There lay a heavy mist in the woodlands Amelia walked.
With no recollection of having arrived, and only a lantern’s light keeping her clear of the trees whose gnarled branches resembled crooked hands laying in wait for those unsuspecting, something about the environment felt both familiar, and wrong.
One foot placing itself in front of the other, she found herself unable to stop.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” Amelia called out, before a sky tearing howl zipped her lips shut. She remembered now. That she needed to keep quiet. Least those who pursued her would surely catch up. Though Amelia failed to recall who had marked her for capture. A puzzle as strange as the reason why her arms felt so heavy.
What was it she carried? The object in her arms, safely wrapped, slightly warm, it all felt so… strangely nostalgic.
“My greatest treasure,” Amelia whispered, only this time she hadn’t meant to speak, “I’ll make sure to protect you,” she said, before her legs picked up their pace.
The burning in her chest from the strain of such physical exertion made Amelia think she might soon pass out. But as the howls on the wind began to grow louder, her foot caught itself on the root of a tree, and one problem replaced itself with another when she found herself falling. Desperately, Amelia twisted to absorb the impact; protecting the object she carried at the expense of her body.
“Amelia? Amelia!” a voice yelled, and Amelia awoke in a cold sweat, surrounded by pillows and blankets.
“Where am I?” she croaked.
Her throat felt awful. Her eyesight, blurry. And above all, there throbbed a splitting headache which intensified the more she tried to remember what had happened after meeting with Gregory Rutherford. Only, with Grace dabbing at her head with a damp towel, the single piece sleeping gown she couldn’t remember putting on, and the cup of water the princess practically forced her to drink, Amelia began to suspect things might not be so simple.
Parked near a road and surrounded by tents in the process of being disassembled, with armored knights keeping a close watch no matter where she looked, Amelia pulled back from the carriage’s window with more questions than answers.
“I can’t help but feel I’ve caused an inconvenience…” Amelia said, only to receive a surprise when Grace puffed her cheeks out like a chipmunk.
It was the first time she had seen Grace show her anything resembling genuine anger.
“That bad?” Amelia asked, already imagining what kind of gaff she must have committed while drunk. No more alcohol, she promised herself, “I… I need to find Heimdall and tell him I want to apologize for my behavior—”
“None of this is your fault,” Grace said, standing over Amelia in such a close proximity she couldn’t help but remember when the princess had kissed her.
“It… It isn’t?”
Grace took hold of her shoulders, as if to declare she wouldn’t let go until Amelia agreed with her.
Which Amelia refused to do. Not even if the princess kissed her again.
Probably.
She at least needed to figure out the details for why they were taking a road trip.
“We’re on our way to the capital,” Grace explained calmly.
Amelia’s eyelids twitched in existential horror.
“Then I did cause a diplomatic incident while drunk!” she said loudly, unprepared for the princess who pulled Amelia in, suffocating any further outbursts in her bosom.
“Gregory tried to assault you,” Grace whispered, generating in Amelia a flashing memory of a man advancing towards her. “I got help before he could. And everything after was the Baron’s decision.”
Amelia tried to hold onto those pictures flickering in and out of her mind. But besides a few details, there really was nothing to keep.
“W-What happened? I’m… I’m not sure I can trust my head right now, because I swear my father who should have been across the border —”
“Broke into his own office to throw Gregory Rutherford out of a window?”
Falling limp, Amelia curled up in a ball; wanting to hide away from reality.
“Y-You said you were the one who got help?” she asked Grace, peeking out from under the blanket she’d thrown over herself, “How?”
Grace patted Amelia’s head over the blanket. “After the two of you left for your father’s office, I couldn’t keep myself from thinking something felt off. I tried checking on how things were going, only Gregory blocked me from even seeing your face. Obviously, something was up. I didn’t need to see the half-mast he’d tried hiding behind his belt to know that.”
"Half... Half a flagpole?" Amelia asked, confused.
“Don’t worry about it. My point is, I didn’t survive working in a bar without knowing when to call over the bouncer, so I ran over to your father’s room, kicked open the door, and started smashing everything that looked even remotely expensive.”
