The Challenge
“Ych a fi!”
I spun my head
toward my father, stunned. From what I could see of Seph’s
expression in my peripheral view, I could tell she was as shocked as I was. My
dad, the high king of all Kiirajanna, the elf whose speech patterns were always
exorbitantly formal whether in English or his native tongue, had just cursed.
And it wasn’t a nice curse, either; it was the most disgusting of the disgust
phrases that the beautiful elf language has available to it. It involved,
literally, something about an ox and a person, I think, but I’d been taught
never to say the phrase unless I wanted my mouth washed out with soap.
Granted, that
lesson was with the five year olds, but it stuck pretty solidly with me. I
could tell from Seph’s mirrored reaction that my memory was
accurate.
I didn’t
understand, though. Coming back to the castle for the last couple of ceremonies
related to Yule, we’d just rounded the final corner to make the approach
straight in to the front doors. It was a gorgeous final approach, as always.
Huge expanses of grass mingled amongst the trees, not a single discoloration in
sight despite it being the dead of winter. The only thing out of the ordinary
was a ring of gaily decorated tents arrayed about the main courtyard in front
of the castle, but that, in turn, looked spectacular to me. The vibrant colors
of all the pendants were spectacular, and the variety and decoration of
clothing worn by all the elves gathered about them was also spectacular.
It was, in a
word, spectacular.
What, then, did
my father find so disgusting?
“Alyssa, Sephaline, get inside and up to your rooms as quickly
as possible,” he growled in English just as the horseless carriage rumbled to a
stop. He punctuated the order with an adamant little gesture down low, below
the edge of the carriage so that it couldn’t be seen by onlookers. Seph
obediently grabbed my arm and rushed us inside and straight up the stairs.
“Wait,” I ordered, pulling her to a halt at the first landing. “It
took me a second, but I know those colors. Some of them, anyway. They were here
last summer at my coronation. But why would my father be so put out by seeing
Swadda’s arrival?” Seph shook her head mutely and raised her shoulders in a
shrug of ignorance. But I vividly remembered meeting the penna of the western tribe back then, along with
the leaders of the other tribes as well. It had seemed like a great big elf
party, with the huge drums of the eastern clan mixing in with the undulating
song of the southern clan and the weird multi-voice guttural harmony from the
western elves, and a whole lot of dancing and drinking to go with it. They’d
all seemed pleased to meet me at the time, too.
What could be
going on now?
“I am not entirely certain, but it could have something to do
with their stated desire to put your head up on a pike to parade back to their
people,” a slitheringly amused voice cut in from the side. Seph, whose ranger
gift of sensing approaching elves didn’t work in stone structures, jumped in
surprise, but it gave me a little pride to have sensed the royal trio
approaching.
“Greetings, Meriel. Glad to see you three made it back safely
from your amser calan festivities. We had a marvelous time; thank you so for
the kindness of asking. Tell me, did you have a chance to stock up on the wine
of nastiness while you were away?” I tossed the queen’s youngest daughter a
smirk.
Of the three,
Meriel showed the most reaction as her eyes squinted ever so slightly and her
lips pressed together. I was proud of myself for advancing in the ability to
read elf expressions as much as I had in less than a year; when I’d
arrived her expression would have seemed stolid. Now I could read the anger
right off her eyelid lines, see the speechlessness on her lips, and watch the
anger intensify as a result of her inability to make a comeback.
After all, I
reckoned, very few had ever sniped back at the Light of Queen Talaith’s
Eyes, or whatever the youngest brat was calling herself.
Seren, the
eldest, allowed herself another moment of calm serenity before rolling her eyes
at the antics. “It is so nice to see the peace of
Christmastime lasted so long before being smashed asunder.” She split her regal
glare between me and her sister. Her point was valid, I had to admit.
