I spent over an hour with the seamstress begging that as well as dresses she also make me three pairs of trousers and some short tunics. She said no the first three times, saying that trousers and tunics were not for women. I then asked her if Regina was a woman, and who had made her trousers and tunics. She’d simply sighed and said she would make them. Then I further pleaded that she try to get the bloodstains out of my leather hunting suit that my mom gave me. Once she agreed to everything, I thanked her profusely and then followed Narine to the luncheon.
“The king is off dealing with matters of the realm, so he won’t be joining you for lunch,” Narine told me.
Matters of the realm. AKA the Nightfall queen attack on Gypsy Rock I was dying to know about. I could’nt care less about having lunch with the king, I wanted to know how the attack was going.
“Do we have word from Gypsy Rock? How is the fighting going?” I asked her.
She raised one eyebrow at me. “How do you know about that?”
I waved her off. “I was there. I rode here on the dragon king’s back! Where do you think I got all that blood from?”
She nodded. “I heard. I cannot say too much, but I do have a source that said a messenger just arrived a few minutes ago.”
I stopped in the hallway. “And…?”
She looked at me with a bewildered expression. “I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and they are private messages meant only for the king and his advisors.”
I folded my arms over my chest and scowled.
Narine gestured to a large set of double doors. “This lunch will be a good time for me to assess your table manners.”
I couldn’t help the peal of laughter that escaped me. “Narine, please don’t bother. My mother fed us meat on the bone in front of the fireplace since I was a wee babe. I’m not going to be impressing anyone with my table manners.”
She sighed, and I saw the moment she gave up on me. The light died in her eyes as she gave up hope that I would be some refined Jade City queen.
I stopped in the hallway and leaned closer to her, lowering my voice. “Listen, if you really want to try to win this thing, I could ask for another maid. There’s a girl from Grim Hollow that I overheard the king’s lead guard saying was very powerful. Maybe you could be with her?”
She gave me a polite smile. “We can’t switch.”
I figured as much. “Well, then we’ll just do the dress resell thing?”
Another polite smile. “Yes, lady. Thank you. It’s a kindness I won’t forget.”
I felt better about patching things up with her and having an ally, but still felt a little guilty I wasn’t trying to marry the king and win her those one hundred jade coins.
She opened the doors and I stepped inside the room. I was instantly assaulted with the sight of over a hundred women in colored dresses and gold leather sandals.
Holy Hades.
I looked at Narine. “Are we in the right place?” I asked, although in my gut I knew that we were. I knew in that moment that the king had summoned every female of child-bearing age with an ounce of magic in them.
“We are.”She nodded.
I felt simultaneously dirty and relieved. Dirty that we were all dressed the same, given the same dress and sandals like brands on cattle, but relieved that there were so many women there was no way the king would ever pick me as his wife in a sea full of other women. I just wasn’t that special, and my magic still hadn’t even shown itself. With luck, I’d be home by the next full moon and King Valdren would have his wife with her magical baby-making womb.
“Food!” I ran over to the table Kendal was sitting at and took a seat next to her. She was chatting with some of the other girls, and in the middle of the table was a smorgasbord of various cuisine. Meats, cheeses, small fancy breads, and tiny little pies littered the table. I grabbed two of everything and piled my plate high, digging in.
Narine pulled up a chair next to me and watched me.
I moaned, dipping one of the little meat pies into some kind of spicy cheese sauce that I’d never had before. “Holy Hades,” I moaned again.
Narine smacked my shoulder lightly. “No moaning, and no cursing at the dinner table,” she chided.
Kendal snickered, as well as two of the other girls. “Oh, you won’t be teaching this one manners,” Kendal jibed, but smiled so that I knew it was playful. After seeing her faint so many times and hearing from her maid that she’d been crying, my heart felt for her. Back in Cinder I didn’t hang out with her often. I wasn’t a fan of gossip and the latest fashion, so we just didn’t have a lot in common, but here… here we were Cinder girls and we needed to stick together.
I nodded, looking to Narine. “You might as well spend my mealtimes doing something you love. There’s no saving me.” I shoved a gigantic bread roll into my mouth to make a point and Narine visibly shrunk, wincing in slight disgust.
“Alright, well, if you’re sure.”
“I’m shlure.” My voice was muffled through the bread roll. Narine reached up to rub her temples.
Once she left, I swallowed the roll and smiled at my triumph. I wasn’t technically that bad at the dinner table, but I wasn’t about to get some propriety lessons like a Jade City girl. I wanted to eat in peace and talk with Kendal, not learn what the three different sized forks were for.
I lowered my voice to her: “How you doing?”
She gave me a small smile. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying, but she looked better than when we flew here on the king’s back.
“Better now that I’m not riding a dragon,” she said sternly.
I nodded. “Hopefully, you don’t have to do that again,” I told her.
She grinned. “At least not in that way.”