“You did what?!” Amelia screamed, throwing her blanket away. Grabbing the princess’s hands, Amelia prepared to beg Grace admit she hadn’t done what she claimed, when a shadow fell over the carriage door window.
Like a dark storm cloud large enough to blot out the sun, a deep, gravelly voice rumbled its way into the carriage.
“Is she awake?” Havoc asked.
“Awake and well,” Grace replied, which was enough for the Baron who left.
Disentangling herself from the princess who she’d grabbed out of shocked reflex, Amelia sat on her hands to scold them.
“Not going to ask why your dad isn’t mad with me?” Grace asked mischievously, “I’ll have you know the Baron hasn’t reprimanded me once for what I did!”
“He hasn’t?” Amelia asked, finding it hard to believe. Havoc had nearly spontaneously combusted upon seeing her late mother’s painting in the wrong place. Why would he be fine with the princess destroying his room which surely held objects of similar value?
“Seeing I’ve received a pay increase, I would even say he approves of my method to get his attention,” Grace said proudly, inching closer to Amelia before her tone dropped all playfulness, “Which means I’m right. Gregory alone is responsible for whatever happens next. Can’t you trust me on this?”
Amelia felt the princess was trying hard to get her opinion across.
“I’ll… consider it,” she said, still frightened of having somehow, disappointed her father, “Could you tell me what happened next? And what sort of mess we might now be heading towards?”
This was not the right thing to say. Not when Grace deadpan sulk stared into Amelia’s soul for the space of ten counts. Finally letting loose a drawn-out sigh that if spelt out, would read something like: “‘Fiiiinnneee.’ But we’re coming back to this later.”
The princess then embarked on a long-winded speech detailing what had occurred after Amelia’s close encounter with Gregory Rutherford. It all revolved around Havoc, who’d left the Strightsworth manor once he’d confirmed his daughter’s condition appeared stable.
News of his victory in war over the West spread not soon later, after the Baron personally razed every barrack, encampment, and outpost within fifty kilometers of the border. Turning his own army into little more than a clean-up crew whose job became stabbing a sharp stick into any enemy combatant in denial that a dragon had begun torching their world.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Such an accomplishment was impossible for the capital to ignore. The news of Havoc’s conquest reaching even the king’s ear who sent a magic missive requesting the Baron visit him in his castle, that he might hear every detail in person. Something Amelia would find joy in, if not for the fact beneath the promised accolades came a scheduled hearing she would need to attend; overseen by the Duke of Winchester, at the request of the Marquess of Rutherford.
Who demanded proper compensation for the state of his son.
Amelia began dreading their encounter the moment Grace told her about it. Since the Duke of Winchester happened to be her biological grandfather.
Who no doubt still blamed her for his daughter’s death.
The duke hadn’t even shown up to Ophelia’s funeral after learning her murderer would be there. Amelia remembered hearing the voices dressed in black whisper as much.
Shaking legs carried Amelia back to the window, where she took in once again the sight of at least five hundred armed men and their horses. With a hundred more youths in training helping manage each and every convoy wagon; filled with enough supplies a passer-by might believe they were an army on the march. The mere fact the knights were dressed as if they were marching from one war to the next… Coupled with the Marquess’s accusations which involved her grandfather…
No other way about it, they looked like they were en-route to make war war with their own kingdom.
Amelia couldn’t help it. She began hyperventilating. What started as deep breaths to calm herself down soon turning into a physiological need for her heart to draw in as much oxygen as it could.
“Do you need to water the flowers?” Grace asked Amelia suddenly in a hushed voice.
“No!” Amelia shouted, pulling herself back from the brink, “I’m just trying to think of a positive in all this!”
“And? Have you?” asked Grace, her lips a meager hair’s width away from Amelia’s nose.
They were close enough Amelia did in fact realize a positive in all this. Visiting the capital might end up being both a curse, and a blessing, since it meant she could bond with Grace in a wholly different locale.
