Once Bitten: A Dragon-Shifter Fantasy Romance Page 7

  “I have no belongings.”

  In a state near to shock, Eloisa had spoken so softly that she hadn’t expected anyone to hear her. Instead, the king, queen, and translator all turned to regard her, their auras flashing with varying degrees of incredulity.

  “Clearly there is a misunderstanding,” Milara said, laughing as she patted Eloisa’s head. “Of course she has belongings. She has many, many belongings. We will send them all in short order.”

  Philomen cut in. “But the timing of this is concerning to me. And we’ve drawn no official contracts. Am I to send my sister off to the north with no assurances?”

  The woman’s scowl deepened. “You will get your loan and your auxiliary forces if the sovereign and your sister are wed.”

  Milara said, “We’d hoped to have the wedding here, in the capitol. You see, the city is in need of some uplifting, and—”

  “Frankly, I do not care,” the woman said. “And neither does the sovereign. However far her journey, I assure you, ours was farther. She can leave with us now, or not at all. We will not be making the journey a second time.”

  “And I wouldn’t expect you to,” Philomen said. “Allow me the evening to spend with my dear sister, and then I will send her along myself.”

  Their auras were flashing with too many colors for Eloisa to make sense of. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them, but the auras only became more frenetic and unreadable.

  With all that had happened, she’d managed to put her time in The Dark Room out of her mind. Now, the punishment would have felt like a reprieve, compared to her impending sentence.

  “With all due respect,” the woman said in a tone that said otherwise, “a beggar does not get to choose currency. You are in no position to be making demands, so stop making a fool of yourself.”

  Eloisa had been thinking along similar lines, but hearing a stranger, a foreign one no less, speak so harshly to Philomen disturbed her. While the king quivered with red-faced fury, Eloisa spoke up.

  “I beg your pardon, but you said if we wed. Do you mean to say that it is not a certainty?”

  The woman narrowed her dark eyes in what Eloisa thought was suspicion. She’d spent so much of her life ignoring expressions in favor of auras, that many of the subtleties were lost on her.

  “You will wed following courtship, should the sovereign deem you suitable.” She looked to Philomen. “Have you not told her this? And why doesn’t her speech strain my patience? Is she truly your sister?”

  Philomen said, “Is your blood so contaminated with human filth that you cannot tell she is my kin?”

  The pair traded several insults, all of which were more befitting of children and not adults in positions of power. Eloisa wanted to interject, but each moment that passed with them squabbling felt like a gift. It was another moment she was not on course to meet the sovereign.

  Though Philomen failed in securing them the evening together, the woman did agree to allow them time to say their farewells. Her brother took her by the arm and led her away from the atrium, towards the gardens and a fountain in the shape of Jyrn, goddess of mercy. The ceramic pond beneath it was overcome with algae and in dire need of a cleaning.

  As soon as he was certain they had their privacy, Philomen began speaking to her, his High Atolian accent dropping in favor of brevity.

  “I thought we would have more time. You must listen closely to everything I say. The sovereign is unaware of your background. The fact that you joined The Order of Light is not a matter of public record. We have told him that—look at my eyes and not above my head.”

  Eloisa blinked and refocused her attention onto Philomen’s face.

  “If you hear nothing else I say, hear this: he cannot know what you are.”

  “If he asks me, I cannot lie.”

  He made of sound of exasperation. “You will lie if you want to keep your head.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, raising her voice as much out of panic as anger. “I cannot lie, just as I cannot marry. I have taken oaths. I can hold no titles. I can speak only truth. I can never know the touch of a man.”

  Philomen seized her by the chin, his hand squeezing her jaw like a vice. “Such arrogance. You are a single woman. Do you think the gods care about your vows? Do you think they value them above my kingdom?”

  He leaned in close, so that his hot breath clung to her face. “While you’ve spent your century communing with your goddess, Lusia and I have been down here, struggling to keep our kingdom together. It is well past time you paid your dues.”

