Lizaar did not give up. She was waiting, and she was doing so with the confidence of someone who had no doubt that their expectations would be fulfilled.
She knew that Lannahi would eventually lose the throne.
The thought that Lizaar could be right kept Lannahi up at night. Was someone going to challenge her at the next Royal Sabbath? She’d told Lizaar that she would kill her if any landshaper Challenged her, but the woman’s attitude didn’t indicate that she cared. As if she was sure Lannahi wouldn’t be able to hurt her.
A suspicion that Lizaar was planning an escape dawned in her mind, but Lannahi dismissed it quickly. If the woman had escaped, she would have been branded as a coward. Lizaar was a slave now, but she still had a chance to regain honor provided she faced the consequences of her decision with courage. If she ran away, the action would announce to all that she was afraid. Lannahi had only known her for a few days, but she didn’t think Lizaar’s pride could endure such humiliation. The fae didn’t forgive running from the battlefield. Not even in themselves.
That left only one option.
Ashared had said that the Palace Guard would provide Lannahi with protection. Protection, not obedience.
“I’m feeling better already,” Blann’s dreamy voice interrupted her musings. “You should try it too.”
Lannahi tore her gaze away from the palace guards standing at the end of the snowy clearing and looked at her friend, who was hugging the trunk of a giant pine tree with her eyes closed and an expression of bliss on her face. Her hair was hidden under her hat, but Lannahi was willing to bet it was as blue as the sky.
“I don’t think it affects us the way it does you,” Souhi said, amused. “Besides, Lannahi is the queen of landshapers, not the green-tongued. She should be hugging rocks rather than trees.”
“Being a queen is difficult,” Blann remarked with carefree languor. “If she can’t hug whatever she wants.”
Souhi sent her a meaningful look, and Lannahi smiled involuntarily, but when she caught a quick movement between the trees, her amusement faded. The wolves circling around the clearing didn’t seem to bother Blann, but Lannahi couldn’t muster a similar lightheartedness. The thought that they were shifter guards was strangely unsettling, and judging by the faces of Esau and Erril, who watched the forest with caution, they felt the same way.
Lannahi looked again at the edge of the clearing where Ashared stood with three landshapers. Like them, he wore the white-gold uniform of a guardsman, but instead of standing to attention, he leaned his back against a nearby trunk with his arms crossed over his chest. He seemed almost relaxed as if the setting he was in suited him greatly. The association with Blann and the thought that maybe she was right and hugging a tree helped not only the green-tongued made the corners of her mouth rise slightly, but Lannahi suppressed the smile. Ashared was a werewolf like those patrolling the area around the clearing. It was no surprise that he preferred walking in the forest to sitting in a stone palace.
Lannahi breathed deeply, her lungs burning from the chill air. Thick tree trunks climbed high into the sky and the green branches were scattered with snow. She came here because she also wanted to escape the palace.
She’d already toured the city and the mine, but preoccupied with Goldfrost’s legal and commercial codes, she’d been postponing a walk in the forest until Blann’s miserable face elicited her pity. Now she regretted having waited so long. The forest impressed all her companions, who like her were used to short orchard trees. Even the sight of the oversized wolves accompanying them at every turn failed to dim the spark of excitement in their eyes.
I should think about them more often, she rebuked herself.
“Lannahi,” Blann muttered sleepily. “Move to the right.”
Distracted, Lannahi blinked at her. A heartbeat later, Esau dashed toward Lannahi, grabbed her arm, and yanked her aside. As she regained her balance, a quiet thud came from the place she’d been standing a moment ago.
“Blann,” Erril said reproachfully, looking at the large pile of snow that had fallen from a branch. “If there is imminent danger, you need to shout, not speak as if it is barely worth mentioning.”
Lannahi shifted her gaze from the pile of snow to Blann smiling dreamily and finally to Esau grasping her by the elbow.
“Are you okay?” her guard asked.
He’d been serious a second ago, but now he started smiling and Lannahi couldn’t help it. She laughed. The others joined a moment later.
When she composed herself, she said, laughter still in her voice, “I think we should take the sleighs next time.”
Then she discovered that Ashared stared at her, transfixed, and she busied herself with straightening her coat.
***
Accustomed to music performances being a part of daily life in her father’s court, Lannahi quickly noticed the absence of musicians at Lizaar’s palace, and though the tension of the past few days made music the last thing on her mind, when the sounds of a lyre and a man’s singing came from the depths of the corridor, her attention immediately drifted in their direction. She was walking to the dining room, mentally preparing for another meal in a tense atmosphere, but having realized that she hadn’t misheard, thoughts of Lizaar evaporated and her legs slowed down on their own.
Souhi, who was walking beside her, threw her a questioning look. “The instruments in the ballroom aren’t just decoration, after all,” she said after a moment, partly because of the guards escorting them, who tensed slightly, unsure of why they had all stopped.
Lannahi muttered approvingly, but her thoughts were already consumed by the song. The words were in a dialect she didn’t know, but the magic with which all fae were born with translated the words in her mind.
A path between trees
A rift in the sky
Snow swirls
