Chapter 9 #2
Instead, I consider giving him an answer he wants to hear and risk the consequences of telling a lie. Maybe I’ll say something humans might find delicious, like crab or cow or rabbit. Cooked, of course. Flavorless. Burned. Nasty.
“Fish.” My answer is a bit delayed, but the truth of it surprises me. I can eat raw fish and not seem entirely hideous to my human escorts. In fact, I’ve heard humans consider raw fish a delicacy .
How ridiculous.
I hide my smile with a yawn.
Xavelor drinks in the sky, searching for something to say in response. When he’s not fixated on me, the beating of my heart feels less threatening. For a second, I stare at him, dumbstruck all over again.
I still doubt his intentions, but he’s only a human. He doesn’t intimidate me.
“What kind of fish?”
I blink at him, realizing we’re staring at each other. Glancing away, I blurt the first fish that comes to mind. “Tallup.” Not bad. If I manage to eat one, I’ll be able to restore quite a bit of magical energy, even without the ley lines. But they’re rare to find. I’ve never even caught one.
“Tallup?” He raises a sculpted brow.
“Haven’t you heard of tallup?”
His eyelids close partway over his eyes, and a slight twitch tugs at the corner of his lips.
“Oh, I’ve heard of it. It’s a delicacy in Arioch,” he responds.
See? Delicacy .
“Then I suppose I’ll have to wait to eat until we’ve reached the castle?” I decide to entertain the concept of human food. As long as the tallup in the castle has been killed near or within Aldorin, their eluviams should still be intact.
Xavelor reaches his muscly arm behind his head and tousles the curls of auburn hair swirling about. His thoughts are elsewhere, probably wondering whether he should let me eat before securing me in the castle, or if he’s willing to let me suffer until our arrival.
Finally, he drops his hand and sighs. His gaze flickers to his servant.
An unspoken command hangs in the air before the silver-haired guard tosses him a gray satchel.
“My aide used to serve in battle. He carries elixirs that can alter your appearance for disguising purposes. His family has served mine for centuries, so their loyalty runs deep. You needn’t be worried about us trying to poison you.
Take one,” he says with a tired smile, “and it will temporarily hide your obvious elven characteristics.” He tosses the pouch in the air.
I catch it deftly with one hand and use the other to expand the fabric opening.
Inside, bite-sized rounds clang against one another like glass spheres.
I reach in to blindly grab one, then toss the bag to the prince.
Blue and green, the flat and smooth disc seems hardly edible. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Foreign. Magical. Warm.
I feel weirdly drawn to it, tempted to let it dissolve on my tongue. Skepticism fills me, but the magicked oval compels me to eat it. The force is similar to the magic of the Sanvira, but much more subtle.
Without another thought, I place it on my tongue, and the treat begins to melt. After a few seconds, it turns bitter, and my throat puckers. I look fixedly at the prince’s servant, who remains impassive.
My vision bubbles at the edges, and I slump to the ground.
When I awake, my head thunders with pain.
Something soft and warm presses against my cheek...or does my cheek press against it ?
It takes me a moment to realize I’m upside down, my head and arms dangling over one side of the horse’s rear and my legs over the other.
I can’t move.
He’d said he wasn’t poisoning me, but he could’ve lied.
No, my thoughts chide. Why poison you, only to keep you draped over a horse’s ass?
“Oh, you’re awake,” a voice snickers above me. It doesn’t belong to Xavelor.
I roll my eyes to the right as far as they can go and watch the chain mail shimmering across the servant’s broad back like dragon scales. He must have removed his cloak because of the heat.
Though he’s turned away, I know he’s smiling. This was obviously his idea, incapacitating me. That must be what he’s deft at. My insides twist at what other terrible things he has up his sleeve.
I glance around without control of my body and no neck strength to search for the prince. The sound of hooves clips around me, but I can’t tell if there’s one horse or two. My blood freezes as I consider the possibility of the prince’s servant taking me for his own and abandoning his master.
Then we stop.
Footsteps approach from a distance, too few to be an army, yet just enough to warrant a prince’s welcome. My blood thaws when they stop to address our party.
“Ramiel,” one calls, huffing for air. “Where have you been?”
Xavelor responds, carrying on the charade. “To Arcanvale. Ronan’s recommendation.”