  His aura had grown fiery once again. No sooner did Eloisa notice it, Philomen released his grip on her chin and delivered a hard slap to the side of her face.

  The blow came as a complete shock, and she fell to her knees on the dry grass. While she tried to blink the dark spots from her vision, Philomen continued his rant.

  “You never could help yourself, could you? That’s why father had no choice but to send you away,” he said with disdain. “But that is behind you now. You will keep your eyes down while you are in Cal’en Fasha. Lidia will speak for you. She has been trained in what she must say. I have told the sovereign that father favored you. He indulged your passions for astronomy and mathematics, and permitted you to remain unmarried so that you could devote yourself to your studies. If you are asked a direct question, you will smile, give a non-answer, and allow Lidia to respond in your stead. Is that understood?”

  Eloisa didn’t respond. She had turned inside of herself, to a place inside her mind where Philomen could not reach her.

  I am done with this day, she decided.

  Just like that, she was back in the tower. It was noontime, just after lunch, and she was in the study hall waiting for Sister Clarine to arrive. The air smelled like salt, paper, and a bit of must, as it was still two days until grace day when the Children—and Eloisa, per the terms of her punishment—would do the weekly cleaning.

  “Where have you been? You weren’t in bed when I woke and you missed morning lessons.”

  She turned to see Selia sitting beside her, her mellow green aura twinkling with curiosity.

  Eloisa shrugged. “I must have wandered off in my sleep. I had the strangest dream.”

  In the row behind her, she could hear Fasima mumbling a prayer, asking the goddess to soften Sister Verity’s heart so that she wouldn’t give them another assessment to write. Selia turned, her countenance stern.

  “It is sacrilegious to pray for such frivolities,” she told her. “And if you’re going to pray for anything, pray that the goddess makes you stronger of character.”

  Fasima’s aura curled inward, the tips flaring rouge.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Eloisa said, rolling her eyes. “I once heard Selia say a prayer for her Lightlace to stop causing a rash on her neck.”

  “That was when we were Children,” Selia protested. “But while we are on the subject of frivolous prayers, why don’t you tell her about the time you…”

  Selia trailed off as the chamber door opened and Sister Verity ambled in. Her veil was pulled back on her head, and several locks of her graying hair had escaped her pins. She set a stack of papers down onto her desk and then looked around the room through tired, watery eyes.

  When her gaze fell on Eloisa, Sister Verity stilled.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” she asked.

  A chill ran down Eloisa’s back, like a skittering spider.

  Selia whispered, “What is she talking about?”

  A flurry of whispered speculations swept through the room as Daughters watched her from the corners of their eyes.

  Eloisa shook her head. “I don’t know. I—”

  Her hands went to her neck, where she felt a sudden pressure. With her next inhalation, she found that her airway refused to open.

  Sister Verity said, “You don’t belong here anymore. Begone with you. Quickly, now.”

  Chest constricting, she turned to Selia, but it was Philomen
beside her, his eyes bulging with fury. His hands shot out to seize her neck, squeezing it until her face burned and she sputtered for air. Her vision flickered, shifting between her study hall and blackness, and then abruptly she was outside and staggering, falling backwards and into water. Above her, through the murky water, she could see the goddess Jyrn staring down at her through moss-ridden eyes.

  Then Lidia was there, her hands going around Eloisa to pull her up. Eloisa took her time in expelling the water from her lungs, even her reflexes lacking the inclination to carry on.

  Philomen was several paces away, still seething, but being held back by Milara, whose wrathful aura seemed to be directed at her husband.

  “Stupid man!” she said in a whispered shriek. “They are expecting me to emerge from these gardens with her so that they can depart. How am I supposed to explain this? They’ll think she tried to drown herself.”

  Lidia directed Eloisa back to the pond, pulling her hands down to the water so that she could clean the blood from beneath her nails. Eloisa looked over her shoulder to see the crimson streaks on her brother’s hands, but she could draw no memory of scratching him.

