She placed three more diamonds into their holes before she remembered the still-asleep Fire Prince. She kicked him.
“Wake up, I need your help. Mind the edge, I don’t want you to fall after all.”
He cracked open an eye. “Huh?”
“I said to wake up and don’t fall off,” she repeated, kicking him again.
He slowly sat up and blearily blinked down at the camp that lay far too low beneath them. “I think I can see my house from here.”
“No, you can’t,” she informed him, kicking him a third time. “Your house is back on earth, and we’re in Klarand, and we need to fix this mosaic thing before the sun hits it, so I need your help.”
He turned to her. “Huh?”
She held up a diamond, then pointed to the wall. “From what I gather, we need to place these diamonds back into their holes before the sun hits it,” she explained. “I don’t know what’ll happen when it does, or if I’m completely right, but it’s better than just doing nothing, you know. Besides, with the way they’re just jumping back into their holes, I don’t think I’m wrong.”
That finally got through the Fire Prince’s thick skull, and he joined her. They didn’t talk between themselves as they worked on their puzzle, though she heard him muttering over how this shouldn’t be scientifically possible.
She considered reminding him that their whole trip to Klarand and experiences here shouldn’t be scientifically possible, but she was too busy working and thinking about getting back to the safe and solid ground.
Clara was concerned that some of the diamonds might be missing, but they managed to find a diamond for every hole. Just as the last diamond jumped into place, the sun arrived.
The effect was blinding, and even worse was the earthquake that immediately followed.
Andrew braced himself as the quake started, but he wasn’t prepared for the Water Princess’s attack. Not a violent one, by any stretch of the imagination, but as soon as the mountain began to move, she grabbed ahold of his arm and gripped it as though her life depended on it.
It was over within a minute, however, with the tinkling noise of diamonds falling out of the wall.
“All that work for nothing!” the Water Princess declared, spinning around to glare at it.
“Uh, Clara?” said Andrew, rubbing his arm.
She turned back towards him and rolled her eyes. “I told you I wasn’t a weakling,” she reminded him. “Now, let’s get back down this mountain. I’m tired of being up here, and it’s clearly pointless.”
“Uh, yeah,” Andrew agreed. He took a deep breath as he readjusted the ropes. “Down. I like the sound of that.”
“Race ya.” She was over the edge before he was ready.
Expectedly, she was the first one down, having had the head start. They were immediately met by the kids. Jasmine threw her arms around the Water Princess’s waist. “Oh, you’re back, you’re back!” she declared.
“Yeah, that we are,” said the Water Princess, returning the hug. “And I’ll admit that that is one experience that I wouldn’t like to repeat any time in the near future.”
“I guess that quake would have been pretty scary from all the way up there,” said Karlos.
“You felt it down here?” asked Andrew.
The kids nodded. “Come see what it did to the mountain!” Karlos declared, grabbing Andrew’s hand and pulling.
He and the Water Princess followed the pair. It wasn’t long before they came across a large cave opening that hadn’t been there the day before.
“It opened this morning, right as the mountain started to glow,” Jasmine explained, excitedly.
“That’s what the quake was,” Karlos added.
“Wow,” said the Water Princess.
“We’ve been packing for when you got down,” Karlos continued. “Since it’s down here, that means we can go with you. They’re packing right now, so that’s why they had us watching you two climb down, so we could tell you.”
Andrew glanced at the Water Princess, who nodded firmly and announced. “Good, I wasn’t looking forward to traveling through the mountain alone with the Fire Prince.”
“Why not?” asked Jasmine.
“Because I’d miss you, that’s why,” said the Water Princess, patting the girl on the head and shooting Andrew a glare. “Now, let’s go see what we can do to help with the packing. I don’t quite trust that opening, and I don’t want it to close while we’re not looking.”
