“Of course,” he said. “And next time you come marching in here, at least make sure you are clothed.”
Eleonora bowed and marched out, wondering why she didn’t feel reassured in the least about her father’s war efforts. Radovan motioned for the inside doorman to follow Eleonora out and to give him some privacy.
The click of the giant door latching reverberated through the heights of the stone chamber. Radovan sat still for several minutes, examining his fingernails. Then, as expected, a hoarse voice came from the shadows of the balcony behind the throne: “You’re taking a huge risk, keeping her free.”
“A few more days,” said Radovan, biting his thumbnail. “Just a few more days.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A s soon as Elaina noticed the light forming on her hands, she reached out and placed them on Sasov. The presence of the divine flowed. It grew, and the holy light enveloped not only Sasov’s body, but hers as well. Elaina’s broken body once again became perfect. The agony became a memory.
She took a deep breath in and looked around. Everyone had been thrown by the explosion. The up-ended table had been obliterated, and its pieces were scattered everywhere, burning. Those who could move about were checking on those who couldn’t.
Vice Admiral Kerran came running up. “Your Highnesses, are you hurt? Are you able to stand? We’ve got the door open and we have to move out,” he said. “You can’t breathe this smoke.”
Alessa held out her arms and Kerran helped her to stand. Next, she helped him lift Elaina and Sasov to their feet.
Elaina noticed Alessa’s legs and hands were quivering. “What about you?” Elaina asked her. “What hurts?”
“I’m all right. My guardian here got the worst of it. Sasov, you have my thanks,” Alessa told the guard. He stared blankly forward, overwhelmed. One moment he’d been horribly injured, and the next he was better than well—thanks to a princess! “Well, let’s…see who else needs help,” Alessa said.
Now that the doors were open, Audician guards were flooding in to see how they could assist.
“Where’s Xander?” Elaina asked, and then she saw him through the smoke, a few meters away, motionless on the floor. Elaina and Sasov ran to him, and the white light flared up once more on Elaina’s hands. She lifted Xander by the feet as Sasov picked him up by the armpits, and as they carried him to the exit the restorative light flowed into him.
On their way out the door, Elaina heard High Minister Maugan tell an Audician guard: “The king is involved in the plot. He must be found and detained. I should have seen it earlier.”
“That’s quite a charge,” came the response. “You understand we shall have to detain you as well.”
“Of course. Take me,” said Maugan. “But find the king. Hurry!”
The desperately wounded and unconscious were carried out of the smoke-filled Hall of Mirth and set down in the corridor outside. One by one, Elaina healed them. Alessa remained by her side the whole time, which Elaina found odd, since there was plenty else Alessa could be helping with, but she didn’t question it. She knew Alessa always had good reasons for everything she did. Trained medics arrived soon.
When Elaina finished healing the last of the severely wounded, she was in a daze. She wasn’t fatigued; her body just wasn’t accustomed to the volume of energy that had been flowing through it. Alessa helped her to her feet and embraced her.
“Makias? The queen?” Elaina asked.
“They’re both fine,” Alessa said. “And, thanks to you, it looks like everyone else is going to make it. But the children are still missing.”
Queen Alethea approached them. “Sisters, please wait upstairs for me,” she said. “There—see those stairs? I shall be up soon.”
“The children! What can we do to help?” Elaina asked the queen.
“Nothing, at the moment. Head upstairs, and I shall find out what I can.”
Elaina and Alessa made their way upstairs, and entered a well-lit lounge with couches, chairs, and a small kitchen and bar. Elaina flopped back onto a couch and took a deep breath. Xander came in next, and busied himself with lighting a fire on the hearth for warmth.
“You were asking what a bomb was,” Alessa said, leaning over Elaina. “Now you know.”
“Yeah. I guess I just forgot the word. It’s not something I think about often. Are you okay?”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
You can’t hide things from me any longer, Elaina said in her mind.
“Oh, yes I can,” Alessa replied. “But I shouldn’t. There’s just…a lot going on. And I’ve never seen you hurt that badly. It scared me.”
“I was in bad shape, wasn’t I?” Elaina said.
