Two-hundred-fifty-seven kids were chasing the soccer ball around the basement. I kept insisting we call it a basement, but let’s face it – no matter how I tried to clean it up and put a new smile on it, it was a dank dungeon. The undernourished children running around and giggling through it only made the image more stark in my mind. Some were from the outlying provinces that had risked everything – even their health – to stand apart from Morgan. Others were refugees from Provinces 1 or 2, and were well-fed, strong children. When Morgan had absorbed the other provinces, she gave them plots of land farther from the castle, which is where she’d stowed her Jewels of Good Fortune. So while they were provided for, their gardens were vastly different than those belonging to the original Province 1. It was hard to watch two nine-year-old boys playing together, one from Province 1 and the other from Province 8, their two sizes completely opposite. Yet they played together without division, laughing as if the life before this had not existed, and had no bearing on the fun they were determined to milk out of the dungeon. Only pure souls could see a dungeon and make it sing for them, but I guess that’s the beauty of children.
Watching them play, I felt lucky to get to see such unity, kindness and sheer joy. People underestimate the value of play, but I’ve learned that you can’t make that mistake in life. I don’t know when adults go through that phase of forgetting their basest instinct, sacrificing it for the glory of achievement, but the very thought made me a little sad for the loss of the inner child in most adults.
The evening was setting in, which was when the kitchen staff usually came down with cookies and fresh milk for every single child. Faith, Hope and Mercy loved doting on the kids. They chortled often, shaking their enormous breasts and bellies with joy that came easy to them, now that Lane was back. Sometimes they even joined us and kicked the ball around, much to the merriment of the children. The sisters hadn’t come down yet, but perhaps they hadn’t felt like baking cookies tonight. Bastien had been mildly agitated that morning, checking over his shoulder and rechecking the mansion to make sure everything was secure. Perhaps he’d just needed a cookie.
Let’s face it, I wanted a cookie. Or truly, like a hundred. The sisters made the perfect Parisian macarons, colored every hue in the rainbow, and flavored with just as much variety. Once they learned that I was enraptured with their macarons, a plate found its way to my bedroom every night with my tea tray. It’s probably not totally healthy to eat ten cookies before bed, but I couldn’t help myself. They didn’t hold back, but flavored them with every weird thing they could get their hands on. My favorite so far was the coconut lime one, followed closely by the cayenne chocolate. I did not care for the black licorice variety, but muscled my way through it with a smile for the ladies who doted on my family.
I may not be able to keep track of the time all that well, but my stomach grumbled when the cookies did not appear during their usual time.
“Princess, is it getting late?” David asked me. David was the oldest of the teens who’d been sent to play in the dungeon with me. He was fourteen, and most of his friends were working the field with their parents. David had seven brothers and sisters, all younger, so he was their official shepherd, and my right-hand man down here when the kids needed wrangling. I’d probably bitten off more than I could chew. I’d envisioned a dozen or so kids I’d be watching, but it turned into two-hundred-fifty-seven children tonight. So many had signed up, that we did rotations, so every kid got to come one day a week, rotating out for five days straight. I told the parents that I could only take kids from age five and up, but perhaps I should’ve also asked for volunteers to help me. David was a good assistant, though.
“It is a little late, but it’s probably because your parents all decided to get as much done as possible to make up for the blackout and rainy days. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
David bobbed his midnight-hued hair and went back to playing with the children. He always stayed near me, making himself my unofficial sentry. It was adorable.
Since the cookies were late tonight, I wondered if I should just dismiss the kids and take them all upstairs to wait for their parents without their usual treat. Avalon kids weren’t spoiled at all, and had been introduced to hard farm labor early on in their lives. To be given cookies and play time did all of them a world of good. They were so grateful for the relief, that there were minimal bickering fights.
My mind wandered often to my dad, and I wondered how irresponsible it would be of me to sneak upstairs and check on him. “Pretty irresponsible,” I guessed, so I stayed put with the kids.
Babette came up to me and tugged on my thermal shirt sleeve after I kicked the ball to Selina. I knelt down so I was closer to her height. “Hey, girly. What can I do for you?”
Babette was five, and while I tried not to have favorites, I had a soft spot for this one. She’d suffered some kind of illness when she’d been a baby, leaving her blind in her left eye. Consequently, she had a more difficult time when we all played together. It was hard not to fall in love with Bastien when he took breaks from working outside to come downstairs and carry her around on his shoulders. Link and Draper sometimes joined us too, wrestling the boys, rolling around on the ground, and basically whipping the kids up into a frenzy. Mad was terrified of children, and gave the dungeon a wide berth whenever soccer clinics were in session.
“I think we’re missing something,” she said, her milky eye staring off to the side while her right eye was laser sharp on me. I wondered if I’d been similarly cute and pitiful as a wonky-eyed child. Of course, I’d had a hump to go with my lazy eye, so I’m guessing Babette was slightly cuter than I’d been.
