That seemed to seal it. Senri thought of her friends, if one of them would object. She could not think why. “I’ll talk to the others. We’ll be ready to speak on your behalf.”
“No, not on my behalf. You speak for Osota in this matter, and for all those wronged by that army.”
The princess said this with such certainty it empowered Senri. She nodded. “Thank you, your Highness.”
Alina smiled and shook her head. “I am Lady Cecile. Or have you forgotten which woman you lured out into the forest?”
Senri laughed, taking Alina’s arm within her own. “Forgive me, Lady, I only wished to imply your beauty and grace make you as worthy as a queen.” She meant it as a joke, but then again, perhaps the sentiment rang true.
“At least you know how to flatter a lady.” Alina patted Senri on the arm. “I think I’ve had enough of our wild tryst in the woods.”
“Allow me to escort you home then, my Lady.”
Alina leaned into her once more as they walked from the woods. The palace walls were a fair distance away. Senri wished she did not have to return to them quite yet. But Alina had not dragged her out to the forest because she was fond of her.
“How old are you?” Alina asked.
The question shocked Senri. Where does my age fit into the political game? Senri could not decide how to answer. Eighteen turns sounded so young. And not fair, considering her birthday was less than a month away. “I am almost nineteen turns, my Lady.”
Alina laughed softly. “So, eighteen?”
Senri nodded. “So, what about you?”
Alina sighed. They walked a little slower. “Twenty turns.”
“You will make a young ruler,” said Senri, trying to pick up a conversation.
“Yes, the Council would be inclined to agree.”
“But a good one.”
Alina glanced up at her. “You believe that?”
Senri held her gaze. “Well, you did kidnap me in an attempt to save your people.” She smiled at Alina, a gentle smile, unforced. Her voice had found a softness she usually reserved for one person, and that woman resided in a village hundreds of miles away.
“I feared you would find all these secrets distasteful,” said Alina. She looked relaxed. Her shoulders had finally dropped their tension and she smiled softly as she talked with Senri. “I hate playing this game with the Council. When I rule, I’ll never do it again. I’ll have an open, honest policy.” Alina’s hand crept down the metal arm guard. Senri hardly noticed. “The last thing I want is to put you in danger again, Senri.”
Her voice held the same softness as Senri’s. “Again?” Senri asked. She meant to make a joke about how the assassin hardly counted as danger, but something shifted in Alina’s eyes, stalling her. She looked down and Senri could not get her to meet her gaze again.
Alina opened her mouth to speak, but as she did her hand came in contact with the bare skin of Senri’s wrist. Senri gasped, feeling the cool touch, then blinked. Alina had a bright core, nothing like the smothered life forms in the encampment. Nothing like the assassin. She looked around, blinded by the energy seeping from the world. She blinked, forcing her powers closed as she guided Alina’s hand away from her skin.
Alina looked at her, frowning. “Senri? Can you hear me?”
Senri shook her head in an effort to clear her thoughts. “They’re different.”
Alina blinked. “Who?”
“The assassin. The soldiers. They look different.”
Alina shrugged. “All people do.”
“No, no, not like this,” said Senri. The princess still looked confused. Senri stopped walking. She did not want to get within hearing range of the gates. “When you touched my wrist just now it triggered my powers.” Alina loosened her grip around Senri’s arm. “Not like that.” Still, she let Alina pull her arm free and turn to face her. “Anyway, I looked at you. I saw your...your center of heat. It was different.”
Alina took a step back, raising a hand to her chest. “Different how?”
“Normal, I think,” said Senri. “The guards look like that, too. We all have a brighter source of heat inside us. The others, they are dimmed, like someone has tampered with it. Somehow, they are not functioning like the rest of us.”
“Odd,” Alina muttered. She gazed past Senri.
Senri gripped her by the shoulders. “My Lady?”
Alina seemed to snap out of a trance. She looked up at Senri with wide eyes. “Yes?”