Andrew wasn’t as suspicious as she was, but he agreed that it was a good idea for them to get into that mountain as soon as possible. Packing was almost taken care of already, and within the hour they all were loaded up and assembled at the mouth of the cave. The horses had already been set loose to fend for themselves.
As Andrew and the Water Princess stepped inside, the mountain began to rumble again. Everyone else hurried, but the mountain closed quickly. Not everyone made it into the mountain.
Once the mountain settled down, they did a head count. Andrew and the Water Princess were there, of course, as well as Abraham, Jakob, Karlos, Jill Anna, and Jasmine. None of the soldiers that had accompanied the Water Princess from the Upper castle made it.
“Well, no turning back now,” Andrew declared. “The only thing now is to keep going.”
Clara followed the flickering light of the torch, already missing the bright sunshine. She was the Water Princess, however, and, as such, it was beneath her to complain. Besides, she had Jasmine’s hand held tightly within hers. She had to be brave for the girl.
“Oh, look at that, a bug,” she observed, as she noticed a big purple beetle the size of her hand scurry past. “And there’s another one,” she added, as another went a different direction.
Jasmine giggled and gave Clara’s hand a big squeeze, but at that very moment, there was a cry behind them. Not quite a scared cry, but more like a war cry.
The whole party turned to see Jill Anna crouched down, knife in hand, one of the purple bugs skewered at the end of it, a wild light in her eyes that Clara had never seen there before. With a quick motion, she dabbed a finger in the green slime that oozed out and placed it on her tongue, making a face. Then she pulled a cloth from her belt and wiped it off.
She glanced up and noticed her audience. For a moment, she seemed to panic, but then she narrowed her eyes. “Keep moving,” she ordered, as she climbed to her feet. “Don’t let them bite you. They’re deadly poisonous. Don’t worry about me. I’m—” Her voice faltered a moment. “I’m a Bug Child. I may get very sick, but I won’t die from their bites.”
Clara had never seen the girl like this, but this clearly wasn’t the time to ask questions. She grabbed Jasmine by the shoulder, turned them both around, and kept moving, as did everyone else. Jill Anna darted in and out, weaving among them, every few seconds letting out another cry as she killed another one of the bugs.
“Water Princess,” Jasmine spoke up, after a few seconds. “What’s a Bug Child?” Her voice was small, scared, and confused.
“I have no idea,” said Clara, giving the girl’s hand a squeeze.
At last, however, Jill Anna announced, “We can stop now. I haven’t seen any for a while.”
It was decided that this was as good a spot as any for them to set up camp for the night – not that they knew it was night, but they had to sleep sometime. Clara did what she could to help, but then she noticed Jill Anna sitting off in the shadows, staring at the knife she still held in her hands. Glancing about, she decided that they could do without her for a while and that the seamstress needed a listening ear.
“What’s a Bug Child?” she asked, sitting down beside her.
Jill Anna was quiet for several moments, then tugged up her sleeve. In all the time Clara had known the girl, Jill Ann had never exposed the skin besides her face and hands, even on the warmer spring days, and Clara now saw why. Her arm was dotted with tiny x-shaped scars.
“Ia beetles have a deadly bite with no known antidote,” Jill Anna explained, rubbing at one of the scars. “They aren’t native to Klarand, and it’s suspected that it was Amber herself who set them loose in our castles. It was from their bites that King Damask and Queen Evelyn perished. They were a terrible menace until someone discovered that children between the ages of five and six, if bitten enough, would develop an immunity. I – I don’t know how the discovery was made, I’ve never asked, but instead of immunizing their own children, as they could have so easily done, the leaders collect children from the surrounding villages and train them to hunt them down and kill them. Bug Children.”
“That’s terrible,” Clara breathed.
Jill Anna nodded. “That’s why I insisted that my parents not send Jasmine to the castle until she was six,” she added. “Because I didn’t want her to follow my fate. To become a Bug Child, it means you practically don’t exist anymore. You’re not supposed to be seen, barely get to eat, and you hide in the shadows the bugs themselves love.”