“Really bad shape. It was all planned so well. Kill us, steal our children as a contingency…”
Just then, the girls Adara and Vanessa entered the lounge. “Oh, Panei Alesa,” Adara said. Both girls ran into Alessa’s embrace. “Our parents told us to wait up here. Whew! You smell like smoke!”
“We’ll look after you, sweeties,” Alessa said.
“We were hiding in a closet when we heard the bomb go off,” said Adara. “We were so frightened.”
“I’ll get us all something to drink,” Alessa told them. “While I do that, I have a job for you to do. Make sure Princess Elaina does not get off that couch.”
The girls nodded fervently.
“There must be something else we can be doing right now,” grumbled Elaina.
Adara climbed on top of Elaina, giving her a big hug, but also pinning her down, subtly carrying out Alessa’s orders. Elaina reached around Adara’s back, found the tip of the girl’s long fancy braid, and tickled Vanessa’s ear with it. Both sisters burst into giggles, and Elaina noticed that Vanessa had recently lost her two front teeth on top.
“Come on, let me see your lovely smile,” Elaina said to Vanessa. The girl opened her mouth, reluctantly.
“It’s hard for her to say things right,” Adara explained.
“No teef,” said Vanessa. Adara laughed.
“I think it’s exciting,” Elaina said. “It means your big girl teeth are all done growing and soon we’ll get to meet them.”
Alessa opened a cabinet and poked around for clean glasses. “Actually, Elaina, there is something you can do,” she said. “You need to somehow let Jaimin know you’re okay.”
“I have,” she said.
“Well, tell him the rest of us survived too. And make sure he knows that the Destaurians may be headed his way with our children.”
Elaina closed her eyes and tried to convey the messages to Jaimin. She wasn’t sure she was getting through to him, but then she heard him clearly—he said he would tell Nastasha right away.
When Elaina opened her eyes, Alessa had brought a silver tray with glasses and a pitcher of iced cherry water. “Drink up,” she said. Alessa returned to the kitchen and brought out two bowls piled high with snacks. “I found some groundnuts, and some crispy dry peas covered with mustard powder. They’re not too spicy. Nice hair, Elaina.”
Elaina pulled some of her hair in front of her face, which she could never do before. There was no doubt now that the more she healed others, the longer her hair grew.
A short time later, Queen Alethea ascended the stairs into the lounge, and little Adara and Vanessa ran to greet her. “Good evening, Panuse,” they chimed.
“Good evening, my darlings,” said the queen, hugging the girls one by one. “Are you well?”
“Oh, yeff Panei Alfeia,” Vanessa said. “Fafe and well.”
“You’ve got a bunch of worshippers downstairs, my dear,” the queen told Elaina. “Don’t be surprised if they start carrying you wherever you want to go, fanning you with feathers.”
“I wouldn’t have that,” Elaina said.
“They’ve found and captured King Seir,” Alethea announced, “in disguise, and riding off toward the coast with three unknown men. Maugan was right about the king’s role in the bombing. And townspeople saw a wagon speeding sout
h—it must have been those brutes carrying off our children.”
“We could have all been killed tonight,” Elaina said.
The queen replied, “After Isabel’s deception, it is our own fault that we did not foresee this attack. I shall take personal responsibility for failing to see the danger.”
“Aleh,” Alessa said, as they all sat back down on the couches, “you expect too much from yourself, and too little from those who love you. Nobody’s going to blame you for this evening’s attack.”
“You’re gracious, dear, but I should have suspected something. Seir must have been using that Destaurian concoction to mask his thoughts—the same one Isabel used—otherwise one of our people would have certainly detected his intentions. And there must have been a fair number of Destaurian agents operating here.”
“Radovan wants none of us alive,” Elaina said.
“Yes, and had he been successful in blowing us to pieces,” Alethea said, “I have no doubt he would have completed the job and slaughtered our children as well. But since he didn’t kill us, he’s now taken the children. At least our young ones have a second chance.”
“He’ll use them as bait, of course,” Alessa said.
“That he will,” Alethea said. “I sense Jaimin knows about the children. Elaina, have you told him?”
“I have.”
“Contact him again. Tell him it’s a wagon he’s looking for, pulled by silver horses.”
