Page 9 of The Crimson Princess
One large stone decorates the hilt, while the stones of my guardian blade are many. Both are beautiful. Both are to be cherished in different ways.
“I…I don’t know what to say.” My voice trembles with emotion. “That’s too generous.”
“You’re not alone,” he whispers. “Please. We want you to have it.”
I accept the blade, and the warmth of his hand brushes against mine, a tiny flutter to my heart, emotion welling in my throat. Families do not share magic with bloodlines outside their own. “Thank you so much,” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes. “I’m indebted to your family.”
“As we are to you. My mother was quite fond of your mother.”
My gaze lifts from the emerald hilt to his face. “Really? I didn’t know that.”
“They met for coffee once a week. My mother considered her a great friend.”
“I love that so much,” I say. “Thank you for sharing that. And please thank your mother for being a friend to my mother.”
“Of course.” He lowers his voice. “Can you take a walk with me this evening? In the gardens?”
His request pierces the darkness of my grief and in return delivers a tiny hint of light. There’s a desperate need for humanconversation burrowing inside me with cutting precision. I really need someone to talk to that might actually understand—so many things. So much that I’m feeling. “Yes,” I say. “Yes. I’d like that.”
His eyes light with my approval. “Eight o’ clock?”
“Ten,” I say, certain I will need to sneak out after my dinner with my father.
“I’ll see you then,” he says, and his eyes are warmer than the sun I have not seen in days. He bows again and then backs away as my father leans toward me and indicates a diplomat from Druid City, the farthest corner of Ravengale, who he wishes me to meet for dinner tonight. Many of the druids remain exiled to the Fifth World’s gray zone, where all the misfits have united, but as peace talks have processed over the year, albeit slow, their elites have been allowed to return to Druid City. And since these are the druids who are the peacekeepers, seeking a path to a peaceful co-existence, it would be insulting for me to decline such a meeting.
In other words, there will be no garden rendezvous with Ambrose. Instead, I must play the role of the future queen, and every part of me rejects the role that should be my mother’s. But my mother would tell me my role is to selfishly protect and serve gales and humans alike. Peace with the druids avoids a war that would surely bleed between worlds.
The druid diplomat is actually the druid prince, who I met once as a child. Even at sixteen, Bellar had towered over me and everyone else in the palace, well on his way to the famous warrior stature of the male druids. Now, at twenty-eight, he’s at least six foot five. Bellar might appear a fine specimen of a man, all warrior, but there is intelligence in his eyes. He knows that bloodshed is not in the best interest of either of us. And maybe, just maybe, we’re close enough in age to find a path to peaceful cohabitation.
“Princess,” he greets. “I would be honored if you’d accept the invitation.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’d be honored to join you this evening.”
And I can almost feel my mother’s pride from Nirvana, where she most certainly is now, watching over me. A sense of beingovertakes me, a sense of purpose. I belong here in Ravengale. I had to return. Something is coming. Something I have to be here to stop.
Chapter six
OnceI’maloneinmy room, I ink an apologetic note to Ambrose and hand it off to one of my sweetest maidens, Helena. Helena is petite and redheaded, with beauty to rival any flower in the tribute. She’d spent several years serving my mother and has now blessed me with joyful stories of my mother’s random acts of kindness toward the gales. She often, I’m told, snuck out to visit those in need and offered them aid. It’s balm to my tortured heart to listen to the recounting of these adventures that Helena often helped her arrange and even accompanied her on.
As good to me as she was my mother, she departs with my message to Ambrose in hand. Cellphones are easily spied on through magic and not a thing outside the human world; thus, Helena plans to hand my note off to a carrier, a galbird, who will deliver the message to him. Galbirds are literal birds and the street fighters of gale. They are black as a starless night, with grumpy human-looking faces and deadly beaks. You try to steal their messages, you will bleed. With my galbird in action, I’m confident Ambrose will be notified of my new assigned commitment.
With a long dinner most certainly in my future, and my night with Ambrose officially off the table, I trade my hoop skirt in for a silk gown that flows to my feet in our royal color of emerald green. It’s our red, white, and blue. When and how this was decided is a piece of history no one seems to know. It simply is. I might be a warrior, capable of fighting off the worst monsters that dare walk amongst peaceful beings, but tonight I am a princess seeking peace, not by blade, but by way of negotiations.
There’s a knock on my door, and I walk that direction, opening the door to find my father standing in the hallway. At the sight of him, dressed in his formal royal garb, the collar on his long black jacket stiff and high, the emerald buttons adorning his jacket, parted wide to display his warrior conditioning, my stomach roils. If magic granted wishes I’d allow mine to make him short, bald, and unattractive. At least then a few of the rumored women in his bed would stay away.
“You certainly look the title of princess at present, my daughter,” he greets. “It’s hard to believe you’re as deadly as your mother claims when you look as delicate and stunning as one of the perfect allos she fussed over in the gardens.” His voice softens. “You remind me of her.” His voice breaks, and for a moment, just a moment, I believe he’s grieving, but in the next breath, his expression is blank.
I tell myself it’s necessary for a king to appear emotionally aloof, but what king of any worth would not be brought to his knees over losing his queen, the woman he supposedly loved with all his soul? Emotion wells in my throat, all sticky and thick, and it’s all I can do to accept my father’s arm and allow him to lead me downstairs. Dinner will be held in our gardens, and we travel a stone path adorned with the high flames of magical torches nestled inside bushes of allos, their sweet scent lifting in the air. The lilac petaled flowers remind me of human roses, and there is a pinch in my chest as I remember my mother’s love of both. She took her role, our role, as gales to protect humanity seriously.
And so do I.
Our path ends with the rectangular table where Bellar stands in wait, a drink in hand, as he chats with one of my father’s top military officers. Idris is tall, blond, and far too good looking for the sake of his ever-growing ego. He’s an arrogant prick who I had no idea would be here tonight. “Thanks for the warning, father,” I grumble.
“He’s not staying. I just wanted the two warriors to size each other up.” He glances down at me. “All the reasons you dislike him are the same reasons Bellar will fear him.”
“I doubt Bellar has any fear in him, father, and I think you underestimate him if you believe that to be true.”
“You underestimate Idris. He’s a force of nature and you, my dear, are the silk to calm Bellar’s nerves when Idris is done with him.”
