The reminder of Émil’s funeral made sorrow mix with my anger and confusion. It was almost too overwhelming.
What had possibly possessed me by the pool? Then I felt shame and guilt when I thought of Demyan’s kiss. No sparks or fireworks, or abashing passion, just a soft innocent kiss.
A kiss given from the heart. I sighed and closed my eyes as I rested my head on the cushy pillow, knowing it would be impossible not to think of the prince or Demyan.
However, Enit was right. I was exhausted, and my eyes closed soon enough.
Chapter 35
Emil sat by one of the marble benches outside the palace by the infamous royal gardens. He smiled friendly at me. The gardens were lit with beautiful party lanterns, and every bush had blossoms of every kind and every color imaginable, including purple, metallic blues, and neon pinks. The planets and the moon seemed extremely large and close. Stars streamed the sky everywhere. Yup, I was dreaming. I shook my head at him.
“You lied to me. You said I would get to see you again,” I said, accusing him.
“And here I am.” He said as he wiggled his eyebrows wickedly.
“You know what I meant—Alive. I could have saved your life. At least tried,” I argued vehemently.
He smiled at me and turned his gaze to his hand. The one that had been mangled. His eyes were full of pain now. The progression of his injury was turning his fingers black. Gangrene I thought was the medical term. I looked at him, then it hit me.
“You aren’t really dead. Are you?” I said disconcerted.
“Smart you are. I knew you were,” he smirked at me. That meant I still had a chance to help him.
“I can heal your hand. You must tell me where to find you.”
“No—shan’t expose thyselves. Thee won’t has’t the privacy to doth aught,” he said.
I winced at his old ways of speaking. I had forgotten he was very old in that youthful body. However, his eyes had a glint of mischief.
“Stop joking. I can try healing your hand here, right now.” I slapped his shoulder, making him flinch in pretended pain. I didn’t know if it would work in my dreams, but I could at least try. He had protected me. It was the least I could do for him.
“I tell you, it would suck not to be able to use my hand if I go surfing in sunny Baja.” He grinned painfully, offering his mangled hand sheepishly.
I shook my head at his tease. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, praying I could help him.
Green and blue electric tendrils danced gently from my hands into his hand and arm. I felt every tendon and broken bone he had. I felt the delirious numbing he felt. He had been prescribed a large dose of painkillers. That explained the dorky jokes. I worked into his darkened blood stream, warming it with healing light and clearing the thick coagulated blood out of his hand. Soon after, I mended each of his bones slowly. The pain in his eyes left him. He grinned with peaceful relief at the sight of his hand.
“Tell me how is it possible that you have survived all these years without your Draugr?” I asked him.
“Ah—at first all I wanted was to die and to destroy. I hated the world and I became reckless and even crazier then. The brotherhood reeled me in and if it wasn’t for them I would had become a destruction machine. Then faith found me and now I think I shall search for the meaning of life, travel the seven seas in search of good waves and good vibes,” Émil paused and looked at me meaningfully. “I don’t think you are aware that for the very first time in my life, I am truly free, all thanks to you. I must do something for you too.”
“Oh, it isn’t necessary, Émil—”
“Oh, but it is. I came here to warn you. You and Francis must prepare and take precautions. The primordials will take any excuse to burn you at the stake.” He paused and held both of my hands in his as if trying hard to make me understand the seriousness of the matter. “The palace and the prince offer you enough protection, but you must avoid Rurikovich’s or Lord Aurous’s regard or scrutiny,” he warned me. Funny that he thought I was safer inside the palace with Count Rumple-Stinkish.
“Lord Aurous?” I couldn’t remember where had I heard that name before.
“He is the last elder left in command of the primordials. He is the enemy within the kingdom. He was there with Rurikovich when they tortured me.” His eyes were full of meaning.
Now I hated the miserable Goth-Ragtag Count even more. It also meant that this Aurous guy was also looking for the medallion.