Ostensibly to give the queen’s kids a cultural rounding-off with a taste of a
Southern Christmas, Dad had led us back through the portal to Memphis a couple
of days before Christmas Eve, and we’d spent a wonderful Christmas with Momma.
Of course, I and the brats had all decided that the trip was mostly of benefit
to the king himself, and of course we’d had significantly different reactions
to that. Still, the castle in Wales had been alerted of our impending plan, and
so the queen’s kids had been shown pretty much every possible imaginable joy,
right up to a first class flight up to see Times Square in New York City. And,
hey, Momma and I got to go along. And they’d still complained about being asked
to do it. Meriel had, anyway, in a supercilious manner that obviously included
her siblings as complainants.
The upshot was
that it had actually been harmonizing in a strange, superficially joyful sort
of way. Meriel, the same elf who’d just gleefully
described my head on a pike, had actually grinned widely at and along with me
as we watched a huge tree flash its lights at us in Rockefeller Center. Later,
as we sat around the kitchen table and enjoyed Momma’s Christmas morning
breakfast, I finally saw Seren let slip her royal guard on her expression. She
smiled, she laughed, and she even joked. The gift giving had been delightful,
too.
It had all been beautiful,
if obviously short-lived. But that’s another story.
“Sarcasm, sister? You are so far above the low-brow humor of the
half-human,” Meriel purred. That made it my turn to glare.
Keion remained
silent. The middle child and only son of Talaith, Keion was a smoldering mass
of testosterone-based sexiness who had even gotten my really selective engines
revved up once. Or, maybe twice. Okay, truth be told, he’s
the only member of the male half of the species who ever brought out such a
visceral hunger in me. Problem was, he knew it, and he gloried in the
knowledge, and I knew it, and I hated him for the glory. It was all so
high-school-ish, and yet I found it impossible to keep my heart from leaping
into my throat when I saw him.
For his part, he
managed to maintain the same perfectly neutral expression that his elder sister
held. I didn’t doubt for a second that he was on my side; he’d saved my
head, and my neck, and literally the rest of the body it was attached to, too
many times already for me to question his motives. He’d even sworn personal
allegiance to me in a strange spur-of-the-moment ceremony up in the north under
the incredible northern lights. But those times were all when his sisters weren’t
present, and who could know what he’d decide if he had to choose between us?
“So what about you, Prince Keion?” I teased. “Do your toes curl
in excitement at the idea of seeing my head on a pike, too?”
That earned a
flush and a glare, both at the same time, before he answered with a fair amount
of heat in his voice, “I believe, Princess, that my sister was
engaging in hyperbole regarding threat to your physical form. However, the
clans gathered have brought quite a solid argument, in light of all the cursed
magic we have been witness to, that Seren, the well-trained, well-bred daughter
of Talaith herself, would make a demonstrably better choice to succeed her
mother than a gangly Mississippi girl with no royal upbringing whatsoever.”
“I—I see,” I murmured, feeling my control slip away in the
crushing agony that his words brought with them. He was absolutely correct, and
I’d wished for someone else to take the crown in my place many more times than
anybody else knew. None of that mattered, though, when it was him standing
there offering the damning opinion. I bravely wrestled what control I could
back to my face and my spine and my knees, somehow preventing the latter from
buckling. “Well. Thank you for your—opinion, Prince. I shall take that under
advisement, and—now I must seek rest after a long journey back. Sephaline,
would you please retire with me?”
The two of us
left the trio preening in the stair landing by themselves. I marched slowly,
deliberately, to my room, opened the door, and firmly but quietly shut it after
Seph and Booboo, who had crept up behind us in an impossibly silent way. Then I
slumped onto the bed, suddenly feeling as exhausted as I’d
claimed to be.
I ignored the
excited rattling and the rustling in the corner as long as I could, which wasn’t
very long. “Hi, L.T.,” I called out in the sing-song I used to communicate with
my new, strange friend. “We weren’t gone all that long. I trust you were well
tended?”
