Chapter 17
Chapter
Let them in.
Let them see you.
“Fetch me the biscuits,” I call over my shoulder as I sink my knees into the silty gravel.
A current of whispers ripple through a sea of twisted faces at my back.
“Princess?” Myrrdin is the first to protest, stepping between me and the growing body of people.
“Did she just ask for biscuits?” At least Merrek sounds more agreeable—if not anything else, definitely amused.
I wave them both off with a tsk.
“Do you like biscuits?” I turn to the young boy, whose cold hand is still wrapped in mine.
With his free hand, he rubs away the snot dribbling from his nose and looks to his mother. Her smile is small. Her teeth are worn and brown. Her son’s tired eyes don’t see the way the world has pressed upon her shoulders. All they see is love. And it’s enough to give him courage.
He nods, pulling his lips in to hide his smile.
I don’t bother concealing mine. “You heard the boy. We’d like those biscuits, please.”
Rhidland comes to stand beside me, resting his hand on my shoulder the way a father would a son when they’ve gotten themselves into far more trouble than they are capable of getting out of.
I look up, already knowing exactly what he is going to say. That we can’t share the biscuits.
“We can’t share the biscuits.”
I crack another smile. “So predictable are you.”
The corners of his lips curve down beneath his mustache. His conviction, however, remains unmoved.
Stubborn old man. I sigh.
“Excuse us, I’ll only be a moment,” I offer, squeezing the young boy’s hand before letting it fall back to his side.
For one fleeting moment, I wonder if Frog would object to such a request. Or would he see the child as he saw me that night in the garden, a person worth saving?
It’s, of course, a stupid question, as the commander does not have time for such trivial requests.
Or time to stand around the carriage he’s meant to be protecting apparently.
“He’s not here, Princess.”
I whirl around, feigning ignorance. “I’m afraid I don’t know to whom you are referring?” My unnaturally high voice betrays me.
Now even Myrrdin is grinning, though he at least has the decency to hide it behind a cough.
“Of course.” Merrek winks. “If you were, though, which you weren’t, looking for the commander, I would have told you he’d gone off ahead to find us somewhere to sleep for the night. But he’ll be back soon.”
“Ah.” I nod, pretending not to be relieved. “Well, that’s very good to know.”
“I bet it is.” The twins’ shoulders vibrate beneath their cloaks as my cheeks heat, fed by the rapid thrumming of my heart.
“No-I-that’s not what I meant. I…” I turn on my heels and hasten my steps. Suddenly a lecture from Rhidland doesn’t sound so bad.
The old man waits just outside the carriage door, his brows lifting in question.
“Don’t.” I raise my hand before he can think to ask.
His gaze flickers between me and the twins, but he lets go whatever suspicions linger on his tongue with a heavy exhale.
“Right… As I was saying earlier, My Lady. We cannot give food to these people. These are not…” He pauses, eyes sweeping across the crowd.
“They will demand more. And when you can’t give it to them… ” He trails off.
I read between the lines well enough.
He fears for my life.
Little does he know its time is nearly spent.
I shake off the uneasiness coiling in my belly and hold my hand out expectantly. “I will speak to them, then. But first, the biscuits.”
“My lady—”
I take Rhidland’s hands in mine, a well-practiced gesture that, to this day, still catches the old man off-guard.
“He is only a boy. He won’t hurt me.” I squeeze, knowing exactly how unfair I’m being, tugging on the old man’s heart strings like this.
But if there’s one thing he’s taught me over the years, it’s that I can be stubborn too.
“I’ve got her,” Merrek offers with a shrug. “Nothing gets past these eyes,” he adds, wiggling his copper brows.
Myrrdin scoffs, tongue in cheek. “You mean nothing with a pair of breasts.”
“Ooh, that’s rich coming from the guy that stopped an entire carriage so that a hairy eight legged blood sucker could cross the bloody path!”
“It was a purple-pinned Arachne! They’re incredibly rare. Almost non-existent. Like your brain,” Myrrdin adds with a self-satisfied smile.
“You’re just jealous cause mum loved me more.”
Myrrdin’s nostrils flare, his fists ready to knock the smug grin from Merrek’s face when Rhidland finally intervenes. His stony features reveal he’s had it up to here with the twins’ constant banter.
“You’d think twenty years watching over me would have prepared you for such a task,” I jest, lightening the mood.
He cuts me a knowing look, but I see the twitch in his lips. “I fear I may never be able to retire if these are to be my replacements.”
“I’ll take her.” Wolfe reappears from behind the carriage, in his hand, the small parcel of biscuits. “You three stay with the carriage. This crowd has nearly doubled in the last five minutes.”
All at once, we look out upon the shrinking space. Nearly every corner of the square courtyard is filled with unruly mops of hair and skeletal thin bodies.
“If we’re to do this, we need to do it now,” Wolfe nods, holding out the parcel toward me.
Slowly, I take it. Wolfe’s shoulders seem to relax, as if this were an offering of peace, which, I suppose, in some ways it is.
That is exactly why I offer him a small smile when I reply, “Let’s get to it then.”
Not wanting to give Rhidland another opportunity to stop me, I hurry to follow Wolfe through the crowd of gaunt, hollow-eyed people. The strength they were once known for is now just another ghost that haunts them.
I try to smile at as many as I can, but the taste of decay in the air is so thick, so rancid, it’s all I can do not to cover my face with my thin cloak. If my people are to go without such a luxury, then so shall I.
It doesn’t take long to find the curly-haired mother and her blue eyed boy again. They’ve been pushed toward a barren tree at the courtyard’s center, finding safety beneath its twisted branches.
