Page 146 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

I halted. A bell trickled in the distance, the same as it had for the past couple of days. Thrice a day, the sound ran for a whole three minutes. A curfew? Was it because of the Adriatian fear?

A servant came down the corridor opposite me, her speed picking up and her head lowered when she saw me. Grabbing onto her arm, I stopped her and she startled out of her bones, her pulse drumming so loud it was giving me a headache. “What is the bell ringing thrice a day?”

She swallowed hard. “I…I—”

“Wrong answer,” I said, jerking her close enough so she could feel the dagger I held to her gut. “Try again.”

“We haven’t been allowed outside the castle walls,” she said, fully shaking. “His Majesty had all new staff brought to the castle not long after you arrived. My father was indebted to the royal treasure and he gave me as payment. I am not allowed anywhere without my handler. I swear it, Princess, I know of nothing beyond the walls. Only as much as you. The bells have rung thrice a day, every day since I’ve been brought here.”

“Who is your father?” I asked, letting her go and sheathing back my dagger.

She blinked confused. “My…father? A…a clam merchant south of Brogmere, Your Highness. Why do you ask?”

“Do you have any other siblings?”

She looked even more confused now. “A brother.”

“Younger?”

“A year older.”

“And what does he do?”

“Not much. Father will pass him the business, so I suppose that.”

“And what did you want to do?”

“I don't understand,” she said, hugging herself tight.

“Before you were given like a sheep to my father, what did you want to do?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I was good at school. Mother had taught me to read and write well and I’d worked down the print shop a few times when they needed a pair of hands. That—I wanted to do that.”

I nodded. “That and much more you will get. I’ll trade it with you. Freedom, choice and good coin to get you far from here.”

“What?”

“In exchange, I want you to do something for me. Tonight, come to my room, and bring the earrings I somehow lost today at breakfast.” Tapping a finger on the diamond in my ear, I gave her a wink and headed to breakfast.

A test. To see if loyalty had swayed in these difficult times for Isjord. And confirmation to see if my father had rehired help to keep me ignorant and spy on me.

Father sat alone at the head of the table, his eyes slightly perked up when he spotted me, and I almost felt a flash of pity for the tyrant. All old and alone.

Bowing, I took my usual seat by his side. The second I sat, my stomach roared, but I was not hungry. Something hit my senses and I shot to my feet, clicking a red glass window open before retching my stomach out.

I stood there for a while till weakness hit my knees and the tip of my nose turned red, till I felt my father’s hands on my back and his jacket over my shoulders. Shutting the window and shedding the jacket, I sat back down. I could not stand his stench of darkness and death—I missed my tangerines and lemon flowers.

The perpetrator that twisted my stomach stared me right in the eye, a large mackerel at the centre of the table. I hated fish more than I hated meat, their scent alone made me dizzy. Eating it was another story.

Taking a tangerine from the fruit basket, I brought it to my nose, drinking in its scent till I forgot the one coming from the fish.

“I have sent for the antidote, your brother and sister will join us soon enough,” he said, munching all pleasure on the white fleshed creature.

Laughter overtook me at the use of those words they had never deserved, the words that almost felt dirty when he used them for Fren and Reuben. Father only looked at me with disappointment in my reaction. “And the crone? How is mother dearest?” I taunted playfully and waited till his features dropped to downturned lines. Father wearing his tar dripping heart on his sleeve? Oh, my.

“How did you get those documents?” he questioned without answering me.

I leaned back, sipping in my goblet while taking in the tension in his face and body at the mention of Moreen. The old fox had been one of his most trusted spies in his court. Ah, the betrayal he must have felt. “Under your very nose as everything else has been these past few months. It’s not her fault, you know—that she hated and tortured my mother.” He turned wide eyed at my words as if he did not know. “Yes, tortured, you heard me well. But the point was the lack of her fault considering it was yours to begin with. Now tell me, what did you do with her? I left it in your hands hoping you would punish her well, but seeing your reaction it appears I might make the matters my own after all.”