“Rurikovich has been trying to end the Royal bloodline. Your mother was a threat to him, as you will be. Promise me you will stay safe.” He waited expectantly for my oath.
My mother’s life had been in danger all these years because she was the last female left. Why was my father not with her? Was that another reason she hid me from the world? She couldn’t have been older than I was when she had me. The guileless truth had taken me by surprise—I could not hate her anymore. So many things have gone wrong—because of me. I wondered if one day we could meet, but as things were going, it seemed she was safer without the royal circus. The Count’s wickedness would not stop there. He would go after the prince himself just like I suspected he did with the prince’s father or even Émil’s Draugr. Marrying the prince would just rush his decision.
“If I stay, they will force me to marry, and then the kingdom and I would be more vulnerable by consequence.” My gaze wandered, trying to make sense of it all. There had to be another way, besides marrying. Even when my body was head over heels for the prince, I knew it couldn’t be real. It was the blasted arrow.
Now why was Scary-face experimenting on Strzyga? Why was all that money pouring into his accounts? Was he hoping to build an army of monsters? To rule the kingdom? I was going to play devil’s advocate and say he had the rule of the kingdom… Then what? I knew the answer. The Count was the type of person that would never be satisfied with the kingdom. His special army would rule over humans. Why else would he want to make monsters? The kingdom had ridiculous circus guards already. He was planning the end of the world as we knew it. That sounded familiar. Oh, who else had delusions of changing the world? Oh yes—who else but Ash.
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable,” he recited who else, if not Sun Zi—Francis’s friend. But it was the first time that I understood the real meaning. I knew then, Émil was part of the brotherhood.
It was just a matter of time that the half-baked primordials would come for me. They probably already knew I was here, waiting for a wedding date. However, they had to take a waiting number and sit at the sideline. All this mess was probably for nothing if I wasn’t going to be able to vanquish Ash first. Someone had to stop him and the Count. I needed the medallion—to make my position unassailable.
“Émil, you must help me find the medallion,” I told him.
He tsked me reproachfully, even when his eyes had mirth. “That ought not be thy destiny,” he said admonishingly. Crap.
“It has to be, you painted the blasted vision yourself.”
“I did indeed, but you are not just a reincarnated legend, and I am quite certain you still don’t understand the grand importance or the celestial eminence of your essence.” He looked me in the eye.
I was freaky Ailie, future queen of nowhere circus kingdom—so what? Nothing to brag about. Émil shook my shoulders, snapping me from my own thoughts.
“Not counting your mother, you are not only the last fertile female Strzyga on the planet or a distant past legend I concocted on a painting. No. You are Astræa, Queen of the Stars, a goddess with more power in your hands than I could ever know. I know my destiny has been knowing you, and for that I am truly privileged.” He paused. I was gaping and rendered speechless. “But having power comes with ultimate responsibilities.” He locked his gaze with mine.
The thing was that I di
dn’t want any other responsibility in my life. I was overwhelmed already by the circus royals, the primordials, and dreading the fact that I had to save Gavril. I couldn’t abandon poor old Marcum down there in the dungeon waiting to be executed or tortured until the end of days. Being ultimately optimistic, I had to save the world from Count Something-Loco-in-the-head and vanquish real evil, like Ash, avenge Mother Clarisse’s death, and avoid marriage not just to protect the prince’s life but to give myself a little wiggle play time for myself. Drats—I needed that medallion.
“Then it is my obligation to vanquish evil, and I need that medallion to do that,” I pointed out.
He exhaled and shook his head. “NO. That is the trap. Evil is tending in your honor.” He opened his hand to me. In it, a small metal gadget lay. I had seen it before. It had been the weird-looking small mechanic toy on his bedtable.
“What is it?”
“A toy mostly, and a weapon, must you be in need. Keep it with you always.” He stood up, marking our time as finished. He walked away and turned one last time before leaving me alone on the bench. “Make sure you take pictures. I want to see every detail of my funeral next time we see each other. Ta-ta.” He clicked his tongue charmingly and winked at me.
