1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of Air: Book #5, Chronicles of Marsdenfel

Year 232 of the Bynding - The Realm of Salles, Autumn - post 1

A chill nips the air, and Lallie hauls some wood from downstairs to add to the fire on the hearth.

"I made a flower," says Aidan, younger son of Aldrik and Mataine, as he holds out the folded-up paper. Mataine didn't say why she suddenly dropped him off with me this morning, for the first time in the few months I've been here, but his head stays down.

I smile and reach for the paper flower. He flinches. I stop midmotion.

"Aidan?" I ask softly.

Without lifting his chin, he glances up at me, at the flower, and the fire...and finally looks at me again. He sticks the paper flower in my hand and dives around me for the rug.

I consider the paper and the way he eyed the fire. "Aidan, is someone burning your presents?"

He avoids looking at me, which is answer enough.

It's a pity, because the paper flower shows he has skill that way, butthe art of folding is all too vulnerable to destruction. Perhaps he has an interest that's better suited to his grandmother and brother?

"You make very pretty flowers," I say gently. "Is there something else you enjoy doing?"

"Hen tried to make me sleep."

I freeze, in motion and temperature. "Hen?"

"His brother," Lallie says, and something about her tone makes me glance at her. The montai girl is crouched by the fire, facing us, looking as if she's ready to lunge between us and whoever's after Aldrik. "Prince Henrik try t' make you sleep? How?"

Little Aidan looks at her, then stares at me, expression solemn. Silence drags on for a time that feels far too long. "She looked like you."

She? "Who did? Looked like me how?"

Creator, please don't let Tully be here.

"The girl," Aidan said. "The girl who stopped Henrik."

I glance at Lallie, and the girl's expression says she understands more than I wish she did. "Stopped Henrik from putting you to sleep?" It's difficult, with the baby growing larger by the week, but I manage to sit by him and trust that Lallie will help me when I need to get up. "How did she look like me?"

The little boy avoids my gaze and shrugs. "On."

"On what?" Lallie asks.

"Her name was On."

Ice flashes through my body, and I know who stopped Henrik from killing his brother...and who doubtless healed whatever injury the boy received.

"Onlé."

It comes out hoarse. I try to reach some water.

Lallie fetches the container for me. "Who's Onlé?"

I swallow hard, sip some water. Creator help me-will saving my daughter, saving my people, cost my cousin her daughter, as well? "A girl Prince Henrik's age. Her grandmother is montai."

Lallie flinches, as on edge about that now as she was last season, when I came here.

I sigh. "She shouldn't be here. Darnell will-"

A commotion just outside the building catches my ear. The three of us hold our tongues, and a familiar-sounding rap and yell come from the door downstairs. "Nonsire!"

Wight, calling her friend that so anyone eavesdropping won't be able to track down who, specifically, is being spoken of.

Lallie gives me, gives Aidan, scrutiny that says she doesn't want to leave.

"Go," I encourage her. "See what she wants."

As if she'd been waiting for permission, Lallie bounds down the stairs and crashes into something. Aidan and I both wince.

The outer door opens, voices ensue, and promptly thereafter things return to normal...except the tread coming up the stairs isn't Lallie.

Wight enters without the girl who's appointed herself my guard. The slave girl's teal wrapping does little to hide the fact that she's still just a child, but her expression looks far older.

She sees Aidan and halts midstep. After a moment, she bobs a little. "H'ness."

Prince Aidan just stares at her.

Wight's gaze doesn't leave the prince. "Word is that Darnell sold a girl for refusing to admit what she knew about how his insane sister escaped her caregivers. The girl got away and came to Salles, looking for the sister to warn her. Instead she found the princes, one of them trying to kill the other. She saved Prince Aidan, but the Queen's Own-the illegal militia that serves the queen consort-caught the girl, and Her Majesty is shipping the girl back to Grehafen."

The room might as well be an icebox, for all the heat I feel.

"Lallie doesn't know. The girl who saved him-word is she's montai, and that would just make Lallie upset and cause her to fret."

"Vanatí," I add softly.

Wight finally looks at me. "What?"

I swallow and pray that Tully never finds out about this or whatever Darnell is about to do to her ten-year-old daughter in punishment for making a fool out of him.

And, although I trust Wight enough to believe she'll never willingly or wittingly reveal anything I tell her, I'm not about to burden her or her master with yet another reason for Darnell to seek their deaths. Instead of clarifying that I meant the girl being spoken of is montai and vanatí both, I answer quietly, "Onlé. Her name is Onlé."

"Oh." Wight considers my words, possibly parsing the meaning of the girl's name. "Thank you."

I close my eyes and breathe deeply and wonder if it's selfish of me to wish for all the hurt and pain to be over, already.

But then, there's the prophecy Mataine told me. Regardless of how long things take, of how old my daughter is before she fulfills her destiny of freeing Marsdenfel, neither she nor I will live long enough to see the matter through to the end.

"Sad?" Aidan says.

I plod over to the chair Wight and her master were kind enough to provide for me, and I slowly sit down. I put my arm out towards Aidan in a wordless offer for him to come get a hug, if he desires one.

As he comes to me to take me up on it, Wight starts to leave-then stops at the door. "Lallie will be back shortly. I sent her on an errand. Is there anything you want sent to you?"

The young prince crawls up and curls against my side and stomach. He buries his head in my bodice, and his shoulders start to shudder. It only takes moments for the tears to seep through my dress.

"Your Maj'sty? Can I send you anything?"

I rub the prince's back and wonder when, precisely comforting a victim of attempted murder became normal for me. "No, thank you."

She leaves.