“What about the bath?” he asked. I growled and he
squeaked before taking off as fast as his legs would carry him.
I put one hand in the warm water of the bathtub and
reached the other out towards the fireplace. When I was alone, or especially
away from the castle, my power over fire was prodigious… it was just when
others were with me that I had control issues. I pulled some of the heat from
the flames into me, and through me into the water. Within a few minutes, the
water started to steam.
I had just gotten in the bath with my door burst open
and the twins ran inside. I put my finger to my lips and shushed them quickly.
“Close the door, quick, and come here,” I whispered.
Intrigued, Koko shut the door and took his brother’s
hand to lead him over to the bathtub. “Why did you want to see us? Is it
because of dinner?”
“No, I need to tell you something.” I looked around
as if I couldn’t smell we were alone and leaned as close to the boys as the tub
walls would allow. “I should not be telling you this. You have to keep a
secret.”
Momo’s eyes widened, but Koko looked suspicious. “We
always keep secrets,” Koko said.
“I need you to do something for me, something very
dangerous.” I looked around again exaggeratedly. “Haru-joul was in here
earlier. She was talking about what you did at dinner, yelling even, when her
eyes turned red.”
Both twins’ eyes widened in horror.
“And I heard her talking with someone out in the
hallway about an assassination on the king.” I glanced at the door and the boys
leaned closer. “And I heard one of the servants say that her mother… that her
mother was a dejeva.”
Momo opened his mouth to shout and both Koko and I
frantically shushed him.
“What do we do?” Momo cried.
“I need your help. She wants to make me her slave.”
“You belong to us, Mordon,” Koko growled. “We’ll stop
her.”
“I need you to spy on her. I need you to tell me
everything she does, and says, and especially everyone she talks to. But you
can’t let her know. If she sees you, she’ll turn into a dejeva and eat you.”
“No!” Momo gasped.
Koko clamped his hand over his brother’s mouth.
“We’ll do it, Mordon. You can trust us.” He dragged his brother out of the room
and shut the door quietly behind him.
The twins were invaluable spies and I adored them
both.
* * *
I was just letting go of the string as my father
barked in my ear to hurry. The arrow shot high as a result of my flinch.
“You need to pull, aim, and release in an instant and
while moving!” my father lectured. “Your enemy will be firing back at you, and
they will not give you the luxury of taking your time.”
No, they would be too busy laughing themselves to
death when they see someone still using a bow and arrow when guns are much more
effective.
I ignored my father’s ranting as I pulled another arrow from the
quiver strapped to my leg and notched it. I stood with my body facing my father
and my face towards the target. The one thing I always got right was to face my
body perpendicular to my target. I didn’t need to learn that painful lesson
twice.
I locked my left arm and drew my bow up as I pulled
the string back to my cheek.
“Lock your arm,” my father demanded.
“It is locked.”
“Then release.” I did, and my arrow went wide. My
father smacked me in the back of the head. “I said
aim
, and release, you
fool. You there,” he turned his anger on Doro, “pick up that target!”
Doro knew better than to protest an order from the
king, so he took the painted plaque from the bed of wood pieces that held it
up. I gave Doro my best apologetic look as my father was focused elsewhere, and
pulled another arrow. I notched it and drew back the string as I aimed the bow.
Just then, my father turned away, and I aimed away from Doro before releasing
the string.
My father looked from me to the arrow and snarled.
“Keep practicing. Your lack of hunting skills are going to become a rumor for
the Zendii house to taunt me with. I should send you to your uncle’s farm on
Tumordii. He would straighten you out. Shameful little runt.”
He left to talk to Ome-mor and they both went inside.
“Put the target back,” I said.
Doro did so, gratefully, and darted off the field. I
notched another arrow, locked my arm, drew back my string, and aimed. I scented
her approach ahead of time, so I wasn’t startled to feel the soft touch on my
arm.
“I know your arm is tired,” Haru-joul said softly,
“but you have to relax. Breathe in,” she said. I did. “Breathe out. Aim again.”
