Drake

Drake’s knife was in his hands, and he was halfway out of bed before his eyes were even open. At least he had nearly stayed asleep until sunrise this time. Normally his hyperactive sense of danger refused to be quiet sometime before dawn, but he had gone to bed tired enough to sleep for three days straight after an afternoon of kite flying. Tansy’s level of enthusiasm was exhausting even without an added ability to control wind, although her tornado may not have qualified as wind or control.

He flung the knife to the side, yawned, and closed his eyes, dropping his head back to his pillow. Nothing requiring his involvement was happening in Crystal Palace, this bed was comfortable, it smelled nice, and he was going to take advantage until Cliff dragged him from it.

Then the rustle that had woken him up the first time sent him shooting out of bed. He had an entire boot on and half laced before cursing at himself. There were dozens of people down this hallway and a palace full of industrious servants.

Since he would have no peace of mind until he investigated the sound, he settled for grumbling at himself under his breath while he finished throwing on clothes. Then he slipped a knife into his boot because he might as well be well-armed against imaginary threats.

He ventured into the dimly lit hallway, slipping around the corner. The branches of the draping willow in an alcove were trembling just slightly. Creeping up to the tree, he pushed back the draping branches with his knife.

“Croak.”

Drake nearly jumped three lengths in the air while he simultaneously realized he was staring into the bulbous eyes of a toad. Some impolite words may have crossed his lips if the toad had not been firmly ensconced in the hands of a little boy.

“Are you alright?” he asked the boy.

“Shh!” was the response. “Come in.”

Drake may not have been comfortable with the rules of royalty, but he did know proper etiquette for orders received by hiding children. He sheathed his knife and crawled under the branches. There was just enough room if he accepted having to bend his neck sideways and wedge his shoulder between a few branches.

Once he was pinned in, his eyes adjusted to the darkness just enough to realize he was sitting next to a little boy with frightened green eyes under a pile of messy black hair. This was Taurin, the little prince everyone called Duck. He was not a bad kite flyer. That was the extent of Drake’s knowledge. Kite flying had been cut short early when Tansy’s windstorm turned into a thunderstorm and lightning very nearly struck the drawbridge.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered to the frightened boy.

“I don’t know,” the boy whispered back. “Everybody’s panicking, and I don’t know where Mama went.”

“Croak,” said the toad when Taurin hugged him.

Any more attempts at asking the boy what was wrong would produce no additional information at this point.

“Let’s find out what’s going on,” Drake offered.

Taurin nodded, and he scrambled out from the draping willow branches. Scrambling took Drake more effort.

Even though the sunrise was just lighting the walls of windows, Drake hit commotion as soon as he rounded the corner to the entryway. The tall palace doors were thrust open, and a group of bedraggled girls spilled into the entryway. Drake had seen shipwreck victims better off.

Queen Katyrinna had just reached the entryway. She was one of the most mobile pregnant women Drake had ever encountered. If Drake was Queen, rest assured, he would be lying on a chaise eating grapes all day. A big black blur beat the Queen down the stairs. Drake realized with alarm the blur was a giant black cat, but not a single other person in the room seemed concerned by this. The cat received copious scratching and petting from the disheveled group of girls who were already being examined by servants with towels and bandages. One of the girls broke from the huddle and ran for Katyrinna, breaking into sobs as she wrapped her arms around Katyrinna’s protruding stomach. Katyrinna examined the girl with her fingers.

Taurin tugged on Drake’s shirt. “Lil’s back,” he whispered.

The blond girl was his older sister, then. Drake would not have guessed. Her Kianne features were strong, and she currently looked more like a street urchin than a princess.

Drake’s position allowed him to hear the reunion through the rest of the pandemonium.

“Are you hurt, Lil?” Katyrinna was asking, planting a relieved kiss on the top of the girl’s head.

“I don’t think so, Mama,” Lillya replied with a trembling voice. “But she’s—she’s—”

“Where’s Issabeth?” interrupted a voice that did not seem to be coming from anywhere.

“I don’t know,” wailed Lillya. She pressed her cheek to her mother. “They took her.”

Someone took the High Sorceress? Certainly no one had such power. Drake remembered stories about the Malum from when he was a boy, but the current Queen had decimated them. If they still existed, they would not dare a direct attack.

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A relieved voice interrupted Drake’s thoughts. “Oh, Duck, there you are.”

Drake tensed instinctively while Taurin dashed to his father and was scooped up into a hug.

“Thank you for finding him,” Alexander said to Drake.

“Thistle is scared, Papa,” sniffled Taurin, cradling his toad.

Alexander patted the toad twice, only wincing a little. “Everyone is safe at home, Thistle,” he promised the toad. “Nothing to worry about.”

“But everybody is worried,” Taurin insisted. “Are Lil and Mama ok?”

“Lil is just fine,” answered the named girl, coming over to him. She was streaked with gray and dirt, and she had bits of moss stuck in her clothes. This girl must have had a very trying night.

Her father knelt down to fold Lil in a hug and kiss her ash-streaked face.

“I’ve got something special for you, Duck.” She pulled a sparkling blue rock from her bedraggled jacket pocket and handed it over. Taurin adjusted his toad to grasp the rock in one hand. His eyes lit up, but the edges of his smile soon dipped. “Why are you and Mama so worried?”

“Everything will be fine,” Lillya promised Taurin. “We just…” She faltered over her words, not as confident as she was pretending to be.

“What happened, Lil?” Alexander asked gently, running a hand down his daughter’s hair. If he had a favorite child, this was that child. Drake did not consider himself adept at reading people or social cues, but he had a sixth sense for what people found most valuable.