“But you’re a seamstress,” Clara pointed out.
“I’m one of the few girls who has been able to get a second job,” said Jill Anna, with a shake of her head. “Boys, well, once they get too big, they’re moved into the army, but girls aren’t so lucky. If I wasn’t so good with the needle, I’d still be in the shadows. But even so, I still keep my knife, and I’m still expected to kill any that I see, and to keep up my immunity by, well, you saw, with the slime.” She shuddered
“But you weren’t in the shadows anymore,” said Clara, reaching over and rubbing at one of Jill Anna’s scars. “You were here, and because of that, well, you may have just saved our lives, Jill Anna.”
“I wish it could have been someone else,” she said, with a shake of her head. “I’ve never asked for this sort of thing. I want a simple life.”
“Alphego placed you here with us,” Clara contradicted. “Just like He chose me to be the Water Princess. You might not like it, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But, honestly, Klarand could use some serious child labor laws.”
“I didn’t always mind,” Jill Anna admitted. “I never exactly liked killing the bugs, but I did enjoy the sneaking and the hiding – I still feel far more at home in rafters than on the ground, to tell the truth. But then … I saw a different life. I always knew that I didn’t want this life for Jasmine, but I suddenly realized that I wanted more for myself as well.”
“And are you content as a seamstress?” Clara pointed out.
“I try to be.”
“It was Jakob, wasn’t it? Jakob represents the life you wish you had,” Clara realized.
Jill Anna shook her head. “Perhaps so, Water Princess, but that life is unattainable for me. I thought that becoming a seamstress meant that I could put the life a Bug Child behind me, and I’ve tried so very hard to do so, but I can’t. I’ll always be a Bug Child. It’ll always be my job to kill any of the Ia beetles that I see. I’ll always have this poison coursing through my veins.”
“I don’t know that Jakob would shun you just because of that,” Clara pointed out. “From what I can tell of him, he likes a girl with a bit of a wild side.”
Jill Anna shook her head. “No, Water Princess. You do me no service by encouraging hopes that can never be attained.”
Clara sighed and stood up. “Fine, suit yourself, but please stop throwing a pity party. How many of us would have died today had you not been here?”
Jill Anna didn’t answer.
They set out again early the next morning – early as in soon after Clara woke up. They made good progress until they ran into a dead end.
Chapter 6
Andrew grew tired just watching the Water Princess pace. They were stuck again, and this time without a forest behind them that she could explore, trees to shoot, and room to practice with her sword. So she paced instead, snapping at anyone who interrupted her.
They’d explored the whole tunnel to see if there was a passage that they’d missed, even taking Jill Anna through the bug-infested portion, but the walls were solid the whole way through. There wasn’t another way for them to go.
“I think you’re going to wear a groove into the floor,” Andrew observed, the third day they’d been stuck there. He was so tired of watching and hearing her, he was willing to take her snap.
“Maybe that’s the way out,” she informed him, whirling around and leaning against the wall. “Wear a hole in the ground until we fall through. I mean, do you have anything better for me to do?”
“Ah, maybe sit down and give your legs a break,” Andrew suggested. “Wearing grooves has to be a tiring business.”
She shrugged. “I’m bored right now. Moving makes me less so.”
“How about talking?” Andrew suggested.
“What would I talk about? I believe we’ve exhausted pretty much every topic we have in our arsenal.”
And she was pretty much right. They had already discussed their parents, friends, siblings and lack thereof, interests, skills, and many other things besides. A few days before, Andrew had been amused to learn that she couldn’t cook anything more complicated than a bowl of cereal or a sandwich.
He grasped about for a topic in which she might be interested. “How about the circus?” he suggested. “I don’t believe we’ve talked about that before.”
Her eyebrow flickered. “No, guess we haven’t,” she admitted. “Why would we want to talk about it? I hear that they don’t have them here in Klarand. It’s a shame, but they’re a dying art even in our own world.”
