by Oxford, Rain
“Is it… Doro you are angry with?” he asked.
I growled again. “Just go get hot water before I make you my permanent personal servant,” I threatened.
He ran like he was on fire.
“Still biting the servants, I see,” Haru-joul said, stopping the door from closing all the way.
I grabbed the pillow from my bed to cover myself. Since I was trying to take a bath, I was completely bare. Haru-joul shut the door behind her, pressed her back against it, and winced as if in pain.
“Oh, turn your back again.”
I glared at her. “I covered myself, and you are in my room uninvited.”
“No, it isn’t that; I just want to see your butt.” She bypassed the large tub of lukewarm water and threw herself down inelegantly on my bed.
“What would your father say if he knew what kind of girl you really are?” I asked.
She grinned and propped herself up on her elbows. “He would be in an even bigger hurry to get rid of me, to make a treaty.” She took the small picture of my mother from my nightstand, considered it for a moment, then put it back face down. “So I suggest you don’t tell him.”
“What are you talking about?”
She bounced off the bed and invaded my personal space. As she did, I got my first good scent of her in private. She was not the one after my father’s life… unfortunately. She was spoiled, greedy, and egotistical, but not murderous.
“You don’t know? You really are an idiot. Your father is getting a daughter-in-law, and mine is getting mining rights to Picor.”
“I will not be married to you. It would be like marrying my sister.”
She gagged. “If that’s what you like, I won’t judge you. But see,” she grinned, “we are both nineteen; we have no say in the matter.” She turned around and pressed her body against me suggestively.
I tried to push her away with one hand and hold the pillow with the other, but she forced my arm around her waist instead.
She wasn’t wearing a slip under her dress. “You’re naked!” I exclaimed.
“Not yet.”
“I will not marry you, or sleep with you,” I growled.
She scoffed. “Of course not, that would be gross. I knew you since we were three. But sex has nothing to do with marriage, and we would both get something out of this. So here’s how it’s going to go. We will be married as our fathers command. I will move into the princess chambers, with my lover as my personal servant, and when your dear father dies, you will have a queen to rule the kingdom in your absence.”
I stopped trying to push her away. “What do you mean, in my absence?”
She laughed and turned around, keeping my arm around her and pressing her breast against me. “I know you want nothing to do with the crown or the royal duties. I also know that I will never become queen of Zendii because my father will marry me to someone before he dies. I will prepare myself to be queen, and when you run off to your adventures, I will be your alibi. After all, it can’t be said that my husband is a troublemaker.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snarled.
She used my moment of distraction to rip the pillow from my hand and toss it across the room. Then she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed herself against me. “When the villagers say a mysterious fire started, or when the city is trampled by a herd of wild animals, I will say you were in my room, trying to make a little heir.”
I honestly never set out to cause trouble, but bad things happened around me. Usually, I would find out about some sinister plot against the throne and, while preventing the attempt on my father’s life, I would end up screwing something else up that got me caught looking like a clumsy fool. It didn’t help that I often had to set some kind of diversion.
“Think about it, and when your father announces our surprise engagement, pretend to be delighted.” She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek before leaving as quickly as she arrived.
The servant returned with a pail of hot water, just in time to see Haru-joul leaving. He looked deliberately at the bath as he poured the water into it. Most of the servants in the castle were gossips, but I worked very hard to have a terrifying reputation among them.
“She was never here,” I said. “If anyone hears otherwise, you will be taking Doro’s place.”
“Of course, prince.”
“Send Momo and Koko to me and work the rest of the night in the kitchen. The bread was very dry. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Because otherwise my father will punish the entire kitchen staff severely. He hated dry bread.
“What about the bath?” he asked. I growled and he squeaked before taking off as fast as his legs would carry him.
I put one hand in the warm water of the bathtub and reached the other out towards the fireplace. When I was alone, or especially away from the castle, my power over fire was prodigious… it was just when others were with me that I had control issues. I pulled some of the heat from the flames into me, and through me into the water. Within a few minutes, the water started to steam.
I had just gotten in the bath with my door burst open and the twins ran inside. I put my finger to my lips and shushed them quickly. “Close the door, quick, and come here,” I whispered.
Intrigued, Koko shut the door and took his brother’s hand to lead him over to the bathtub. “Why did you want to see us? Is it because of dinner?”
“No, I need to tell you something.” I looked around as if I couldn’t smell we were alone and leaned as close to the boys as the tub walls would allow. “I should not be telling you this. You have to keep a secret.”
Momo’s eyes widened, but Koko looked suspicious. “We always keep secrets,” Koko said.
“I need you to do something for me, something very dangerous.” I looked around again exaggeratedly. “Haru-joul was in here earlier. She was talking about what you did at dinner, yelling even, when her eyes turned red.”
Both twins’ eyes widened in horror.
“And I heard her talking with someone out in the hallway about an assassination on the king.” I glanced at the door and the boys leaned closer. “And I heard one of the servants say that her mother… that her mother was a dejeva.”