Senri raised an eyebrow. Alina had been so alert all day. “We should get you inside.”
The princess nodded. “Yes, that would be best.”
They resumed their walk with little chatter. When they approached the gate they put on a show for the guards, flirting as they opened the doors. Senri heard one mutter as they walked away, “Those Warriors have someone different on their arm every day.” She rolled her eyes, but did not turn and challenge the man. Besides, she had a bigger problem standing right next to her.
“How are we getting you back into the palace?” Senri asked. She looked at the high stone walls and wondered how Alina had gotten out in the first place.
“Leave that to me,” she said. She seemed to have returned to her normal self. She even offered Senri a wink. “I’ll show you the way.”
Alina lead her to a secret tunnel open out next to the palace’s sewage drain pipe. Concealed behind the large iron bars blocking the sewage pipe, Senri thought Alina had gone mad until the princess pressed a hidden seam within the stone surface and pried open a small door.
“Thank you for your time,” Alina said, standing by the entrance. Senri remained on the other side of the bars. She smiled at Alina.
“Anytime, my Lady.” She bowed once more and Alina laughed.
“I might take you up on that offer.” Alina slipped past the entrance and slid the stone door back into place and disappeared into the darkness beyond.
Senri sighed, a slight ache pained her chest. She looked at the sky. The sun would soon set. She shook her head and began her walk back to the barracks. It had been nice to speak with Alina alone, without the interruption of a guard or assassin. But the time spent had also been torture. Alina had been charming and likeable. Enchanting, even. She held so much kindness within her, so much concern for her people. When it came to politics, she acted ruthlessly and without hesitation, but in a way that made her more attractive. She was not afraid to defend her people.
Senri groaned and buried her face in her hands. Just for a moment, she wished the world could dissolve and leave her out of its complexities. If she knew what the extent of greatness had meant when the seer told her she was destined for it, she might have run away. She would trade all the greatness promised her to be a simple country girl once more, and perhaps for Alina to be a peasant alongside her. The ache in her chest radiated. As long as Alina held ambitions to rule, Senri could forget about being anything more than a subject to her, despite how much the princess flirted.
***
The latest development in Senri’s powers troubled Alina. She did not know what to think of the difference in the soldiers and assassin. A priest would say that they looked different because of their unholy practices, but religion held little sway over Alina. As much as Alina attended the ceremonies and listened to the traditional accounts of their roots, she did not put stock in the Almighty’s power to intervene. Whatever power had put the land into being left behind the readers and seers to protect it. Divine intervention seemed a foolish notion, as far gone as a children’s fable. No, the difference in the people of Shedol was likely their own doing.
Lady Cecile seemed delighted to dine with Alina for the evening and trade back gowns. Alina said all the necessary, courtly things a woman like Cecile would expect, and even arranged for a guard to escort her back to her manor.
Alina spent the rest of the night discussing with Nin. Some arrangements had to be made before the meeting with the Council. The interrogation with the assassin had turned up noth
ing. No other sources remained to be tapped. They had little left to do besides set a time.
“There is something though, not for the meeting, but for my own curiosity.” She retrieved the scrap of metal from her jewelry box and handed it to Nin. “Take this to the palace blacksmith. I want to know what it is made of, and how, if possible.”
“No, keep that,” Nin said. “I can bring him a whole suit of armor, instead.”
Alina wanted to ask her maid how she had leverage over such things, but knew it was better not to know. She dismissed Nin for the night and prepared for bed. For the first day following the assassination, everyone had insisted she have a guard by her side at every second. Alina refused to allow one in her sleeping chambers, but she consented to extra sentries, including men who scrambled onto the roof over her window. She slipped under the covers, the shadow of her window guard playing on the other wall. No one would send a second assassin, especially after the failure of the first one. She had made her point. She was young, yes, but not stupid or vulnerable. It would be more likely that someone would attempt to poison her food. After carelessly expressing this sentiment to the Regent, he had ordered a taster for every one of Alina’s meals.