  “It doesn’t matter what they think,” said Philomen. “They’ll realize soon enough that she’s addled. Before you came she was on the ground, carrying on a conversation with herself.”

  Milara took his head in her hands. “The girl has had a trying day. Worry not. Lidia will see her through what is to come, and once they are wed it will not matter what the sovereign learns of her.” She ran her hands down Philomen’s neck and then smoothed his shoulders before turning to Lidia. “You will see her through this, won’t you?”

  Lidia squeezed Eloisa’s hands as she nodded at the queen. “Cal’derache courtships are well-known for their ephemerality. He’ll be wanting to wed her within the week. Rest assured that I will guide her there without upset.”

  While the king and queen exchanged words, Lidia helped Eloisa to stand. Rather than making a vain attempt at fixing her hair, she pulled Eloisa’s veil so that it covered her hair and came down around her shoulders.

  Lidia put an arm around her and started back towards the atrium. “Milord, I am sure the fliers will wait another moment. I should go and get some powder for her face.”

  Eloisa’s face still stung from where she’d been slapped. It must have been discolored, because both the king and queen waved them on urgently.

  No one stopped them at the atrium, and once they were alone in the corridors, Lidia spoke to her in a quiet tone.

  “I am sorry this is happening to you, Ma’am. May I offer some advice?”

  Eloisa only lifted her shoulders.

  “Right now, you are a gambit in a game you cannot begin to understand, but you are not without power. You are beautiful, virtuous, and pure. With the correct aim, these can be powerful assets.”

  Lidia paused, waiting for Eloisa to inquire further.

  “I am not interested in scheming, or in being part of a game.”

  “Respectfully, Ma’am, you are already part of the game. It is only a matter of whether you are a player or a piece to be moved about. At the moment you are very much the latter, but if you use your assets, you stand to elevate your position to unimaginable heights.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Handle your courtship with care. Do not be cold or indifferent. You are foreign and do not speak his language, so your mystery will compensate for your lack of charm. Let the sovereign be drawn to you. Make him fall in love with you, and you will no longer be his pawn. His power will become yours to wield, however you see fit. You would not have to wait for a son to take the Suntouched Throne. With Lord Caleth’s armies and treasury at your disposal, you could have dominion over Philomen and all of Atolia.”

  Chapter Five

  “How did you come to be in the service of my brother’s wife?”

  The question had been bouncing around in Eloisa’s head ever since their exchange, wherein Lidia had seemed to advocate for Eloisa over the queen that she supposedly served. Somewhere in there was a lie, for it was impossible to serve two masters.

  “You are suspicious of my motivations.”

  Lidia sat on the opposite side of the palanquin, her arms folded neatly in her lap. Her face looked serene, but her aura crackled with nervous energy.

  “To tell it true, I have no great fondness for Milara, or for Philomen, as he is now. But if you are not loyal to the queen you allegedly serve, how can I trust that you will be loyal to me?”

  Out of the tower less than a day, and already she was delving into intrigue. Though, if little else, the tower had prepared her for such things. While falsehoods were a rarity amongst the acolytes, factions were a part of life.

  Children formed bands of trusted confidantes, usually based around their nationalities, or among the Atolians, their social classes. As the years passed and they graduated to Daughters, the groups would break down smaller still, until they had only two or three others that they trusted implicitly. Trust was a very different concept to a Child and Daughter. Children expected others to guard their secrets as if they were their own. Daughters had been lashed enough times to know that secrets were only kept so long as they were not put under the lens of a direct question.

  Above them were the Sisters, who answered to no Daughter or Child, and rarely to Maidens, who were so absorbed in their devotions that they seldom trifled with those below them. A Sister did not have to work at hiding anything, because questioning her integrity was simply not done. Yet during her century of coming to know them well, Eloisa knew that almost all of them had blemishes on their integrity. Finding out their vices, like Sister Clarine’s secret passion for romantic poetry, Sister Marta’s fondness for teas, or Sister Indicta’s disdain for half-breeds, it was a matter of reading between the lines.