Momo opened his mouth to shout and both Koko and I frantically shushed him.
“What do we do?” Momo cried.
“I need your help. She wants to make me her slave.”
“You belong to us, Mordon,” Koko growled. “We’ll stop her.”
“I need you to spy on her. I need you to tell me everything she does, and says, and especially everyone she talks to. But you can’t let her know. If she sees you, she’ll turn into a dejeva and eat you.”
“No!” Momo gasped.
Koko clamped his hand over his brother’s mouth. “We’ll do it, Mordon. You can trust us.” He dragged his brother out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him.
The twins were invaluable spies and I adored them both.
* * *
I was just letting go of the string as my father barked in my ear to hurry. The arrow shot high as a result of my flinch.
“You need to pull, aim, and release in an instant and while moving!” my father lectured. “Your enemy will be firing back at you, and they will not give you the luxury of taking your time.”
No, they would be too busy laughing themselves to death when they see someone still using a bow and arrow when guns are much more effective. I ignored my father’s ranting as I pulled another arrow from the quiver strapped to my leg and notched it. I stood with my body facing my father and my face towards the target. The one thing I always got right was to face my body perpendicular to my target. I didn’t need to learn that painful lesson twice.
I locked my left arm and drew my bow up as I pulled the string back to my cheek.
“Lock your arm,” my father demanded.
“It is locked.”
“Then release.” I did, and my arrow went wide. My father smacked me in the ba
ck of the head. “I said aim, and release, you fool. You there,” he turned his anger on Doro, “pick up that target!”
Doro knew better than to protest an order from the king, so he took the painted plaque from the bed of wood pieces that held it up. I gave Doro my best apologetic look as my father was focused elsewhere, and pulled another arrow. I notched it and drew back the string as I aimed the bow. Just then, my father turned away, and I aimed away from Doro before releasing the string.
My father looked from me to the arrow and snarled. “Keep practicing. Your lack of hunting skills are going to become a rumor for the Zendii house to taunt me with. I should send you to your uncle’s farm on Tumordii. He would straighten you out. Shameful little runt.”
He left to talk to Ome-mor and they both went inside. “Put the target back,” I said.
Doro did so, gratefully, and darted off the field. I notched another arrow, locked my arm, drew back my string, and aimed. I scented her approach ahead of time, so I wasn’t startled to feel the soft touch on my arm.
“I know your arm is tired,” Haru-joul said softly, “but you have to relax. Breathe in,” she said. I did. “Breathe out. Aim again.” She pressed herself against my back. “Breathe in… breathe out. Breathe in… breathe out. Now imagine that target is my face. And release.”
I released… and my arrow landed in the center yellow ring. I marveled in confusion at the arrow as the servants started collecting the lost ones. To cover up my surprise at hitting the target, I stripped off my arm and finger guards.
“There you go; all you needed was a way to get your frustrations out,” Haru-joul said. “There are other ways, too, you know.”
“Don’t be obscene.” Doro was giving us his undivided attention, so I waved him off. He was certainly going to go gossip, but he wouldn’t stick around to overhear anything else. Instead, he would just make something up.
“I was talking about Jedes.”
“That is just as bad. She’s a child.”
Haru-joul laughed. “Whatever you say. She may not look it, but she is the same age as us. I really don’t care who you spend your time with, as long as I am queen.”
“Then marry my father, because you will not be my wife.”
She sauntered off without another word, but just before she did, I caught the scent. It wasn’t strong enough to be her own, but she had definitely been in close contact to whoever wanted to kill my father.
Eager to get the assassin out of my way, I headed back inside, carefully skirting the throne room. I was vigilant to never head directly to my destination, but instead take a casual sweep. Usually, when my father was being targeted, I was followed.
In the hallway outside the conference room, I was passing the door while holding my breath in prayer that my father would not see me. The two guards watching the door smirked, since they knew exactly what I was doing. Just before I turned the corner, a kitchen maid came around it holding a pitcher of something. I scented her as an afterthought when she passed me.
As I expected, she was innocent… but there was another scent I recognized. I grabbed her arm, forcing her to halt, and took the carafe from her. She gasped when I smelled the dark wine, but she didn’t look guilty.
The wine was laced with a poison. Most people wouldn’t recognize the scent of the white-petal flower, or even know of its mortal properties, but I spent most of my free time in the physician’s home. I knew potions, I knew explosive powders, and I knew poisons.
I pulled her around the corner so the guards couldn’t see us. “Who did you get this from?” I asked.
“Nobody… I mean, it was on the table with a note that it was for the king’s meeting. It didn’t say who left it there.”
“When is his meeting?”
“Right now.”
We were right by the window overlooking the archery field so I let her go, opened the window, and poured the wine out into the grass before dropping the carafe. The woman was obviously confused, but she didn’t run off. “Kys-do, go back to the kitchen. Get another carafe, identical to that one, and fill it with wine. Don’t let anyone else near it. Take it to the king and serve it as usual. Do not tell anyone what happened here. As far as you are concerned, it is the one you found on the table.”
