I wondered briefly if I was narcoleptic as I woke to a hand tapping the top of my head. I normally avoided magic and I most certainly hadn't ever done anything that required that much thought before, it wasn't any wonder that I was tired. The bed moved under me before I remembered where I was. I don't know what I was expecting when I looked up, it wasn't to see a beautiful golden haired elf smiling down at me.
She had the same green eyes as her son. I tried to jump to my feet but I was still a little wobbly. The queen grabbed my shoulders to steady me. She was stronger then she looked, which was good she looked like a porcelain doll at the moment. "It is ok, Desdemona. You will have to explain to me at some point how you got here, but I have lived here long enough not to be worried. I have been an elder since before you were born."
"You have to see a real healer."
"Yes and knowing my boy there is at least one waiting to fuss on me as soon as I walk through that door." Her feet went into white slippers as she stood up; her white dress just brushed the tops of her slippers. I was having a hard time thinking, the shield was trying to get me to leave now that I and the queen were awake. She held her arm out and I took it. I found I was helping her walk before we took three steps but she wasn't going to show weakness now. I smiled back at her as we headed out the double doors that opened on her approach.
The light in the family room hurt my eyes for a moment. The queen patted my hand as the door closed behind us again. The room had four people in it, none of them were the king. I noticed the door to the main room had been shut again. One of the elves in wizard's robes came up to the queen offering a bow and then his hand. I didn't like wizards, he was not an exception but I was as sure as I could be that he didn't mean to hurt the queen. So I released the queen's arm. The wizard also had the green band of a healer on the arm and bottom of the robe.
I watched feeling a little useless as the wizard led her to one of the couches. "Cousin Harth won't hurt her." I tried to hide the fact that he had snuck up on me but from the small smile I knew I had failed.
"I wouldn't think your father would hurt his wife either but evidence says otherwise." I tried to keep my voice quiet but I was sure I hadn't been successful by the look the other two wizards shot me. I must still be tired, I knew I shouldn't have said that, I normally was more careful. All three wizards had streaks of golden color in their hair but it was so washed out that you could hardly tell.
"When did you learn this, girl?" The wizard that was working on the queen didn't look up. I knew what he was asking but I made it a habit to never answer to being called 'girl'. The prince put his arm around my shoulder. It felt possessive but somehow not controlling, I knew that if I pulled away he would let me go. I didn't think he had forgotten what I just accused his father of but I also don't think he had been surprised.
"Be more careful in how you address, Des." The prince's tone dripped warning but his cousin clearly knew the prince wasn't truly dangerous.
"I don't care who she is, little cousin. It takes training to do that kind of magic. She wasn't trained in the tower -" The queen grabbed the wizard's arm as he spun to face the prince. He stopped short of pulling free of her grip.
The queen dropped her hand with a sigh as the wizard turned back to face her with a scowl. "I know your concerns. You may leave now."
His scowl darkened "She could have just as easily killed you, doing that with nothing more then basic-"
The queen's expression flashed from tired patience to suppressed thunder clouds in a moment. "If you disagree with my choices you are more then welcome to take your issue up with the tower. Either way, if you are done, leave. I have other work to do."
The wizard clearly wasn't used to being talked to that way, and he just about stomped out of the room. The other two looked at each other in confusion then followed the older man out. "God, I wish I had been able to hear the crystal." It had clearly not been something I was meant to hear.
"You really can't? But…" I had so many questions. The elders could hear the crystals, that is what I had been told my whole life. The crystals guide our fate and help us find the light even in the darkest of shadows. The elves had royalty because that line could hear the crystals best, but the Islee trained and picked their best elders to listen to the crystals.
"No one can hear them any more, not even the islee elders. I talk to them enough every year." I could hear her annoyance with them. She must still be tired or there is no way she would have said that to me. "I tried, oh my gods did I try, on the day my father died. I tried from sunrise until the sun rose again and I didn't hear a thing. The only power I have with the counsel is that I can go everywhere in the palace."
"Wait, you tried to talk to the crystal the day your father died?"
I felt the prince tensed behind me. I was an Islee after all the inner workings of the elves should be a mystery to me. "Of course," The queen was looking at my face and seemed to see something there. "what-?" I spun before the queen could ask her question. The prince didn't try to hold me. Which was good, he should really help his mother.