  Certainly there were smaller cues that could be picked up on through odd word choices or strange scents, but what Eloisa found most enlightening were the times when the words that were being said were not in alignment with the actions or values of the speaker. While the Sisters were not quite her enemies, they were responsible for her punishments, and knowing how to best play to their sympathies or rationalities could mean the difference between a caning and a night in The Dark Room.

  Eloisa was adapted to looking for these inconsistencies, and from women far more practiced at hiding them than Lidia. When Lidia had spoken to her earlier, all but telling Eloisa to seize Philomen’s throne, the inconsistency had been so glaring that Eloisa was at first sure she hadn’t heard the maid correctly.

  “You are right,” Lidia conceded. “My loyalties do not lie with Milara, or with the Atolian court. A week ago, when the preliminary arrangements for this engagement were made, I was bequeathed to the queen, a gift from the queen of Agreia.”

  Her aura continued to crackle with nervousness, but did not gray with a lie. Eloisa recognized that she would know better than to lie, as she knew of Eloisa’s abilities. However, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be subversive, and Eloisa would have to be pointed in her questioning.

  “The queen of Agreia?” Eloisa said, frowning. “Why do I feel as if I should be familiar with her?”

  “Because she’s your sister, Ma’am.”

  Eloisa’s brows rose. “Lusia…”

  She remembered now what High Maiden Ionia had told her, that Lusia had been married to an Agreian monarch for nearly as long as Eloisa had been in the tower.

  Then, she remembered something more recent.

  Lusia and I have been down here on the ground, struggling to keep our kingdom together.

  “Lusia and Philomen, they are allies?”

  Lidia’s hands fidgeted in her lap. She turned her gaze out to the window as she spoke.

  “Ma’am, we are going to a foreign land where you do not speak the language and no one will know of your background. Your faith in me will be essential. It also stands to reason that we will become quite close, perhaps something akin to f
riends.” She glanced back at Eloisa, her aura growing pale with resolve. “It is my greatest wish that you will trust me, and there is little I wouldn’t do to foster that. However, there are some subjects I cannot broach in any depth. It would be too dangerous, should the information fall on the wrong ears. The nature of Philomen and Lusia’s relationship is one of them.”

  “You’re saying that you don’t trust me?”

  “It is not that I question your character. After years at court, I find your candor to be quite refreshing. But that is the problem, Ma’am. You have said yourself that you are unwilling to lie, and while that is admirable, it is also very dangerous. Some secrets must be kept for the greater good of all.”

  Eloisa didn’t lie, and as such, she was unworthy of trust. That was perhaps the strangest concept she’d had to swallow since being torn from her bed at the tower.

  Lidia was right, Eloisa knew that logically. She didn’t think she could lie to save her own life, let alone to keep the secrets of others. Still, it disturbed her to know that Lidia would keep things from her, things that could affect Eloisa.

  “Can you tell me how you came to be in my sister’s employment?” Eloisa asked.

  “It is a very long tale.”

  Eloisa gestured towards the window. “We have time.”

  The journey to Cal’en Fasha, Lord Caleth’s keep, would take all of the afternoon and much of the evening. It was a direct flight, with only an hour-long stop to rest themselves once they reached the sovereign’s holdings in the centrally-located Stravea.

  Lidia relaxed in her seat, settling in as she began her tale.

  “I was born in Atolia. My father was the bastard son of a minor house, my mother was his lover. Because my father was half-human himself and as such could hold no titles, it was no great shame that he sired a daughter with a human. As I had no value in regards to marriage, my father’s family had me educated in the practical skills of linguistics and bookkeeping, so that I could serve them. By matter of chance, my first job was the same as it is now. I was sent with the young lady Lusia to Agreia to work as her translator and to be a companion to her.”