I was stunned into motionless, the wave of relief that comes after vomiting up every drink I’d had in the past few hours matched by an accompanying wave of realization of the situation I’d gotten myself into. The man who had just broken my arm stepped away from me in horror, covered in my spewed up drinks and seemingly terrified. He had just committed high treason after all. It didn’t really matter that it wasn’t his fault.
I clutched my broken arm to my chest unthinkingly, trying to hold it steady to stop the constant throbbing ache that emanated in waves from the point of fracture seemingly spreading throughout my entire body. I’d tried meditation a couple of times before at Mina’s recommendation, and she always talked about letting relaxation flow through you like a wave. I’d never really gotten it, but I did now. This was exactly like that, but with pain. So maybe not exactly like it.
I let out a groan of agony, doing my absolute best to hold in a sob. You are not going to cry in front of these people, I told myself. You’ve already made a complete moron of yourself in an incident that’s going to haunt you forever, but you are not going to cry.
Suddenly I was snapped out of my internal self-pitying reverie by the sensation of water slamming into me, soaking through my clothes. It was freezing. My lungs contracted under the sudden icey assault, making it difficult to breathe. I spun to see Xax, mandibles open and chittering in something like anger, right next to the empty ice pail he kept tucked behind the bar. He’d just thrown it at me.
“Hey what the fuck–” I only managed to get out a little bit before I was hit with a new weight. This time it was Xax himself, launching from the bar in a surprising display of athletic talent and careening directly into my head. He kept himself steady with one piercer tugging painfully at my curls. It’s surprising, the kind of things that still bother you when you’re in agony.
“Ow,” I said for the first time since I’d been hit.
Xax scuttled down from his perch atop my head and down my chest, holding himself vertically against my clothing with several tight gripped claws. Still too in shock to move, I watched as he lay his front pincer against the sodden sleeve surrounding my broken arm, and began to freeze. His entire body went cold, cold enough I could feel it even through my ice soaked clothes. But the center of the freeze was at the tip of his left claw where it rested gently against my shirt just below my elbow. Before I fully processed what was happening, he swiftly but surely slid his claw across the length of my injured limb, freezing the water that had soaked into my sleeve into a makeshift splint. By the time I realized what he’d done, Xax had already finished his work and hopped off me back to his place on the bar.
I took a look at my new cast, marveling at the craftsmanship and moreso at the speed. “Wh–Where did you learn to do that, Xax?”
Whatever response I might have had to that was interrupted when someone slammed into me hard from behind. I let out a puff as the air was knocked out of me, and then I was being scooped up into a pair of strong arms. Looking up in astonishment, I met the calm brown eyes of Emily Loste.
“Put your good hand around my shoulder,” she said, her voice stern but comforting. “Can you do that for me?”
I nodded, too stunned to speak, and made to follow her instruction. Once my arm was securely draped across one broad shoulder, she lifted me bodily off the ground without any detectable sign of exertion. It was as easy as breathing to her.
“Now, can you tell me who did this to?” she asked.
I nodded again, wincing as the motion from this position jolted my arm slightly. “It wasn’t his fault though, I–”
“Not now, Your Highness. Please, just tell me who it was.”
Too exhausted to argue, I jerked my chin over at my erstwhile foe. “He’s the one covered in barf. Can’t miss him.”
She didn’t even chuckle. There’s just no pity for an injured woman these days, I tell you. What she did do was stride over to the man, taking care to move smoothly enough that my injured limb barely even jostled against my chest.
“You,” she said to him, voice entirely stern and cold now, all traces of that comforting tone gone. “Come with me.”
“Please, it was an accident I didn’t–”
“He really didn’t it was my fault I–”
“Be quiet, all of you.” She didn’t raise her voice even a shade, but the authority in it silenced not only the two of us, but the murmuring crowd that had formed around us during the fight and stayed to watch the show.
“Everyone,” she said, turning her head to make eye contact first with me and my opponent, and then people across the crowd, one by one. “My name is Emily Loste. I am a member of the Queen’s Guard. This situation is under my authority. Do you understand me?”
A murmur of yeses and yes ma’ams echoed throughout the bar. I was surprised to find one escaping my own lips, even ever so quietly as it did.
“The princess has been injured.” This drew a sudden return of the noise as confirmation of my identity hit the crowd like an electric shock. A quick tap of Loste’s foot brought the room back to order.
How does she do that? Is that her talent?
“My first priority is to bring her to safety. Once that is done, I assure you this situation will be analyzed and the culprits appropriately punished. To that end, I am bringing Mr..” She paused, looking at the vomit covered man.
“Foster,” he squeaked.
“Mr. Foster to the palace for questioning. The matter will be dealt with, and I encourage you all to return to your evening. Should you have questions regarding my handling of the situation, you are welcome to bring them to Major Iyendal.”
If I’d been feeling up to it I would have snorted. Iyendal, my mother’s personal guard and head of intelligence, had a healthy respect from the people of the city. The kind of respect where any person who wants to stay healthy gives him a wide berth. I’d always thought he was sweet. I didn’t think the rumors were true, and certainly he hadn’t pulled anyone’s tongue out through their nose in front of me, but you never did know for sure. Regardless, Loste had just effectively ensured that no one would ask any questions about what had happened here tonight. I would thank her, except I knew her after action report would be going directly to the one person I didn’t want to hear about my latest fuck-up.