The shield had shown me a great map of the palace. Including places that I knew no one had walked in generations. I knew there was a hall behind this wall that led to another room, one of the few other rooms that I could not see. I opened the hidden door and tensed.
The crystals were kept away from people. They were our link to god but not god's link to us, for god is all seeing and isn't bound to the crystals. When you join the army of the light you get about as close to a crystal as anyone who is not an elder ever gets. To give your oath and be bound to it. Absent mindedness could not break the oath you give as a member of the army. It had been very hard for me to speak the words. Not because I didn't want to but because I heard my name being called over and over. As soon as I opened the hidden door The voice started again. The hallway was wide considering that it was intentionally hidden. I had expected dust to billow out considering how long it had been since that door had opened, but it only held the faint smell of flowers same as the other royal rooms.
I didn't need the faint light coming from the room behind me to see. There wasn't anything to see anyway. The hallway sloped down and formed a lazy spiral around the palace. It was clearly meant to channel the energy that came off the crystal into the shield that protected the palace.
The door closed behind the queen and the prince. I wondered what someone would think if they came into the queen's apartment and there was suddenly no one there? Well, they wouldn't think anything because the only two people that could invite them in were walking down a dark hall with me. A Islee and a demon, which was information they both knew but still they followed me when I hadn't really given them a reason. Was the elves' belief that strong?
It was really just something to think about to block out the sound of someone calling my name over and over. The keys were somehow a part of the crystal and I could feel mine cooling against my skin. I was starting to wonder if I should put a layer of cloth between it and me when the hallway came to an end. The queen stood up straighter.
"That is the crystal chamber. How did you?"
I was looking at the closed door at the end of the hallway. "I can hear it," I turned my head to see the queen's reaction, "but so can you. You just have to stop worrying about things long enough to hear it." There was a bench carved into the wall. I couldn't imagine why, no one should really come down this hall unless it was to commune with the crystal, and only the ruler of the family was allowed to do that. "Theon, and I will be fine waiting right here. You have nothing to lose this time, either way. So don't let worry and self doubt cloud your mind this time. You have to be better than an atempted murder. Besides if god doesn't understand that no one is perfect they wouldn't want to talk to us at all. The only thing you lose by being here instead of where you were going, is time. I do understand that the king's hold will be shocked if you can hear the voice, but we will be safe here either way. Fail and with me and your boy around you are still better off than you were. You heard the shield in your sleep right?"
The queen stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. "You think I couldn't hear because I was afraid?"
"I think you could not be calm so you could not hear. Fear wasn't the only thing keeping you off balance. I have found it is hard to listen and talk at the same time. You could have sat on the stone floor from moonrise to moonrise and you still wouldn't hear because you weren't ready to hear. Now the only person you would watch the world burn for, no matter his wish is right here, and I will watch his back. Not that I have to while we are within the shield, which you heard finally while you thought you would die in your bed. Lucky for us the world doesn't need to burn this time." I sat down on the bench and pulled the prince down next to me. He didn't resist me and I nodded to the queen. Then pulled my feet up onto the bench. I leaned my head against his shoulder even though he still seemed to want to say more. I closed my eyes and this time I willed myself to sleep like normal. It was about the only way to escape the crystal's call.
I noticed that the call suddenly stopped while I was sleeping. I wondered if I smiled in my sleep, the queen had done what apparently no one had done in generations, made a connection with one of the three master crystals.
Even in my sleep I could hear the growing group of people meeting beyond the crystal chamber. The elven elders and the king no doubt meeting to try to save the king's hide. He did have a lot of pull with the council. I couldn't make out what they were saying as the shield was fuzzing it. Probably because the main door was still cracked and not closed. I had a feeling if it was closed I wouldn't be able to hear anything. I could only tell that he would talk and then the others would mostly make sounds of agreement. There was a small group that didn't sound happy.
Something poked me in my side and I looked up at the prince. His green eyes looked worried, I really didn't like the look. "Sorry, it is just how long do you think she will try this time?"
"I don't know what the crystal wants to say, but she established a connection." I turned my head to face the door but I wasn't seeing it, "She is still connected to it."
