Chapter Two
“What do you mean it’s unsafe to travel by sea now?” Clarice asked Lucan the next morning, her mouth agape at the news the Norian prince told her. “If the sea is dangerous, how will we get over to Nor?”
I stood with Clarice and Lucan in the entrance hall of the castle. Lucan just told us that the ocean leading to his kingdom was in an uproarious state because of the magical creatures. The Norian ship that was coming to take us to our destination sank before it reached shore. But it wasn’t just that ship. The creatures of the ocean were acting more wild than usual, sinking ships in all corners of the ocean. The only question was why they were sinking ships. What was making them act like this?
Lucan sighed. There were dark shadows beneath his blue eyes. He must have spent all night thinking about how to resolve this problem. “It’s only a roundabout way, Clara,” he said, twirling a ring around his finger. “We’ll ride on horseback to Letrine until we reach the northern bank. From there, we cross the Norian ocean and hope for the best.”
I scuffed my foot on the red carpet beneath me and looked around the entrance hall. The familiar din of servants rushing to complete errands up and down the two grand staircases filled the silence that spanned after Lucan spoke. “Are the magical creatures acting the same way in Nor?” I asked him warily. We were going to go to the Eremithian Forest, the home of the Sylph Queen, who classified as a magical creature.
And if she was acting insane, we’d all die.
“It seems so.” His usually happy-go-lucky face that always made me want to punch him was void of any positive emotion. “Something is happening over there,” he murmured, looking down at the floor in thought. “I don’t know what it is, but I intend to find out.”
I raised an eyebrow. Even though I had only known the prince for a few weeks, this seemed uncharacteristically serious of him.
At that moment, Titus jogged into the entrance chamber from the right hall. “I have everything prepared,” he said as he came to a stop before us. “Are you all ready?”
Lucan gave a sly smile. “Yes, but I don’t know about my cousin. Do you have everything you need?”
Her face instantly colored. “Y—yes, of course. Don’t treat me like a child, Luca.”
I forced myself to keep from smirking. It was amazing how Lucan could put Clarice into such a pathetic state. The two were cousins and had known each other ever since they were young, but they weren’t related by blood. Lucan was adopted by the Norian king. It was unusual and mystifying as to why Lucan was chosen by the Norian king to rule Nor. Why not choose his niece, Clarice? Then again, I could see her becoming a tyrant. I shivered at the thought of her being queen. If I hadn’t stopped King Gavin’s impostor, Titus and Clarice would have been forced into a marriage that the impostor arranged to disrupt Aria. It would have been disastrous. Would Titus even survive if he was married to Clarice?
I dispelled of those thoughts as Titus led us outside the castle. When I saw the familiar wooden structure of the stables, I had a sudden, horrible realization.
There were too many times that this had happened to me. Too many times that I had been caught off guard.
But not this time.
“Titus,” I began, taking a firm step back as the others walked into the building, “what are we riding?”
He backtracked and gave me an apologetic look. “Water horses,” he replied. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have a choice.”
I knew that, yet my gut still twisted in the worst way possible. Water horses were aquatic equine monsters with gills, sharp teeth, and a desire to kill me. They could apparently sense that I was a Harbinger, so they were especially tuned to the “magic” inside of me. Whatever that was.
“Sorry,” Titus said again, and I knew he meant it. “We need to get to Letrine as fast as possible.”
Lucan exited the stables and indicated inside. “Why are you hesitating, Lady Lannie?” he asked politely. “Are you afraid? If you are, let me assure you that these horses are the best in all of Etheia. They don’t go wild.”
I clenched my fists. How could he be so oblivious? “First, ‘Lannie’ is fine, Your Highness,” I told him bluntly. “Second, if you can trust an evil, man-eating horse to be the best way of transport to your kingdom, I pity what you will be like as a ruler.”
No! my mind screamed at me as I slapped a hand over my mouth. You’re a blasted idiot who just insulted a prince who is also Clarice’s friend!
Curse my anxiety! If we were riding normal horses, then I wouldn’t be prone to say such disgraceful things. Guilt seeped through my bones. Lucan had been nothing but nice to me, and here I was sniping at him out of my own fear.
But Lucan just chuckled. “Very well, Lannie. I’m sorry for addressing you incorrectly.”
My guilt dissipated at his reaction. I eyed him suspiciously. There was something about his cheeriness that set me off. It could have been the way the edges of his lips turned down ever so slightly when I criticized him or from his immediate reaction of laughing. Either way, this prince unsettled me. He was too happy. Too polite. And I didn’t like it. It seemed like he needed a dose of reality to open his eyes. Or someone to take off the deceitful facade he had wrapped himself in.
Titus coughed, interrupting the standstill. “We don’t exactly have the entire day to spend talking. You’ll be riding Alvira, Lannie.”
I gave up and resigned myself to my fate. I was going to ride Alvira, who happened to be my mother’s favorite carnivorous water horse.
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“Someone tell me why I’m not dead yet,” I muttered to no one in particular as the creature below me broke into a trot along the dirt road. Alvira’s glossy black coat glistened in the sun. Her nostrils flared at every farmer we passed, terrifying me senseless. We had been riding for at least two hours now, and I still wasn’t dead.