“I bet you’d be great in one,” Andrew mentioned.
“I was, once, when I was a kid,” she admitted. “Risby circus. Daring feats of skill and bravery that left crowds gasping.” Her eyes shone with the memory, before they narrowed, a frown forming. “But it folded; society just wasn’t willing to put up with small circuses anymore.”
“Risby?” Andrew repeated.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” she said, tossing her hair. “Your mother was in the costume department. My parents still have some that she made. I wear them sometimes. They’re nice.”
Andrew slowly blinked, processing the mental image of the Water Princess in a leotard that popped into his head and banishing it as soon as he realized it was there. “Yeah, she was, until she married my dad. He just wasn’t very good at the whole circus business, and more interested in down to earth science. Her parents all-but disowned her for marrying my dad.”
“It’s a pity. She was one of the best.” The Water Princess sat down cross-legged in front of him. “There are days that I wish the circus was still going,” she admitted. “Traveling all the time, performing. The costumes. But I enjoy our fitness center as well, and they’re just so much easier to maintain in this economy, with people more interested in improving their own health and fitness than watching us stretch ours to our limits.”
“So, what did your parents do that led them to the sword and martial arts?”
“Trapeze,” the Water Princess informed him. “Mom’s family had been with Risby for three generations, Dad’s was new from another circus that had just folded. Being oriental, Risby thought they’d attract more crowds.” She shrugged. “There was quite a feud between the families for several years until Dad’s family returned to China. I think it had something to do with Mom and Dad falling in love, since they left him behind. And, no, I have no idea how it led to the current skills they teach.”
“Do they still do trapeze?” Andrew asked.
She nodded. “Oh, yes, and I love watching them. They teach it too.”
“You must be good at it as well.”
Her brow creased, and she appeared about to answer, then she glanced away. “You know, there’s something that’s been bothering me ever since I read the legend of Alphego’s Hill,” she mentioned.
Andrew frowned slightly at her change of subject, but decided to go with it. “What?” he asked.
“The Ten, their names match
our parents, and that of Kath’s and Rhoda’s,” she answered. “As well as their talents. My parents, Anselle and Isabelle, match with Prince Anselle and Princess Isabelle of Upper Klarand, who wielded martial arts and the sword. Kath’s parents would be King Klaranse and Queen Andrea, who were skilled with the bow and gymnastics, and then Rhoda’s parents are named Aaron and Leah and would match with the Prince and Princess of Ea Klarand, who were skilled with running and swimming. And now we have your parents, Theodore and Renee, who’d match with the Prince and Princess of Lower Klarand, who chose knowledge and sewing.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes as he processed that. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It does sound very similar to them. And let me add one more: my best friend, Kevin’s parents are Steven and Jenna, who would match with the Prince and Princess of Wea Klarand, who chose tracking and horse training.”
The Water Princess frowned harder. “Do you think that they were them?”
“I don’t know what to think,” said Andrew, shaking his head. “But you’re right, they sound a lot alike, even to the fact that Renee and Leah were sisters. And Mr. Eaglechaser has a brother and sister named David and Helen, who would match two of the Eight.” He frowned, as he considered their spouses and in-laws. “They’d definitely match the Eight.”
“It would be seriously weird,” she decided. “Because that would make Jakob my nephew, many generations down, and I never expected to ever be an aunt.” She tugged at one of the braids Jasmine had put in her hair that morning. “And that’s weird too, because the Isabelle of the legend had twelve kids, while my mom only had me. She wanted more, though, but couldn’t have them.”
“Isabelle of the legends had mostly boys,” Andrew commented.
The Water Princess nodded. “She did. And it’s the funniest thing, but I invented some imaginary siblings for myself as a kid, mostly older brothers, to make her feel better. And every one of them shared a name with one of Princess Isabelle’s kids. Haven’t thought about them in a long time, but it’s a very interesting coincidence.”
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