High Minister Maugan came upstairs fifteen minutes later, having been released from detention. “I’ve spoken with my fellow ministers,” Maugan told the princesses. “Arra will have all the support she needs. Audicia will fight this menace with all our resources.”
As the wagon bounced along, the ten-year-old Celmarean girl Nikoleta quieted the other cold and confused children with a lullaby. With her back against the frozen wood wall of the enclosed cargo space, Nikoleta held the one-year-olds Kindol and Calin in her arms. Kindol’s older sister Kitan snuggled against her. Myrna and the teen brothers Isar and Duri lay unconscious, having been sedated and bound for the ride. Nikoleta sang:
Kitansi-i oe yikasi
Pamesi bansa d’ra,
Pikaratum arum sija
Kartum rusi pap-la.
Rira tala tala, rira tala tala, Ahia eum sasa,
Rira tala tala, rira tala tala, aimei korium kora.
Her parents had taught her many songs about love, family, and her homeland paradise somewhere over the sea. This song was about swallows building their nests in the limestone caves on Celmarea, and how they were driven in their daily tasks by the same divine spirit that steers the destiny of humans. Nikoleta’s voice was rich and sweet, her pitch perfect, her articulation precise.
Darodi-i teklarari
Uoni resnim tara,
Saientum ha…
Nikoleta stopped, because the wagon had stopped. Her heart started thumping.
Carefully, she set the infants down beside her. Battling with her full formal gown, she turned and got up onto her knees to peer through a space in the wood, so she could see what was happening up front.
In the light of her captors’ torches, she saw that fallen trees blocked the snow-clad road. The two Destaurian soldiers leading the convoy had dismounted and were investigating. One of the two wagon drivers sighed. Nobody was saying anything.
“Grre grre,” said Kindol, shattering the silence. Nikoleta stroked the baby’s head to quiet him down. He tugged at her long, exceedingly curly brown hair, until his sister, Kitan, intervened, peeling his hand from their guardian’s locks.
As Nikoleta watched, the soldiers reacted to something. They raised their bows, aiming into the blackness of the forest, but then they abruptly lowered their bows. One of them slowly crouched and dropped his bow to the ground, and then lifted his hands high. The other soldier did the same. The wagon drivers looked around in panic.
Next, everything flashed a brilliant white as flares spun out of the forest, landing on the snow-coated road. Nikoleta’s heart pounded even harder. She felt a lump rise into her throat. “Kneel!” came a voice from the trees.
The wagon wobbled as its drivers hopped down to the road, set down their torches and lamps, and placed their hands on their heads.
Dozens of men emerged from the trees, took hold of the Destaurians, and began to snap shackles on their wrists.
Just at the periphery of what she could see through the gap, Nikoleta watched a handsome young man step into the gleaming light of the flares, with his sword drawn. “Welcome to Arra,” he told the wagon drivers being restrained. “I am prince of this land.”
“It must be Jaimin,” Nikoleta whispered to the children beside her. “He’s come to rescue us!” Little Kitan was trying to see through another space in the wood, but she wasn’t tall enough.
Suddenly, one of the Destaurians about to be shackled lunged for Jaimin’s legs. Jaimin reacted by swiping his sword, slicing off both of the man’s arms at the elbows. Nikoleta winced in horror. The man fell sideways onto the snow, stunned into silence, with a look of agony on his face. Jaimin held the tip of his blade in the man’s face. The man squeezed closed his eyes, prepared to die. “Is this what you want?” Jaimin asked. “Death?”
The man shook his head.
“Then open your eyes,” Jaimin told him, and the man did. The man’s arm stumps were bleeding out. Sheathing his sword, Jaimin grasped the man’s arms and squeezed them to slow the flow of blood. An Arran soldier took over for the prince, while another went looking for the tourniquets.
Jaimin got up, wiped his bloody hands on his pants and walked out of Nikoleta’s view. Moments later, she heard someone slash open the lock on the wagon’s back doors, and with another jiggle of wood the doors opened. The Celmarean children stared.
“I’m Prince Jaimin of Arra,” said Jaimin, sheathing his sword again. “I’m a friend. I’ve been sent to rescue you.”
