girl, not even sixteen or fifteen. She's a woman. I'm a man. We're both grown.
"There were my clothes, back in that room," she spoke, pointing towards the closet. "Akadia took them. And so they remain."
She took a step in that direction. I hadn't noticed, but she'd brought her bag in and set it down, at the end of the bed. She didn't go far towards the closet before turning back the other way and walking towards the window. The tapestry that blocked it, was torn off on one corner. She touched it, then lifted it across and up, covering the light, then she let it fall again, even taking off the other side, so that the whole thing came down and the room grew brighter. Wind moved her hair back from her face, just a little, but not a lot came through the space—that's how thick the stone was and just how well the window was made to block out the cold. She stared out, her fingers to the windowsill, and her eyes outside. She leaned up to stick her head forward, and look out of it, then came back in, and all with me watching her, frozen, like some idiot.
"I had a dream once," she said. Not looking at me still. But she did, take the tapestry back up and put it over the window. "There was a battle going on outside this window, and I could hear the noises of it.... There were chimera outside, and goblins, and Akadian's, and Lox and wyverns—all like that first attack on Uldin Keep. And with my people there, and my father, but others was well. The Warriors, and Minstrel and Estrid; all over everyone I'd ever known. And of course, they were about to be attacked..." She looked out again, as if she were really seeing the thing; flinching as if she were really hearing it, and I did too. Then she turned around, and looked at me. "But then there was Cyric here inside, and he was telling me that I didn't have to hear it. He took me here, to this mirror." She moved a number of steps to her right, back near her bed and stood in front of a blank wall, but I knew it was where her mirror had once been. The full-length one with a gilded frame. "There used to be one here," she said for me, then she touched her head. "He gave me back my crown. And I was wearing a dress, and he kissed my cheek, and he told me that we were going to be married. Do you know when I dreamt that, Cole?"
She turned suddenly on me, spinning so quickly that it flipped her braid. But she'd been so concentrated on staring at that space in the wall, and I'd been so concentrated watching her, that my breath sucked in now, taken off-guard. I'd been imagining just as well, what she was seeing, and it was an easy thing to picture.
I felt as if I knew the answer to her question. But I didn't give one.
She let her eyes drop suddenly, to something, I didn't know what, but it freed me to breathe. I took a step into the room, thinking that if I could just move forward, bits at a time, I could accomplish all that I needed to. Where was that reassurance I'd felt on Yanartas, that said I would not, should not, could not tell her here? I felt now, only more all the time, that the longer I wasn't telling her, the more wicked I was.
"Do you think when I'm a queen, that I should remain here, Cole—or would it be better to move to my father's quarters—those royal ones?"
I was surprised, to see her suddenly standing in front of the end of the bed, not very far from me. And she didn't look as if she carried any of the sadness she'd exhibited looking into the absent mirror. Her hands were wrapped back around one of the pillars of her bed, behind her; she was leaning against it; she was swaying a little from right to left, then glancing around, then looking at me.
I'd never seen her father's quarters. Of course I hadn't. I knew they were in that largest wing of the high-levels. And amidst the nobles, where there were those great chambers of staircases, but his highest, and with nearly a full level for him, and not far from the dragon-keeper's space. The scholar's tower, and the granted temple.
"Here," I answered automatically.
She smiled. "Don't you want to see the other first?"
I shook my head. "Isn't this where you were before you left? So, I think your people would like to see you here; to know their princess hadn't changed; that she hadn't been taken."
"You're so very poetic, all the time Cole."
I ducked my head. I might not have been, but I felt like I was fifteen, trying to charm my way into her good graces. I wasn't sure I was being a good advisor, suggesting she should remain here; I wasn't sure I could think past my own desires, for what would be best for all her people, and what they would want and need.
"We'll have to see the other first," she finally decided.
Then it was sad. Because I thought that she was going to leave; that we both were. And I did not want to. She bent down to take her pack, then her eyes flicking up to me, she spoke. "You'll wait here a minute, won't you, Cole?"
I blinked. We weren't leaving. But I was waiting, again?
"Just a moment," she admonished.
"Where are you going this time?" I complained. And really, I didn't know; again I didn't, and I didn't like that.
"Just in here," she told me. Then she pointed to the washroom that connected to her bedroom, just beside the closet.
"Oh," I spoke.
So that wasn't such a terrible distance, and I wouldn't have to leave her yet, anyways. Maybe I could even think of a way to make her stay. We could... have lunch! Here, in the dusty, debris-filled room of hers.
She took her bag with her, pushing—in some strange torturous way—off from the pillar of her bed, so that I was convinced her every motion, were either meant to thrill me, or really to convince me that I was evil for not telling her just this second who I was.
"Not very long," Minstrel had told me. So what would he say if we returned from this trip, and I still hadn't? Probably he'd say that I wasn't the protector of Shaundakul, after all.
The door closed behind Ellia. And the first thing I did, was put my hand up to my head, to run through my hair. Only my hair wasn't there, so I wanted inst
ead (I almost did!) to rustle and rustle the cloth till it came loose, till it was free from me, then I could take it and throw it out the window, so that I couldn't get it back—and never had to put it on again. Only, just imagining this much, I was also picturing the sudden following urge to grab any bits of material around the wrecked room, and wrapping it over my head—or stuffing a pillow over my face, or just out and out, dumping all the food out of my pack, and putting the thing over my head.
No, no, I definitely shouldn't take my robes off, because having Ellia come out to see me with a bag on my head, was not the thing I wanted to be doing today.
I set the pack down, instead, with a sigh. Then I went, probably without thinking, to Ellia's bed. I went around the side, and sat there. I turned and dropped back, once again, without thinking. This had been my spot, at least until we'd gotten older. Above there was stone and torn turquoise silk, but I remembered lying on the bed like this in Akadia. And I'd been just on this side, hadn't I? And she'd been on the other. It had been warm there, not cold. And bright gold and yellow. She'd been at that window, talking about how evil Akadia was, and I'd been annoyed, and I'd called her over, knowing that she would come. I'd patted the bed beside me, pretending that I wanted her to see the painting of the behemoths.
She wouldn't come to lay beside me, I didn't think, anymore if I asked her to. Not as Cole. Not just by my patting the bed, and calling her. But then I wasn't sure whether that was because I wasn't Cyric, or because she'd changed herself. She had changed, hadn't she? So, maybe even as Cyric, she wouldn't listen to me when I told her to come or go, or speak or not speak. Or if I wanted to kiss her, that she would let me. And if I wanted to be done with kissing, that she would allow that as well. Or if I said, you'll stay here with me. You'll stay with me forever. You'll marry me, Ellia. And we'll never be apart again. I wasn't sure that she would listen to that... Oh, but how she would have any other point in our lives. But now....
Fallen Warrior (Fallen Trilogy book 3) Page 64