“Quickly!” I said, proud that my voice didn’t shake. “The sand has started.”
Lilac read out the riddle in a low mumble.
“You’ll need to read louder,” said Emmeline.
Lilac cleared her throat and tried again.
“Another easy one,” said Giselle, giving the answer.
“But are you sure?” I pressed, not taking my eyes off the disappearing sand.
“Emmeline?” Giselle turned to her sister for confirmation.
“Absolutely. That is the correct answer.” I didn’t like having to trust in the two icy Eldonian princesses when they showed no fear. Did they even understand the gravity of the situation? But I had no choice.
Lilac took a deep breath, wrote the answer on the parchment, and then held it above her plate.
“Wait,” said Millie. “Let me get a firm grip.” Both girls clasped each other’s forearm, locking their hands as tightly as possible. Hazel clung to her sister’s other side as Lilac dropped the parchment. It floated down and settled on her plate.
We all held our breath for a second that seemed to go on and on. I blinked, and a pile of dust disappeared into the plate. We all waited another long second before releasing a breath of relief. Millie and Lilac shared a wobbly smile.
Millie read out her riddle and once again my brain refused to engage. This time because I was too busy considering who stood in the most danger. Sophie sat between Millie and me, but Millie must be as heavy as Sophie, so catching her wouldn’t be an easy feat. I decided to grip Sophie’s other arm, to anchor her in case Millie’s seat fell away.
But Emmeline managed to puzzle out the correct answer, so Millie was safe. My relief mixed with an unreasonable frustration. It galled me that we were so beholden to someone who seemed entirely disinterested in the process.
I didn’t even hear Sophie read out her riddle. I knew I should be helping to think of an answer, but my fuzzy brain kept circling back to the dropped chair and the approaching danger to my sister. I gripped Sophie’s arm harder than I had ever done before.
But a shaken Hazel managed to give the correct answer, and then it was my turn. To my surprise I recognized a favorite riddle from my childhood. “My dress is the envy of maidens,” I read out. “Another simple one.”
I looked over at Sophie, and we smiled at the same time. I had always loved it because of my name.
“White calla lily.” Sophie looked around the table. “Because it looks like a wedding dress.”
No one disputed it, and I quickly wrote the answer on my parchment. I was certain we were right, but…
“I should hold your arm, anyway,” said Sophie. “Just in case.”
We gripped forearms as the other girls had done, as I dropped the parchment on my plate and watched it dissolve into dust. I smiled at the others. After four correct answers in a row, my heart rate had slowed down. Until my eyes caught on Blanche.
Sitting across from me she looked even paler than usual and kept casting surreptitious glances at the smaller Giselle, her only neighbor. My anxiety spiked again.
When the next parchment appeared on Blanche’s plate, she read it in a shaky voice. Like earlier, my concern for the consequences made it too hard for my tired mind to focus on a possible answer. I kept measuring the relative weights of the two girls in my mind. Blanche couldn’t be that much heavier than Giselle…
Thankfully, given my inattention, Hazel knew the answer, and Blanche wrote it down with a shaking hand. She gripped Giselle’s arm, and I held my breath as the parchment seemed to drift lazily through the air onto her plate.
It dissolved and disappeared, and I breathed again. I slumped back into my chair as Giselle read out her riddle. My eyes ran down the table. We were past half-way now, making our way down the opposite side of the table. But we wouldn’t be safe until we had finished. Not with Celine on the far end with only Pearl to catch her.
I refocused on the table in time to see Emmeline and Giselle exchange shrugs before Giselle wrote something on her scrap of parchment. They seemed less sure than usual. I didn’t feel too concerned, however. Emmeline, older by two years, also looked considerably stronger than her sister and should have no trouble holding her weight if needed.
I watched the parchment hit the table, already wondering if the reverse were true—would Giselle be able to catch Emmeline if we got the next one wrong? Giselle would need to be ready to try, since tiny Opal sat on Emmeline’s other side.