My mouth drew to the side. “Hmm. I think you’re right. I think Hope, Mercy and Faith might’ve forgotten about the cookies tonight. Oh, rats.” I made a show of displaying how to throw a controlled fit.
She mimicked my downward fist that cut across my body, and my frown. “Oh, rats. Do you think they need help in the kitchen? I’m real good at helping.”
I smirked at her. “I bet you are. Helpers are my favorite kind of people.”
Babette beamed at me. “Princesses are my favorite kind of people.” She seemed to travel with her own light source, her sweetness taking all the bad in the world and dissolving it one smile at a time. She twirled her long brown hair around her finger and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.
“Well then that settles it; we were meant to be friends.”
It didn’t take much for the children to throw themselves into a hug. The teenagers had a harder time, but after a few days of soccer and cookies, their tough outer shells began to crumble, making them just as sweet and precious as the younger kids.
David trotted up to me, still giving me a slight bow before addressing me, as society dictated. “Your majesty, I think I hear something coming from up the stairs.” David’s face looked worried, so I kissed Babette’s forehead and moved to the bottom of the steps to see what I could make out that was troubling David.
David followed me, his dark eyebrows pushed together in concern. His finger tapped to the wall of the stairwell in a steady thrum that sounded like a downbeat of a hard rock song. “Do you hear that?”
I strained, and then nodded. “What is it?”
Just then, Reyn burst through the door above us that separated the dungeon from the rest of the mansion. “Rosie, take the children into the keep! I’m sending the rest of the kids in the province down to you!”
“What?” I went from teaching soccer to hitting a peak of anxiety. Luckily, my nerves were slowly growing accustomed to the swing of the highs and lows the longer I lived in Avalon. “What’s going on?”
Reyn didn’t bother explaining, but repeated his command. “The keep! Go down there with all the children and don’t come out until one of us comes to get you. Hurry!” As he spoke, dozens, and then hundreds of children came thundering down the steps in various stages of fright. Soon I lost count of how many were under my care.
“I don’t have cribs!”
“It’s okay. We’ll line them up along the wall. It’s safer in here like this than out there.”
I whirled around, my mind going into overdrive. I didn’t have the luxury of freaking out; we were in some sort of danger. I slipped into my danger-mode persona.
David was at my side, and Babette followed close on my heels. I clapped my hands three times to garner everyone’s attention. “Okay, everyone! Uncle Reyn needs us to take a little trip further back. I want all of you to hold a hand and form a chain. Quick as you can, now. That means every single person is holding two hands. Older kids, make sure you link up with two of the younger ones. There are more of them, and they need you.”
I’m not sure what I would’ve done without David. He barked out orders and made sure my command was carried out to a T. He met my eyes with a grave nod that told me something terrible was happening outside. I scooped up Babette and jogged along the quickly formed chain.
Some of the younger children started to cry, but I kept a brave smile on my face as I snatched the lantern off the hook on the wall. “David, can you take the rear and make sure we don’t leave anyone behind?”
“Yes, your majesty!” David called, his chest puffing with pride that he’d been given such an important role. He turned the lanterns off along the way, leaving a trail of tears and darkness behind us as we journeyed into the belly of the keep.
Pretty Pictures in the Orc War
I didn’t want to be scared, but there was no helping the anxiety that thrummed in my veins. I wanted to call for Bastien, but the fact that Reyn had been sent to warn us meant that Bastien already had his hands full. With what? I was afraid to find out.
I’d done a more thorough job cleaning the dungeon than I’d done with the keep, since we hadn’t intended on putting it to use. The hallway that was at first concrete and relatively room-temperature turned into dirt floors with a chill in the dank air that you couldn’t shake. I was scared that babies were put in their swaddled blankets on the floor, lined up like little hot dogs, side-by-side. They were sleeping, but I wondered how long that would last. I tried to keep my smile plastered on my face, but Babette started trembling on my hip, and I almost lost it. I didn’t like when she was scared. She’d already been through so much.
Reyn and I had removed the larger spider webs and did a half-job of sweeping the packed-dirt floor, but we hadn’t figured we’d ever need to use the underground hiding spot that was meant to hide the women and children while the men fought to defend their province.
The open room of the keep was really a better place to play soccer, with only a few pillars to interrupt the field. It was the size of two soccer arenas side-by-side. However, there was an ominous gloom about the keep. It felt somehow disrespectful to play games on ground that had seen untold terror. Not that a dungeon was much better.
“You guys are amazing! Let’s all line up along the far wall over here and have a seat. I need to do another count and make sure we’re all here.”
I tried not to let anyone see my hand shaking as I patted each child on the head when I made my way down the row. I didn’t want them to notice how fake my smile was, or hear the tremor in my voice. I wanted to reassure them. I wanted to reassure myself.
One of the little boys who was all knees, elbows and giant eyes whimpered up at me as I passed him, “Are we going to die?”
