The Royals

Chapter 54

'Oh, Maarcus. I'm sorry." 'You've said that already, but I appreciate it.'

They slid down to the floor, sitting side by side in an awkward silence, not looking at each other, not touching.

They were still sitting there when a young dwarf girl

brought them a tray of food. The child had a remarkable resemblance to Celia Sailclan.

Kate rubbed her eyes and watched as the dwarf set the tray next to them. 'Ceeley?' she whispered. 'Ceeley,

is that you?' The girl continued puttering at her task, doing nothing

useful that the princess could see.

*Celia Sailclan, it's us, Aunt Katty and Uncle Maarcs." The dwarf looked up then.

When she saw the child full in the face, the princess gave an involuntary gasp. 'Oh, Ceeley.'

The girl was indeed Celia Sailclan, but her eyes held a dead expression. Before this, Kate had seen Ceeley hide herself in sleep to escape from her terrors, but she had always come back to herself when she awoke. The child would have no need of sleep now, for Ceeley

didn't know who or where she was or why she would

require escape. Maarcus was speechlessly reaching out to her. Tears poured down his cheeks.

Kate tried again. She spoke as if everything were perfectly normal. 'Hello, Ceeley. It's good to see you. We were all a bit wor- Her voice broke. They had had good reason to be worried after all. 'Wondering, that is. We were wondering how your travels with Lyda and Willam had gone."

'Lyda,' she said. "Willam? A flash of confusion crossed her face and was gone. She stared past Kate as if she heard something in the distance, then turned to acknowledge the princess for the first time. 'My mistress bids you eat. Her tone was as flat as a corpse's.

She curtseyed so precisely that it wrenched Kate's heart worse than all the rest. The last time the princess had seen it so perfectly performed was the dwarf's first introduction to Henry not so many weeks ago. Kate squeezed her eyes shut to block the tears. When she opened them - intending to thank the child, to try again to bring her back from wherever the witch held her - the girl was gone.

Little chattering Ceeley, gone without a sound.

Lyda had no illusions when Alvaria released her from her burden of servicing the soldiers, and left Willam free to keep her company. This would transform into a new atrocity soon enough.

Hardly a few hours passed before her suspicions were proven out. The elves entered, bearing ceremonial ropes before them as if in offering. Willam squeezed Lyda's hand and held on tight

She recognized the elf who had backhanded her and split her lip. He labored under the elfwitch's bidding blind to his task, and did not notice her at all. Her right eye was swollen shut, but it didn't take two eyes to see where they were going. The bloodstained dais was plain as plain could be from this distance,

just as it had been when they first installed her in her

tent of misery.

They were pushed past the restless, angry mob. Here was not only the pitch of evil, but also the tone of desperation and deprivation. Alvaria spared no one in her march of destruction.

Despite the horror, Lyda felt serenity settle on her like a dusting of clean snow. She was not really ready to die, but she had done all she could. She had done her best to rescue those who could be rescued. She whispered a prayer that the Sisters might watch over Ceeley. Lastly, she forgave herself and forgave Willam.

She hardly noticed as they strapped her to the stone altars, though she heard Willam struggle against his captors. 'Peace, Willam,' she said softly. 'Alvaria might win our bodies but she will not win our souls.'

Her husband calmed.

'Quiet,' hissed an elf hovering nearby, but he dared say no more to the captives without the elfwitch's sanction. Lyda lay still and waited.

Kate felt her mother's presence before Alvaria raised the tent flap. 'She comes,' she murmured to Maarcus.

The elfwitch wrapped herself in white upon white, invisible as a snow-leopard in winter. She stood as imperious as ever, true to herself at least, Kate thought. "Take him.'

Two trolls hurried forward to unshackle Maarcus from

his place next to Kate. They gripped him firmly under each arm. If he challenged them, bones would break.

The elf overseer cleared his throat. "May I ask...?' 'Just don't kill him yet. I will have a use later." The elf bowed and signalled the trolls, who hauled the

Shoreman away.

Kate was still staring at Maarcus's newly-healed back when the elfwitch said conversationally, You waste precious resources in fighting me. Because you are of my blood, I have been able to overlook your obstinacy.' She smiled. The trait seems to run in the family."

