While Waiting to Wake

The room could have frozen over. Slowly, mister Ben stood up. There was something… intimidating now in his demeanor. It made Em flinch and lean back.

“How do you know about Azuremere?”

Don’t be afraid, Em. They’re already acting on the word of an eleven-year-old.

Chin trembling, Em raised it.

“The same way I know about Prince.”

He paused. Then said cooly, “Humans can’t even get to the lake. Why would we sell it?”

Oh!

Being ‘non-accessible’ to humans was the biggest reason she hadn’t suggested it to Flint. But the other reason had been because… well, the site was sacred to the Lycan. It was supposedly the birthplace of their species.

She shook her head frantically.

“Not the lake! Don’t sell the lake. I meant the water.” She leaned on her knees, giving him as earnest a look as she could. “The water is a stabilizer for alchemy. You could make a fortune with it!”

The adults all looked at each other.

Em clasped her hands. Worried.

They could probably figure out their finances themselves, but…

Ben sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I’ll look into it.”

“We can’t just sell azuremere!”

Grandpa jumped up but Ben put a hand on his shoulder.

“We sold it to each other all the time, Al.”

“Yes, to each other. Not to outsiders.”

Em tilted her head. Since Thiago had been the protagonist of ‘The Lost Prince’, her knowledge on the actual use and significance of Azuremere was limited. What little she knew came from a scene where Thiago had tortured some poor Lycan for the information.

It was a lake. It was sacred. And Lycan would drink it before battle. Since they didn’t actually say why, Thiago theorized it probably purified their chakras and unleash their mana potential.

“It’s still allowed. And this is to reclaim our people. I cannot think of a better cause.”

Em clenched her fists on her knees.

“If you get your people back, what will happen to me and my brother?”

The room stilled once again.

Em looked around and glanced at Todd. He was the only one in the room who didn’t seem to be following the conversation. But he was pretending to, rocking back and forth on his butt where he sat on the floor close to her.

Em dropped her eyes.

“I understand. We’re intruders. I think even Flint knows that.” She raised her chin and smiled. “Just promise you’ll give us the option to leave, ok?”

Tensely, Ben finally nodded.

“If it comes to that, miss, I promise to give you warning.”

“Good.” Em hopped up off the stool. “I need to go now. Dinner will be ready soon. Are you all coming? You know the dining room’s open to you, too, right?”

“We’ll be eating here. Thank you.”

She stopped in the doorway, glanced at Granny, then turned to look behind her.

“Mister Ben, we’ll be stopping at mister Jay’s hometown in a month or so. Can I ask him how the search is going? I’m worried about Prince.”

“You can ask…”

But I can’t promise he’ll tell.

She caught that much. So she shrugged, turned, and ran back toward the main building.

***

The Palace was silent. No one but the guards stirred at the ungodly hour of two in the morning. Even the late night aides had finally gone to bed.

Madeline Dulce had been in the bathroom for nearly an hour by then.

It had taken that long to finish the worst of the ordeal.

She should have called for a physician. She needed to call for a physician. Because this could possibly kill her without proper care.

But, for now, she couldn’t.

Instead, she rocked. And rocked. And rocked. Holding a towel wrapped thing to her chest as tears ran down her face.

A part of her mind was telling her it was a blessing that this happened. She’d been so careful not to get pregnant. It was an accident and the child’s life would have been misery if it had lived.

That didn’t stop the sobs crawling up her throat and choking in her mouth before they could fully form.

She had to be quiet or she’d wake someone.

The part of her mind that was being logical was also making plans. She had to find another solution to prevent pregnancy. A more permanent solution. All she’d have to do was find the right surgeon…

She couldn’t stop the screech of rage and despair.

It was just one. The howl of a monster in the night.

If she hadn’t been holding something so precious, she would have thrown it.

Why?!

What was the point of all of this?!

Why hadn’t she known?!

She hadn’t had any symptoms at all. She’d even had her menstrual cycle. But the baby had been formed well enough that she was pretty sure it was a girl.

She sobbed.

The sounds were no longer staying at bay, echoing in the luxurious bathroom. The extension of her prison.

What was the point? Should she… should she just end it?

There was nothing for her. Why should she continue the struggle? The secret meetings? The spying? The asset accumulation? The dead babies, the hopeless future…? Why should she keep going?...

Why should she…?

As though someone sat behind her ear and whispered, she clearly and forcefully heard one word in her mind.

Grimshaw.

Her sobs slowed. Then crawled and hiccuped.

Grimshaw.

She hugged the towel closer, her bloody nightdress moving sluggishly with her.

Grimshaw.

She had to keep going. For Grimshaw.

It was all she had left.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Your highness? Are you alright? I heard screaming-”

“No,” she rasped back. “Call a doctor, I mean, a physician. Call a physician.”

***

Em’s eyes flew open. For a second, she was confused. Waking from a dream about Prince being eaten by a snake, she stared up at Tracy without comprehending what she was seeing.

Tracy, meanwhile, looked blankly out the window as the carriage rattled on.

With a groan, Em rolled over and sat up. Rubbing her head.

What happened to Prince?

“This is stupid!”

“What is?”

Em gestured to the carriage.