It took a moment for my mind to register the whooshing sound, or the empty place where Giselle had been sitting. As with Hazel and Lilac earlier, Emmeline almost disappeared from view, yanked down by her grip on her sister.
I waited for her to reappear with Giselle in tow, and it seemed to take forever for her to straighten. When she finally did, however, there was no sign of her sister.
Part II
The Duchy of Marin
Chapter 15
“Giselle?” I managed to squeeze out the word, my eyes darting between Emmeline and the empty space next to her.
“She slipped.”
Marigold and Opal both screamed, but everyone else seemed stricken silent. Shock had stolen our voices. Emmeline’s face looked completely blank, and I suppressed a mad urge to shout and rail at her.
Did that really happen? Sophie sounded hesitant and confused. Or is this a dream? Have I fallen asleep at the table?
“Can…can you see her?” Hazel’s voice quavered, and I guessed she was remembering her own terrifying drop.
Blanche, on the other side of Giselle’s missing seat, peered over the side of her chair, before shaking her head. “I can’t see the bottom of the hole. It’s just darkness.”
Several audible breaths sounded from around the table.
“She’ll be all right, though, won’t she?” asked Lilac. “I mean she can’t be…”
No one answered her unfinished question, and the young twins started crying.
I looked at Emmeline who still showed no emotion. She can’t really be so uncaring. I sent Sophie an image of Emmeline’s empty face. She must be in shock. Surely?
Surely! A pause. You don’t think she could possibly have… Sophie’s projected whisper faded away.
Why would she wish her sister harm? I couldn’t believe it to be possible. Even of Emmeline.
Yes, of course. You’re right.
Emmeline cleared her throat and began to read aloud from the parchment that had appeared on her plate. I wanted to snap at her to be silent and remind her that her own sister had disappeared. That she might even be dead. To tell her she should be an emotional wreck, and we couldn’t calmly continue riddling.
And yet, the sandglass had begun its inexorable trickle. Calmly or not, continue is exactly what we had to do, unless we wanted more of our number to fall. Emmeline’s voice didn’t falter, but she looked up afterwards with a confused face.
I looked at Sophie, wondering if she had caught the riddle. I had missed it completely in my shock.
Hazel squeaked before clearing her throat and trying again. This time she managed to get out the word, “Books.”
“Ah yes, of course.” Emmeline wrote down the answer without waiting for confirmation from anyone else. She had placed her parchment onto her plate before I remembered that with Giselle gone, only Opal remained to catch Emmeline, hardly a feasible option.
But Emmeline didn’t turn to the younger girl for help, obviously confident in her answer, and a second later her parchment had dissolved and disappeared. A new one appeared in front of the still weeping Opal.
I knew I should encourage her to read it, but my mind kept catching on Giselle’s empty place.
She can’t really be dead. Sophie met my eyes. The Tourney wouldn’t kill one of us! I bit my lip. I wished I shared her confidence.
Celine leaned forward to look around Pearl. “Come on, Opal. Read your riddle. The sandglass has started.” She pointed at the running grains and Opal gasped, choked on a sob, and picked up
her parchment.
Her voice trembled too much for us to understand, so she had to start again. “Up and down, round and round. I travel freely where I will, and not even the largest army can restrain me. And yet, neither can even the smallest baby feel me.”
Staring at Opal’s terrified, tear-stained face gave me a shot of energy that partially cleared my mind. Clearly we couldn’t rely on Emmeline to catch her. Hazel had started shaking again, so the others directed their hopeful gazes at Emmeline. She remained silent, her lips pressed into a thin line. Another one she didn’t know, then. I wished I could help but my thoughts kept circling endlessly around the loss of Giselle, and how we could save Opal.
Wait! “Thoughts!” I called out the suggestion with excitement. “I know mine go round and round. No one can tell you what to think, but no one can feel thoughts either, unless they’re acted on.”