This bothered Alina most of all. At least the guards had been trained for combat. A taster could do nothing against poison, only hope someone had the correct antidote on hand. The worry that someone would die protecting her plagued her thoughts. She scolded herself. As a leader it was expected that people would die for her. That only strengthened her sense of guilt. Alina tried to shift her thoughts to a less troubling subject as she tossed and turned in bed. They latched onto Senri.
Senri, the tall, strong, beautiful Warrior had saved her life without a second thought. Alina had never been so infatuated in her life. She could not get the woman out of her head. When she closed her eyes, all that came to mind was the memory of Senri linking arms with her as they walked. The woman’s company had been refreshing that day. In a way, she felt selfish for dragging Senri out to the fields with her. It had been unnecessary and dangerous. But she wanted time alone with her. She had hoped to find Senri dull and careless. Instead they enjoyed a lovely walk together.
If Senri were male the situation would be less complex. The Council would have still raged about the class difference, but she could cross that boundary easier than gender. The whole kingdom could care less who soldiers and farmers fell into bed with, but Alina needed heirs, and her political situation prevented overcoming that fact. With a sigh, she set aside her thoughts about the Council and their disapproval. She let herself wander in the memories of her and Senri, nothing else. She yawned and pulled the blankets around her before falling into a light sleep.
Some time during the night, a thud awoke her. Alina sat up in bed, pulling a knife from under her pillow. She stared at the shadows of her room, too scared to shout for help. The window remained latched. Moonlight flooded through it. Perhaps she had misheard. She lowered the dagger. Then someone stepped from the shadows.
“Who are you?” she whispered. The moonlight slid along their legs and up a lean torso as the person stepped into view. Alina nearly dropped her weapon as she recognized the firm jaw line and angular features. “Senri?” The woman took a silent step closer. It was impossible for Senri to be in her room at an odd hour of the night. “How did you get in?” Senri stepped closer. She must have taken the tunnel I showed her.
Alina knew she had to call for the guards, or at least get Nin from the adjoining room, but Senri stood before her without armor in a sparse tunic and pants. She reached a hand forward like she wanted to touch Alina. Alina set down the dagger and swallowed. Her mouth felt dry and the room too hot.
Slowly, Senri sat down on the bed. She looked over at Alina with the shy glance she had grown familiar with. Alina’s breathing grew shallow and her head a flurry of thoughts. Senri leaned forward, her eyes promising every intention of what her actions implied. Alina’s body acted for her. She leaned toward Senri as well, tilting her head to the side, her eyelids closing.
The kiss she wanted never came. Instead, her breathing hitched and her eyelids flew open. Her room lay empty and she lay in a tangle of her own sheets, sweat beading down her forehead and along her body. Alina tossed the sheets aside, unwinding them from around her legs and smoothing down her nightgown. She looked around the room with wide, disbelieving eyes. Her dagger lay next to her pillow. Checking, she found the sheath tucked in between the headboard and the mattress.
“It wasn’t a dream. Couldn’t be a dream,” she whispered. She ached too much for it not to be. She rose from the bed and searched the room. She checked the shadows first, then she shook out the curtains, then her own sheets, then under the bed. Nin still slept peacefully in the next room.
The passage. Alina walked as quietly as she could to the secret panel in her bedroom wall. She examined the seam. It looked undisturbed to her, but she pried it back and fetched the key to the hidden door behind. She turned the lock with shaking hands. Surely Senri would be on the other side, or at least proof that she had been. The door swung wide to nothing on the other side. She fetched an oil lamp and lit it after dropping the flint and tinder a few times. She checked the tunnel and found it empty, only her own footprints from when she returned. Alina frowned, closing and locking the passage.