I realized Émil had denied me any information. How was I going to avenge Mother Clarisse’s death or vanquish Ash if I was going to be stuck marrying gorgeous Prince Charming who had a crown, a palace, a kingdom, and more money than God knew? Most girls’ dream come true. Right? Nuh.
And it wasn’t just the marrying part, it was not knowing if our love was real or if the arrow was just a temporary spell, even when it felt so-oh very real. Crap. It felt so real I couldn’t stop thinking about the consuming tide of ecstasy and rapture too piercing to comprehend. How lost I felt in this intimacy and how much I wanted to forget my own existence when he’d kissed me.
And I felt somewhat ashamed that my senses had unraveled in that white-hot glow of pleasure without my consent.
It was quite confusing. I truly felt as if this sparkling and energizing spell was more than that. It felt like love, and yet there was Demyan’s kiss. It felt as if I had belonged with him always—and forever after. As if I had known him all my life. Why did I feel this way? I didn’t know, but it was driving me mad, particularly when he wasn’t clearly corresponding those feelings.
Then there was my personal desire to go to college, have a regular job, and have regular friends. I just really wanted to be a regular girl, now more than ever. I wondered if I could get away with this until my twenty-fifth birthday.
Now that I was consciously aware that I was not human—those years were the one chance I was going to have before my immortality ritual, then… Well, then female Strzyga didn’t have a choice or a right to speak, from what I had seen. Unless they would become exiled and a runaway criminal like my mom. We were breeding cattle to them.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
The morning light sifted gloriously through the window when I woke up on the queen’s bed surrounded by beauty. There were fresh flowers in priceless ceramic vases, gold moldings, and blue brocades that hung on the wall panels and did little to contain the racket outside and inside the palace. The noise was too loud to go unnoticed and too early to be a normal occurrence. Ugh. I pulled the pillow over my head.
Tun-tun, tan, tun. A polite knocking at the door announced Enit’s arrival. Great. Having lived for the past weeks with her and Francis, I had learned to identify her distinctive knock. Between the knocking and the noisy outdoors, there was no way I was going to enjoy five extra minutes of sleep. Crap. I uncovered my head to figure out the unfathomable racket.
Enit helped me out of the thick covers. I had never felt so trapped in my life. Maybe it wasn’t just the heavy duvet. Out of curiosity, I moved toward my windows.
“I’ll bet Francis is dying of curiosity to see what’s going on,” I told Enit, whose warm body I felt standing next to me by the balcony window. She, too, was observing the outdoor activity.
But the hassling noises came from the side, beyond my direct view. The service gates had a long line of different size trucks waiting to unload people, equipment, supplies of some kind, and who knew what else. At the same time, the rackety noises fussed inside the palace. This had to be the promised security help from Demyan Greco. I couldn’t wait to find out.
Overlooking the palace’s main entrance on my left side, I watched the circus guards changing posts as a frenzy took place in a different area of the palace. By the same token, I realized my balcony offered the most magnificent view anyone could have. Manicured gardens, vineyards, and the view of nearby mountains. The last remnants of autumn coloring with golds and reds spread as far as one could see, and distant ocean waters reflected light like a mirror in the distance.
An army of Draugr and maids dressed in black and starched whites came inside my room minutes later. I was padded and measured, head to toe. Ugh. I was forced to pick little swaths of fabric samples and pictures of gowns for what seemed like a long, tiresome time. They all looked the same to me. Why would I want to wear those ridiculous ten- and twelve-feet-long trains? Enit pulled me out of their grasp, saving my life doing so, and took charge of my getting ready for the funeral. I didn’t know what to expect—except that I hated funerals, even when Émil wasn’t dead for real.
