Chapter 5
Shyasha, Valin, and Faug strode across the barren courtyard. Even though it was nearly dusk and the day was cloudy, there was only one light on in an upper window. When they were about halfway across, Dalar came storming out, flanked on either side by the two companions he had had on the road. Shyasha paused and indicated to the two humans to wait for Dalar and his companions to reach them. The younger one had olive skin and wide, curious, dark brown eyes. The older man was pale with amber eyes and a very stoic expression.
“You’re late,” Dalar snapped when he reached Shyasha.
“You’re early,” Shyasha replied smoothly, using that same melodic voice that she had used on the first day that Faug and Valin had met her. “We agreed that the latest we should have gotten here was tomorrow. We saw you on the road the first day out of Ciliar. You were traveling fast. What was wrong?”
“You weren’t there.”
“Neither were you.”
“I told you to protect them when you found them, and then to wait until I arrived before leaving.”
“But you also said that, in the instance that you didn’t show up after 24 hours, I should take them on the road. We left after 24 hours.”
“Why didn’t you stop us on the road?”
“I would have rather flung myself in front of a speeding rhino. It would have had the same effect. Is Tiba here?”
“Yes, she is here. And we were pressed for time. And some of us were more worried than others to get back.” Dalar said this with a glance at the man on his right-the older of the two companions.
Under her hood, Shyasha glanced at him, too, and her eyes lingered there for a moment. Even if he saw it, and she wasn’t sure he did, he gave no hint that he felt her gaze or could interpret its meaning.
“People need to be introduced,” the darker-skinned man said politely.
“Yes,” Dalar agreed. “Hyan, this is Shyasha Rinkari. She goes by Shyasha most of the time and is Shya to her close friends. She won’t take off her hood unless she needs to prove a point. You three, Hyan is a sorcerer. You’ll meet Tiba, who is inside. Hyan, the short human is Faug and the taller one is Valin. And Shyasha, Telsiel says that you’ve met before.” Dalar continued, indicating the man on his right.
“We’ve met,” Shyasha agreed, inclining her head slightly at Telsiel, half in greeting, and half in warning. Telsiel nodded. “Nothing more.” There was something in her voice that made it absolutely clear to Telsiel that if he mentioned any reference to any prior contact whatsoever, Shyasha personally would find out about it, hunt him down, and kill him to death until he died and then strangle him.
“Yes, anyway,” Dalar said. He knew, or rather sensed, what Shyasha was indicating with her tone of voice, and he didn’t want Telsiel to die just yet. “We’re going to leave at dawn, day after tomorrow. Be ready to move. Pack light and don’t pack more than two changes of clothes. There’s a council meeting tomorrow. All of you have to attend. When and where the council will meet will be confirmed at dinner. Till then.” He jerked his head, beckoning them inside, before turning and striding back across the courtyard to the castle. Hyan gave Shyasha a curious glance before turning and following Dalar into the castle. Faug started to follow, but Valin stopped him and murmured, “Wait for her.”
“No, it’s okay,” Shyasha said. “Follow Dalar and Hyan and don’t touch anything unless they say you can. Got it?”
“Yeah,” the two boys agreed and strode off, following the two mages inside. Faug picked up his pace and caught up with Hyan. Shyasha heard Faug start babbling away and asking Hyan questions. Hyan smiled and answered the questions easily. Valin was slower to enter the castle, and hesitated at the door to wait for Shyasha. He was more of an introvert than Faug, so he couldn’t randomly go up to people and start charming them as easily as Faug. He was too shy to talk to Hyan just yet, and he trusted Shyasha more anyway.
Telsiel and Shyasha stood facing each other in the middle of the courtyard. Shyasha glared from under her hood. Telsiel stood back and inclined his head, letting Shyasha go first, but she gestured to let him pass.
“You’re the princess,” he said, as if explaining why he was letting her go first.
“You’re the king,” Shyasha countered, no trace of a joke in neither her voice nor the small bit of mouth that Telsiel could see.
“You’re the female.”
“You’re the one in charge.”
“You’re the guest.”
“You’re the one who knows what’s going on.”
“You’re the one who needs to be shown around.”
“That’s why you go first.”