She pressed herself against my back. “Breathe in… breathe out. Breathe in… breathe
out. Now imagine that target is my face. And release.”
I released… and my arrow landed in the center yellow
ring. I marveled in confusion at the arrow as the servants started collecting
the lost ones. To cover up my surprise at hitting the target, I stripped off my
arm and finger guards.
“There you go; all you needed was a way to get your
frustrations out,” Haru-joul said. “There are other ways, too, you know.”
“Don’t be obscene.” Doro was giving us his undivided
attention, so I waved him off. He was certainly going to go gossip, but he
wouldn’t stick around to overhear anything else. Instead, he would just make
something up.
“I was talking about Jedes.”
“That is just as bad. She’s a child.”
Haru-joul laughed. “Whatever you say. She may not
look it, but she is the same age as us. I really don’t care who you spend your
time with, as long as I am queen.”
“Then marry my father, because you will not be my
wife.”
She sauntered off without another word, but just
before she did, I caught the scent. It wasn’t strong enough to be her own, but
she had definitely been in close contact to whoever wanted to kill my father.
Eager to get the assassin out of my way, I headed
back inside, carefully skirting the throne room. I was vigilant to never head
directly to my destination, but instead take a casual sweep. Usually, when my
father was being targeted, I was followed.
In the hallway outside the conference room, I was
passing the door while holding my breath in prayer that my father would not see
me. The two guards watching the door smirked, since they knew exactly what I
was doing. Just before I turned the corner, a kitchen maid came around it
holding a pitcher of something. I scented her as an afterthought when she
passed me.
As I expected, she was innocent… but there was
another scent I recognized. I grabbed her arm, forcing her to halt, and took
the carafe from her. She gasped when I smelled the dark wine, but she didn’t
look guilty.
The wine was laced with a poison. Most people
wouldn’t recognize the scent of the white-petal flower, or even know of its
mortal properties, but I spent most of my free time in the physician’s home. I
knew potions, I knew explosive powders, and I knew poisons.
I pulled her around the corner so the guards couldn’t
see us. “Who did you get this from?” I asked.
“Nobody… I mean, it was on the table with a note that
it was for the king’s meeting. It didn’t say who left it there.”
“When is his meeting?”
“Right now.”
We were right by the window overlooking the archery
field so I let her go, opened the window, and poured the wine out into the
grass before dropping the carafe. The woman was obviously confused, but she
didn’t run off. “Kys-do, go back to the kitchen. Get another carafe, identical
to that one, and fill it with wine. Don’t let anyone else near it. Take it to
the king and serve it as usual. Do not tell anyone what happened here. As far
as you are concerned, it is the one you found on the table.”
“Was that poisoned?” she asked.
I put my finger to my lips. “Of course not. That
would mean someone is trying to kill the king.”
“But the only strangers to the castle are the
Zendii---” she started.
I grabbed her shoulders gently to stop her. “And we
both know the Zendii family is our ally. We never accuse our allies of treason.
Now, I think you are keeping the king and his guests waiting.”
She nodded and ran off.
I went to the main study. There was a woman I didn’t
know sitting in a chair in front of the fire, but I could tell she was asleep,
so I didn’t worry. Ome-mor brought many servants with him, so it wasn’t unusual
to see a stranger. Her scent was moral anyway.
The room was spacious with wall to wall bookshelves
on three consecutive walls, several couches, a bulky wooden work desk, and
comfortable chairs. The fireplace was huge and centered on the fourth wall with
a special bookshelf above it. On the north wall, behind the desk, was a large
painting of the castle from a distance.
I dug around in the bottom right drawer of the desk
until I found a special inkwell. It was slim and not very talk and it looked
like every other one, except it couldn’t stand up; the base was textured. I
went to the bookshelf to the right of the painting and, after a quick glance to
make sure the woman still slept, I started removing several books closest to
the painting on the third shelf up. There was a small circular indent in the
wall, which could only be felt, not seen. I lined the base of the inkwell into
the hole, pressed, and twisted.
