AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Figuring Cochran is the name of the guard whose fingers have already left bruises, I’m more than happy with the idea of not having to ride back with him to the palace.
That he’ll have to make the trek in the snow on foot is even better.
I nod, and the queen turns to the guard. “Find the boy’s parents and inform them that the queen has chosen him as her ward. Assure them that they will be compensated generously from the royal treasury so they might hire a farmhand in his place.”
A farmhand? “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I say. “My parents give me three days off every week, and I’ll surely be back to the farm by the time they need me to feed the alpacas.” I’m not sure what the typical schedule of an apprentice is like, but I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to visit my parents on the days I’m not training.
Cochran grunts and, as if he didn’t hear me, hops out of the carriage and trudges off in the opposite direction.
I turn back to the king and queen, guilt twisting my stomach to bits. “You really don’t have to pay them. I’ll work extra hard to make it up to them on my days off.” But now that I think of it, perhaps I have overcommitted my time. Maybe being an apprentice will be too demanding for me to provide the help my family needs from me.
The queen leans forward, cupping my cheeks in her palm. Her fingers are colder than I expect, even though they’re gloved in white leather.
I decide then that I don’t like it when she touches me, but I figure it’s bad manners to tell the queen that.
“I think I’d like to go back home, after all,” I whisper through chattering teeth.
The corners of her lips tilt upward. “But Farin, we are going home.”
My legs are shaking, my feet rattling against the floorboards of the carriage. It’s embarrassing, but I can’t get them to stop.
I try to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. “My name’s Nox, remember?”
The queen brushes my cheek with her thumb. “I like Farin better, don’t you?”
CHAPTER12
BLAISE
Reading is already difficult enough without the distraction of Gunter clanging about at the counter with his vials and beakers, mixing concoctions that hiss when combined, filling my cell with a foul stench.
“You know, it would be much easier to focus if you did that somewhere else,” I grumble over the dusty grimoire I’ve been slogging through for the past two hours.
Gunter doesn’t bother to turn from his experiments. Instead, he just says, “This was my workspace long before you took up residence here.”
My belly spasms, like my body thinks I should be laughing but has forgotten how. “You know what? You’re right. How inconsiderate of me. I must have forgotten my manners when I selected your workspace as my chambers.” I toss the grimoire on my bed-dais upon which I’m perched, and the noise of it slipping off the edge and onto the floor is enough to get Gunter’s full attention. He turns around and visibly flinches when I hop down from the dais and pick the book up by a clump of pages.
“You could always move me to the library,” I say, and he doesn’t take his beady eyes off of me until I’ve placed the book safely back upon the dais. “Then we’d be out of each other’s way.”
“It is Her Majesty’s wish that you remain here.”
“So you agree with me, then?”
Gunter turns his back to me once again. He’s dressed in another set of black robes. At least I assume it’s another set. I suppose the male could just simply refuse to change, or that set might be the only one he owns.
You would think he’d start to stink if that were the case, but then again, it isn’t as if I could smell him over the deviations of nature he concocts. His hair is combed back neatly, every strand in place, though there’s no amount of combing that could make the blotches of missing pigment appear neat.
I take a few laps around the dais, stretching my sore limbs as I do. Gunter might claim that he obeys the queen’s every command, but he hasn’t bothered to chain me back to the table, and I’m not about to bring it up.
Once my legs are sufficiently stretched and my back is sufficiently cracked, I climb back onto the altar and plop onto my belly. It’s probably not the best position for siphoning through the dense grimoire, but I’m at least less likely to drift off to sleep than if I tried lying on my back.
Gunter confirmed this morning that the queen has agreed not to personally end my life should I cooperate with extracting the parasite and handing it over to her, and should the information I discover prove useful.
I wasn’t there for the bargain, but it sounds like it has enough qualifications to be believable. Besides, Gunter’s fae and can’t lie to me about it.
I find the section where I left off and get to work.
Fae and humansalike have long since been captivated by the allure of the heavenly host and the magical properties they possess. Though the most powerful of fae draw their magic from their ancestral line, through the channels of Old Magic that run through their veins, not all fae have access to such magic. Indeed, it is well accepted among most scholars that the Old Magic originated from the Fabric that separates the realms, the veil that maintains the distinction between one world’s realities and the next’s. When the Fabric frayed, several strands of the Fabric drifted into the various realms, and thus was the beginning of what we now refer to as the Old Magic.