Watching from the drawbridge, Valin realized just how strange the two looked together, looking at each other, but also how different Telsiel seemed from a few moments ago. Telsiel was tall, middle aged, a king, and a very, very stoic one at that, from Valin’s limited knowledge of him. But now he was more open than he had been before. Instead of being very, very stoic, he was now just plain serious. He didn’t look like a carved statue anymore, but he definitely didn’t look like he was about to burst out laughing or singing. Something similar could have been said for Shyasha.
Eventually, the two turned and moved towards the castle side by side, not exactly best pals, but accepting the fact that they were stuck with each other.
“What was that about?” Valin asked when Shyasha passed him in the door.
“Nothing,” Shyasha said shortly, and Valin knew that, however much he didn’t like it, that was all he was going to get out of her for now.
Seeing the put out look on Valin’s face, Telsiel said, “We had this thing going a while ago. Running joke type thing.”
“Right,” Valin said, not entirely sure whether Telsiel’s tone was actually causal or not. He was curious about the relationship between the two elves, but didn’t want to press the subject, consenting to watch Telsiel’s face as Telsiel’s gaze followed Shyasha down the hall. There was a small flicker of something in his dark eyes, but then the flicker went out.
“You’re Valin.” Telsiel said abruptly, as if almost shaking himself out of a trance. Still, the words were more of a statement than a query of his identity.
“Yeah. Nice to meet you, officially.” They shook hands. “So…you’re the king? I think Shyasha said something about something like that.”
“Yes, I guess you could call me King. How’s Shya been treating you guys? Nothing absolutely horrid, I hope?”
“No, not really. She’s pretty nice, and can be a real laugh at times, but she’d get kind of edgy when Faug got on her nerves. But with Faug, either something’s a joke or it’s not worth his time, so he somehow gets some sort of humor out of it. She never really liked it when he did that, especially when she was in a bad mood, but she was all right, most of the time.” Valin was amazed that he had said all that. He was blabbering, he knew it. He was a tentative introvert who was confronted by a king. This wasn’t his kind of situation.
“Yeah, she has a tendency to be like that,” Telsiel agreed, smiling slightly. Maybe this guy wasn’t so bad, Valin thought.
“But she wasn’t horrid,” Valin said quickly. “Very sarcastic, but not horrible. But she’s kind of unpredictable.”
“I know,” Telsiel agreed. “She can be rather weird. She’s the kind of person that only needs a few days for you to think you know her really well, and then the next month she’ll completely surprise you with some new idea. And it’s really hard to know one thing about her without wanting to know something else.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know her?”
“We were friends when we were kids. I was the tailor’s son. She was the princess. She was sick of the conformity of being a princess so she stole clothes from the stable boy and roamed the streets of town. She sometimes came into my father’s shop, and once I was done with my chores we’d play Rangers and Outlaws with all the other kids or go into the forest and roam around with another girl she’d met-Tiba, the sorceress. Whenever we’d do Rangers and Outlaws, Shya would always be the captain of the boy’s side, because she called herself ‘Rinko’ and claimed she was male. Since her hair was short everyone believed her. It suited her personality-she’s not one to confine herself to the norm.”
“When did you find out she was a girl?” Valin wondered as they walked down a hall. “And when did you learn she was the princess?”
“Oh, that was a really funny day,” Telsiel laughed. “We were playing our most aggressive game of Rangers and Outlaws ever, and Shya was captain of the boys’ Ranger crew, because she’d been dubbed ‘Best Ranger’. It was crazy-we were all flinging mud at each other and screaming our heads off and running around, being absolutely crazy and having a whole load of fun. Then her governess comes out of the castle and starts looking for Shya in town, apparently. I didn’t see that part; I was busy creating a huge mud ball to fling at Joen Frump. But then the governess sees the fight and stands there for a while, glaring at all of us, and it sort of gradually died down and everyone stood looking at her. She was in this really fancy dress-it was insane. Then she spotted Shya and hollered, ‘PRINCESS SHYASHA RINKARI!!! GET YOUR LITTLE REAR END OVER HERE RIGHT NOW OR ELSE!!! I DON’T WANT TO EVER SEE YOU LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!!!’ That was a surprise to all of us, and what was more surprising was when ‘Rinko’ strode forward with his head bowed. We were only ten, and none of us had entered puberty yet, so the difference between boys and girls wasn’t as obvious. But still, most of the guys thought girls-especially girls in the palace and especially the seven princesses-were complete wimps. Most of them were, but not the youngest princess.”
