AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My mother’s ladies were all dressed in dazzling whites and golds, all of them gathered around my mother's door as they waited for her to emerge for the day so they could go to the small chapel in the Runturin and complete their prayers to the Goddess that Mother made sure to engage in every day. They looked pious in their whites and veils, prepared to sob and pray at any moment. All of that changed as I charged my way into the hall. So much for not storming the castle. They turned to face me, all of them moving as though they had been pulled by a string.
Shock, confusion, and curiosity lined their faces, more than one staring at the gorgeous rats’ nest of a hairdo I had created.
“That’s the princess,” one hissed a whisper to another from behind a fan, as if she didn’t know who I was. Because she didn’t. The shock on the new girl's face was almost comical.
I gave an extra loud cough, holding my chest as I feigned a swoon to the side. The Boy didn’t even move to catch me, he was probably rolling his eyes again, which meant that I landed against the wall with a thud. I could have sworn at least one of them flinched.
“Oh, the burning sun has cursed me. I am as though the last creature of the Realm of Okivo,” I moaned pitifully as I leaned against the wall, coughing again. “Will there be another like I, that will grace my life? Or, am I doomed to walk–”
I didn’t get much more out before the Boy wound his arm through mine and dragged me down the hall and past the courtiers who were now looking at me with differing levels of pity and concern.
I coughed again, and the Boy growled.
“I’m sickly, remember?” I hissed, he clicked and grumbled something that almost sounded like words. “Yes, I probably make it worse. But if I didn’t, Mother would.”
He couldn’t argue with that, he clicked his tongue once and released me, leaving me to walk the last few steps to the guards that flanked Father’s door on my own.
They were already at attention, thanks to my little display down the hall, and they looked more than a little uncomfortable. Their indigo uniforms matched too closely to the heavy iron door they stood on either side of, making them look like a wall of stone.
I cleared my throat. Here goes nothing.
“I would like to see my father.”
Someone chittered behind me in the silence that followed my request, but I didn’t move, didn’t look away from the two men. I stared them down, even as they glanced at the ladies-in-waiting who were surely the ones who had laughed.
“Please let me through.” Another glance. It was already hard enough to breathe in this repulsive corset, and the looks they were giving me made it so much worse.
“His majesty is–” they paused, trying to figure out which excuse to give me and landing on nothing.
“Aw, hell. We both know you were about to lie to me,” I mumbled, all that ladylike prep going down the drain as I tugged at the dress and stepped forward, both men going to their swords before they immediately resheathed them.
“Were you really going to slice the princess?” I asked in exaggerated disbelief, the Boy shaking his head and clicking in exaggerated shock and disbelief. “I don’t want to have to tell my mother about that.”
Not that she would care, I just hoped they didn’t know that.
Again, glances and confusion passed between them before they once again tried to block the door.
By the Goddess! This was going to call for extreme measures.
Without another word, I muscled past the confused men who were torn on hurting the princess or following their orders. Before they could get their heads on straight and remember that Mother had forcefully removed me from the throne room on many occasions the Boy and I darted into the space and closed the door behind us just as the scent of a dozen unwashed bodies flooded over me.
The Boy locked the door with a snap, not that it would matter once Mother found out I was in there, she would freeze and snap the contraption with little more than a thought.
Although, now that it was locked, I suddenly felt as though we were the ones locked inside.
The space was dark as night. The windows that lined the walls behind his bed and desk that I had sat at so often as a child while I watched him work and told him stories my nurse had told me were covered with black muslin. The dawn light no longer danced through them; the prisms that hung from his ceiling were covered in dust. Furniture was knocked over, the desk covered with papers that were torn and long forgotten.
It looked empty. But if it was empty then why the guards at the door?
“Father?” I called into the dark, my voice shaking as the Boy stepped closer.
I expected my father’s serving man to emerge from the call, or even his Catalyst, but when I turned to the space built into the living area where his Catalyst lived there was nothing. No bed, no chairs, just a hollowed cavern. The domed annex was empty save a few papers crumpled up on the dust-covered floor.
My heart dropped. I had seen his Catalyst in the throne room a few days ago, so I knew he was still alive, but that didn’t stop the panic.
After a Requisite and a Catalyst make a bond not only is their magic tied, but something deeper in their souls connects. If one is ever separated from their pair for too long, or if one dies, it can become like a death sentence to the other. I never experienced that because my Catalyst died before we had made the bond, but my father had been connected to his Catalyst for decades, and now the man who carried the other half of my father’s magic wasn’t there.
By the look of it, he hadn’t been there for a while.
