Authors: J.D. Wilde
The captain orders us again to drop our weapons to the ground and kick them away lightly while the guards cautiously inch closer. Adira and Grace immediately comply, but I do not. Grace shoots me a menacingly look, and Adira looks dumbfounded. I give them both a glare because I think this is the by far the dumbest thing we can possibly be doing. The captain gives me another stern warning. I’m tempted to put an arrow through his skull just to prove a point, but all of sudden I don’t want to.
My hand loosens ever the slightest, and my angry stubbornness disappears. For some reason, I no longer believe I should kill this man. My mind may have switched sides, but body has yet to. I am still standing at the ready with my bow drawn. The captain gives me one final warning, and Grace harshly curses me under her breath. I comply, but not before shooting them all a look to let them know if I wanted them dead they would be.
As I hand over my bow and quiver, the tense guard in front of me carefully picks them up. I hope they fail to notice the claw, but of course they see it after a quick scan and order me to take it off as well. When I hand over Jo’s old armalo, the guard yells for the captain to come over. The captain takes the claw out of his hand and looks at me with stark, serious expression.
“Where did you get this?” he questions through a tightly clenched jaw. He is trying to maintain a calm demeanor, but it is clear he is seething. His body is shaking as he raises his voice asking again where I got it from. I keep a stone face, but on the inside the confidence I had only moments ago has disappeared. I’m now unarmed, and for some reason this captain is about to lose it after we have already complied with his demands.
I’m guessing he knew Jo and cannot wait to hear about how I managed to snag her own one of a kind magical item. Thankfully, one of his troops taps his soldier, and he slowly backs off. After a moment’s pause, he abruptly storms out yelling back at us that the queen will handle this. Four of the remaining guards form around us and order for us to follow them out of the room. They warn if we try to make a run for it, they will shoot our backs without any hesitation.
When we get outside, the Sun’s brightness causes me to squint my eyes, and I have to occasionally glance at the ground to give them a break. However, this does not stop me from observing my surroundings. All of the buildings here are pristine and clean. The majority are made of white bricks and several have deep burgundy flags with a golden stitched design of a ship following a bright star hanging from the window seals.
Others appear to be residences with beautiful flower pots hanging out the windows and off of balconies. We are walking along the road, and the citizens either step to the side or cross the road completely when they see us approach. I can see what Grace meant about blending in inside the actual city, our clothes are much less conspicuous here. To be honest, I feel underdressed compared to most of the people I see walking around.
They are wearing various different colored silk shirts and dresses. The laughter and pointless conversation quiets when we draw near and is replaced with gossip immediately after we pass. The guards are leading us to a large white building with long flags hanging from its entrance way. A burgundy dome made of stained glass sits at the top with intricate flowers, vines, and tree limbs etched into it.
The city’s noise grows louder as we walk more towards the central hub. Sturdy horses’ hooves clop against the ground and carriages swish air around causing dresses to fly up as they rush by. It is at this moment Grace decides to elbow me and ask what the captain was going on about back at the wall. I forgot I never told Grace about how and why I have so many of the armalos, so I rapidly whisper it was passed down to me and hope she doesn’t have any more questions. Of course she does, but she is hushed by the guard before she can ask me any of them.
The area in front of the dome building is filled with soft, dark green grass and small trees covered in light purple and blue blossoms. We walk up the white painted stairs and pass the heavily guarded entrance way to find ourselves in the well-lit interior. Natural light due to the abundance of tall and wide windows softly glows on to the elegant light wood furniture and darker ascent cloths and rugs. Exquisite vases with bright flowers fresh from the gardens sit neatly atop every cabinet runner and table in the room.
While the dome is decorated to impress, this is not where we are being led. One of the guards opens a door on the left to a walkway that is a stark contrast from the rest of the building. The path they wish for us to follow leads to crumbling stairs surrounded by darkness with moist air and a foul stench. This appears to go to a jail cell or dungeon.
Grace takes a step down when another guard comes into view behind us. He rushes past and barrels through people as he yells at us to stop. As he regains his breaths and wipes the sweat from his brow, he hands a note to the guard in charge of us and explains the queen wishes to speak to us immediately.
“Why?” Grace is uneasy, and Adira appears anxious as well. I guess I should be, but I am not. I think having Jo’s soul connected to mine is making me far too comfortable here. I try to remember the queen, but I can’t. Honestly, although this all feels familiar, none of it looks so. The lack of memories is starting to drive me crazy. I should know who we are about to speak to because Jo worked diligently for the queen for years.