“Did she ever come down to town again?”
“Yes, but not as often. She came down as often as she could, but she wasn’t as willing to hurl mud at Joen Frump or anyone else anymore. She didn’t really come around the shop until we were in our teens-I think that was when her governess left-and by then she had become more refined. She wore a dress, at least. But after the governess found her out, it was never really the same between us. We were still best friends, and we still had adventures, but we weren’t quite as crazy.”
“So how did you become King?”
“Shya only had sisters, no brothers. We had this policy that, if that happened, the youngest girl’s husband would have to rule. The average marrying age was fifteen, but Shya didn’t want to, nor did she show any prospect of being interested before she’d be dubbed a spinster. Her father knew we were friends-he saw her walk to our shop and saw us walk around town too many times to think differently-and he thought I was worth it, so he named me his heir. Shyasha didn’t take it too well, and somehow, a short time later, went clinically blind and ran off into the forest and stayed there. That’s all there really is to the story, and there’s your room.”
They had paused by a door halfway down a corridor on the East Wing.
“One last question,” Valin said.
“Sure.”
“Cerob said the city was attacked by Wylds, and the survivors took refuge in the castle. Where are they?”
“They’re in the West Wing,” Telsiel said shortly. He said this too fast and strongly for Valin to be entirely convinced of the truth of his words.
“Okay. Just wondering.”
“Dinner’s in about an hour. Someone will be around to show you where to go when it’s time.”
“Do I have to dress up?”
“No, but I must warn you that Shyasha might actually be wearing a dress, so she won’t look entirely the same as you’ve probably grown accustomed to.”
“All right. See you then, I guess.”
“Good bye.”
Telsiel turned and strode back up the corridor to the main entrance. Valin went into his room. Faug was already there.
“Where were you?” Faug demanded.
“I was talking to Telsiel,” Valin told him. “Where were you? And how did you get in here?”
“I was talking to Hyan, who said that Shyasha might be forced to dress up, and that we’re supposed to share a room,” Faug replied.
“Telsiel said that she might wear a dress as well,” Valin said. “It would be kind of weird, seeing Shyasha in a dress, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Faug said in a bored tone.
“Well, guess what I found out about Shyasha from Telsiel?” Valin said. He was glad of this new insight into Shyasha’s life-he knew it wasn’t right to pry into other people’s relationships, but Shyasha’s past was somehow more interesting the more he heard about it. Like Telsiel had said, you couldn’t know just one thing about her.
“What?” Faug asked eagerly. Apparently he, too, was eager to figure out what exactly happened to her.
Valin spent the next half hour telling Faug everything that he could remember from what Telsiel had told him.
“It’s him,” Faug said when Valin was finished talking. “Telsiel was the guy who Shyasha was in love with.”
“What makes you think that?” Vain asked.
“Well, number one,” Faug began. “She acts all solemn around him.”
“She was all solemn when she first met us,” Valin reminded him.
“Good point,” Faug said. “Anyway, number two. If Shyasha’s dad was willing to name Telsiel his heir, Telsiel must have been up to the court at least once, which means they must have had something going on well enough for Shyasha to take him up to the castle in the first place. Am I right?”
“You’ve got a point,” Valin agreed.
“Number three,” Faug continued. “Telsiel said that when they were teenagers they still hung out and went on adventures, but they weren’t quite as crazy.”
“So what’s your point?” Valin wondered.
“My point,” Faug said. “Is that the adventures could have been of a different kind.”
“Faug, I can’t believe you’re nine years old,” Valin said. “You have a very strange mind, my friend.”
“But am I right?” Faug insisted. “They could have seriously been trying to figure out how to capture the kinetic energy of a running unicorn, couldn’t they?”
“I don’t think that they’d be trying to do exactly that, but it’s a thought,” Valin said, glad that Faug wasn’t thinking about what Valin thought he was thinking about.
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