I rolled my shoulders back and looked him straight in the eye with a gentle smile. “Of course not. This is good practice for if anything bad should ever happen to Province 9. You’re with me, hun. Do you really think I’d let anything happen to my kids? You guys are on my soccer team. That’s like, sacred. No one messes with a team.”
I tried not to panic when I started my count of all the kids. Each of them kept their backs pressed to the walls, their legs extended while I tapped them each on the top of their heads. A few of the teenagers offered to corral the toddlers over in the corner, so they could play or be held without having to obey stodgy rules like “sit still”. It took a while, but the kids remained patient until I reached the end of the line, adding up each of the four-thousand-eight-hundred-fifty children, plus five-hundred-ninety-seven snoozing babies.
If ever there was a time to freak out, this would be the moment.
Without a word, David met my eyes and moved toward the two-story-tall double doors we’d passed through. There were three sets of thick doors, actually, and he helped me bolt each one of them. We were trying to be brave for each other, but neither of us bought the act.
I brought him in for a hug before we rounded the corner to face the kiddos again. “I need your help keeping the children calm. Can you do that?”
“I can do anything you ask me to, Princess.”
I rallied at his bravery, reminding myself that we were safe in the keep. It was here for a reason: to keep us from danger. I swallowed hard as a grim list of various types of danger flickered through my mind. Almost everyone I loved was out there, stuck in the middle of an Orc war (or something equally terrifying), and I couldn’t protect them.
But I could protect the children Province 9 trusted me to watch over.
I put on my biggest smile and moved back out into the open floorplan, nearing the lamp light so they could all see me. “Okay, everyone, I think we should try writing our names in the dirt. I know most of you, but there are some new faces today.” I couldn’t actually read what they wrote, but it was something to occupy the time. Fear only brewed in situations like this if there wasn’t a decent distraction.
David put his back to the kids so he could whisper privately to me. “I’ll go get the weapons for the older kids.”
“What? I don’t know, David. I don’t want to scare anyone.”
“Being afraid is better than being dead. If we’ve been sent to the keep, there’s no one too young to fight for their lives.”
I hated how old he sounded. His battle wisdom wasn’t that much different than Bastien’s, but David still had an awkward squeak to his voice every now and then, and no facial hair marring his baby face. “You’re fourteen,” I muttered, sad beyond words.
“That’s old enough to defend my family.” He jerked his chin in the direction of his buddies, and five teens ran off after him.
The totally awesome activity of writing their names in the dirt took all of one minute. Then they were all blinking up at me with teary eyes, some of them crying for their parents. I slapped my hands together and pointed to the corner in the vast room that was furthest from the doors. “I think this place needs a little TLC. Who’s good at drawing?”
Like clockwork, every single child’s hand went up.
“Awesome! Let’s start in that far corner, and I want you to cover every inch of this ugly floor with beautiful drawings. I know Duchess Lane is working hard to make sure we’re safe, so I want you all to make her something pretty to show her how grateful we are. Sound good?”
There were various noises of assent muddled in with the tears, but they all moved to the wall that was an entire soccer field away, and started drawing with their fingers into the dirt.
I nearly lost my shiz when the six teenagers made it to the far wall, and started disappearing in the middle of it. I squinted, and then realized they’d gone into a cleverly hidden cabinet. The cement walls had a concealed tunnel, which was where the spare weapons were stored. They came back one by one, armed with spears, daggers, leather breastplates that were far too large and cumbersome, and synchronized expressions of doom they accepted without a tear.
I’d never known bravery like that from kids so young, but I vowed I wouldn’t let them down. I kept my chin high and thanked David politely when he handed me a sword. It would probably do more damage to me
than offering any real protection.
But I didn’t need protection. Everything would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
The Cold Heart of an Immortal
When Kerdik appeared out of thin air, the children – who had been quietly drawing in the dirt and calming themselves down – all screamed in unison. He was carrying my father’s body, which didn’t look quite as kempt as it had when I’d last seen him. My hand barely made it to my mouth in time to muffle my scream of distress at seeing my dad so worn. The children backed away into the far corner, most of them bursting into terrified tears at the sight of the revered monster they’d been taught to fear from birth.
“Kerdik! What’s going on up there? Why are we down here?”
Kerdik’s eyes were wild, which was never a good sign. “I need to store Urien’s body with you in the keep. He’s not awake yet, but the spell worked!” He carefully lowered my dad’s body to the dirt.
I couldn’t hear my father shouting in agony, which was the first time in four days he’d not been howling. “Oh, he’s not crying out anymore! That’s good news, right?”
“Very good news. I wasn’t sure, but to have you confirm it takes a load off my mind.”
It was then I realized Kerdik was sweating. “That’s great! Sweetie, did you maybe overuse your magic a little? You’re not looking so hot.”
I heard a man moaning in agony, but Kerdik was the only guy there. Then it dawned on me that the cries were coming from my father’s closed lips. I gasped and dropped to my knees, scooping up his hand so I could hold it to my cheek. It wasn’t an urgent plea for help, but more the groanings of someone who had gone through too strenuous a workout.
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