Her scattered thoughts settled with the help of the luminance. Alina took a deep, calming breath. It could have been a dream. Still, something felt off. She took the lamp into her washroom and set it down on the counter. Alina went to the mirror and stared at her reflection. She pulled the neck of the nightgown down to her collarbone. The seer’s mark spread just a little higher than it had the other day. Or did it not? Alina could not tell. She moved the nightgown back into place and picked up the lamp once more. When she returned to bed, she turned the lamp down low, but did not completely extinguish it. If she was having rampant visions, she’d rather have a little light in the room.
Alina tossed and turned, but could not find comfort enough to fall asleep again. The dull throb between her legs made sure of that. She turned onto her stomach and bit into her pillow to keep from screaming as she lowered a hand between her legs. More than anything, she had wanted Senri to kiss her.
Chapter Eleven
NAT MERCILESSLY TEASED SENRI. She could only imagine what he would have done if she had truthfully retold the encounter with Alina rather than making up a watered-down story. Thankfully, the others agreed to testify without much persuasion. Lanan agreed to it first.
Senri pulled her aside later. “Are you sure you can do this?”
Lanan looked at her with a darkened glare. Her bruises had gone, but something still did not sit right within her. “We need to stop them. I’d do anything if it meant putting an end to it.”
“I’m not doubting that we need to,” Senri clarified. “I’m just...” She hesitated as she searched for the right words. “worried about you.”
“Well don’t be. I’ll be all right.” Some of the hardness left Lanan’s glare. “I appreciate your concern, Senri. I am getting help, though, I promise.”
Senri allowed Lanan to leave, but still felt concerned, despite Lanan’s reassurance. She approached Yahn about it, he sighed and rubbed his cheek. “She’s not going to go kill herself, if that’s what scares you. I’ve been talking to her. She’s just a little unnerved. Try talking to her without bringing up the subject. She’s mostly normal if you do that.”
Senri shook her head. “It’s hard to see that when she’s so serious. Before, she usually laughed off everything with a joke.”
“You saw the army.”
“Well, yes, but we have one too. Won’t we just drive them off the land?”
Yahn shook his head. “Things are bad. Valk argues with the Councilors and the Councilors argue with the diplomats. The Warriors sent a regiment to take care of the army and they found an abandoned campsite.”
“Did they ship off shore?” asked Senri.
“N
o. They most likely retreated north along the coast. If we had reacted sooner, we could have stopped them. Now they are going to be entrenched in the mountains.”
“That sounds bad.” Senri had always assumed Osota possessed enough military prowess to take care of any threat. After growing up on tales of how their kingdom drove back the dragons during the Burning Times, she had thought the valley invincible.
“There are both advantages and disadvantages to being enclosed in mountains,” said Yahn. “If we were more active in our defense, a bordering fortress could have dispatched troops to intercept them. As it stands, our best hope is that they starve once winter arrives. The bulk of our troops are already dispatched to eastern garrisons and outposts along the forest edges. Our forces and supplies are abysmally low. You should treat this matter seriously. It may lead to war.”
The following days, Senri spent more time training than she previously had, much to Graus’s approval. The extra training helped clear her head of all thoughts of Alina and of the conversation with Yahn. If she were too exhausted when she collapsed in bed at night, she could not spend hours thinking about her. She began to find equilibrium in her life once more. She even smiled at Nat when she sat down with him at breakfast.
Nat grinned. “It’s so lovely to see you pulled that stick from your ass. You were beginning to get this really pained look on your face.”
Senri flung a grape at him from her plate. “I’ve been thinking through some things is all.”
“I hope it’s not what next verse to add to your song, because Corson already did that.” Nat took a bite from an apple.
“How many verses are there?” Senri had given up on stopping the song. Just as long as she did not hear it.
“Well, it started with twelve original quatrains,” he said. “But with additions from the others, it might be close to over fifty.”
Senri shook her head and ate her food.
“I was thinking of adding a line about you and the lovely princess,” he said, nudging her arm. “A royal fling is just what that song needs.”
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