Something pounds against my door. I jolt awake, pulse racing, and jump to my feet as the wood cracks.
A dayroom is draped over the stool in the far corner of my bedroom. I hadn’t paid enough attention to notice it before, but now I snatch it as a way to further cover myself from whoever’s intruding. My hands shake, I struggle to breathe, and cold overwhelms me.
The door gives way in a mess of splinters and wood—and a girl who lands sprawled in the midst of it.
Lallie scrambles to her feet, seeming to not even feel the splinters and scrapes. “Majesty!” she blurts between gasps. “’Er Own—they—”
“Nonsire!” Mataine barks from the other room.
At the sound, my chest tightens further, and Lallie whips around to face him, poised as if she actually knows a little of how to fight.
The princess consort steps into view, and her eyebrows are slightly raised at the girl for a blink before she recovers her usual poise and addresses me: “Bluebell learned you’re here.”
I cough a little, trying to get enough air to speak. “I didn’t realize I needed to avoid her.” Else I wouldn’t have gone to fetch my own meal, this morning.
She scowls. “I didn’t, either. Bluebell is no fool. She knows full well that hiding you is in the realm’s best interests in the long term—but that long term will also come into effect after she’s dead, and apparently she resents her son enough to want to wreck my life.”
My father, for all his faults, hadn’t intended to kill my mother or destroy me.
“What about your son?” I ask. “I thought she liked your heir.”
Lallie, still standing between us, doesn’t quite manage to hide her snort.
“Yes, Nonsire?”
The girl flinches but rallies herself. “She be using him t’ hurt his da an’ destroy what he builds. His Highness want folk like me t’ be safe. She don’t.”
Since the girl is trying to hide that she’s an elemental, I wonder how, precisely, she’s defining ‘folk like me’.
Mataine addresses her: “Is your friend ready to hide Queen Endellion?”
Lallie tilts her head. She studies the princess consort for a few seconds…possibly noticing that the woman’s behaving inconsistently with her presumed hatred of me. “They be waiting on the warder.”
Mataine’s scowl deepens, and she looks towards the door. She turns back to us, and her lips press into a line. “Which property will Barun be using? The new one?”
Lallie stumbles a half-step back in her surprise. “You know ’im?”
“Never met him,” she retorts, tone repressive. “He’s an ondine. If growing up in the Pardys Isles as a mundane taught me anything, it’s to know who the elementals are.”
Lallie winces.
Mataine continues, as if she didn’t notice, “Is he using the newest property? The one he filed notice is going to be renovated?”
“Um, yes.”
She gives a single nod. “Take Endellion. I’ll meet you there.”
“But—but it won’t do no good, not without the wards! Even if the Queen’s Own don’t come for Her Majesty or Barun, they’ll send word to Marsdenfel.”
Mataine bends and looks Lallie in the eye. “Which is why I’m going to meet you there.”
The princess consort then turns on her heel and strides to the door…where she pauses and listens.
I feel shaky from the talk of my brother finding me again—I know it must happen, but by the Creator, must it be so soon?—but even so, I manage to draw up my magic and check the hall for passersby. “It’s clear.”
Mataine gives me a quick frown, nods her thanks, and goes.
I breathe slowly, carefully, fighting back the panic so I can get my temperature back to normal.
Lallie takes one single long breath in and out of her own, then scrambles around the room and packs up what few things I have… All loans, all reminders of how temporary my stay is to be.
This isn’t helping me lift my temperature.
In a matter of breaths, Lallie has already stuck everything in a bag she must’ve found somewhere in the outer room. “Ready, Majesty?”
No. But I touch her shoulder and let her lead me—out of the castle, and into the capital city where I’ll be hiding.
YOU ARE READING
1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of Air: Book #5, Chronicles of Marsdenfel
FantasySometimes, the next generation is all you have to look forward to...even if you won't live long enough to see it... · · · · · Endellion Yunan is high queen of the elves, but her human half-brother has enslaved her realm to gain access to magic only...