Instead of continuing down the stairs to what I am assuming is the dungeon, the guards turn around and walk us towards the back of the room where twin staircases covered in burgundy carpet curve up to the next level. We walk up the stairs and they open the doors to reveal a throne room, or at least I think it is a throne room. It is not overly large or sophisticated, and when compared to the rest of the city, it is underwhelming. Even the actual throne is a just a single redwood chair with burgundy cushions.
The guards close the tall doors behind us, leaving us with about ten other guards and the queen in charge of the nation we are currently trespassing in. After a few seconds of staring, I find myself unable to speak for I do know this woman. This woman is the same from Jo’s memories!
The queen’s light brown eyes are glaring daggers at all of us but me especially. Her auburn hair is in a pulled back away from her tan face into a debonair bun, and the silver crown sits perfectly on top. Her dress is fitted on top in a tinted shade of red with a flowing cream-colored bottom. She looks both stunning and absolutely pissed.
“Your majesty,” Grace begins but the queen interjects.
“I will get to you Grace Wheeler of Elsen, but first I must discuss with your friend here how she came into possession of this,” she says as she stands and grabs the shadow claw from one of her men.
It is not the time to crack a smile, but I cannot help it. It is not that I think it is funny the queen wants to know about how I came into the possession of Jo’s armalo because I don’t. However, I do find it humorous the queen already knew Grace’s full name. Apparently this is not the first time Grace has done something that landed her in front of the queen of Oriare.
The doors open behind us, and a man with the same eyes and auburn colored hair walks in. He refers to her not as the queen but as sister and states he should handle this because he does not want her to become distraught. The queen looks warmly at her brother Justin and says there is no reason to worry about her. She needs to resolve this herself.
Grace knows there is something going on here I did not warn her about, and she accusingly asks me what I did. I tell her I did not do anything, but I sense she does not believe me. The queen also does not believe me and angrily asks how I managed to get the claw then. Her temper boils over and yells at me asking who I am.
I do not have an opportunity to respond. The feeling I experienced when I first unexpectedly witnessed on of Jo's memories in the jungles is returning. It is about to happen again, only this time I’m aware it is only a memory coming. I can still feel some resemblance of my own consciousness, but it is slowly slipping away. It takes everything I have to not pass out right here, but I cannot stop myself from falling to my knees.
This new memory starts as soon as my knees thump on the ground, and the queen is back. She is asking the same question, “Who are you?”, only she is not angry or suspicious. She has a warm smile and is laughing as Jo jokes around.
I’m brought back to reality when Adira gives me a slight push. The queen is staring at me, but when she sees I’ve snapped out of it, she starts to fire off question after question. “Where are you from?” is the next one I hear, and it has the exact same effect as before. My mind goes back and visualizes how Jo responded, so I do the exact same thing. I repeat every word Jo said verbatim. By the time I’m done, I’ve told the queen I am from a small town called Roseside, I was a farmer until I enlisted in the army at sixteen, and I had a cat named Prudence when I was twelve.
Of course everyone’s tempers in the room are erupting because they know I’m lying. Everyone’s but the queen’s oddly enough. With only an order given barely above a whisper, she makes the entire room go silent. I truly am not sure what emotion the queen is currently experiencing, but confusion has to be one of them. Her tan face had grown paler with each passing question. I have struck a nerve, and her brother notices.
“What is it?” Justin asks as he moves closer to comfort his sister. “These are clearly lies, Isabella. She is trying to get off easily by claiming citizenship.”
“Justin enough. I wish to speak to the three of them alone,” Isabella announces to the dismay of her brother and the guards. “Please,” she whispers softly to her brother, “You do not need to worry; I will be fine.”
Justin sighs voicing his irritation, but he commands the guards to take us to the tea room. Isabella joins us once we are inside and orders the guards to remove our bindings. They attempt to object, but their objections fall on deaf ears. The queen is not hearing it, and she wants us out of our bindings. The guards begrudgingly remove the ropes tying our hands together and leave us just as she asked.
Both Grace and Adira immediately proceed to hurl question after question at me about what is going on. The queen also wants to know what is happening, but the three of us ignore her. Or rather, I ignore her for the time being because Grace and Adira are too busy barraging me with their own questions to hear her in the first place.
I attempt to draw their attention to her, but Grace and Adira will not stop. Their pestering only comes to end when Queen Isabella yells at the three of us, and then we all become silent as the dead buried beneath the ground.
Grace’s and Adira’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates. I think they temporarily forgot they are in the presence of royalty who can have us arrested or worse with the snap of her fingers. As if on cue, the royal guards knock on the door and ask if they are needed. The queen dismisses them, but warns Adira, Grace, and me she will bring them in here if we do not act and behave in an appropriate manner.
