by E. Molloy
Gently, he moved in with the cloth, touching it to the tears on her cheeks first. She didn't even flinch. Her crying had stopped sometime after he'd left to find firewood. Dirt and salt wiped away with the cloth, revealing the perfect skin beneath it. He sighed with relief, and continued to gently wipe her skin off. It would be impossible to get everything without washing places he wasn't comfortable with, so he stopped at her neck and moved to her feet. They were the wounded parts, here, and he knew he'd have to face them eventually. Where there had been thin leather straps over her feet before were now worn down in a burn across the top of both feet. As he touched the rag to the top of her foot, she let out a gasp. He retracted immediately, like a child caught with their hand in a snack jar.
Her eyes stared wide at the canopy of trees above them, and her breathing was heavy and panicked. Daveth jumped to her side, "Hey, calm down, you're safe," he said, and her eyes fixed on his with desperation. Her breathing slowed, but her eyes darted all over the place. "You're okay," he reminded her quietly, and eventually she stopped looking around and her view rested on him again. He produced the flask of water again, moving it toward her lips. Her hands came up belabored, gripping clumsily at the bottle in a vain attempt to hold it without help.
Daveth held tight to it, moving it to her cracked lips and helping her to drink. She coughed a little, trying to sit up. "What...happened?" she asked, her voice weak and shaking. Daveth set the bottle down and put an arm behind her head, sitting her up. Behind him, Ragen peeked over his shoulder. He watched only a moment, before returning to his task. The raven stood and hopped off of the girl's chest, skipping across the ground toward Ragen, then lifting off to land on his shoulder.
"Fairies," he said, suddenly realizing they were probably still out there somewhere. "Ragen, will they come after us?" he asked, assuming that, of all the things the man seemed to know that they didn't, that must be one of them.
The man’s hands paused. "No," he said after a long wait, a sound that was almost angry, or perhaps it just sounded that way. "They're not going to be a problem," he finished, and set back to his work again.
When Daveth looked back to the princess, her eyes were narrowed at him. He moved the water bottle back to her mouth, hoping she'd drink again instead of say whatever biting words she was thinking behind that expression. She did drink, though, apparently her need for water more important than her need to remind him how much of a failure he was. Daveth took the opportunity to take the conversation the way he wanted it to go.
"I was trying to clean your wounds when you woke up. I...still need to do that," he said. When she'd finished gulping down water, he set the bottle back on the ground next to himself.
"Wounds?"
"Your feet are pretty badly..."
"I'll be fine," she insisted, and he frowned at her.
"I'm trying to help you."
"I don't need your help," she said, trying to push herself away from him with her arms. Even though Daveth wasn't restraining her in any way, she wasn't even able to get out of his arms.
He couldn't help but laugh. "You're incredibly stubborn," he said, laying her head back down as he moved back to her feet. "Now sit still. It's just going to hurt more if you move."
She opened her mouth to protest, but her features softened and she sighed. "Fine," she snapped, and then shut up.
Daveth touched the cloth to her foot again, and she yelled, "OWWWWWWW! What did you do that for?!"
"I'm just cleaning-"
"That is not what cleaning feels like! It's supposed to be soothing!"
Ragen's voice sounded from behind him. "You're going to have to man up, princess, or your feet will turn black and fall off. Trust me, that's going to hurt a lot more."
Daveth couldn't hold back his chuckle, and the princess seemed to only get angrier. Still, she went quiet again, a habit of hers that was beginning to become his favorite. He went back to cleaning the feet, and every so often she'd let out a groan, which eventually turned into a whimper. She didn't cry, though, which was rather impressive. After a while, she seemed to have gotten used to it, or perhaps she had just gone numb, and the sounds of protest stopped.
Ragen broke the silence, standing suddenly. In his hand was what appeared to be an arrow with no head, its length covered with pieces of meat that had been stuck onto the stick. He held the stick of meat over the fire. "You kids have some powerful enemies. I take it you didn't know that."
The princess stared straight up at the sky, and Daveth absently soaked up blood and dirt with the rag as he turned his eyes to Ragen. The man looked surprisingly serious. The bird had taken to the trees again, and seemed to be watching something in the forest, while Glop still stood nearly hugging Ragen's leg and staring hard at the cooking meat.
Ragen continued. "I been trying to think all day where I should start with this explanation. Still don't think I figured it out, so just let me go about it a bit and we'll see how that works. I was conscripted, you could say, to work with the fairies. Someone way up there in the castle doesn't want you making it back, and they sent me to make sure you didn't."
"Then why did y-" Daveth started to interrupt.
"Fortunately for you, the King doesn't own this land. He thinks he does. Someone else makes the rules here, and for some reason she wants you to make it to the castle. So badly, in fact, that she's asked me to help you get there. Now, normally I won't pick sides, but she's got something I need. And, well, you're an alright kid, so it's a win-win for me. I get it if you don't wanna trust me after this, but I won't let you travel without me, so you might as well get used to it."
There was a long pause, Daveth staring hard at Ragen and Ragen staring hard at the fire. "Glad that's settled," said the burly man, and Daveth took that as his queue to speak.