Ronan . The name doesn’t ring a bell. Perhaps it’s also a pseudonym. Or maybe I’ve mixed up my knowledge of silver-haired throne-kissing nobles. He’s no better than the Sanvira.
I stop listening and focus on the thudding pain in my head.
Since I’m with a prince , I’m sure whatever he says goes, anyway.
Still, it’s a bit strange that the guards greeting us use his fake name to address him…
Something hard and cold strikes my head, and the mass of blood that has settled there oozes like an undammed river. I make the mistake of audibly wincing, earning a snicker from my attacker.
“And what’s this?” a new voice interrupts.
I strain to glimpse the horse’s rider, but blood drips through my eyelashes and blurs my vision.
The owner of the voice grips my braids together and wipes the fresh blood away from my eyes and into my eyebrows.
I blink away the crimson droplets and squint at the older man wearing a gray tunic bearing the kingdom’s crest. A soldier, no doubt.
His eyes are hollowed out with layers of wrinkles, his eyebrows permanently stuck in an agitated position.
My gaze falls to his other hand, which is clean. So it was Ronan who hit me.
I barely restrain a growl.
“Not dead, that’s for sure,” a brute chimes in.
His gritty voice matches his stout, square-shaped face.
He slides in next to the soldier, and they both stare at me skeptically, their black eyes soulless and judging.
“Bringing this one for the king? I did hear he’s looking for a new addition to his harem. ”
Xavelor finally steps in. He grabs the soldier’s wrist and tosses it away, then catches my head before it slams into the horse’s flank.
I’d thank him, but I still can’t move any part of my body.
“As I said, she’s with us,” he says, but he sounds grossly underconfident. There’s an instability in it I’m pretty sure wasn’t there before. It’s almost as if these men… intimidate him. He gulps. Gulps . Oh gods.
The armored man squares his shoulders and stops within inches of the prince. “You’d better have a good reason to bring rabble into the castle, brat. ” He sneers with a voice as harsh and rugged as the sun now burning across my back. As hot as the rough hand cradling my cheek.
“Watch your tongue, churl,” the rider of my horse snarls. “That’s the crown prince you’re speaking to.”
The man is silent before he glares down at me. Or at least, I think he does. The blood trickling down to my chin combines with the blistering heat. What exactly is going on? Are we not allowed through?
“Don’t be absurd,” a different soldier sputters. “The crown prince is?—”
“Ronan,” the prince snaps, almost disciplinary in tone. “I will explain.” Then, he addresses the soldiers still standing in front of us. “My head maid has requested I find new servants for my chambers. The woman you see is one of them.”
Servant ? My heart drops. That’s merely a fancy word for slave !
He’d better be lying. This had better be a ruse.
“Forgive my presumption, Your Highness , but it would seem your disappearance was unbeknownst to your personal troupe of servants as well. No one knew of your whereabouts.” A new voice enters the conversation, this one having significantly more dignity than the others. Smarter too. Not that it matters.
“My apologies,” Xavelor says, voice taut. “Can you please be so kind as to tell me who in my personal troupe wasn’t aware? I’m certain I told Bernadette, who serves me exclusively, and my aide, who is by my side now.”
The men around us are stunned into silence at the prince’s remark.
“As you can see, I’m bringing with me a poor, dirty villager from the outer edges of the kingdom. She’s tired,” I can hear the daggers in his words, “and injured now. You have postponed our arrival for far too long already. We must proceed to Bellmane. I won’t be hearing any objections.”
Ronald is the one who hit me, I try to say, but no words come out. I hadn’t seen him do it, but there was no one else close enough before the soldier grabbed me. And ever since meeting the silver-haired soldier, I sensed immediate animosity from him.
The men remain quiet as the prince remounts his horse, and his steed neighs happily, ready for the wind to cool the sweat thickening under its coat.
We proceed onward, and I’m surprised I don’t lose consciousness again. The headache ebbs and flows, more severe for a few moments and then hardly noticeable for others. My lungs heave for air, pulling in gulps of hot air which only parch me further.
I have little strength to speak, and even less energy to assess my surroundings. Trees blur together in a wall of green, and the ground has turned to liquid. It becomes impossible to differentiate the living from the inanimate.
Even so, I am able to catch one last thing before my vision finally gives out: the undeniable twitch of Roland’s lips and the darkness in the satisfied scowl he directs at me.