I can feel your thoughts sometimes, when you send them to me. I could tell Sophie’s quibbling didn’t represent a serious objection, but it still made me nervous.
Slow nods around the room gave me a buoyant feeling that collapsed as soon as I thought about what would happen if I was wrong. It was a lot of pressure.
“Never mind,” I said quickly. “That’s probably wrong.”
“No.” Emmeline shook her head slowly. “It does fit. And who was it who said any answer is better than none?”
I looked hopefully around the table. Surely someone had a better answer. Surely someone was about to recognize the riddle from their home kingdom. No one spoke.
“Go on Opal,” said Pearl. “I…I’ll catch you if you fall.” It was the bravest thing I’d heard her say, and I wanted to applaud her.
Opal scratched with her pen against her parchment and took a deep breath before dropping it on her plate. I waited with my own held breath. If she fell now, it would be my fault.
But her chair stayed in place, and small smiles blossomed around the table, although they were quickly extinguished when eyes fell on Giselle’s empty place.
“Don’t worry, Pearl,” said Celine bracingly as the second-to-last riddle appeared on the young princess’ plate. “I won’t let you slip if we get this wrong.”
Celine easily had my confidence, but the reverse was certainly not the case. If we got Celine’s riddle wrong there was no way Pearl could take her weight. Celine would fall.
I couldn’t bear the thought. Especially not given her existing injury. There might not be a soft landing at the bottom of the drop. I refused to let my mind think about the fact that the hardness of the surface wouldn’t matter if the fall was long enough.
I suddenly realized that Pearl had already returned her parchment to her plate. Whoever had given the answer had been right, since her chair remained in place.
Celine took a deep breath and read out her riddle. “Many dream of me, but none can have me.” Another short one. She looked around at us all enquiringly.
Surely someone knew the answer.
But only blank faces greeted her. Everyone had visibly begun to tire, our nerves on edge from the constant tension and strain, and from our underlying shock and fear about Giselle’s unknown fate. My mind came up blank. And apparently, so did everyone else’s. No one could come up with any but the most unlikely guesses.
Eventually Celine shrugged, swallowed and chose an answer to write on her parchment. Pearl extended her slight arm toward Celine, the limb visibly trembling. Moisture filled my eyes. Her action was even braver than her earlier words to her sister, since Celine would surely pull Pearl down with her rather than being saved herself.
Celine smiled at the younger princess but shook her head. “I’ll grab onto the edge of the table. I should be able to hold myself briefly.” She looked over Pearl and Opal’s heads toward Emmeline, the closest of the older girls. “As soon as I put this down, we’ll have finished all twelve riddles, so be ready to leap up. If it’s wrong, you’ll need to dash over and grab me.”
The answer was definitely wrong. I poised my body to leap from my chair. I was the furthest possible from Celine, at the opposite diagonal of the table, but after what had happened to Giselle, I didn’t trust Emmeline to save her. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, but I didn’t let myself. I needed to be ready to run.
Celine dropped the parchment and gripped the table in the half second it took to float down onto the plate. Every single one of us, with the exception of Emmeline, held our breath as the parchment disappeared.
And every single one of us, with the exception of Emmeline, flinched violently when Celine’s chair disappeared with a whoosh, and her body dropped out of sight. As I leaped from my chair, I noted with relief that her fingers gripped the edge of the table. I ran around toward her, Sophie two steps ahead of me, both running at full pace despite our exhaustion.
My twin came to an abrupt halt, and I collided with her back. Peering around her, I saw Celine lying on the ground, her face grim, and Emmeline kneeling beside her.
So the other girl had followed through after all. Had she been attempting to redeem herself for letting her sister fall? I saw no evidence of such emotion in her face.
The others gathered around us, all understandably anxious to vacate their chairs. Only Blanche stood apart from the group, staring down into the hole that had swallowed Giselle.
She looked up and met my eye. “What do we do?”