"That just brings more questions than answers, you realize that?"
"I told you everything that was important, didn't I? Don't get hung up on little details, kid. They're just gonna make your head spin, and you're never gonna get anything accomplished."
"Can you at least tell me who? Or why? Or what I'm supposed to do?"
Lillian interjected, finally, and Daveth had almost forgotten she was awake. She was still staring up at the sky, her features concentrated as though she were seeing something up there and needed to watch it carefully. "There's a mage who stands at my father's right hand. Nobody knows where she came from, but she showed up a few years ago. I don't trust her, but she's never really done anything. I never expected she'd have me whisked away by a dragon or send thugs to kill me, but..."
Ragen scoffed. "You can't trust witches. So it sounds like you already know her, which should make things easier. I can think of a thousand reasons why she'd want you gone. Probably going to try to seduce the poor bastard, take over the kingdom or something. Shit." It made sense, now, that the other witch would want this stopped. He didn't know much about witchly politics, but something told him she wouldn't be able to live in those woods anymore if another witch was on the throne. Hell, maybe she even wanted the throne for herself. What had he stepped in?
Daveth had stopped cleaning the princess's feet. He was focused on the conversation. Something didn't add up. "Wouldn't your father know if she could do that kind of stuff, or at least suspect and find a way to stop her?"
Ragen shrugged, "Mind control?"
"No," Daveth said, waving a hand as if that would get the idea out of the air. "That's not how magic works."
Lillian scoffed. "Because you would know," she said degradingly.
Daveth ignored her comment. "It's part of the studies to become a White Knight. You have to understand the schools of magic, their capabilities, and how to defend against them. There is no school of magic where people have that kind of power, not since the Mentalists. At least, not that the Order knows of." He thought back to his first fight, the words he'd spoken and not knowing where they'd come from. Until that moment, he'd made a point not to think about the things that happened at the arena
. While they'd led him on the path to training with the Knights, there are some things you forget solely because your mind cannot find the answers, and it will drive you crazy trying to understand.
Ragen chided, "Yeah, well, maybe there's some things the Order don't share with you, ever think of that?"
Lillian shook her head, "I thought being a knight was all training with a sword and hiding behind a shield."
Daveth replied proudly, "You don't even get to touch a weapon until you've passed the written exams. Before that, it's all studying creatures, their weaknesses, lands, their politics, that kind of stuff. I was top of my class for-"
Lillian cut him off. "Okay, so then why isn't mind control a valid theory?"
"The only mages that have ever had that kind of power were the Mentalists. From what I Understand, they were purebloods bred from Elves, seen more as a mutation of their bloodline than anything. When the Elves tried to wipe them out, they ended up losing the war. If the Elves are still around, and still dumb enough to be breeding, there might be Mentalists. But even then, it doesn’t add up.”
“Which part of that doesn’t add up?”
“Mind control magic is mostly just the power of suggestion. Anything more invasive, and the part of someone's mind that's still free of magic will recognize the intrusion and purge it with logic. Complete mind control would be near impossible to achieve. It would only truly work if he was essentially a puppet. She would have to be deciding his every word and move, and someone would have noticed a difference. Even though she might have had enough time to get him completely wrapped up in her spell, if she's a pro, you would have noticed that it wasn't your father, and so would everyone else in the castle. His memories wouldn't be his anymore, and she would have slipped up. With normal people, that's not such a big loss for the caster, but with a king? I don't think she'd take the risk, not if she's smart. Not to mention, there's no way she'd be able to do that to him -and- a dragon at the same time. They're like, the strongest willed creatures in existence, after the Elves."
“You mean the Elves that didn’t have any defense against Mentalists?” the princess chided.
Daveth shook his head. “They created the Eluri to fight against them, but it backfired. The books aren’t very clear as to what that means, though, only that they were also Elves, but darker.”
Ragen put the conversation back on track, "You said it's from the power of suggestion right? What if she isn't completely mind controlling him, she just made him think this is all his idea?"
Daveth shook his head. "It's too big. This is his daughter. The King's only child. There’s too much of an emotional attachment for suggestion to overpower it. The only way she'd be able to convince him that it was his idea is if it actually was."
Silence fell over the group, and Daveth looked to Lillian. She was still scowling up at the sky, and he felt as if she had the answer but wasn't sharing it. Ragen cleared his throat, and she closed her eyes.
"Well, if it's not mind control," she started, "then maybe she's just really good at not getting caught?"
Daveth hesitated. "That's a possibility, I guess."
"That must be it, then. The witch has to die," she added bluntly.
Ragen watched the two a minute, and then sighed. "Whatever the case, the first step is to get you two to that castle."
Daveth nodded. "No matter what, we should expect some resistance when we get there. Just keep that in mind."
Ragen raised a brow, removing the meat from the fire. "You think so? But everything's been so easy up until now." His sarcasm was very apparent, and not very appreciated.
The two both gave him a stern look, and he was clearly the only one amused. Ragen shrugged with a grin, stuffing a piece of the meat in his mouth and spitting it out as soon as the searing hot snack touched his tongue. Glop caught it before it even hit the ground, and popped it in his mouth before anyone could protest. He clung even tighter to Ragen's leg, waiting for more scraps.