The small snap above me let me know I was successful,
so I put the books and inkwell away. The painting swung free easily with its
latch unlocked, revealing a doorway which only my father, his advisor, and
myself knew about. It wasn’t the most hidden passageway in the castle, but it
was well protected. When my father or his advisor entered, they had to use a
decoy to set off the trap and wait for the fire to recede.
I didn’t have the patience.
As the painting swung back into place behind me, I
stepped on the pressure plate in the pitch black of the narrow tunnel. Fire
reared up from torches on either side, sure to scorch any intruder to death. I
stripped off my shirt and pants, balled them up, and entered the flames.
After a few minutes, I reached the end of the long
tunnel of fire, where the rock floor leveled out and the walls widened.
Completely unscathed, I redressed. It was unfortunate that my clothing was not
as fireproof as me.
There were enough cracks in the stone to see where I
was going. Some places were almost too narrow to pass through, but I made it,
minus a little skin. The tunnel I wedged myself into was little more than a
crevice, but for my work, I was able to look into the conference room.
The view was from a very special painting above the
fireplace, created with a black-netted patch that was translucent from the
back, opaque from the front. I could see out but nobody could see in without
shining a light inside.
My father and Ome-mor had just settled into their
seats around the circular table, my father in his usual seat that was a replica
of the throne, and the visiting king in an elegant chair brought out during
treaty agreements and trade rights. The door opened and Kys-do entered, looking
calm and collected. She had a carafe identical to the one poisoned, which made
me nervous as she handed goblets to my father and Ome-mor. She set the pitcher
down and left without a word. Both men held their metal goblets without
drinking.
“Picor is an inhabited island,” my father started.
Ome-mor set his drink down and leaned forward
slightly. “It is a very small island with no natural recourses available to the
people. I will pay to have the people relocated.”
“But you want to keep all of the profits,” my father
understood.
I groaned; Haru-joul was right. Her father was going
to propose a marriage in order to get what he wanted.
Ome-mor picked up his drink, brought it to his mouth
slowly as if to buy himself a second to think, and then lowered it without
drinking any of it. “We have been friends for years, Ishte-mor, I am certain we
can work something out.”
My father took a swallow of his drink and set it
down. “I suppose you have a proposition in mind.”
Ome-mor studied the drink for just a moment before
focusing on my father’s face. It was suspicious, but I couldn’t get a scent
from my hiding place. If my father died before he could sign anything, Ome-mor
would have no rights whatsoever to anything of the Mokii lands, including
Picor. Unfortunately, my father often instilled in people the kind of blind
rage that made them act without prior planning.
“That girl who was sitting beside your son during
dinner… I’ve seen her before.”
“An orphaned servant. The other staff raised her to
stay out of my way and keep her mouth shut and she does her chores very well.
She is the one to remind Mordon to be where I tell him to be, when I tell him
to be there, so I don’t mind that she is always around.”
“Your son seemed very protective of her.”
“Mordon is protective of all orphans. He gets it from
his mother. There is nothing inappropriate going on between them, if that is
what you’re implying. I know better than to let my son become involved with a
servant.”
“Oh, good. Too many children these days believe that
marriage is about love and passion.” He scoffed. “Speaking of marriage, I have
been having a difficult time finding anyone worthy of marrying my daughter to.”
“I find that hard to believe,” my father said.
Ome-mor chuckled and looked into his drink cup, but
left it on the table.
“Not thirsty?” my father asked, taking another drink.
By now I was certain it wasn’t poisoned, but Ome-mor
looked almost offended by what was in his goblet.
“I don’t like wine.”
That was really suspicious.
“Since when? You drank the kingdom dry on your last
visit.”
“I drank a bad batch a few months ago, and it made me
horribly ill. I haven’t had a taste for it since. Anyway, I am still tired from
my travels. If you don’t mind, I would like to continue this tomorrow.”