Aeris did not return for several days, and within this time, Aelfric started to believe that maybe she was lost. He would sometimes get lost in the castle, and one of the servants would help him find his way back out of the older parts out of the house when he did.
It must be the same he reasoned. Mama was lost, and when someone found her, she would in turn find him.
He sniffled in bed, cold, regretting taking off his pajamas but they were dirty anyway. He laid in the bed, trying to understand why Godiva and Leofric were angry, but he never understood why.
Cynbel always told him not to grow up to be like them, but he didn't understand why. Leofric and Godiva were best friends! Doing everything together! Reading in the library together, talking, discovering new runes together!
They were so close, Cynbel even mentioned how they would wrestle together, sometimes naked, which Aelfric found strange. During the summer festivals sometimes people would wrestle naked, and that made sense , but why would someone wrestle naked and it is not the summer festival?
Cynbel told Aelfric to ask Mama why Godiva and Leofric would wrestle naked in the library, and it wasn't the summer festival, there was no wreath to win, no Debella to come out and give the winner a lover's kiss, so why were they doing it?
Mama was wondering why they were doing it as well.
Godiva was sent away to live in the mountains with family, and Aelfric did not miss her when she left. She was never nice to him anymore, they did not play games together anymore either, and she never shared her chips!
Divina was fun to play with, but she always got in trouble!
This time she was sick! Something to do with getting her chest all cut up.
Aelfric was more concerned about Cynbel and Divina than himself, lying in the bedroom, counting every blue stripe of wallpaper in the room. It didn't take very long, and he tried something else. He counted the seconds but stopped when he got to eighty-three because he felt it made time slow down.
While counting the stripes again, the door opened, and Aelfric shot up from the bed.
It was Mint. She entered the room, holding some clothes. Aelfric was so happy to see her. Mint was exhausted, overworked already, very thin, but the current madness made her on edge.
Her brittle brown hair that was always neat now was haphazardly all over the place, and her maid's uniform was stained. He didn't care, he missed her, and rushed over, hugging her tightly.
"Mint I've missed you so much," he said. "You're here to save me, aren't you?" Mint looked away for a moment, and then looked back at Aelfric.
"You're so dirty. Let me help you take a bath."
Mint ran a bath for Aelfric and washed his back. Blood mixed with the water on the tub left ghastly streaks in the tub, and Aelfric talked the entire time about how they would find his mother together since she was lost.
Mint nodded and smiled at whatever he said, not wanting to make the chore any more difficult.
She dressed him, and fixed his hair, and told him that she would return soon. Aelfric waited patiently for Mint to return. He knew he could trust her. Leofric and Godiva had betrayed him, but he knew that Mint never would hurt him.
Every time she left she promised she would come back for him, but he never saw her again. She would only come when he was asleep.
Every now and then she would return with food or coloring books. Whenever he would fall asleep, sometimes he would awake to a new plate of food, and he tried to use them as markers for how long he had been inside the room.
Every three meals must mean a day.
So Aelfric knew he had been in that room for at least two weeks.
It was hard to tell with no windows in the room.
One day, Mint came in, skinnier and paler than before. Aelfric was upset that she had broken her promise, and never noticed how terrified she looked.
"You promised you would come back! It's been so long," he wailed. "When can I leave the room? Please let me leave!"
Mint smiled and tried to console him, rubbing his back, holding him close, and he mumbled something about chips .
"You get to leave today. We need to make you proper first."
Mint gave Aelfric a bath and dressed him in a new set of clothes. This one was his finest suit. Mama got it for him on one of her expeditions. Aelfric loved it because the buttons were shaped like crescent moons.
Mint took Aelfric with her out of the room, and down the hallway. The halls were scrubbed clean as if horrors of the other night never occurred. They were so clean, Aelfric wondered if he had a very bad dream and imagined it all, the bodies, the corpses.
He almost believed it until he met Godiva.
Godiva approached Mint and Aelfric, wearing another of her mother's dresses she had stolen from her room. She wanted to look the part before announcing her new reign of terror. This one was bright pink, but her skin was strange, almost translucent.
Godiva looked dead, her straight black hair shiny, almost wax-like. Her pink sweater dress looked even brighter against her dead skin, and Godiva was holding an old, dark, black-wood staff, a gem placed in the center of the rooted gnarl of it.
Aelfric looked at it.
He felt like someone was looking back.
