The Adventure of Fel

chapter six

       "Red."

       So quiet I'm not sure I heard her right.

       "What?" 

       She lifts her head and looks me in the eyes. 

      "Red," she repeats, her voice forceful. "There's a lot of red. Dusty red grounds, red sunsets, red buildings. The ruler lives in the Red Palace. Queen Sarah always wore this bright red headscarf. It was so beautiful, decorated with all these shiny diamonds. When I was little I tried to make my own, though I didn't have any jewels, just beads. Queen Sarah smiled at me once. I was nine, I think, and I went to stand outside of the palace gates to see if I could catch a glimpse of her. I had gotten up early and walked for nearly an hour. I was so tired I began to fall asleep. I closed my eyes for who knows how long, and when I opened them, there she was.

       "She was right there, on the other side of the fence. She was crouched down in front of me, so close I could have touched her. I immediately stood up and did the heilige"   - she makes a motion with her hands, pointing at me and then at the sky - "And then she did it back to me.  I was an eight year old common girl, and she, the Queen,  wished the stars would bless me. I was so shocked it made her laugh. Then she bent down and picked a tiny yellow flower from the ground  - there's a garden outside the palace, you see - and handed it to me through the fence. I said thank you and she nodded and kept walking. She walked with so much dignity. She ruled with so much care. And now..." 

       "What about now?" I whisper fiercely, desperate for knowledge. "Why is your land in a civil war?" There's a pause as Pippa stares ahead, at the wall behind the desk. 

       "That...is harder to understand," she says, words chosen carefully. Her tears are gone, dried up by the heat of the anger that now burns in her eyes. "There were murders, the first of which happened a month before I left for Burr. A whole string of them."

       "Murder?" I gasp. The Lands have claimed peace for almost two decades now since the production of weapons for commoners was stopped right before I was born. "How?"

       "I'm not exactly sure. The palace guards were so secretive about everything, like they figured the less people knew, the less they would worry. But that's not how people work. When people don't know, they fill in the gaps themselves with whatever they can find. After the first couple murders happened and the palace didn't release any news, people began pointing fingers at the Queen, claiming she was the murderer."

       "Why would a Queen kill her own people?"

       "Beats me," Pippa says with a snort. "But that's what people said. And those who believed it formed one side, those who didn't formed another. That's when I left. And about a week into my time at Elements, I received news from my parents that Queen Sarah had disappeared."

       "Disappeared?" I gape. "Like she was kidnapped?"

       "No," Pippa says. "Not with all that security. It's more likely she ran."

        "Ran? Do you think she was guilty?"

        "No!" Pippa shouts. I jerk back. Pippa stares right into my eyes, no matter how hard I try to look anywhere else.

       "I don't know why my queen ran, but I know she wasn't guilty." 

        I breathe heavily, scared yet invigorated. I forget where we are, what we're doing. All I see is a person so filled with passion she could burst. It fills me, too, with passion, though for what I'm not sure. I feel an ache in my chest. I want something to be that passionate about. I want to feel the fire in my eyes.