Chapter 20
"Your majesty," Niko said, bowing at the waist in the throne room. The large king sat in front of him, a jovial smile spread across his face. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."
"You left me little choice," the man said, his good spirits doing nothing to hide the venom in his tone. Beside him to his left stood the court wizard, a ridiculous joke of a man who would probably find himself beaten to death in Kaine for everything that his existence implied. "I hope everything has found you in good taste since your arrival?"
"Quite. Forgive me if I'm frank, your majesty, but I'd like to get straight to what I came here to address."
The King's smile faltered and it was clear that he liked to be the one leading these sorts of things. Niko, on the other hand, didn't care for undue pleasantries and the banters of the wealthy. If the King had it his way, they would have talked for hours about the weather and horses and ales before finally addressing business, but Niko wasn't here to feign friendship with nobles.
"Go on then," the fat king said, spoken as a command.
Niko nodded. "As I'm sure you know, my presence here has those who have noticed it a bit on edge. The sooner I accomplish my business here, the sooner your people will rest easy. There is an ongoing investigation into recent findings in Kaine. One, as I'm sure you are aware, is steeped in magic. I was told you possess a mage with some unique abilities, and had hoped to take her in for questioning."
"Is she a suspect in this investigation?"
"Not at all, your highness. I simply wish to ask her advice, and see if she can offer any assistance."
The king waved a hand decorated to the knuckles in rings of gold with different colored jewels. "She's not for sale."
Niko laughed a little. "I'm sorry, you mistake my intent. I didn't wish to purchase her, simply to speak with her. I don’t support or condone the owning of slaves, especially those with magic." A coy grin came to his face, and the King's scowl grew.
"And what do I get out of this arrangement?" the king asked.
"My sincerest gratitude."
The king scoffed again. "You come from a country of mages that has no seers?"
Seers, as Niko knew them, were barely more than charlatans, men and women who made their coin spinning tales of the future under the guise of divination. The only mages with the power of a seer were Mentalists, and nobody in Kaine would be foolish enough to claim those powers as their own.
"None of such high regard,” he lied. “I had heard Diamondruf had only the best. If the information is bad, though, and your mage is sub-par, I suppose my travels have been for nothing."
The king squirmed in his seat, and a wide grin spread across his lips. "Her worth is far above yours, Kainite. And she is not a tool to be passed around. Ask your own seers for help."
Niko shook his head in disappointment. "I am sorry that you feel that way. Is it acceptable that I take advantage of your hospitality one more night?"
The king nodded. "Stay as long as you like. Just be sure to make a quiet exit."
Niko nodded, and then turned to walk out the doors. Two armed guards came up along each side of him to escort him out. Before they reached the doors, another pair of guards entered, between them a young boy no older than ten. The boy hurried up the aisle and past Niko, who had stopped walking. The guards tried to urge him along, but the king's booming voice sounded behind him.
"Stop!" The guards turned to look, and Niko waited patiently, still looking at the door with a grin on his face. The king motioned for the guards to bring him forward. They turned Niko around, this time like a prisoner, and marched him toward the throne. The king sat with a grim expression on his face, staring at a scroll of paper that had been presumably given to him by the boy. The boy was already being rushed out of the room by the guards who had brought him in. Niko stood in silence, waiting with each arm gripped firmly beneath metal gauntlets of the guards. Finally, the king looked up, "Release him and leave us."
The guards let go, and made their way bac
k to the doors. The wizard beside the king whispered something in his ear, to which the King did not respond. When the doors shut behind the guards, the king spoke to Niko again, handing the letter to the wizard who slinked off into a side room.
"What is this really about, Kainite?"
"Well, you see, since you refused to aid the Collective sworn to keeping peace throughout the world, you have endangered that peace. Many people are very upset, and so I have been sent to investigate what it is you might have to hide."
"I only turned you down moments ago. How could this order have possibly gone through so quickly?"
Niko smiled, "Magic?" When the king did not seem amused, he chucked to himself, waving a hand as if to dismiss his earlier comment, and clarified, "I am very efficient at what I do, your highness. It's my job to worry about the how, and your job to worry about the why. Why would the king of the wealthiest country in all of Alffa refuse to help his neighbor, with whom he is supposedly at peace?"
"You set me up," he growled.
Niko raised a finger in protest. "Correction. I predicted your response, correctly I might add. If you've nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about from me. Pretend I'm not even here."
"You won't find anything."
"That is assuming there is anything here for me to find."
"There isn't."
Niko laughed, again. "Would it scare you, your majesty, to learn that the only reason you're in this situation is because I already know what you're hiding?"
The king scoffed. "Your scare tactics won't work here. I've done nothing wrong."
"For your sake, I hope that's true," he said, then turned to walk away, back down the red carpet to the door.
"While you are on my grounds, Kainite, you will treat me with the same respect I expect from all of my subjects, and I expect you not to leave this room until I am finished with you."
Niko didn't stop walking, responding over his shoulder as his voice echoed back to the King. "Then it seems that we both have expectations here that aren't being met."
