Page 8 of Requiem of Silence

Though this place wasn’t nearly as bad as the fetid hole where she’d been held with dozens of other children, lightless and airless and overflowing with waste. That sobered her, causing the mutinous urges to flee. Joining the Sisterhood meant she would not be kidnapped or sold into servitude, she was almost certain of that. And if she wanted to do better than just survive—huddled with the masses awaiting their handouts—if she wanted to thrive here, she had to remember her place. Be grateful for the gifts she’d been given. Serving the Goddess was a great honor. Keeping Her secrets was just part of the job.

As she stepped through the doorway to the outer hallway, something brushed her mind. The Goddess had not yet spoken, but silently pushed Her will to Zeli, causing her to stop and wait.

“I need you to deliver a message to the queen.” The Goddess’s lovely voice hummed with a throaty purr.

Hope stirred. Could this be the day they would inform the queen and king about the missing prisoner? Perhaps a nationwide—no, worldwide—search would be conducted to bring the True Father back into custody, back where he couldn’t hurt anyone else again.

“Tell Jasminda to meet me in the eastern gardens at her earliest convenience.”

Zeli swallowed her disappointment. It was unlikely the Goddess would share the news with Queen Jasminda in the gardens where any gardener could overhear. Of course Earthsong could ensure they weren’t spied upon, but the nonchalance with which She’d given the instructions didn’t bode well.

Zeli squared her shoulders and nodded, then dipped into a wobbly curtsey—an Elsiran custom she still thought was silly. But it was how the Sisters greeted and took their leave of their betters, and Zeli would be a proper Sister if it killed her.

She spun around and swiftly left the dungeon, desperate for fresh air. Once back into the electrically lit, labyrinthine halls of the palace, where windows allowed sunlight to shine through, she took a deep breath.

Now all she had to do was find the queen. Being the Goddess’s messenger was made much more difficult because the majority of the palace staff was Elsiran and as such did not speak Lagrimari. Zeli had been doing her best to learn the language, but with her duties she didn’t have as much time to study or visit the tutors as she’d like. She’d picked up a bit, understood some of the common sayings, but was in no way fluent.

Her first stop was the queen’s office, not that she necessarily expected the woman to be there—Queen Jasminda spent very little time in a place where she could actually be found—but at least Zeli could ask Ilysara and be sure to be understood.

The queen’s two secretaries sat at side-by-side desks. The Elsiran man was busy with a phone call, and Ilysara was tapping away swiftly on a typing machine.

“Pleasant morning. Is the queen in? I have a message from the Goddess.”

“No,uli,” the Lagrimari woman answered with a crinkle in her brow. “Her Majesty said she was going to the hedge maze to clear her head.”

Zeli nodded her thanks and then took off in that direction. However, in the hedge maze all she found were the gardeners. Luckily one was Lagrimari—a former settler who spoke Elsiran. He asked his coworkers if they’d seen the queen.

“She was here earlier, Sister, but left. Not sure where she was headed.”

Zeli beamed at being called a Sister, though in her light blue novitiate robes and white pinafore, she couldn’t technically claim the name. Not yet.

She headed next to the dining room, then the music hall, and finally the Blue Library, known to be one of Queen Jasminda’s regular haunts. But the queen was nowhere to be found.

Frustration bloomed. Zeli was tired and hungry and eager to be done with her errand. She wandered through the residential wing, a bit aimless, hoping to perhaps bump into the queen at random, when raised voices sounded from around a corner.

“She gave it tome,” a male voice growled.

“No she didn’t. My hand was closer.”

Zeli rounded a corner to find two Elsiran boys wrestling for control of an object she couldn’t get a good view of between their sizable forms.

“Let go! I just wanted a look. You’re going to break it.”

“I won’t. Get off me!”

Standing just outside of elbow range, she raised her brows as the two fought. She couldn’t get a good look at their faces, but recognized Sister Vanesse on the other side of them, a horrified expression on the woman’s scarred face.

Zeli shook her head then placed two fingers into her mouth and gave out a loud wolf whistle. The boys froze; one had the other in a headlock, but they maneuvered enough to look over at her with matching pairs of golden eyes.

Now it was Zeli’s turn to freeze, facing identical copies of the same person. Dark red hair, freckled noses and cheeks, slightly hooded eyes framed by thick lashes. She nearly stepped back in surprise, then recalled herself.

The twin with his arm around his brother’s neck released him and they both stood up to their full heights, which was quite tall—at least to Zeli. They were big, but looked to be around her age, eighteen, maybe nineteen. And they held themselves a bit warily, far more cautious than most of the Elsiran elites she’d observed. But for all their size and stubbled jaws, they were still acting like babies—quite unlike reserved Elsirans.

On the ground between her and them was a small ceramic figure—was this what they’d been fighting over? She bent to retrieve and inspect it. The statuette bore the likeness of two smiling Elsiran children. The paint had dulled with time but the orange hair and eyes were still clear. The two wore old-fashioned overalls and were linked arm in arm. It fit in the palm of her hand and she gripped it, looking up at them.

The twin on the right looked chagrined. He smiled sheepishly and stuck his hands into a pair of worn trousers. The one on the left, dressed in finer, newer-looking clothes, grimaced and looked away.

The estate where she’d grown up had employed plenty of boys—pages and stable hands constantly engaged in roughhousing and mischief. Though these two were obviously not servants, they were still just as silly as any uncouth lad she’d ever had to scold for tracking dirt onto a freshly mopped floor or trying to steal an extra dessert. She pinned them with a glare that had caused many a young scamp to quiver.

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