SWNOVELS Fireblade: Chapter 19
“ARIEL, EVERY TIME I get to see you I start wondering if the Eldrin even have access to baths! Do you have to always walk around covered in blood just to prove you’re the nation’s most formidable warrior?” My sister wrinkles her perfect nose as she stares at my disreputable appearance.
I look down at myself. Underground tunnels to access the palace and several complicated fights have conspired to leave me well-splattered with mud and gore. No wonder the guards outside didn’t notice the difference between me and my sister. They likely could not actually see very much of me.
“I’ve been busy! Not all of us get the easy job of parading around in jewels and a wedding dress, you know.”
She laughs, trying to outdo my mock-indignation.
“Huh! You got off lightly. Can you imagine the pain and agony of having to walk around balanced on these instruments of torture just so I look as tall as you?” She waves a pair of glittering sandals in front of my face. Perching on spiked heels as high as those must have taken some intense practice.
“You did well to look so amazing and graceful at your wedding. I had no idea there was a balancing challenge.”
The mischievous smile fades. “Deris told me you suddenly turned up in the middle of it. I’m sorry. It must have been a terrible shock.”
The memory of those cruel minutes stabs through me.
“I hope he told you what I was doing? Warned you about how he had to stop me?”
“Ariel, I understand. It doesn’t matter. Really.”
“It does matter. You have to remember to stay alert and cautious when I’m around.”
She looks awkwardly at her hands. “Deris didn’t want to say anything but I guessed something was up when they suddenly started posting extra guards. In the end I made him admit to what had happened.” She reaches for my hand, notices the grimy state of it and changes her mind. “We can talk about it while you’re in the bathtub. Easier than trying to explain to the servants how or why the royal nightdress somehow got involved in a deadly fight in a… drain.” She waves me into the bath annex.
A rush of warm scented air greets me as I step through the door but the water in the tub has gone cold. Alina runs over to the glowing brazier on the far side.
“The servants noticed that I like to bathe a lot since Marin rescued me from the Rose Mansion. They always leave a kettle of water on the fire, ready to use. But it’s too heavy and I can’t very well call them in to carry it for me, not with you in here. Can you do it?”
She watches curiously as I lift the thing easily with one hand and pour the contents into the foaming tub, creating a cloud of perfumed steam. I step in and submerge, surfacing again to wash the congealed blood from my face and arms. Alina looks horrified.
“Ariel! You can’t have been training with the military for so long you’ve forgotten you’re supposed to take your clothes off first?”
“My gear needs a wash as much as the rest of me.”
“Point.” Her delicate fingers set to work, removing my harness and wet clothes.
“Don’t break those beautifully-painted fingernails.”
“Don’t tease!” She lets out a long sigh. “It has been fun though, pretending to be royalty, watching all the obsequious bowing and kneeling that goes on, especially as it gives me a degree of authority over some of the creepy characters around here. It all happened so suddenly after being a slave and having no control over my life, except for a bit of surreptitious spying.”
“A lot of surreptitious spying. Anyhow, make the most of it. Enjoy being a Queen while you can. The army has to move out tomorrow if we’re to stop the invaders advancing to Maratic.”
“I know. Marin said something about it. But really, I won’t miss having to go through all the flirty persuasion antics, trying to get a bunch of cowardly aristocrats to bring their reserve troops to the front line.”
“Surely that’s finished now?”
“Thank the Five. Most of them have already been back to their estates and brought their reserves to the army camp outside the walls. Then yesterday, when the scouts reported the Rapathian advance, I gave up on persuasion with the last few malingerers and started issuing direct orders. Sent them packing back to their estates and told them to bring back as many foot soldiers as they can find. I should have laid down the law sooner, I can tell you. You wouldn’t believe where a couple of them think they’re entitled to put their hands!”
“What? If that had really been me, they wouldn’t have any hands by now. You should tell Marin!”
“I did. But I also told him there was no point doing anything about it. They were so drunk they wouldn’t remember a thing and they’d just deny it all. And we need their troops and food supplies for this war. Still, it’s unlikely they’ll be getting any more royal invites after withholding their help for so long, if Jantian has anything to do with it.” Her undressing has reached as far as my Sylvani tunic now and she peels the wet silk carefully over my head. I notice the wistful smile playing on her lips as she squeezes water out of it.
“Sissy? What?”
“Just… it’s like you’re keeping a little piece of the real you underneath all the chainmail and weapons.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that. Sometimes I had to rely on it to sneak up on people––”
“Shh. Just think about the real you, while you’re here gossiping with me. So much has happened since the first time you found me in the Rose Mansion…” Her voice trails off.