Clarice snorted beside me on her chestnut mare. “Maybe it’s because Alvira’s saving you for lunch.”
“Enough of that, ladies.” Maddox Quill, the Captain of the Guard, rode up beside us. “No one is getting eaten today.” Maddox vowed to accompany us to the ship, but decided to stay in Aria while we were gone to watch over Odelia. His dark hair and sideburns reminded me of my father. I frowned at the thought. Where was my father? I hadn’t seen him for weeks, though he was probably off gambling somewhere.
I glanced down at Alvira as the trees rushed by us in a blur. The sweat reflecting off her coat made me wonder when the next water break would be. We had to stop at every water source to keep the horses hydrated or else they would dry up. Even though they were faster than normal horses, this was ridiculous. Besides the fact that they had fangs, water horses were too much responsibility. Always having to be watered like a blasted plant. Always having to be watched so they didn’t eat humans for lunch.
I let myself fall behind Titus, Lucan, and the unit of guards as we continued on the road. It skirted vast crop fields, winding down rural dirt pathways that cut through the landscape. In the field on my right, the golden stalks of wheat swayed in the cool air. Farmers tending to their crops stopped to give us curious looks. This was an uncommon route for nobility to be traveling, it seemed.
Titus dropped back beside me, remaining silent until we turned on a bend. “We’ll reach Letrine by nightfall and leave for Nor at dawn.”
I nodded. “I still have a bad feeling about this,” I muttered, gripping Alvira’s reins tighter. “What if the entire Eremithian Forest is acting insane like the ocean creatures?”
He stared at me for a long moment as he galloped on his roan stallion. “Well, we’ll find out when we get there, right?”
“Very specific, Your Highness.”
“I pride myself on my specificity, my lady.”
I glared at him. That little twit remembered how Lucan addressed me, and now he was holding it over my head?
Clarice slowed to a walk next to us. “Pick up the pace, you two! At the rate you’re going, it’ll take days to reach Letrine.”
I realized with a jolt at how slow we were going. I wouldn’t have noticed because of the guards around us, who slowed their speed to match Titus’s pace. I ushered Alvira forward, ignoring the look of annoyance on Clarice’s face as I plowed ahead.
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When we finally reached the Arian village of Letrine and checked into a nearby inn, night had fallen in the relatively quiet village. The innkeepers were notified ahead of time to give us the best rooms in the building. The minuscule, plain room was a ground floor room and contained only the basic amenities: two beds and a water basin for bathing. A faint scent of roses washed over me when I entered the room after Clarice. The window on the far wall revealed a cobblestone street and flowers in a window box.
The duchess’s daughter collapsed on her bed with a sigh of relief. “I am so glad that’s over. I thought my butt was going to peel off!”
I didn’t bother correcting her unladylike language as I seated myself on the wool sheets and began the arduous process of untangling my blonde hair from its ponytail. Titus and Lucan had taken the room adjacent to ours. Maddox’s soldiers guarded each room carefully.
“I will be so glad to get over to Nor,” Clarice said wistfully. “I’ve never liked traveling.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that I had never traveled out of Aria before. It pricked my heart like a poisonous thorn. I missed Aria already, but even more than that, I missed my house. Percy Wentzel, the delivery man, jumped at the opportunity to watch over my aquaplant while I was away. I clenched my fists, and my heart started to thump hard against my chest at the thought of what was ahead of me. I would be gone for days—weeks, even—before I returned to Aria. Or rather, if I returned to Aria.
Another worry gnawed at the back of my mind. It was a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. I felt out of place here in Letrine. It was as if it wasn’t safe for us to be here. I knew it was foolish because we had so many guards. But if Therin suddenly decided to attack us here…
Maybe it is your sense as a Harbinger that causes you to think defensively.
I slammed my hand down on the wool sheets. “Would you stop that?” I hissed out loud. “And what do you mean by ‘sense as a Harbinger’?”
Clarice’s words of agitation were drowned out by the Elemental’s haughty voice in my head: By Harbinger sense, I meant that you are attuned to the balance of this world, she said, making my eyebrows furrow in confusion. But surely you understand that I was jesting, Brackenbury, she added. If you had sense as a Harbinger, you would already be in Nor right now.
Her arrogance infuriated me, but the fact that she made a joke worried me even more. Eden didn’t make jokes. Ever. As Clarice started yapping about something making noise, I focused on Eden’s presence inside of me, What do you mean?
Though the ocean is in turmoil because of the creatures within it, you could have crossed easily. She chuckled inside my head. I am the Water Elemental. They would have heeded me.
That was her great plan? Do you really think I would have time to summon you with a barrage of serpents—or whatever vicious creatures—attacking our ship? I retorted. You wouldn’t care for the sailors or the passengers on that boat, Eden.
I felt a twinge of indignation come from her. That is far from the truth. Understand this: I do, in fact, care for human lives. It is not my fault that they get in my way.
“You’re contradicting yourself!” I exclaimed out loud. “How ridiculous can you be?”