I walked over to join her and peered down myself. The opening was only just wider than a chair and disappeared into darkness much sooner than I would have thought possible given the light in the room. As little as I liked Giselle, I still hated the thought that she might be lying at the bottom of it, hurt or worse. But that didn’t change the fact that we had no rope and no way to lower someone down there to check.
Sophie came to stand beside me. “Perhaps it curves once it’s out of sight and becomes like a slide. It might have simply deposited her outside the building.”
I nodded, grateful for the suggestion. I didn’t want to leave without hope, but there was no way I was going down that hole, or helping anyone else to do so, either.
Now that my fear for Celine had faded, my earlier exhaustion had returned, heightened by so much emotional turmoil and our mad dash to our friend. Warm, familiar arms, like an extension of myself, wrapped around me. Come on, Lil. Waiting here won’t help anything.
I nodded and turned toward the door. The rest of the princesses joined us, sped along by our desire to be gone from this terrifying place, and the small hope we still held for Giselle. Marigold and Lilac both clung to Hazel, and the twins clung to each other, but everyone else walked single file.
When we reached the lake, no one moved for a moment.
“There are only eleven boats,” said Celine.
“The Tourney knows she’s dead,” said Marigold, and the younger twins began crying again.
“Or she’s already crossed ahead of us,” I suggested, hoping to calm them.
Their tears did stop as everyone considered the possibility, but I still heard the occasional sob as they climbed into their coracles. No one spoke as we floated across the water. I was as emotionally drained on this return journey, as I had been physically drained on the last two. And my body drooped from the fatigue of my recent illness. Would every Tourney event be so devastating? How many of us would be left at the end if they were?
“Look!” Celine pointed ahead of us as we approached the other side. I followed her finger and saw a single boat floating in place. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but when I looked again, I could still see it. For the first time I began to actually believe that I might have been right about Giselle crossing before us.
We all walked quickly, almost jogging through the groves, although no one spoke the reason for our haste aloud. As we stepped out of the silver-leaved grove, Marigold, who walked next to me, shrieked.
“Giselle!” She shrieked again and took off running.
I told my feet to hurry after her, but they didn’t respond. The relief of seei
ng the familiar figure waiting for us at the bottom of the ladder seemed to have drained the last vestiges of my energy.
I made my slow way toward her. Marigold babbled questions at Giselle, but she didn’t answer. She briefly met her sister’s eyes, and I saw no sign of recrimination or relief on either side. Yet the girls usually stuck to each other’s sides without fail. Surely they must care for each other in some way?
“What are you doing here?” I asked her, unable to form a more coherent question.
“I thought I would come ahead and wait for you here,” she replied.
I stared at her. Was that really all she had to say? After what must have been a terrifying experience for her. What had been a terrifying experience for the rest of us.
Marigold continued to ask her questions, but she just shrugged.
“Come on,” I said, too tired to fight Giselle for answers. “Let’s go.”
I didn’t notice who helped Celine up the ladder, but somehow we all arrived in the room at the top. I looked down at my nearly pristine dancing slippers. That was new. My eye caught on a bare foot. And then a second and a third. Apparently Hazel and Celine had both lost a slipper to the holes that had swallowed their chairs. And Giselle had lost both. I pictured the slippers falling endlessly down into darkness, and thought about how much worse the night could have turned out. How much worse it had seemed only moments before. I was nearly sick into the corner of the room.
Sophie gripped my arm, frowning at me in concern. I shook my head at her, not trusting my voice. And then the door opened, and Helena was there. She must have guided me after that because the next thing I knew, my head finally made contact with my pillow.
“Wake me in a decade,” I croaked and was lost to unconsciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw Sophie sitting at a small table beside our window, eating from a tray piled high with food. The light streaming onto her looked like morning sun.
Please, please tell me I haven’t slept away another two days!
Beyond the Four Kingdoms Box Set 1 Page 13