“We just lost—” Lillya swallowed and tried again. “We lost Aunt Issabeth a little bit. But we’ll find her. I’m sure she’s fine.” Lillya forced a trembling smile.

Taurin scrunched up his face. “Of course she’s fine. She’s Aunt Issabeth.”

“Of course, Duck,” chirped Lillya in too high a tone. “What a beautiful toad. What’s his name?”

At the mention of Issabeth, Alexander sped to Katyrinna’s side. Drake could not hear their murmured conversation, but there was plenty of distress and head shaking. When Alexander returned, he was more full of worry than before. Drake wanted to leave, but walking out seemed rude at this point.

“Is there anything I can do?” Drake offered, not sure what to say.

Alexander’s stunned green eyes fixed on him, as if just realizing he was there.

“Are you an expert in dark magic?” asked Alexander.

“I’m definitely not that,” answered Drake.

“Well, then, if you would escort the children to their room, I would appreciate it. I swear Duck is as much of an Empath as his mother, and I can’t be helping his peace of mind right now.”

Drake was surprised at the request. He thought he was still under investigation.

Taurin grabbed Drake’s hand and tucked his toad under his arm.

“Lead the way, Princess,” said Drake.

Lillya headed past the commotion.

“…saw a tear…” He happened to catch Katyrinna’s words. Eavesdropping was an impossible skill to turn off. “Cedric, could you take Athena to the spot the girls are describing? See what she can sense there?”

“A fire near Diamond Falls in Thorn Forest—shouldn’t take me long to locate.”

Drake caught himself craning his head for a second look. No one near her had spoken the answer.

Really, he had no business listening anyway. He followed his guide up a flight of stairs and into a spectacular part of the palace with budding grape arbor walls and moss floors. The black cat followed him nonchalantly. He gave it a nervous backwards glance, but it just perked up its ears at him in a friendly way and kept on trotting behind.

Taurin made a stop to “leave Thistle in a waterfall.” Those were his exact words. Drake did not follow Taurin to find out what he meant. He figured his delivery job did not give him free run of the palace. Taurin popped back out of an intricately carved door without a toad, so the stop must have been successful. The siblings and the black beast headed next door to a suite larger than any house Drake had ever lived in.

A familiar bustling woman appeared with an armful of creams and bandages. Chandra seemed to inhabit every space in the palace at once, from what Drake could tell.

“Oh, Lil,” mothered Chandra, “you look like you lost a fight with an entire forest.” Chandra had already smeared cream over the princess’s arms and was busy wrapping it in bandages by the time she finished her sentence.

“It’s basically true,” admitted Lillya. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said to Drake with a tiny curtsy as she was shooed off to rest.

He doubted that very much, but she was a polite girl. The cat followed Lillya into her partitioned section of the gargantuan bedroom.

“Duck,” Chandra chided next. “You gave me five gray hairs running off. Stay in your room this morning.”

He replied with a scrunched up, unhappy face.

“I’ll see if I can hunt down a blueberry tart or two for breakfast,” she promised more kindly. “But don’t you dare wake Tansy. That’s the last thing we need.”

“I’d better—” Drake tried to excuse himself.

Taurin tugged on him. “See my rock collection,” he proclaimed, waving the rock with blue swirls.

Tansy apparently slept like the dead, and somehow Drake found himself admiring Taurin’s rock collection and playing a game of Curi Dominoes until he was interrupted.

“You have a high tolerance for punishment,” said Alexander, rubbing his neck like a tense, tired person might. “He cheats.”

“I wouldn’t say cheats so much as continuously changes the rules to make sure he’s winning,” Drake answered.

“A prince in the making,” mused Alexander. “Thank you for staying with him. He doesn’t normally take to people so quickly.”

Perhaps that meant Drake was free of suspicion.

“No.” Alexander smiled. “It doesn’t.”

How did he—?

“Did you find Aunt Issabeth?” Taurin chimed in, bouncing up. Dominoes scattered everywhere.

Alexander looked like he had been slugged in the gut. “Not yet, Duck.”

Taurin hugged his legs. “She’ll be ok, Papa. Come see my new rock.”

Drake needed to be somewhere other than in the middle of royal family business. “If there’s anything I can do,” he offered. The offer was silly, because kings got to tell people to do whatever they wanted, but at least the useless sympathy was genuine.

“Thank you,” Alexander acknowledged, already distant.

Drake headed to give Cliff a pep talk before his big proposal. At least he thought he was headed that way. He was blindsided by a well-dressed man sporting an angry face—all pursed lips, furrowed brow, and crossed arms.

“Hi, Matias,” he greeted.

“You leave Rose alone,” Matias threatened. Drake assumed he meant to be threatening, anyway.

Drake sighed. “In what way, Mat?” he asked. “She’s free to wander her own workplace.”

“You know what way,” sneered Matias.

Apparently Rosaliy had not set him straight. She must still have been avoiding Matias. Surely, a girl like Rosaliy had much higher standards than Drake, something Matias would know if he did not have the sense of a rampaging bull.

“Mat,” said Drake, speaking slowly. “Rosaliy is not interested in you.”

“Once she’s not blinded by your lies and your—” He waved a hand dismissively at Drake like that finished his half thought about what Drake was. “She’ll see sense.”

“Good luck.” Drake stepped around him, deciding not to care about Matias’s tantrum. It would be a shame to have his anonymity dashed by Matias, he supposed. He had enjoyed being a nobody for a while. Rosaliy would do best to steer clear of Drake anyway. The world was just righting itself, like it always did.