I’m guessing she doesn’t want to talk about Akadian any more than I do. “I’m sorry. I should have asked how you’re dealing with what happened to you––”
“Don’t.” She reaches for my hand. “Marin keeps telling me how much my spy-information helped them with their resistance plans. It gives me back some of my self-confidence. And I’ve set myself another month of imagining how each bath washes away a bit more of the Rose Mansion and its visitors. Then it will be over and we can start to talk about it. Maybe even make jokes about it.”
“You sure it will be that easy?”
“I didn’t say it was easy.” Her face looks troubled as she studies my face. “It’s why I can understand how difficult you find it, dealing with the Blade’s gift. I told Deris that trusting you is the best way to help you through it.”
“You shouldn’t trust me, though. For your own safety. Sometimes it gets too much and I do things I really regret. I don’t want one of those disasters to be about you.”
She shakes her head. “I really cannot believe you would ever hurt me. No matter how wild your mind becomes, I think the love would break through. Treating you like a potential murderer just out of suspicion is only going to make it twice as difficult for you.”
I feel the tears prickling my eyes as her words bring back memories of our home in Caerlen. Before the world changed around us and our lives changed beyond recognition. But I don’t want our short time together to dissolve into tears and regrets.
I search clumsily for some trivia I can use to bury emotions and memories and find myself staring at the results of her scrubbing.
“How are you going to explain away the state of the water when the servants arrive in the morning? An elegant Queen couldn’t possibly produce that much grime after a day of gliding around draped in jewels.”
“I’ll tell them Marin had to clean up after someone floored him during fight-training.”
“Is that likely to be any more convincing? I’ve never seen him immerse himself in anything other than ice-cold water. Usually a river.”
She sighs. “I know. All this military hard-training regime I suppose.” A wistful look flits across her face. “You are so lucky, finding Marin. Handsome, kind, thoughtful, clever… everything I ever dreamed about in a romance. I always thought a King would be spoiled and arrogant, but he’s totally the opposite. Maybe after all this is over and you settle down to become Queen instead of me, I could be your lady-in-waiting or something…”
She breaks off the happy chatter and stares at me.
“Ariel? What’s the matter?”
I can’t find an answer. It hadn’t occurred to me that neither Marin nor Jantian has told her what is going to happen. We will never be King, or Queen, or probably even quiet Eldrin Kingsguard staying anonymously in the background. If we survive this battle and fail to slip away unnoticed into exile, we will be seen as traitors, most likely executed if we stay.
We are just game-pieces on the Tican board of this war, Jantian’s last desperate attempt to re-set the governance of a damaged and defeated country. A strategy that might just maintain the rule of law in chaotic times and the respect the starving citizens and recalcitrant nobles once held for the Eldrin.
And what will happen to Alina if people see her and think she is me, once all this has played out?
I feel sure Marin and Jantian will have worked out a way to keep her safe but I feel apprehensive, a need to know what it might be.
She grabs a pile of fluffy white towels and spreads them on the floor by the brazier.
“I’ll sit with you while you dry off.”
I grab her hand and step out of the water, suddenly feeling tired and unsure of myself. The caress of smooth silk whispers across my wet limbs as she wraps one of her beautifully embroidered robes around my shoulders and leads me to sit, curled up in the rumpled white nest. She circles her arms around me, just as she used to at our cottage in Caerlen when I was sick or had just limped home injured from a hunt that hadn’t gone too well.
It feels good. I suddenly feel small and insignificant and all I want is to stay cocooned in her arms and not have to think about the way everything around us is balanced so precariously on the edge of disaster.
Lupine’s cold nose lands on my arm as she tries to burrow her head inside the robe to lick my damp perfumed skin. I look up, unsurprised to see Marin standing in the doorway.
“Deris and I worked out how to sneak you out of here.” He hands me a dark grey Eldrin cloak. “Just make sure you keep your hair and face well covered.”
It feels too rushed, too soon. “Surely I don’t have to go yet? It must be two hours till dawn.”
Alina scrambles to her feet and splashes across the puddles on the floor.
“I have to spend at least two hours getting dressed up for this coronation pageantry, so you two should spend as much time as you can together before you have to go off and start fighting again.”
I can hear her gathering her clothes from the next room. The door to the salon clicks as it closes behind her. Marin picks me up and carries me into the bedroom. He lays me on the enormous four poster bed and unwraps the silk robe, his eyes roaming across my naked body, the first hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“Going by the way things have been working out so far, this just has to be the most complicated wedding night in the history of Samaran.”