Nikoleta looked into Jaimin’s eyes, and then at the blood all over his hands, arms, and pants, and then at his eyes again. She was overwhelmed with joy at being saved, but she was even more overcome by the presence of a brave and amazingly handsome prince, who was speaking directly to her. All she could manage to say at first was: “Thanks.”
Nastasha handed Jaimin a rag to clean his hands better. Jaimin saw Myrna lying there against the teen boys.
“They’re sleeping, your…um…Royal Highness,” Nikoleta explained. “They’re drugged. Don’t worry, they’re not dead.”
Nastasha reached out to Kitan. “Come, little one,” she called. Kitan looked up at Nikoleta for permission, and seeing she had it, trundled the length of the wagon into Nastasha’s arms. Nikoleta picked up Kindol and Calin one by one and handed them out to the Arran soldiers. The babies were surprisingly quiet, transfixed by the flickering white glow of the flares. Jaimin hopped up into the back of the wagon.
“What about my parents? Were they hurt? Are they alive?” Nikoleta asked him. “We heard the explosion.”
“What’s your name?” Jaimin asked her.
“I’m Nikoleta,” said Nikoleta, “of Celmarea.” This made Jaimin smile. “My parents are Tasia and Alvar. You may know my uncle Talos better, or his brother Makias?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting any of them yet,” Jaimin said, “and I’m going to be very honest with you, Nikoleta, because you’re a big girl. We’ve had very few details from the north. But I have a strong feeling that everyone is safe.”
“Oh, thank you!” she said. She watched Jaimin clean the blood from between his bare fingers. “Why don’t you wear gloves?”
“I will if I must, but my sword is quite sharp,” Jaimin explained. “I’d hate to lose my grip on it. I just feel more comfortable if my skin is touching my sword…you know.”
“Well you’re going to freeze your hands off.”
“Nah. Stay back a bit,” Jaimin said. He drew his bloody sword again and carefully slit the bonds on the hands and feet of Myrna and the boys. He signaled
for soldiers outside to attend to the unconscious.
Nastasha helped both Nikoleta and Jaimin get down from the wagon.
“You’re a very brave girl,” Jaimin told Nikoleta.
“Will you marry me?” she asked abruptly.
Jaimin froze, terribly embarrassed, but an amused Nastasha answered for him: “The prince is to be wed to Princess Elaina.”
“Ah,” said Nikoleta, “how lucky for her.”
“Indeed,” said Nastasha.
“Nobody is going to marry anyone until we win this war, Miss Nikoleta of Celmarea,” Jaimin said. “I hope I can count on your help.”
“Oh, you can. I’m very responsible,” she said. “I’m a life saver at the beach in the summer. I saved seven lives last year. Gimme a tough job. I’m not afraid.”
“That’s the spirit we need,” Nastasha said.
CHAPTER SIX
H igh Minister Maugan asked the Celmarean priest Sima to interrogate King Seir. Sima had been the king’s finance minister, and good friend, for many years. It was thought that because of this relationship Sima would have easiest access to the king’s mind.
In the morning, Sima sent for Alethea and Elaina, and asked that they meet him at the justice hall near the palace to assist. Just outside the king’s detention cell, in an interview room lit only by dusty beams of sunlight from three tiny windows, Sima sat and conferred with the ladies. “Panuserea Keilanam,” he said, “seeing you fills me with joy.”
“And how I have missed you,” said the queen. Sima had been Alethea’s favorite instructor in the Celmarean academy. He and his wife Priestess Ariana were icons of sorts, beloved paragons of wisdom and trusted counselors for the entire community on the island.
“And you, Panei,” he said to Elaina. “Our new protector. ‘Hands of light,’ they are saying.”
“It’s really not my doing,” Elaina said, shyly.
“I know. I know,” the priest replied, twisting his grey beard. “You are a vessel. This power is not yours. But to be worthy of it—that is your accomplishment. Your mother would be proud.”
“You knew my mother?”
“Many of us did, little one,” Sima said. “It wasn’t so long ago. Well, a lifetime for you, but not for an old stone like me. Your mother, Andienna, was one of my most devoted students. She sought knowledge day and night. She learned things the others still have not.” He winked at Alethea, who gave him a slight smile. Elaina could tell there was a complex history unspoken here.
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