A restless energy permeated the dressing room as Elodie's aide, Ann, flitted about the room to prepare it for a dressing. The prince's stewards had given them the privacy of a small side room for Elodie to bathe and change, but Elodie could hear the slight shifts in the wooden floors out in the hallway. They were not wholly unsupervised. At least a small fire had been lit, so the space was warm and amenable. If it was a prison, it was at least made comfortable.

Whumpf. Ann set a brown attaché case marked with the Auclair family initials on a chaise lounge and smoothed her skirt. "I came as quickly as I could. I'm sorry I wasn't here to run your bath, miss. Your sister helped me choose, so hopefully, these are to your liking."

Elodie's spirits were lifted just by hearing Ann's voice. Ann was her greatest confidante and had been her aide for as long as she could remember.

Ann pushed some of her neat brown hair behind an ear and continued, "Lady Auclair Senior was shocked to hear you'd gotten lost on a walk this morning, but it was smoothed over quickly by a warden saying you were being cared for here."

Despite all her trials today, Elodie still had enough energy to roll her eyes.

"She was worried for you, young miss."

"I will be more careful on my morning walks."

Elodie's still-damp curls shifted lightly as Ann helped her into thin white linens, followed by layers of meticulously sewn deer leathers and wools. While Elodie stood folded in front of an arched mirror with golden filigree around the edges to examine and theoretically approve the appearance, Ann loped back and forth between the lady and her clothes. Elodie sank into the fur-trimmed lining, gently rubbing her cheek against it; Elodie loved soft, squashy furs so very much. It almost made her forget what faced her after dressing. Almost.

A tiny, pinchy bolero with lily-of-the-valley brocade was held up at perfect height for Elodie to slide her arms into, but Elodie instead plucked the garment from the air to put it on herself. As she struggled with the clasp to shut it, her mind drifted elsewhere.

Great women, her mother's voice echoed from a faraway time, are formed not from what fate bestows them but rather from what they choose to do in times of duress. They watch, hoping you will succumb to your failure. Elodie wondered if that was what this was- a loss? A cruel trick of fate?

Elodie was broken away from the dark spell by Ann's voice. "Young miss, you should let me." Although Ann was only a few years older than Elodie, the two had seldom been separate since before either of them could remember. Elodie had memories of hiding with Ann in the library and playing hide and seek for hours. Ann was the picture of decorum and wisdom in public, but the two spoke fluidly, like sisters in private.

"I'm fine to do it myself."

"You're worse than Simona today. I suppose the embarrassment's made you cross?"

"Just be about it." As soon as she snapped it, Elodie felt regret creep up her throat, wishing she could reach out and pluck the words from the space between them. Bickering over dressing was something they'd done often, but it was the poison that she'd set in the words she regretted.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

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"Apologies, young miss."

Sensing no progress would be made further on the subject, Ann cupped a palm brush from the case and moved back to where Elodie stood, patient and without judgment. She pushed the tines through strands of hair, and for a long time, she said nothing. Instead, her eyes drifted to the bathing room where blotchy, red washcloths were draped over the side of the tub, where pinkish water drained through copper piping in the floors. Worry crossed her frame.

"What really happened on that walk? Are you okay?"

Elodie looked at their reflection in the mirror and was startled by the deep ochre pits that were Ann's eyes. Ann already had the palm brush pointed accusingly. "Tell me who it was, and I'll kill them. We'll speak no more of it after this." Ann became a cobra as she straightened out and put her hands on her hips, tense and ready to strike at any moment.

Dear Ann. Elodie finally smiled as her oldest companion showed her such fierce loyalty. Her heart squeezed, realizing that Ann must have been dreaming up the worst scenarios alone since she'd disappeared that morning. "I'm sorry, Ann."

"You do not have to worry about me right now, young miss."

A dam broke open in Eli, and she relayed what little she could of that morning. She recounted how she'd felt compelled, pulled like a marionette to leave the house, and wandered through snowy paths and fields in a sleeping gown without feeling the slightest hint of cold. She spared Ann from gruesome details, but she even told the aide about killing and eating the sheep and where the blood in the tub and under her nails had come from. With each word that came out of her, she felt little thorns in her heart getting pulled out one by one. It was a painful vulnerability but one that promised that healing could begin. She told Ann about the prince's stewards, and Ann gasped when she described the spontaneity of an oration and the predicament Elodie now found herself in.

Ann took Elodie's hands in her own when she was done and gently kissed a knuckle. "I'm sure the prince will be kind and see you for the person you are, orator or not. And if he doesn't ..." Ann looked sideways with a dark look. Elodie shuddered to imagine what new scenarios Ann was playing out in her head.

"So what are you going to show him?"

Elodie looked down, and her hands drooped, still held in Ann's but listless. "I ... don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I don't know how to do it."

"You don't know how to do it?"

Elodie shook her head. Both women were at a loss for words, the silence between them creatively empty. They both imagined how magic might come from fairytale stories and legends of the orators' deeds and how it might be used. Dazzling displays. Powerful voices. Some orators were supposed to be able to move mountains with a kick of their feet, while others lurked deep undersea in palaces, never needing to breathe. Their words changed the world's trajectory, turning vagabonds into kings and kings into jesters. They were real but reclusive. Enormous. Free.

There was seldom discussion of how they did this magic, only that they needed some spoken word to enact it. There had to be something more to it, though, as no other person had ever been able to create magic with a carelessly placed word or an accidental foul utterance. Whatever that "something" was had now arrived in Elodie, though she felt no different and still needed to breathe and couldn't kick aside a door, let alone a mountain. Like most people, she had never seen an orator and couldn't picture what it was like to bend reality and warp the senses.

Now she'd become the fairy godmother, the phoenix, the gift giver in the stories. She thought of Alden's question- "What are you going to do with this power?" and now understood. He wasn't asking selfishly for his safety or even for the Audric family. He was asking what mark she would leave on the world- because that was an option now.

Yes, what will you do? a voice from within said.

Ann squeezed Elodie's hand and offered, "I'm sure you'll figure it out, and even if you don't, I'm here now. I won't let them harm you." A rosy warmth spread across Elodie's hand where Ann squeezed, and Elodie was again thankful to have such a stalwart companion.

A knock on the door broke their secret pact. Ann dutifully stood and tidied up their appearances before opening the door with a lowered head.

Lord Emerys smiled in the doorway with the nectar-like scent of a flytrap waiting to spring. "Prince Braum is ready to see you, Lady Elodie. Are you ready?"