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The Pankreatin only happened when all of the families from each of the realms in Okivo came together. It was an all night ordeal where families placed their best fighters, and those most skilled in their magic against each other. Two from each house would fight, a male and a female. Everyone fought and eliminated their opponents until a single winner stood victorious. It was brutal, bloody, and people had died in the past.
Goddess! I would die if I participated in that.
“Again. Are you mad?” I hissed, keeping my voice low that time. “I have no magic,” or at least no magic I could wield and was sure I hadn’t hallucinated, “my fighting skills consist of watching, mimicking, and fighting the Boy with a wooden sword. I would be killed.”
I emphasized each of those last words, my voice growing louder again, which earned me more looks. I glared right back and coughed twice, which thankfully sent the poor kitchen boy hustling the other way before he caught whatever fake illness I had.
“You would be fine. I’d set it up so you would fight the girl from my house, my cousin Addalaide. She’ll go easy on you, I’ll make sure of it. You won’t win,” she waved her hand to the side like it was an afterthought. “But everyone will be able to see you fight. Everyone. No one will believe her lies after that and there will be nothing she can do. It’s perfect.”
I gnawed on my lower lip. It wasn’t perfect, I just didn’t know how to tell her that. First, because my Mother would absolutely find something ‘to do’ against me, or some other way to tell them all how unworthy I was for my title, probably that I was mad, because only someone mad would even be considering it. I was clearly mad, because I was considering it.
Nothing would change unless I did something, and this sounded like something that might actually work. If it didn’t, well, maybe I’d find a way out of the Runturin for good. Explore the world, be a mercenary or a farmer or something.
I didn’t know.
“She won’t be able to ignore you any longer, Elara,” Aeinya whispered, grabbing my hand and entwining my frosting covered fingers with her own. “And if she does, well,” she brushed her hair behind her shoulder and gave me a grin. “I’ll be Queen soon, and then everything will change anyway.”
I looked from Aeinya, to her Catalyst who stood with her head down, to the boy in the kitchen who was still sweeping far enough away so as not to catch anything.
Aeinya was right about one thing. Something did have to change.
I nodded, and Aeinya squealed, launching herself over the table and covering my lap with what was left of my scone.
Chapter 18
Elara
Iwas mad. I was absolutely mad.
Why had I even agreed to this?
What in the world was I thinking?
I both ranted to myself, and to the nothing in my head as I paced back and forth in the sitting room, actually staying put for once as I waited for the Boy to get back. He was usually back by now, and after last night his tardiness was sending me into a tizzy. A tizzy that was getting worse with the fact of what I had agreed too.
“What is wrong with me?” I threw my hands in the air and continued pacing.
Aeinya had raced away after our walk in the gardens, vowing to get everything arranged for the Pankreatin in two days. Two days!
“What was I thinking? I’m going to die, that’s what I was thinking.” I mumbled and paced, that same tingly feeling from last night returning. I turned, throwing my hands out, half expecting that it would ignite whatever magic had been triggered last night.
Still nothing.
Maybe I had imagined it, and I had simply gone mad and burned and exploded my bureau on my own. Not that it would help me in what I had just agreed to. Real or not, I had a feeling that creating magic without a Catalyst would not end with the result Aeinya had in mind.
Magic or not, I was fighting, which meant I needed to train. Which meant I needed the Boy.
“Where are you?” I turned toward his space in the sitting room, everything blocked off by that ornate dressing wall.
I half expected him to pop out in his black shroud, as though he had been sitting there and listening to my incoherent rant for the last hour. Nothing. He had never been gone this long.
Unless he was there, and simply ignoring me.
Or dead.
Or sleeping.
I took a step, clenching my hands as I tried to shove the idea that had crossed my mind away. I shouldn’t go back there. It was his space and I had always respected that. I wanted to respect that, yet he had never been away this long, even for training.