We quickly agree, and everyone’s attention is focused solely on Queen Isabella as she begins to question me. I answer as best I can and hope her questions do not become too difficult. Having the queen on our side might prove very useful, but if I cannot convince her to let us go, I don’t know what I will do.
Isabella focuses solely on me. She wants to know who I am and why I’m here. Her face is a raw mixture of emotion as she brings up her Jo, who is clearly a sore subject. She accuses me of playing games with her, festering her still fresh wounds brought on by Jo’s death. She’s fighting it so hard, but I know she wants to cry. Her eyes are watering and it is becoming harder for her to speak correctly without gasps.
“The claw was originally for one of your own?” Grace is the first to speak after she is done. “Lux, what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” I need to defend myself here, but I also need to be careful. Too much information and I tip my cards, but not enough information and this situation can quickly become worse with all of them ganging up against me.
I apologize for my words and mention Jo’s death is fresh for me as well. I hope she hears the sincerity in my voice because it is true. I really do miss Jo. I do not look at Queen Isabella for a number of reasons. Jo’s death is still hitting us both hard, and if I look up and see her crying, I know I will no longer be able to fight the tears as well. If Jo were here right now, she would know what to do. She would be able to handle both Grace and Adira.
“Really?” Adira also jumps into the conversation. She sounds so concerned it catches me off guard. Her attitude really spikes up and down rather quickly.
“Yes,” I say with a nod and look up at all of them. “Jo was a good friend to me, a sister almost.” I really hope Grace and Adira can take that big hint I just dropped them and start helping me out here.
“I see,” both Grace and Adira say simultaneously. I’m thankful they got it because I really am going to need help getting out of this. There is no way I can tell the queen about everything occurring in her country and world. Jo never told her, and she worked directly for her!
“Lux, Lux, Lux,” the queen is repeating my name in loud whisper. She seems to recognize it as if she has heard it before. “I think Jo has spoken of you before,” she says softly. Her volume rises a bit when she says Jo mentioned visiting me on a number of occasions. She admits Jo spoke highly of me and stated time after time the two of us were close. “But I never thought I would actually meet you,” Isabella confesses. “She said you lived far away in a remote part of the word. What are you doing here? How did you get the claw? And most importantly why are you associating yourself with an Elsen?”
Grace grunts and crosses her arms. I suspect even though she is in front of the royal leader of a country with important trade relations to her own, she is not about to let that slide. My suspicions are confirmed when she nonchalantly states that I actually wanted help from someone who cared about the other people in the world.
Isabella’s eyes flash and narrow, and her face becomes harder than stone as she asks, “So I repeat, why are you traveling with an Elsen?”
Grace clenches her jaw and hands. Her entire body becomes tense. Adira’s not helping. In fact, Adira seems intent on making it worse by further aggravating Grace. She has a wide grin and asks Grace if she is capable of getting along with anyone.
I hush them before they can take it further. It irritates me how quickly these two can lose focus on what is most important at the current time. “Grace is a friend,” I say because I have to stand up for her. The harsh tone she is receiving from the queen, and Adira’s constant quips are mostly unwarranted as far as I can tell. “She is helping me find the cause of these creatures’ sudden appearances in your countries, so we can stop them.”
“So you come to Saphira? The place affected the least within the entire country?” the queen expresses her skepticism.
“Yes, funny how that worked out,” Grace returns Queen Isabella’s skepticism with her own. “I wonder why the creatures seem so intent on ignoring your lovely city.”
“They have absolutely not ignored my city,” the queen steps forward to look at Grace face-to-face.
“Grace, enough,” Adira nudges her from the back. She doesn’t say it maliciously or condescendingly like she usually does when speaking to Grace; however, it is strong. Grace looks at her and then me. I’ve taken the same strong stance. Grace does need to watch what she says. Although she has a point since this city isn’t being overrun and is still relatively safe, she is starting to take things too far.
For one now is not the time to bring this up. We are unarmed, and Isabella can call the guards in any minute she pleases. And for two, our sister died from one of the invading monsters. The city isn’t being wholly ignored, but it is being targeted significantly less than others. After Grace sees that even I’m not going to defend her this time, she backs down and apologizes for speaking without manners.
The queen accepts her apology and apologizes herself for purposefully provoking Grace. The conversation picks up where it left off with some left over tension. Isabella is very curious as to what we are doing here and how I managed to get a hold of the claw. When Jo died, the claw disappeared, and everyone wondered where they went. I explained the claw is a powerful magical item, which she learned before. But what she was never told is that Jo had set it so when she died it automatically transported itself to me to prevent it from being used malevolently. It is an honest enough response, but I would rather not be on the subject of the claw. It opens too many doors to other questions I’m not ready to explain, so I change the topic.