“This! Aren’t there easier ways to travel?”

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t we using them?”

Tracy finally looked away from the window. Raising an eyebrow.

“You’ve been amazing everyone with your unexpected accounting skills, and you can’t answer that question?”

Em scowled.

Of course she could answer that. It had been a rhetorical question, anyway.

As Em in the real… in the other world, one thing she’d done to help Maddie was learn basic accounting. (After all, what else could she do since she had to sit for hours of every day? And she’d been hoping to get a job as an accountant, which she could do at home. But as her health deteriorated, so had that idea.)

It never occurred to her that those skills might be useful here.

Until several days after talking with Mister Ben.

It was after all her healing and swordsmanship training were done for the day. Training she’d tried to increase, but found that she simply couldn’t rush strength training without hurting herself.

It left her afternoons completely empty and her soul frustrated.

That particular day, she’d taken tea up to Flint. And out of pure boredom, opened a ledger on Flint’s desk.

Then immediately gaped at what was a complete mess.

Since no one on his staff was trained in any kind of accounting (other than himself), Flint had been forced to wade through the mess alone. For months. Struggling to bring the numbers to heel so he’d have accurate reports to send to the Empire.

Convicting Sucket had been the only thing he’d been able to straighten out completely.

To Em’s (and everyone else’s) surprise, she only had to show her skills for about ten minutes before Flint promptly gave her a job.

Not only to sort out the ledgers. But to train one of his knights to help her.

The result was a month of stuffed afternoons, a knight she felt was mostly competent to take care of things while they were gone, and a tidy partial report Flint could give to the administrative office in the Capital.

Em bounced her head back on the seat. Pressing her lips together.

“Why can’t Mister Kimball fix the gates? We could do in three days what’s been taking us three weeks!”

“What?”

It had been silent long enough that Tracy had forgotten what they were talking about. Turning her tired gaze on Em, she watched the little girl in bewilderment. Before her eyes lightened up with understanding.

“Mister Kimball is a busy man.”

“So? Isn’t it his job to take care of the sorcery stuff?”

“So,” said Tracy slowly. “Until the defenses along the north and west borders are secure, the master can’t spare Mister Kimball for anything else. At least, not for anything big.”

Teaching me must not have been a ‘big’ task, Em thought.

She turned her body to look out the window. Unhappy with the answer, but unable to argue with it.

If she hadn’t just been grumping, she could have figured out the answer for herself. Lately, the monsters coming out of the northern pass had been more than usual, so everyone knew the situation. Not only knew, but knew more details about it than the knights normally shared.

Especially with all the injuries the knights had been coming back with. At least with those, Em had been getting plenty of practice for her healing.

The only bright side about this whole trip was they’d be stopping at the border reeve.

The new reeve master, Carter Grimshaw, is a cousin on her father’s side. He’d promptly packed up and moved as soon as the new Marquis’ letter came. Especially when it included the promise of a baron title.

Once the title was approved, it would no longer be a reeve but a barony.

The important thing to Em, though, was she’d be able to look for Jay.

“How much longer?”

Tracy shrugged. “We’ll get there before dinner. Please be patient, miss.”

The carriage stopped about twenty minutes later for a quick break. Em ran off into a copse of trees to relieve herself. It took a second because she had to put Loki’s small basket where she was certain the god couldn’t peek.

When she was done, she picked the basket back up and tapped it.

“What?”

Loki sounded sleepy. Em rolled her eyes.

“Can you tell me now?”

The slime stretched himself and pushed the lid up. If he’d had eyes in that shape, they would be glaring.

“I did too much the first time.”

“Please?! What if I can’t find Mister Jay?”

“I can’t.”

Em scowled at him. “But you told me he was alive before.”

“And I also told you I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“Giving me one favor without warning me it’s the only one isn’t fair.”

She felt his laughter.

“One favor, you say? I do you many favors. You just keep asking outside my capacity, and that’s not my fault.”

“I don’t ask for most of those pranks! Since when is that useful, anyway?”

“Emmaline! Miss Emmaline! Are you finished?”

Em’s head snapped up. Vaguely she saw someone waving at her through the trees. Grumbling under her breath, she tied the basket to her waist and hurried back to the carriage.

“Hey! Easy there. I don’t like b-bouncing. Ow!”

Em tapped the basket with a smile as she climbed back into the carriage.

“You’re not hurt,” she muttered. “You’re just trying to make me feel guilty.”

“Normally it works.”

“Guilty for what?” Tracy climbed back in and shut the door.

Em shrugged with a grin. “Nothing.”

About the time Tracy started dozing, Em’s thoughts returned to her dream.

It wasn’t a real ‘Prince dream’. She’d completely stopped having those after her other body died. If dreams really represented a person’s inner thoughts, then this one expressed her growing worry for him.

Funny how attached she was. Even though she thought he was a dream the entire time.

She stared out her window. Gnawing on her lip and not really seeing the landscape.

He was in a damn gladiator arena! And he was only fifteen. A thousand things could’ve happened to him. Besides the obvious threat of death, what if that woman Em saw one time killed him in his sleep? There could be a training accident, too.

And what if that Lady Arnold person did something to him?

… What if he was hurt?