“Not as ridiculous as you, apparently,” Clarice countered snidely.
Startled, I looked up to see Clarice dressed in a cloak and shoes. Her hand was on the sill of the window that faced the outside. “What—”
“If you’re done talking to yourself,” she interrupted, opening the window and slipping one of her legs to the ground below, “there’s something going on outside in the tavern, and I’m going to find out what’s making the ruckus.”
The duchess’s daughter disappeared out the window before I could tell her to stop.
Are you going to go after her?
I gritted my teeth, snatching a cloak from the bed. “You’re not my mother, Eden.”
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The sound of shattering glass brought me bolting across the cobblestone street toward the tavern after I exited the window. I burst out the door in a heartbeat and shoved through the entrance of the tavern next to the inn. A cacophony of voices rose from a group men surrounding one of the tavern tables. My heart skipped a beat when I saw Clarice hovering near the counter where a collection of onlookers surveyed the situation. It was the cloak Clarice that she was wearing that sent my heart into spasms of dread.
The cloak she wore had the royal crest of Aria painted on the shoulder.
Odelia would hang my body from the highest castle turret if she could see Clarice now.
I gripped my hood to cover the hair that I didn’t have time to pin up and edged along the wall in order to reach Clarice. I was only able to span seven feet before I was blocked by a large burly man. His eyes were focused on the table where the angered voices rose from. He barricaded my only path to Clarice, who was several feet away.
I thought about Odelia’s look of pure hatred, and I braced myself to charge into battle.
I threw myself in front of the sturdy man, squeezing between him and another onlooker with a gruff, “Sorry!”
Clarice was right in front of me, and the blue Arian crest painted on her black cloak stood out like a torch in the darkness. She looked on at the disturbance near the table, enthralled by the excitement as several men argued with someone sitting down. I stopped to look closer at the scene. The men encircled a cloaked figure who had a large pile of gold coins stacked near their hand. The barmaid who seemed to be in charge of the tavern looked on with nonchalance as she dried a plate behind the counter. Why was she acting like she didn’t care? The men were going to kill this cloaked fellow!
“Ye lyin’ cheater!” one of the men cried. “I’ll cut yer throat for trickin’ me outta my gold.”
The figure was hidden in shadow, and the only thing I could see was the deep scarlet color of the cloak on their small frame.
Scarlet?
Wait…
As the man lunged for the scarlet figure, a hand extended out to crash into his chest and send him flying backward into one of the tables, making the oak split open with a resounding craaack!
The perpetrator stood abruptly. “I played fair and square, you heathen!” A woman’s voice emanated from beneath the hood. “But I guess a peasant like you wouldn’t know how to gamble in the first place.”
Astonished, the onlookers backed away from her. The man who she knocked into the table struggled to his feet. “Yer a blasted woman!” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “A woman shudn’t be gamblin’ with men!”
I saw the grin beneath the figure’s hood, the pointed teeth that glinted softly in the overhanging lanterns.
“Mayra?”
If I had a sense in this whole idiotic world, then I wouldn’t have said the very thing that caused every head in the tavern to whip toward me.
The sylph’s smile turned into a surprised ‘o’ as she stared at me. Then she gasped, shoving the men aside to rush over to me. “Lily, my dear! How have you been? Where is my nephew?”
I only gaped at the Sylph Queen’s sister as the silence of the tavern created anarchy within my mind. “What did you do?” I whispered shakily. “Did you cheat these men?”
“Of course not!” The devilish grin that spread across her features told me otherwise. “I was just having some fun with—”
“That girl’s with her!”
I jumped back at the yell, which came from the man Mayra sent crashing into a table. “Wait,” I said, holding my hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not—”
“Arrest ‘em both!” he howled. “They’re cheats!”
As the men cornered us, I searched desperately for an escape. The front entrance was barricaded by men, and the only escape route was a staircase behind us. I had to convince these men that I wasn’t with the crazy sylph who cheated them. “N-no!” I said. “You’re misunderstanding the situation. I’m not with her. I just—”
Mayra yanked me toward her and bolted up the stairs before I could go on. “Formalities won’t cut it, love. Follow me and we’ll be out of here before you know it.”
I wasn’t able to speak above the pounding of boots drumming up the stairs as Mayra sped over the landing and down the narrow pine corridor, dragging me along like a rag doll. We skirted a corner, where the hall ended in a window.
“No, no, no!” I cried as she pulled me behind her by force. “I am not jumping out of—”
But I was too late.
Before I could stop her, Mayra opened up the window and, with my arm gripped firmly in her hand, leaped out of the four-story high building.
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A/N: The notorious Mayra is back — and as troublesome as ever! What do you think about this chapter? Do you think Lannie will survive until dawn or perish by the hand of Mayra's crazy decisions? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
The media is a picture of Lannie! I realized I've never shown you all what I imagine her to look like. Her hair is duller because it's ashen blonde, but the freckles and ice blue eyes are really close. Does this picture fit how you imagined her?
This chapter is dedicated to @Monrosey, who has always supported me and been my friend. Thank you, Darly. :)