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“I think she’s disappointed that her toenail polish has chipped, but she’s otherwise happy, down on the lower levels with the other hogs.” His green lips stretched over his gold teeth, and I couldn’t help a small answering grin.
It disappeared as soon as I took another look around, though.
“Why did you keep me from this place?” I asked, in a tired voice. I loved him, I did, but I had found a family here, and people like me.
“Lina, child.” He motioned for me to take the chair across from him. “I wanted to save you from this.”
I shook my head.
“There was nothing here to save me from. And again,again, why couldn’t you have told me the truth and let me make that decision?”
“Things are much changed now from when your parents ruled. You had already lost so much. I didn’t want to tarnish the memory or idea of who they were.”
“Who they were… You mean dictators and warmongers—” I started, but he cut me off.
“No child deserves to carry the baggage of their parents, but neither were things that black and white. Your mother wanted you to be far away from all of this. She wanted a different life for you. And when war came, I had no choice but to take you from here.”
“Right, because you owed her a favor. Why would you owe a favor to someone like that?” Emotion choked my voice, but I willed my colors to stay neutral.
Uncle winced, and I instantly regretted the words. He sighed and set his book down on the table beside him. Leaning forward, he spoke again, this time with a gentleness in his tone that he’d always saved just for me.
“Your mother wasn’t all bad, Lina. She was just born into the wrong family, something I know about all too well.”
I looked up at him, trying to parse the things I’d learned with the person I thought I knew.
“I owed her a favor, because she saved me.” He said, stretching out his hand in question.
I glanced from it to his face before taking it. Once again, I was transported back in time.
Tendrils of fear crept up my spine as I stared back at the King of Ellaria. His aqua eyes were menacing, and his laugh was cruel as he ordered his guards to throw me into the dungeon.
Before they grabbed hold of me, I caught the eyes of the young princess, one with pointed, iridescent wings, watching me with a somber expression. Hyacinth. She held my gaze as they dragged me away.
Time skipped forward and I could feel the hunger gnawing at my—no, Uncle’s—stomach. It had been days since he’d eaten. The smell of fear and death permeated the air all around him.
He was going to die here. He knew it.
Then, a small, cloaked figure appeared before him. When she spoke, her voice was like that of sunshine itself as she whispered assurances and frantically worked at the lock on the cell door.
The princess.
“Hurry. They’ll be back any moment.” Hyacinth wrestled Uncle’s weak body up onto his feet.
Pain lined my vision and a small glimmer of the torture the guards had inflicted on him, slipped through. In spite of the damage done to his legs and feet, the dredges of hope flickered within him as an ember. Each step further from the cell fanned them into a flame until he couldn’t feel the pain any longer. All that there was, was hope.
“We can escape through here.” The princess whispered, pointing toward a side door of the prison. Just outside, two ravens rested on the ground, saddled and packed with supplies. Another prisoner rested on one of the birds with a female fairy sitting behind him keeping him steady.
Hyacinth wrestled Uncle onto the bird when alarm bells began to ring. The guard knew prisoners had escaped and it wouldn’t be long before they found us.
Terror began to replace whatever hope Uncle had begun to feel, and Hyacinth could sense it.
She shook her head at the other fairy, and the female gasped, tears filling her eyes.
“I’ll distract them, while you get away.” The princess said, cutting off all protests from her friend. “Go. Take them far away from here.”
I could feel Uncle’s pulse racing through me. And a warmth spreading over him as he made a vow.
“I owe you a debt.” His raspy voice came from my lips just as the ravens took off for the canopy above.