It took me a second to get her meaning and my mouth popped open at the dirty joke. Kendal was a wild card. Proper most days, encouraged others to stay pure, but she also knew the most about bedding a man than anyone else I knew. She claimed it was from visiting her aunt in Gypsy Rock, but now I wondered.
I bumped her shoulder with a smile. “Good one.”
She burst into laughter and I found myself laughing too. I felt light and carefree for the first time since I’d gotten here.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
THE NEXT FEW days passed slowly and I was ready to die of boredom. All the other girls wanted to talk about was sewing and flowers and how many children they wanted. Everyone seemed really excited to be here, and were anxious to meet the king and win his hand in marriage.
I on the other hand was anxious to hear about the war. We’d had little skirmishes now and again but not a full-on war for as long as I could remember. Last I’d heard from Narine was that the king and his army were holding the Nightfall queen and her men back at the Great River, but it had been an exhausting feat with more troops going out each day. Meanwhile, the prospective wives just kept getting up and wearing dresses and curling their hair, waiting for the king to arrive and choose one of them.
It was nauseating.
Speaking of nauseating: “I don’t feel well. Please tell the other girls how much I will miss their company for lunch, but I think I’ll stay in today,” I told Narine.
I was half serious. I didn’t feel well, but as sweet as they all were, I wouldn’t miss the other girls’ boring company. One more talk of the beautiful lilies in the garden and I was going to scream. Whenever I tried to tell a hunting story, they shushed me!
It just wasn’t my preferred company.
Narine frowned, stepping forward to press a hand to my forehead, and then came away with a hiss. “I’ll fetch a healer.” She started to run from the room and I laughed.
“No, I’m fine. I just have a headache and need a nap,” I mumbled, but the look of terror on her face made me wonder if I had spots on my skin or red cheeks. The pox took out a tenth of the village when I was little and I’d never had it before.
“You’re burning up,” was all she said, and then she slipped out the door.
I stumbled over to my bed, suddenly feeling shaky, and reached up to touch my own forehead. I felt fine, but would a person with a fever feel hot to themselves?
I was just tired. So tired that my brain felt like it was on fire. I lay down, unsure how long it would take to fetch a healer, and scared by the sudden turn of events.
I drifted off to sleep, only to be shaken awake sometime later.
“Miss Novakson? I’m Dr. Elsie,” a woman with bright green hair said as she leaned over me and touched my head with a metal spoon-like object.
Her eyes widened with alarm and she looked to Narine, who was standing nearby.
“Run a cool bath, add ice,” the doctor said.
“Ice?” I hissed.
The doctor stared down at me with concern and my eyes went to the tips of her ears to see that sure enough, they were pointed.
Elf?
Elves were famous for their healing, unlike their fae brethren, and dragons had a bit of healing magic as well. “Miss Nov—”
“Call me Arwen,” I moaned, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down my neck. The slight icky feeling I’d had a few moments ago had given way to full-on illness. My stomach burned with heat and my head felt like someone was squeezing it.
“Arwen, I am an elf-dragon with a specialist degree in hybrid illnesses. I have both an advanced doctor degree in dragon-folk and human maladies, as well as schooling in elven healing.”
Blah, blah, I was dying and she was rattling on about her qualifications. An elf-dragon hybrid? That was pretty rare—next to impossible, really. I’d never met one, but my brain was on fire and so in this moment I didn’t really care.
“I’m so tired, it burns. Water,” I mumbled, starting to feel delirious.
The woman leaned forward then and stuck her nose right up against my neck and inhaled. She reminded me of a damn sniffer, and it was beyond rude to invade someone’s personal space like this.
“Hey!” I shoved her away, starting to see wavy lines rise up off of my body like you would see heat when it hit hot stone at mid-day.
What the…?
The doctor’s eyes widened and she blinked at me repeatedly. “You don’t smell like a hybrid,” she breathed.
Oh Hades. My mother’s words of warning rushed back to me.
“What?” I laughed it off, one hundred percent sure I was going to burst into flames any second. The heat was all-consuming.
“And you smell like you’re covered in spell magic that’s wearing off.” She said it almost accusatorily.
“What!?” I shrieked.
I could see something wrestling behind her eyes—compassion and condemnation both in equal measure, as if it were somehow my fault that someone had put a spell on me at birth.
“Ice bath is ready!” Narine called out. The doctor shook herself, sliding one hand under my legs and another behind my neck.
She scooped me up, grunting under my weight, and rushed me across the room.
The smell of burning skin wafted through the air and I gagged, looking up at the doctor. She winced in pain as smoke singed up to the ceiling. Following the smoke, I peered down in horror to see that it was her skin that was burning. And I was the one burning her.
What the Hades? How was this possible?
“I’ll walk,” I said, but my words came out warbled, and black dots danced at the edges of my vision. When she reached the tub, she dropped me into it like a hot coal. My body crashed into the sharp icy coldness and a hiss of steam exploded outward and darkness pulled me into its sweet embrace.