He didn't seem surprised at my certainty or upset that I might have a connection to the elven master Crystal. Which should have been his birthright and not something an Islee could do at all. Knowing that with anyone else I would have kept that information to myself. I wasn't sure why I trusted him, maybe the bond wasn't as one sided as he seemed so sure it was. I watched as he looked over at the black wall. There wasn't a door we could see, it was a room only for the reigning monarch after all. As long as a member of the family lived no one was going to be able to touch the crystal. It wasn't the only crystal, there were two others one in crystal city and another in tent city. The one in crystal city was the one that was used to bind the oaths of the army of light. The ones in tent city and the elven city were to give their leaders wisdom and understanding. Them not being able to hear the crystal would explain some things that had happened in the last 100 or so years. "How do you know?"
It wasn't that he didn't trust me. Even if he wasn't bonded to me the oath of the army would have helped him to believe that I at least believed it was true. "It calls my name. Once the queen made a connection, it stopped. The one in the city plaza calls my name as well, that is why I avoid it. I was caught staring in that direction by my step 3rd step father a couple times, he would beat me silly because I wouldn't bruise." Not all people within the shield are good and nice people. Only the warriors had to take the oath. My 3rd step father had been about as evil as they could get within the city. He was the only man who I had ever wished for my family curse to take sooner. I had never brought that up with anyone else. I never got close to anyone, I was afraid of everyone, most of all I was afraid of me.
I felt the prince hold me tight. I had lost track of my family after that, for all I know that curse was still going. It didn't matter, those people weren't real to me. The prince who knew what I was and wasn't afraid, he was real for me. He had made himself real for me. Which was odd, why would him being so willing to let me go make me feel more connected to him than anyone else in the city?
His sharp green eyes narrowed and he carefully pulled on the cord that held the key I was given when I made my oath to be a warrior. I didn't pull away like I did when anyone else noticed the key. I still felt my heart speed up just a bit from my fear at his reaction.
The prince's key was like all the other ones I have ever seen. I could see where he let it lay outside his shirt like a normal person. It was a metal coin; it shined like he had just polished it today. Going through the shield did that, and we did go through earlier today. The coin had what looked like a crouching tiger fangs bared with pointed ears and pointed teeth on one side. I couldn't see the other side but I knew the other side would have a charging bull pointed horns down to charge, if you looked closely at the bull it had pointed teeth sticking out around its muzzle. The coin would have a clear stone set into the top just below where the string was threaded to keep it in place. The clear stone was the oath marker, if it was broken it would destroy the coin as well. If the wearer died the coin and crystal returned to the city intact. The city would bury it if we couldn't recover your body. Both were created by the oath and would become just a pretty trinket in the hands of anyone but the oath barrer. Not that anyone lost their coin.
Mine was not a coin. The prince held it up where he could see it. The whole piece was crystal not just a small stone and it wasn't a flat coin. A dragon mouth open like it was about to breath fire head curving down was my key. Its wings were spread wide behind it giving the piece it's flattest surface. It still had ruff spikes running down it's spine that continued to the tail. It's feet were tucked into its body but you could still see the powerful muscles that could scoop up prey if the thing were real. On the top of the dragon's head were horns that matched my horns, not the small ones that you could barely see all the time that marked me as one of my mother's people but the long curved ones that formed when I let my monster out. The dragon had red eyes set into the crystal and sharpened ears. The wing tips also formed sharp points, there was really no good way to hold the thing. It often left marks on my skin and drew blood if I wasn't careful. Luckily for me I heal crazy fast even for an Islee.
The prince smiled at it and tucked it back in my shirt, I didn't move. I was afraid of what he might say. The elders had almost taken my key away when they saw it. I was the only oath they tested, it wasn't normally done because a tested oath could be broken. The oath wasn't meant to enslave the army but I had already known I would be held to a tougher standard, my life was a tougher standard. "I think your dragon looks more like you then my tiger does. I am surprised with a key like that they didn't throw you in the tower or lock you in the crystal vault for a few days."
"Non elders keep trying, I think the elders are afraid of teaching me to use that much power."
The prince frowned but he nodded, "I can see it, what would keep you here if you are the strongest around?"
"What could you possibly do to me if I trained to use a weapon you couldn't take away from me?" I bit my lip and looked down at the prince's chest before asking what I wasn't sure I wanted to know, "Do you agree with them?"