Another rattle,
one I somehow recognized as an affirmative.
Little Treebeard,
or L.T., is a very small tree. He’s—or she’s—my best
friend, I guess, though I still hadn’t figured out how to tell the tree’s
gender. Regardless, using it seemed wrong. The priests gave me the small potted elm as part
of my lessons to connect to nature, and I’d connected after a
long, tough run of effort. While that was a tremendous academic achievement, it
was also the moment the tree latched on to me, and hard. When I went to the
north, I’d only been gone for a couple of days before Dad was forced to send a
squad carrying L.T. after me.
The only
communication the tree and I had was the rattling of L.T.’s
branches and the sing-song of my voice. In spite of that, the tree had managed
to warn me of an impending attack a couple of times. And I—weird as it sounds,
I kind of enjoyed singing to the little creature, who would occasionally swoosh
his branches in appreciation. Seph, who was more of an animal person, just
watched wide-eyed in wonder at the connection we had.
“Some day, Alyssa, you’re going to have to deal with the hold
that boy has over your spirit,” my cousin interrupted gently from the corner.
“Was it that obvious?” I asked, dreading the answer. I looked up
from where I’d buried my face in my hands and gently wiped the tears that I
hadn’t realized were falling.
“It’s always been that obvious, but just now you seriously
overplayed it. ‘I shall take that under advisement, Prince,’” she mimicked,
though her smile was genuine enough to remove the sting. “Look, it’s obvious
that you care for him, and that he cares for you, too, but seriously, Alyssa.
He’s most likely to become king after your father returns to Mississippi, and
you’re still quite in the running to become queen, no matter how much you wish
differently—yes, that’s obvious, too—and you know that the king and queen
cannot be involved in that way. You also know that he’s already promised. You
need to admit it, and quit torturing yourself over it, and—what’s so funny?”
She asked the
question in such a piqued way that it made everything seem even funnier.
Suddenly I was guffawing on the bed, rolling around clutching my side. She
started giggling, too.
Finally the fit
died down. “So, what was so funny?” she probed again.
“Mississippi. You said it right. That’s the first time since I’ve
been here.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
“Why?”
“Why do you ask, why?” she asked, confusion spread across her
face.
“Nobody on Kiirajanna cares how you pronounce it. It’s just a
state back home.”
“You do. It’s where you were born.”
“Well….” She had a point. I’d corrected her every time she’d
mispronounced it because I guess it really was important to me. “I appreciate
it, Cousin,” I said, earning me another radiant smile. Then I took the mood
down a notch with a question, “Do you think that crowd out there is really
after my head?”
“No, of course not. Well, maybe. I’m not sure, Alyssa. Your
father seemed awfully perturbed, and he’s still out there now.”
“True. I’ve never seen him like that.” Granted, I’d only seen
him for a few months of the time I’d been on Kiirajanna, but I couldn’t imagine
it otherwise. Seph nodded confirmation. “So what are we going to do if they
are?”
She shrugged. “We’ll
do what we’ve been doing, Alyssa. We’ll figure out a way around it.”
“It may not be that simple, though.”
She shrugged
again and held me in a stern gaze. “It may not be that
complicated, actually. You don’t know. You’ve got to stop worrying about what
you don’t have any control over. You’re smart, and you’re already one of the
most powerful elves in the realm. You have powerful people on your side: your
pa, the queen, the high priestess, and me!”
“Why would the queen be on my side? It’s in her daughter’s best
interest to be on their side.”
“Maybe. I doubt it, since she would not have graced you with the
invitations to tea or anything else if she weren’t on your side. But you’re
still worrying about something you can’t control. Stop it!” She punctuated her
last sentence with a clap on each word.
“Okay. I’m tired, anyway. Maybe a night of sleep will help clear
this all up.”
“Maybe. Probably! It must.” She nodded decisively and walked
out, the shaggy wolverine padding quietly behind.
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