For a moment, I thought the funeral was going to be held there at the palace. Enit had mentioned Francis would be waiting for me outside. No one had explained much of anything to me, not that yesterday had put me in the position to handle much. As I left my room, I watched an army of people going in and out with fascination. They carried boxes, linens, tools, equipment, etc. I descended the palace’s staircase. I wondered what they were prepping for as I regarded the organized chaos taking part inside the palace.
New faces—my educated guess said they were mostly human males, not the regular kind—were there, dressed in suits or military attire I had seen before at St. Mary’s with Demyan. They all must have gone to the same automaton academy for the gaiety challenged, because they acted like ‘bots on steroids. Judging from their muscled bodies, I could tell what they did in their spare time.
Some followed written directions, others had tools and electronic devices they were installing, and others examined every corner of each room as if they were looking for a missing contact lens, like Simone used to do when she pretended to lose one in the middle of a test. They invaded practically every room in the palace.
As I went down the grand staircase, I noted that every single one of them ignored me as if I didn’t exist. Strzyga in general, like the prince, Francis, Count Something-Rotten, and the guards I have come to be familiar with, were for the most part young and perfect. That is, apart from the Count’s facial scar, which Demyan Greco had given him for eternity. So I imagined the differences between these “men” and Strzyga went deep and far back. Strzyga tended, in my poor experience, to act crappy, pompous, ennui, and even offensively over-assertive. It was still by far more normal and more human than these organized, intelligent, and soulless zombie-like robots. I have never seen humans act like… robotic militants, possibly taking care of us—nonhumans.
Demyan’s private army was now in charge of the prince’s security and welfare—taking over the Count’s circus guards in tights in more efficient ways, I should say as I watched the level of organization. The circus guards’ jobs had been relegated to merely tourist attractions, or my personal favorite, door openers, if that much.
A large, wool and black-mink poncho shielded me from the crispy cold morning as I stood outside the palace next to Francis, waiting for our transportation and fighting the useless small fur hat with a black veil that Enit insisted I wear for Émil’s funeral. I couldn’t see much once it was over my face. I felt as if I had come out of a 1920’s movie wearing a charcoal-black cashmere ankle-length skirt, a mauve, almost-black silk shirt, and ankle-high leather boots.
Reginald wore his circus attire with a black ri
bbon on his arm. Memories of Mother Clarisse’s funeral overwhelmed me all over again. He stood next to the opened limousine door. He was opening the door for us. The prince, Nicholas, suddenly arrived and stood next to me, dressed in black just like Francis. He gave me his devil-may-care smile, but I couldn’t reciprocate. He frowned at my silent reaction.
“Good morning, Lady Pearson.” He took my swede-gloved hand into his and kissed the back of it formally. An electrical charge ran over my body. Butterflies disengaged from my core, and I felt the compulsion to fall into his arms. Good God, I was in deeper trouble than I thought.
“Good morning, Your Royal Highness.” I was glad the veil covered my blushing cheeks, as Francis observed my confusing reactions. No doubt he had heard all about my lack of control the night before. Crap. The men greeted each other formally.
Nicholas sat next to me. I looked at Francis for any explanation, but he just smiled patiently back at me from the spacious front seat facing the prince and me. So it was settled. We were going to travel to the funeral together. Crap.
We traveled in silence, until I felt Nicholas feeling for my hands under my covering poncho. That made me jump to the other side of the car. I took Francis’s hands in mine.
“I am sorry you lost a dear friend,” I told him.
Francis patted my hands gently. Nicholas had a frown on his face but didn’t show any other sign of advance.
Our drive hadn’t been long. The limousine stopped, and the first thing I saw was Count Something-Rubbish waiting for our arrival. That angered me. I wasn’t even trying to remember his real name, even if I could. In fact, I was wickedly enjoying making up insulting names for him, like Count Something-Rhinotillexomanic for his compulsive nose picking. I glanced at Francis. His nostrils flared, and he had a very cold stare for the Count. On the other hand, the prince was leaning forward in his seat and smiling friendly at his reception. Fool.
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