The princess kept her silence. Somewhere she felt her brother, but knew no more about him than that he lived. Alvaria's voice went as cold and hard as steel. "This third chance will be your last- or by the Sisters, Great and Lesser, I will t*****e you as no one has ever been tortured in all the histories of the Seven Realms.'

Kate's tongue moved quicker than her brain. 'How

comforting to know I will hold such a special place

among your prey."

Alvaria backhanded her across the face. Kate expected it - saw the arm swing ever so slowly toward her - but she couldn't ward off the blow with her hands bound behind her back.

'You cannot manipulate me into doing something reckless,' the elfwitch said. 'My every move is well considered and known beforehand.'

Kate thought about her own temperament and knew this to be true. Even her fits of seemingly impulsive pique were within what she expected of herself. Like mother, like daughter.

Wind whipped at the tent, but no cold outside could match the iciness within. The elfwitch's voice swelled to fill the entire tent. Consider well your future these

next few days. Consider too the fate of those you would protect."

Kate locked eyes with the elf. Somehow the princess

would defeat this woman. Alvaria broke the gaze and casually waved forward

another guard. He unlocked her restraints, released her from the tent-pole, and fastened the shackles once again.

Alvaria led Kate out into the chanting crowd and up beside her on the dais.

'You have seen my mother's death,' Alvaria claimed.

"We have,' they answered.

*Many of you shared in her demise.'

'We did.'

"Know that this is my daughter,' she shouted. She has yet to make a choice.' She raised Kate's bound arms. 'Should she choose well, these fall away and she becomes my noble daughter, to be heeded in all things.'

The crowd recited in a monotone, 'Long live the Queen. Long live the princess."

'But That one word silenced them all in an instant. 'Should she choose poorly, she is no more than the two before us. Less than they, she will be a lowly half-breed,

destined to be reshaped to my will.' They cheered, as if this mention of the transformation were a reward for their own suffering.

Kate tore her gaze away from the savage mob to look at the altars where three lay lashed to stone. The dwarf was a stranger, but Kate knew the two humans. Lyda and Willam lay as if entranced.

Lyda and Willam, blessed by the Sisters themselves.

Or so it had seemed.

Beside her Alvaria began a litany of the sins of the

rulers of the One Land - the sins of Kate's father, King Tomar.

Mesmerized by the horror, Kate did not see Alvaria's knife until it sliced the throat of the first victim. The dwarf's blood drained into a painted goat-hide.

As the elfwitch held the knife aloft to the crowd's chanting, the princess recognized it. For how could she not? It was her own, given to her brother less than two weeks ago.

The knife plunged, but this time it pierced not human skin but goat skin. The warm blood splashed across the faces of husband and wife. Together they screamed an agony beyond anything Kate had ever known.

She could not shut out the sound. She could only add

her howls to their torment.

Ceeley liked it in her cocoon. It was warm and quiet, as comforting as a bear-hug. That Aunt Katty person had ruined everything. She had singled Ceeley out and now the elfwitch would punish her.

It would hurt, really hurt.

Already she could hear the shouts of the ritual. Soon she would be part of that same ceremony. Ceeley didn't think she would like that.

Unless she could stay safe in her cocoon. Unless she could pretend everything was just as it had been. She would have to make-believe well enough to convince the elfwitch.

The child carried her tray back to the elf's tent. The guard would not let her pass. He called her 'troll-bait' and said that no one was there. He told her to bother somebody else.

Where to go now? The cries were getting louder and tearing great gaps in her cocoon.

A shadow passed across the ground. She looked up to see what manner of beast could cause such a shape.

There was a dragon... two... no, four dragons!

Four dragons flying overhead, and one of them carried people on its back.

This was too wondrous to miss!

Ceeley stepped out of her safe wrapping And the misery rushed in to engulf her.

She tried to run back inside, to hide, but it was

too late.

Jedrek enjoyed teaching the boy. A quick study, he reminded the Elder of the joy he had forgotten, of the pleasure of greeting another day. He called Notti back and kept him longer than was fair for one so recently through the Dunavs.

Together they repeated the litany and examined its implications. Together they poked at roots and leaves, finding the hidden remedies. Together they felt Alvaria pull at the life-force of the One Land.

Notti opened his eyes in alarm. 'She's done it again. Pity the poor souls.' 'Yes,' Jedrek echoed, as if he were the student and

Notti the master. 'Yes.'