"You brought him. Good. I hope you won't start giving us problems like you did before. We have ways of making you finish the job," Godiva said.
She grabbed Aelfric from Mint and dragged him down the hallway, towards Leofric's study.
"Let me go," yelled Aelfric. "I know what you did! I saw you kill-"
Godiva grabbed Aelfric's face and smashed his lips together so hard he struggled to breathe. Tears sprouted from his eyes from mainly the shock, and not the pain.
"Be lucky your pretty face is of some value tonight. Your best interest is to stay quiet right now, or else you will be more use to me dead than alive. The only reason you breathe is because of Divina."
Aelfric didn't say anything else for quite some time.
Inside Leofric's study sat a man, waiting for him, in a fine leathery chair, smoking an expensive cigar.
He didn't look scary, he was quite handsome, and his blue suit was neatly pressed. In his lap was a briefcase, the payment so high that no one else had bothered to outbid him once he wrote his offer.
Aelfric was impressed by his diamond-studded watch and hoped that a man that looked this nice couldn't be a horrible person, still so young thinking that looks equated to personality.
"Here is the… boy," said Godiva.
She seemed to struggle to get the word boy out of her mouth but was willing to pretend to be nice for the sake of the sale. She needed the money for her future plans.
Empires are taken, not given.
"Thank you," grinned the mysterious man. He got up from the loveseat and placed the briefcase on the desk. "The agreed-upon payment is inside," he said. "All of them are real, all of them rare."
Godiva opened the briefcase, and inside were hundreds of blue-tinted diamonds. She shut the case, and looked at the man, trying to hide her excitement. She was about to trade something absolutely worthless for an amazing profit.
"I don't want to seem ungrateful," said Godiva. "But this thing is not worth the spit from my mouth."
Godiva's attempt at being nice didn't last very long.
"Why would you spend that much on one? You could get so much more for the same price," asked Godiva.
"I have an endless supply of diamonds," the man said. "This one looks nice. I want to add it to my collection. I love to collect so many different things when I go on vacation…this one looks so… different …"
Aelfric knew he couldn't be bought, he was of noble birth.
This man was stupid.
Godiva seemed satisfied with his answer, but it begged more questions, yet she told herself the faster he left, the easier her life would be .
"I will prepare the product for shipment," she said, with a smile. Godiva picked up the phone from the desk and made a call.
In a few minutes, Mint arrived at the study, and every time she arrived, she somehow looked more frantic and confused than the last, this time her laces undone on her working shoes.
"Take him. Get him ready to leave," commanded Godiva. Mint took Aelfric by the hand, and he began to cry.
"Please don't, Mint. I'm so scared."
"Finish the job Mint, and your son will be released immediately. He's taking up space in the stables that could be spent on creatures of higher value," said Godiva.
She took him out of the study and did as she was told, ignoring the wails of her ward.
"There is one more thing I ask of you sir," said Godiva.
"Oh yes, what is it," he asked.
"I want you to make it hurt," Godiva said. "I wanted to kill it at first, but if it suffers on its way out, the immense surge of sadness and misery will make me so much stronger. "
She gestured to her staff and the mysterious man raised his eyebrows, wondering if he should have bought the staff instead.
"Why are you so focused on ridding yourself of this child? I know your kingdom does not value men, but surely a prince is of some value to your people."
"He is no prince. That is a monster. Its blood is not pure. My parents made that thing through unnatural means and it parades around our sacred halls, ruining our family name."
"He disturbs you? A mere child ?"
"That is a weapon, thankfully the last one of them. Leofric killed the others, but two survived. It is his biggest shame," she lamented.
The man realized that maybe he had something much more valuable than another breathing napkin he would throw away once used after one of his vacations .
"He threatens your place in the empire," he concluded. "A man with stronger abilities than you? Women tend to have abilities more often than men, so it is strange."
"He is undeserving of the title of Mother Empress," said Godiva. "I will ascend the throne and protect my homeland from inferior beings such as himself."
"That will be quite some time from now," said the man. "Your mother is still alive and well. You Regalians are known for living quite long as well. What will you do?"
" I won't do anything," said Godiva. She made a mocking frown and pretended to be sad. "But the Methulians stormed this palace and killed my parents, small brother, and most of our servants."
"You're a smart girl," he whispered.
" Woman . You are a guest, you are overstaying your visit, troubling me with all these questions, " Godiva said. "Take the product and leave."
The man apologized and left, off to receive the newest part of his collection.