Seeing the sights and sounds of the big city, with the princess of all people? Why, couldn’t she get Thompson’s wizard contact to prove Grace’s princess status sooner than planned if the hearing went wrong? It might mean giving up a reward, but surely, being the one responsible for finding the king’s daughter would be at least worth a pardon? Although the capital did represent a third, much more handsome menace. That being, the princess’s suitors who lived there. Even with Vanridge out of the running, there remained at least three, maybe four different men who the princess might fall in love with.
Was this the responsibility of a mother? It tasted bitter. Amelia could hardly believe anyone deserved the princess when The Historian had made it clear those suitors would each contribute to the Velvetican Kingdom’s internal turmoil. The gladiator, the alchemist, a murderer, and a foreign prince…Whoever Grace ended up with, Amelia hoped the princess would be happy.
“Grace, what sort of man do you like?” Amelia asked, deciding she ought to help vet such an important decision.
The princess’s head pulled back as if someone had tugged hard on her hair. And when she rebounded, Amelia saw on Grace’s face a wide rictus grin.
“Weird, you don’t feel warm,” Grace said, blocking Amelia’s vision when she started checking for a fever.
Amelia pushed the teasing hand away from her forehead. “It’s just a question,” she said, “I’ve heard the capital is a place filled with romance… And I… I wanted to repay you by keeping an eye out for any nobles you might fancy.”
“Well, I’ll be counting on you then,” Grace said, her smile softening in amusement, “since I’ve never actually been with a man.”
“Me too,” Amelia said without thinking, shocked to her core.
No wonder The Historian’s depiction of the princess seemed so different at times. With beautiful men at her beck and call in the capital, Grace must have gone power crazy and sampled each one only after ascending!
Which begged the question, where was The Historian? Far as Amelia knew, chronomancy remained a very theoretical study. Limited by the fact there didn’t exist enough natural or man-made energy in their solar system to send a blade of grass back an hour. Thus sayeth the scholars at least. Only the last pages of ‘A Fantastical History of the Velvetican Kingdom,’ hinted The Historian might have managed to pay a price allowing the transcendence of time.
Amelia would have sat there and dwelled on the logistics of finding an unnamed, unknown person in a city which held over a half-million inhabitants, if an out-of-control horse; ridden by a panicking page, didn’t then clip the edge of their carriage. The impact brought back an incomplete memory in Amelia of the man who had beat her.
“There there, don’t cry,” Grace said, ready to hold and comfort Amelia who began softly sobbing without knowing completely why. “It won’t happen again.”
“T-That’s not something you can promise,” Amelia sniffled, offering a half-hearted chuckle.
Grace placed in Amelia’s lap a palm sized, marshmallow white object. “That’s why your dad told me to give you this.”
It appeared to be an animal’s tooth.
“It’s a dragon tooth,” Grace corrected as if reading her thoughts, “Havoc says it’s the only thing he has left from his childhood. I have no idea if that’s supposed to mean like… it’s from his mother… or if it’s his baby-tooth? Because that’s a big baby.”
Amelia dropped the tooth like it were scalding. Grace caught it with a “hoopla,” then gave an incredulous look.
“I literally just said Havoc gave it to me. I didn’t steal it,” said Grace. “He says you’ll be able to break it, which should get his attention no matter how far away you might be.”
“My father would never give me something so important!” Amelia said loudly, backing away from the tooth. “He doesn’t like me enough to trust me with a relic like this! Surely there’s been a mistake.”
“Doesn’t sound like the man I saw bursting in through the ceiling,” Grace said, her mouth twisting into a sad, amused smile.
Amelia couldn’t grasp why Grace would mention that point twice. Nor could she envision the act. In her opinion, from what she had heard, Havoc must have returned home to put Gregory in his place. Saving his daughter would have been only a bonus.
“But when I was little —”
“Amelia, from what you’ve told me… What happened to your mother is a tragedy, but the world a child sees becomes what they believe. Have you ever considered having an amazing memory might not be a good thing if there’s been a misunderstanding? What if Havoc has already forgiven you?”
Impossible. Amelia knew for a fact the princess was wrong. Except, when they’d eaten dinner together, her father had chosen to heal her hand of his own volition. Which was completely out of character.