The young boy’s eyes flicker with surprise when I step forward from the crowd, holding the parcel.
“Did you doubt me, little one?” I tease, earning a smile full of teeth.
“You didn’t have to do this, your highness.” The young mother’s voice cracks, revealing the truth in her lie. She needed this more than most.
“Nonsense. What’s sharing amongst friends?” I take her hand in mine, meaning every word. “Because we are friends, you and I. And friends are there for one another.”
Her eyes well. As do mine.
“Can I be your friend, too?” the small boy asks.
A soft giggle bubbles in my chest as my dress is once again laid into the weather worn gravel. “Of course!” I say excitedly. “A princess should be so lucky to have a brave young friend such as you.”
Wolfe shifts on his feet, and from the corner of my eye, I see his hand tighten around his blade. I follow what has his spine stiffening.
The open space around us has started to shrink. New, curious faces creep ever closer.
“Princess,” Wolfe warns through gritted teeth.
“Right,” I nod, hiding my nerves behind a smile where the young boy can’t see them. “Keep these somewhere safe,” I whisper.
But as I hand the biscuits to the boy, I’m struck with all the force of a fully-grown man.
Screams erupt around me, piercing my eardrums. It isn’t until Wolfe hoists me to my feet that I realize the blood curdling sound is coming from me.
I stare down at the unconscious man now lying at my feet, a sizable lump sitting atop his head where Wolfe hit him with the hilt of his blade. He can’t have weighed more than me.
“There’s too many of them.” Wolfe’s eyes are wild as he searches for a way through the frenzied crowd.
The people of Ruin are attacking the knights.
I watch as desperation steals all reason from the fold. Before us an older woman is pushed to the ground, hard enough to make a thumping sound. And all of this for a piece of bread…
I try to rush to her, but Wolfe stops me, his grip around my wrist ironclad.
“Please, she’s innocent,” I beg.
Something flickers across his features, but he’s gone before I can name it. Running toward where the frail old woman is struggling to her feet.
I’m only alone for a second when spindled fingers find their way into my fallen curls and pull. My head is yanked back. My gaze cast toward the sky. I try to look for the owner of the hand, but there are so many now. Grabbing and pulling, they tear at my cloak, scratching at the flesh beneath.
“Princess!” Merrek yells from somewhere in the throng, but his voice is so far I doubt he’ll reach me before I’m left all but bare.
“Please.” I try and fail to reason with their anger as the hood is torn from my cloak. “I beg of you, please stop!”
“This,” a man hisses, flashing a mouthful of rotted teeth as he holds up the tattered remains of my thin linen hood, “is the least you royals can give us.”
“Yeah!”
Angry voices call out in unison.
My heart swells in my throat as I swallow back the tears, not for my own suffering, but for theirs. “I am so sorry for your pain,” I choke out.
“Pain? What do you know of our pain?” A woman, no older than I, aged by the cruelty of circumstance, seethes.
“Move!”
“Get out of the way,” my knights yell out.
I watch as the points of their blades cut into the sky and the panic in my chest turns tenfold. “No! Stop!” I try to scream above the noise. “Don’t hurt them, please!”
“It’s too late for your pity, princess,” the man from earlier spits. “It’s time you see what this curse has taken!” he yells out, taking the loose end of my neck’s ribbon with the collar of my robe in his hand.
I brace for the blow, sealing my eyes shut as he pulls the satin thread away. “It’s time you feel our—”
The man’s hands freeze, and the world falls silent as the ribbon and the robe slip free from his grasp.
I feel the cold kiss of midnight on my neck. But the hands once on my body are all falling away. And I wonder, is this it? Is this what death feels like? A moment of silence before the inevitable fall into the ever after?
I peek through tear-laced lashes, but it isn’t death I find. It’s the faces of my people, their bodies still as they stare at my neck. At the pale blue of my arms.
My knights seize the opportunity to push their way to my side, but even their gazes wander to the angry mark that should have taken my life.
I drop my head, unwilling to see what’s reflected in their eyes. There is no hope of hiding the beast this curse has made me now.
“I am so sorry. I’ll take my leave,” I start, when Rhidland’s metal warning zings through the air.
“That is far enough.”
I turn to see past him, to see the man with rotted teeth, once again holding my ribbon and hoodless robe in his hand.
“Forgive us. We didn’t…I didn’t…” He hangs his head low, holding out my belongings. “We thought we’d been left to our own.”
Left to suffer in silence, he means. To carry the burden of a curse they didn’t create.
The ache inside me blooms into a garden of grief. A flower for every heart that stopped believing there was someone who still wished them well. And as I take in my people’s faces, truly searching each and every one, I can see it. That deep rooted desire to not feel so alone.
My knights tense as I step forward, but they don’t try and stand in my way. They do, however, close in around me as I bring myself face-to-face with the man who, only moments ago, was filled with anger and rage.
With steady fingers, I gently take the ribbon and cloak from his hand.
“You know, I once thought that too. But now…” I reach for his chin, forcing his downcast eyes up toward mine. “I see you. I see all of you. And I no longer believe that’s true.”
The man stands a little straighter, wearing his tears and smile all at once. And then he does something that has my breath hitching in my throat.
He laces his thumbs together, his four fingers stretched out on either side as he brings his hands to his chest.
I shake my head, ready to argue my unworthiness when, one by one, the courtyard fills with butterflies.
Hundreds and hundreds of them, held before the old and the young alike.
But there’s one pair of wings that have my heart stopping altogether.
They belong to the tall, masked figure watching with autumn green eyes, their stare full of wonder.