“Was that poisoned?” she asked.
I put my finger to my lips. “Of course not. That would mean someone is trying to kill the king.”
“But the only strangers to the castle are the Zendii---” she started.
I grabbed her shoulders gently to stop her. “And we both know the Zendii family is our ally. We never accuse our allies of treason. Now, I think you are keeping the king and his guests waiting.”
She nodded and ran off.
I went to the main study. There was a woman I didn’t know sitting in a chair in front of the fire, but I could tell she was asleep, so I didn’t worry. Ome-mor brought many servants with him, so it wasn’t unusual to see a stranger. Her scent was moral anyway.
The room was spacious with wall to wall bookshelves on three consecutive walls, several couches, a bulky wooden work desk, and comfortable chairs. The fireplace was huge and centered on the fourth wall with a special bookshelf above it. On the north wall, behind the desk, was a large painting of the castle from a distance.
I dug around in the bottom right drawer of the desk until I found a special inkwell. It was slim and not very talk and it looked like every other one, except it couldn’t stand up; the base was textured. I went to the bookshelf to the right of the painting and, after a quick glance to make sure the woman still slept, I started removing several books closest to the painting on the third shelf up. There was a small circular indent in the wall, which could only be felt, not seen. I lined the base of the inkwell into the hole, pressed, and twisted.
The small snap above me let me know I was successful, so I put the books and inkwell away. The painting swung free easily with its latch unlocked, revealing a doorway which only my father, his advisor, and myself knew about. It wasn’t the most hidden passageway in the castle, but it was well protected. When my father or his advisor entered, they had to use a decoy to set off the trap and wait for the fire to recede.
I didn’t have the patience.
As the painting swung back into place behind me, I stepped on the pressure plate in the pitch black of the narrow tunnel. Fire reared up from torches on either side, sure to scorch any intruder to death. I stripped off my shirt and pants, balled them up, and entered the flames.
After a few minutes, I reached the end of the long tunnel of fire, where the rock floor leveled out and the walls widened. Completely unscathed, I redressed. It was unfortunate that my clothing was not as fireproof as me.
There were enough cracks in the stone to see where I was going. Some places were almost too narrow to pass through, but I made it, minus a little skin. The tunnel I wedged myself into was little more than a crevice, but for my work, I was able to look into the conference room.
The view was from a very special painting above the fireplace, created with a black-netted patch that was translucent from the back, opaque from the front. I could see out but nobody could see in without shining a light inside.
My father and Ome-mor had just settled into their seats around the circular table, my father in his usual seat that was a replica of the throne, and the visiting king in an elegant chair brought out during treaty agreements and trade rights. The door opened and Kys-do entered, looking calm and collected. She had a carafe identical to the one poisoned, which made me nervous as she handed goblets to my father and Ome-mor. She set the pitcher down and left without a word. Both men held their metal goblets without drinking.
“Picor is an inhabited island,” my father started.
Ome-mor set his drink down and leaned forward slightly. “It is a very small island with no natural recourses available to the people. I will pay to have the people relocated.”
“But you want to keep all of the profits,” my father understood.
<
br /> I groaned; Haru-joul was right. Her father was going to propose a marriage in order to get what he wanted.
Ome-mor picked up his drink, brought it to his mouth slowly as if to buy himself a second to think, and then lowered it without drinking any of it. “We have been friends for years, Ishte-mor, I am certain we can work something out.”
My father took a swallow of his drink and set it down. “I suppose you have a proposition in mind.”
Ome-mor studied the drink for just a moment before focusing on my father’s face. It was suspicious, but I couldn’t get a scent from my hiding place. If my father died before he could sign anything, Ome-mor would have no rights whatsoever to anything of the Mokii lands, including Picor. Unfortunately, my father often instilled in people the kind of blind rage that made them act without prior planning.
“That girl who was sitting beside your son during dinner… I’ve seen her before.”
“An orphaned servant. The other staff raised her to stay out of my way and keep her mouth shut and she does her chores very well. She is the one to remind Mordon to be where I tell him to be, when I tell him to be there, so I don’t mind that she is always around.”
“Your son seemed very protective of her.”
“Mordon is protective of all orphans. He gets it from his mother. There is nothing inappropriate going on between them, if that is what you’re implying. I know better than to let my son become involved with a servant.”
“Oh, good. Too many children these days believe that marriage is about love and passion.” He scoffed. “Speaking of marriage, I have been having a difficult time finding anyone worthy of marrying my daughter to.”
“I find that hard to believe,” my father said.
Ome-mor chuckled and looked into his drink cup, but left it on the table.
“Not thirsty?” my father asked, taking another drink.
By now I was certain it wasn’t poisoned, but Ome-mor looked almost offended by what was in his goblet.
“I don’t like wine.”
That was really suspicious.
“Since when? You drank the kingdom dry on your last visit.”