“Do you… Do you really think so?” Amelia asked Grace, nervously bunching up the front of her dress as she struggled with the idea her father might not despise her as much as he did in the past.
The mere notion nudged Amelia into sneaking a glance out the carriage’s window, hoping to catch sight of Havoc.
She found her father feeding a chestnut horse. His own personal steed that happily whinnied for another helping of meat which it got. Its teeth only slightly less sharp than those of its owner. Its size dwarfing every other horse around to the point they might as well have been foals.
“I want a horsy!” Amelia remembered asking her father when young.
“Then I’ll get you a strong one,” Havoc had promised, though he ended up keeping the horse he brought home for himself, when Amelia ran screaming for her mother at the first sight of its charcoal-colored mane.
Crowding the window, Grace made an exclamation of finally having found a solution. “Didn’t you mention wanting to learn how to ride? Why not ask your dad now? No better time than the present!”
“I… I don’t think we should bother him or the knights,” Amelia said, too cowardly to commit, “What if he gets angry?”
“Only one way to find out,” Grace said, throwing open the window to begin waving at the Baron without a shred of royal dignity showing. “Lord Strightsworth!” she yelled, and Amelia ducked to hide from her father before his head could turn fully, “Amelia’s got something she wants to ask you!”
Crouching down, Grace joined Amelia on the floor. “Now or never,” she said.
Amelia wanted to call the princess a bully. “C-Can I hold your hand while I ask him?”
“Sure,” Grace said, sitting down on the bench beside Amelia who prepared herself for what felt like an insurmountable trial. Her heartbeat spiking louder than the sound of footfall which stopped outside the carriage.
“Do you need anything?” Havoc asked.
Amelia swallowed nervously. Receiving an encouraging squeeze from Grace, she managed to find enough strength to put her heart out in the open.
“I… I want to ride a horse!” she said, far louder, and much less eloquently than planned.
The Baron’s hand, which rested on the windowsill, clenched, bending the metal. And Amelia’s heart, having already resigned itself for rejection, plummeted. Only to rebound like an elastic when Havoc glanced at Grace, pursed his lips in deep thought, and opened the carriage door.
Had she imagined the look shared between the princess and her father? It felt as if the two had conversed at some point. When? During the time the princess had destroyed her father’s room? After? What could they have talked about?
It didn’t matter. Not when the person she admired most offered his arm to help her down from the coach, escorting Amelia towards the chestnut horse which neighed in excitement.
“B-But this is your horse,” she said in a daze, when Havoc swung himself onto his stallion, directly behind the saddle.
“He is,” Havoc said, handing the reigns to his daughter once he’d lifted her and sat her down up in front. “His name is Bone-crusher.”
"I thought you never let anyone ride him?"
"Correct."
"But I'm sitting on him?"
"Because you are more important than anyone else.”
"But… But I read horses should only ever carry one person!" Amelia said, spewing a last-ditch attempt for her cowardice to convince the rest of her mind she shouldn't condone the seeking of her father's attention.
"He can hold me," Havoc answered, which trounced her complaint into dust.
Amelia couldn't help but get emotional. Other than becoming good friends with Grace, and saving the kingdom, her only other desire in life was to spend more time with her father.
“H-how do I tell him to g-go?” she asked, managing somehow not to immediately burst out in those happy tears she thought would forever remain out of reach.
“Speak whatever you want,” Havoc said, “my legs will teach him the meaning of your words if he does not know them already. Focus instead on matching his movements. I will not allow you to fall.”
“G-giddy-up?” Amelia whispered, squeaking in shock when the immense animal started moving and her back bumped against Havoc. Who remained steadfast as a hundred-year-old tree.
Amelia felt secure. As if she were in her mother’s garden, and not on the back of a demonic horse which began picking up speed, while in her pyjamas. A silly smile growing ever wider with each moment spent in the wind, Amelia looked over her shoulder to the carriage, where the princess waved back.
“Thank you,” she mouthed.
Grace stuck out her tongue.