The Audience
“Highness, your presence is requested in the throne room,” the
little servant girl said. It was pretty easy to tell from the way she kept her
eyes glued to the ground, and then how quickly she darted out again, that I
didn’t have a pleasant visit ahead of me.
I sighed.
“You’ll be fine, Princess,” a droll voice carried from the
corner. I glanced over, pushing my eyes as far to the side as they would go
without moving my head in an attempt to cast a dark, meaningful glare at my
guard. It didn’t work; I’m not sure if the failure was due to my inability to
move any of my facial muscles or the old battle-axe’s inability to be glared
at.
“Thanks, Aerona,” I said through pursed lips, earning me an
affronted gasp from the makeup lady who was trying to cover up my lack of sleep
by intensively pinching and pushing and prodding and smothering the skin on my
face. I wasn’t even certain there was all that much left of it, but I hoped
what was there would be presentable.
So, apparently,
did the queen, who had insisted on providing me the services of her personal
retinue of makeup and wardrobe artists. It was that insistence, in fact, that
had told me all I needed to know about how the day was going to go.
“I have done all I can,” the makeup artist spat and walked from
the room. Seph raised my spirits a little by visibly giving me a once-over and
raising two fingers in the gesture my human friends would raise two thumbs to
make.
“Thanks. You coming with, Cousin?”
“No! No, I was not summoned, Alyssa. I wish I could, but—“
“I know. Well, let’s face the jungle, Aerona.” The two of us
stepped out of the dressing room, me in a resplendent yellow beaded blouse that
came down nearly to my ankles, and her following in her much darker bodyguard
attire.
“The word is goeddgwyllt, Princess,” she murmured from
behind me as we made our stately way down the third-floor hall.
“Thanks, Aerona,” I said, trying to keep sarcasm out of my
voice, but failing. I didn’t need the grammar lesson when something so
significant was happening just two floors down. Granted, she was right; I’d
used the proper word for jungle and so it didn’t make sense in the elf idiom.
The correct way to get the point across was to suggest facing the crazy
trees—which would, granted, have made a native elf a lot more nervous than
merely facing a jungle like they had in the southern part of the continent.
At least she had
gotten my point.
“You’re welcome, Princess.”
“So how was your vacation?” She and I hadn’t had any time to
chat; she’d been away for the entirety of Yule since I was safely tucked away
at my father’s native village—and since, I suspected, he’d ordered her to take
time off. Otherwise, she’d have continued standing just past my shoulder
glaring at the shadows on my behalf for the entire time. But she’d spun into my
room as the door was closing behind Seph the night before, and as far as I knew
she stood in watch over me all night, just as she had every night since the
ill-fated attack on me during my first few days in Kiirajanna.
“I enjoyed it,” was the simple reply.
“Did you go home?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to supply me with any details?” In addition to the fact that I was anxious
for anything to take my mind off of the upcoming meeting, I was really
genuinely curious.
“At the moment, such details would be frivolous.”
“Thanks,” I grumbled.
Finally the long
walk ended, as it eventually had to. I found myself standing in front of the
doors that were so seldom closed, hoping that they could somehow just remain
that way and it would all just disappear. Only, I knew it wouldn’t,
and so I took a deep breath and nodded to Aerona, who pulled one of the doors
wide to let me in.
I stepped into
the throne room and just barely kept myself from shivering as the temperature
seemed to plummet. My father’s eyes met mine briefly, and in that
fleeting microsecond I watched a host of emotions flash by. The first was
genuine surprise; I suppose Aerona’s door-swoosh had been a little bit too
abrupt. It was followed by deep and sustaining love, a dash of pity, a whole
mess of sorrow, and even a little pinch of personal humiliation.
Great. I
suppressed a sigh, but only barely.
The queen, for
her part, wore her own mask of consternation. Her eyes betrayed absolutely
nothing as they flashed over my presence and returned quickly to the assembled
guests around me. She sat easily, entirely regally, on her throne, chin high
and hands relaxed on the arms of the chair. Her face looked like it was ready
to freeze a fireball, but every other detail about what she could have been
thinking was hidden behind a firmly-fixed mask.
I made a mental
note to ask her how she developed that skill.
The royal pair
were as resplendent as I’d ever seen them. Dad was regal in his
darkest black velvet robe complete with purple slashed openings down each arm
and a purple sash under the magnificent golden stag and raven pendant. His hair
was carefully molded into the perfect black mane, swooping around and to the
side like Prince Charming’s—Keion’s—did when the prince flipped it that way.