“Grace and Adira are old friends of mine who I trust,” I say. The lies continue, but I genuinely do not have another option. The queen and Grace's histories appear to be less than friendly, and she has never met Adira, whose tattoo covered face and towering presence intimidates grown men. Jo talking to her about me is the only thing we have going for us. “I asked them to accompany me on my travels here because they are dealing with a similar problem to yours,” I explain.
“Yes, I have heard about Elsen,” Isabella says and motions for us to take our seats, “I am sorry, Grace. It cannot be easy traveling here when your own country is in such a dire state.” The four of us settle down in the extremely comfortable, red-cushioned chairs. Shortly afterwards, a servant comes in and serves us a tea with an intoxicating aroma of spices. It is calmer, but we are all watching our tongues carefully. The conversation is strictly professional as Grace, Adira, and I try to decide whether or not to trust the queen and vice versa.
She continues to investigate why we are here, and Grace gives coy answers. The queen refuses to allow us into the city unless she gets a direct and honest response, so I cave. Our options are limited. She and Jo were close, so I think we can trust her.
I explain we are looking for a merchant before asking Grace for the name. Grace shoots me a look, but informs Isabella the name of the shop is Kenley’s. Queen Isabella asks us to repeat the name, and again Grace tells her it is Kenley’s. I’m glad I got the repeat without having to ask myself because that would have come across as odd. Grace never mentioned the name, and I never thought to ask. For some reason it sounds familiar. I wish I can remember why because all of sudden my mind is full of worry. The name Kenley has to be important. I’m unfocused, but only for a little while. I snap back into the conversation when Isabella informs us the royal jeweler’s shop has been closed down for months.
“Why is it closed?” I question with a hint of desperation in my voice. This is our plan. We have only just started, but we arrived at a dead end.
“The shop keeper just up and left one day,” she replies, “We have no idea where he went or why he left. Every month the tax is paid on time though, so we have no reason to claim it. He simply has not been around in person.”
“Would the other shopkeepers or neighbors know how to get a hold of him? Or maybe there is something in his store,” Grace says.
“Possibly,” the queen says. She takes a sip from her cup of tea and the calmly states she cannot allow us to roam about the city freely. She argues we were already caught trespassing, and she could use this against Elsen if she wanted.
“Please don’t,” I ask her, and our eyes meet. “Grace is only here because I asked her.”
Isabella sighs and reminds us she could have had us rotting away in the jail cells. I am thankful for not being in a dark cellar, but Grace does not seem capable of letting it go. She chides a smart remark about how we could have just killed the guards to begin with, so I pinch her leg making sure to get a decent amount of nail in. She quickly gives me a mean look that I gladly return, and Adira chuckles from the other side. Grace must have short memory problems because she was the one who pointed out we should not kill the guards in the first place. I return my attention back to the queen who is failing miserably at trying to hide her own amusement at the two of us.
“There must be a way we can talk to some of the shops and people around the area. Please, it would really help us find out what is going on,” I practically beg the queen for her assistance.
Isabella puts down her tea and looks out the window. After a few moments of no other sounds but our breathing, I don’t know whether to interrupt her thoughts or let her be. Finally, she returns to us. The queen grants us permission to try and find the shopkeeper’s location by asking around, but we will be accompanied by a group of guards. Grace sits forward in preparation to start a disagreement, so I quickly accept. Grace gives me another look, but Adira has my back this time stating that it is more than reasonable.
“I should think so,” the queen says as she picks up her cup again and looks at Grace, “I consider it to be rather generous all things considered.” She calls the guards in and order them to guide us through the area to Kenley’s. We are permitted to ask the residents questions so long as we are not harassing them and investigate the shop. She also tells them to bring us back and keep us locked down in the guest quarters until the next day when we will be deported. I honestly doubt even Adira and Grace will let them deport us, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy this moment.
The guards look like they’ve been punched in the face they are so shocked. It takes everything I have not to laugh, and my face is getting sore. These guards clearly thought we were going to be spending the night in the cellar. Adira and I thank Isabella, and I elbow Grace to as well. She reluctantly thanks the queen, and we part ways.
Grace nudges me and directs my attention to the guards directly in front of us. One of them is holding out my bow towards me, so I grab it and turn to the man holding Jo’s old armalo. He briefly hesitates and pulls it back towards himself. As much as he would love to decline giving it back to me, he knows he cannot and eventually does hand it over. I check over all my items, and Grace and Adira do as well. With everything in order we head out into the city of Saphira to hopefully start finding some answers.