Page 51 of Tristan
I’ve learned well enough that arguing with him in private is one matter, in public another. All I can do is give him plaintive eyes which he ignores, and sit on the chair in the corner. At least I still have a clear view of the proceedings.
Diekin is here with us, along with the Elven king and a dozenguards. The man is chained up well, why so many guards? The queen moves over to stand beside me. Of course, the weak human is seated while the strong Elves stand. Diekin looks to Corrik, who nods and then walks within the eye line of the Rogue Elf. Diekin says something to him in Elvish. I’m not going to understand a thing.
“He asked his identity,” the queen whispers to me. Corrik looks back with a smug smile and I cross my arms and lean back in my chair.
“Hmmm,” the queen says when the Elf answers back.
“What is it?”
“Well, he was very rude.”
“I’m sure I can handle it,” I say.
“I think in Markaytian the equivalent is ‘fuck you’.”
Did the Queen just say fuck you?
As the interrogation progresses, we learn he is the Rogue Elf, Heilren, sent to kill me. He’s relatively easy to pull information from. Something’s not right about that.
“Please,” the queen translates for me. “I’ll tell you anything you want.”
It’s hard to believe he would betray his own with such little urging, though by the number of welts and bruises, it looks like someone has taken the time to “pre-urge” him.
I become bored and begin to watch Corrik. Something is off about his body language, and I don’t like it. Not only is it terrifying, it’s clear how little trust he has in whatever Heilren is saying. And something else. Corrik looks like he isn’t really here, like his senses are warning him of something unseen.
Suddenly, Corrik’s eyes look up at me. “Mother take him out of here,now!”
It’s amazing how easy it is for the Elven queen to rip me out of the chair and the room, but before she does, the Rogue Elf’s head snaps up to look straight at me, his eyes glow dark, blue lightning snaps across the irises and the room builds with thunder. I’m just being pulled out the door, when a dark streak of magic stormsdown, loud, to where I was sitting, leaving ashes where the chair had been.
The queen pulls me into a hug, one she needs more than I do. “Twice in a handful of days is twice too many. What would your parents say if we had to tell them we lost you after such a short period of time having you?”
Corrik blazes out of the dark. “He’s dead.”
Corrik says no more about what happened in the room and I don’t ask. He’s not in a mood to talk to anyone—me at the top of his ‘not-talking-to’ list. I join Corrik in his silence and listen to Diekin who has lots to say.
I should probably be nervous or concerned. My life’s been threatened twice, and the Rogue Elf made it clear his mission was to kill me, but this is an adventure Lucca and I couldn’t dare to dream—I’m far too excited to be nervous.
When the meal ends, Corrik calls on Diekin.
“Say goodnight Diekin and come with me.”
I know that look—Diekin’s in trouble. He knows it too—he’s known it all night—but he stands with grace and does as told. “And you,” Corrik says to me. “You will go with Mother.”
“Yes, Corrik,” I say, but on the inside I want to throttle him. It reminds me too much of getting sent to cross-stitch with my mother—I hope the queen doesn’t cross-stitch.I hate cross-stitching.
To my delight, the queen invites me to her sitting room for tea and I learn that I’m here to be babysat (as I suspected), but also for her own comfort.
“Tell me Tristan, what was it like to grow up in Markaytia?”
“I loved it,” I tell her. I expand about me and Lucca, which I imagine she already overheard from some of my conversations with Diekin, but then go on to tell her a bit of Markaytia’s history.
“Markaytia is an old province. It used to be ruled by dragons untilthe last dragon died, but before he did, he passed his blood onto a man and that man became Markaytia’s first Warlord. It was his duty to name the first king, a title he gave to his brother. It became tradition to do so from then on. He was an ancestor of mine. I’m named for him,” I say.
“No wonder your name means so much to you Tristan. You must have an Elvish name for the public, but in private, if you like, I shall call you by your Markaytian name.”
“I would like that.”
I tell her more stories of Lucca and I tell her more about the history of my ancestorTristan the Dragon Warlord. She’s fascinated and I find I like the queen a little more. It will be easy to call her Mother.