But Dad was sporting the look on purpose. Similarly, Her Majesty’s hair was up
in a magnificent maze of actual hair and ribbons with pearls and rubies
interspersed every so often. Her luxurious dress was a formal full-length gown
of purple with deep green panels inset across the bodice and down the skirt,
which spilled onto the floor all about her feet. She must, I realized, have
been sitting that way since before the meeting, since there was no way gravity
could’ve placed the hem where it lay.
From her perch
standing between the pair, Sternyface glared at everybody, though she seemed to
take great joy in adding a little extra heat to her glare at me. The High
Priestess Naissa and I had shared a special relationship since I’d
arrived in Kiirajanna, new as I was to the elf lifestyle. She was special to me
as one of only two people I’d ever punched in the face, and even more so as the
only one who hadn’t even shown the slightest bit of injury from the incident.
At the same time, I was obviously special to her, thanks to the weaknesses
apparent in my temperament, in my maternal genetic material, in my native state
of Mississippi, and in everything else I happened to be involved with. Still,
my spirits were buoyed as her glare suddenly softened to a look that actually
seemed calming and understanding, if that was even possible from Sternyface
herself, bless her heart.
Meanwhile, I
sensed nothing but anger tinged with hatred from both sides of me. I didn’t
spare it a glance. I couldn’t; the Queen’s Lady had been extra-firm on that
point both at my coronation ceremony and this morning. At the earlier ceremony
it would have merely been a minor slight to the ruling pair, as everyone in
audience to the king and queen are supposed to pay attention to them and to
them alone. Today, though, it would represent a significant psychological
victory for my new detractors.
It was okay. I
didn’t
need to turn my eyes. My spidey-senses were on maximum overdrive anyway, thanks
to the stress of the moment, and while I’d never been able to sense anything
but location and identity, I found myself at that moment able to discern raw
emotions, too, probably thanks to the intensity of those emotions. Hefin, the
barrel-chested leader of the eastern elves, stood furthest to my left. He stood
calmly and felt the least angry of the bunch.
The faint whiff
of woodsmoke he carried in his tunic was nearly drowned out by the pungent
incense that Swadda of the Serpent Veils exuded. I can never remember the name
for the incense that her tribe, the elves of the western desert, use not only
for ritual blessing and cleansing but also to cover the fact that they don’t
take many showers. It was described by the Queen’s Lady, before I’d experienced
it personally, as a strong earthy presence bearing gentle floral and citrus
overtones, but to me it smelled like I was sniffing pine needles and eating an
orange while somebody nuked a microwave full of popcorn into charcoal nearby.
Swadda was the
most agitated of the bunch. I didn’t need any extra senses
to feel the air jiggle thanks to the quivering angst of the massive veils she
wore. She was furious, and probably more than a little bit scared, and only
barely holding those emotions in check.
To my right stood
a darkly-brooding elf I’d enjoyed meeting last summer. Glynis led
the southern tribes, a loose collective of jungle dwellers who perfectly
personified the Amazonian archetype. The tribes were strongly matriarchal, I
recalled, and — I’m not kidding — ran around in loincloths and leather bikini
tops looking like contestants on a survivalist reality game show back home.
They even applied war paint to their visages when they were looking for a
battle, which was bad news considering I’d caught a glimpse of Glynis’s striped
face on my way in.
That she stood
rigidly wearing an enforced calm scared me the most, if you want the truth. I’d
enjoyed meeting her and her tribe mostly because of the pure, simple joy they
brought to most of life’s events. She’d greeted me back then with a genuine
smile and a genuinely pleasant air, and then she eagerly, almost childishly,
dragged me to meet nearly everybody in her camp, grinning widely the whole way.
Every one of her companions invited me down to run through the tree tops with
them, as others had told me that their idiom went. In a private moment
afterward, while she and I were sharing some wonderful southern mead, Glynis
explained to me that it wasn’t just an idiom—the southern elves could literally
run through the treetops, thanks to the thousands of pathways they’d developed.
That was all
before news of the library thing took hold, unfortunately. Now, they were all
here to see me go down, if the queen’s kids’ rumor held true.
My senses, unfortunately, were shouting at me that the rumor was pretty much
spot on. I forced that thought from my mind, wrapped my face in a true,
practiced elf-grin using nearly every facial muscle I owned, curtsied with the
most appropriate hand gesture of respect, and greeted the royal pair.
Then my worst
fears gained form and laughed in my face.
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