“Good, I’m glad we understand each other. Mr. Foster, follow me.” She turned and strode out of the room. I couldn’t see behind us over the length of her broad shoulder, but I was certain Foster was following right behind. No one in that room would have dared do otherwise.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
We left Moult behind and headed out into the night. In the time I’d been sequestered away drinking out my sorrows, the sun had set and the fog had rolled in. The Mists of Lymnis (the capital city, not the kingdom) were famous metaphorical devices in everything you can imagine, from speeches to songs to plays. I’d seen them used as a stand-in for grief, for self-deception, and once memorably for a political rival’s body odor. What the mists really were though, was dense. By the time night fell fully in the winter you would be lucky to get ten feet of visibility even with the brightest light you could muster. Thankfully they burned off quickly after the sun rose, but there was a reason my people did not tend to work at night. It was too easy to get lost in the mists, and too easy never to be found again.
That was the kind of morbid thought that ran through my mind as Loste carried me silently through the mists back to the palace. It wasn’t late enough yet for them to be a true hazard, and even if they had the major roadways were well warded to keep back the cold damp. Golden Salamanders could create patches of powerful warmth where they rested, and once bonded with a human those patches could persist for days at a time. The Lamplighters Guild had a fruitful and lucrative partnership going with the Goldens for generations. It was even a rare exclusive arrangement, where anyone bonded to a Golden Salamander not affiliated with the Guild was subject to sanction, both official and unofficial. These arrangements were not typical, but some organizations had enough political clout or muscle to effect them.
We followed these bright yellow patches in silence, their heat burning away mists that drew close, for about ten minutes before Loste stopped abruptly. Looking around, I could see that we were on the cliffside road that wound its way up the side of the bluff to the palace perched atop it. She’d halted us just below the lip of the cliff, barely a five minute walk to the palace gates and home.
I startled out of the half daze of pain I’d spent our journey up to that point in with a jolt. Loste dipped down and set me on the ground gently before getting up and turning to face Foster.
“Do you have family at home?” she asked.
His face twisted into a rictus of panic. “Please, my family had nothing to do with this, if you have to punish someone punish me please–”
“That’s not what I meant.” The guardswoman sighed, and for the first time all evening I could detect a speck of emotion in her voice. She was…angry? No, it was frustration I heard. “No one is going to hurt your family. I meant, do you live alone? Is there someone expecting you back?”
“Oh,” he said quietly. After a pause, there came an even quieter “No.”
“Good, that makes this simple. Here’s what happened. You went to the bar, you had too much to drink, you blacked out. The next thing you knew, you were waking up in your bed the next morning. Do you understand me?”
“I– what?”
“If anyone asks you anything about tonight, that is what you will tell them. Do you understand me?”
“Y–yes. I understand.”
“Good. Say it back to me.”
“I had too much to drink at the Moult, I passed out, and I woke up in my bed at home.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Perfect. Now give me your hand.”
Still clearly terrified of her, Foster extended his left hand. Not the one he’d broken my arm with, I noted. He was probably worried she was going to break his in some kind of revenge.
Instead, Loste laid her hand atop his and closed her eyes. After only a few moments standing in silence, she opened her eyes again and said “It is done.”
“What is done? What did you do to me?”
“I have sealed your truth of this evening. If you speak of the events of tonight, of anything beyond the story I have just told you, to anyone at all, I will know. And I will come for you. You have this one chance. Do not waste it.”
He gulped audibly, but nodded.
“Good. Now go home.”
Even before the last word was out of her mouth, Foster was running back down the road. I thought about yelling at him to slow down, but I thought it would serve him right if he fell and broke something. Justice and all that. Speaking of…
“Hey what the fuck was that?”
“What was what, your Highness?”
“You’re just letting him go? He broke my arm.” I knew I sounded kinda pathetic, but I was in a lot of pain. Cut me a little slack.
She walked over to where I lay, towering over me. She didn’t even make eye contact, instead looking straight ahead at a perfect parade rest. “You said yourself it wasn’t his fault.”
“Well, I mean, yeah it wasn’t. I started it. But he broke my arm. I’m the princess, isn’t that high treason or something? And you’re letting him go with a magic oath?”
“It wasn’t magic. I just did that to scare him.”
I was incredulous. “You didn’t even do magic on him?”
“Why would I, even if I could make such binding contracts? He is an innocent, brought into this situation by your own poor decisions.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you pissed at me for getting my arm broken? Come on, I know I’m a fuck up but you’ve got to be kidding me.”
She ignored my question. “Mr. Foster will go home, and never speak a word of this to anyone. His friends will ask him what happened, and when he tells them he doesn’t remember they will assume we did terrible magics to him in punishment. You will emerge tomorrow with a healed arm as if nothing ever happened, and it will be one more story added to Major Iyengal’s name. The dignity of the Crown is preserved.”
“What about my dignity?”
Finally she met my eyes, and the frustration I had seen earlier was gone, as was the kindness from when she’d first lifted me off the ground at the bar. Her eyes were full of cold rage.
“That, Your Highness, is an excellent question. Tell me, did you consider your dignity when you punched a man for asking you a question? Oh yes, I saw the whole thing play out. I was your designated guard for the day, told to stand back and only intervene if you got into serious trouble. So I got to watch as you, a trained fighter, sought to make a training dummy of Mr. Foster. And I got to watch when your own idiotic choices came back to bite you as he broke your arm. If I had a choice, I would have bought Mr. Foster a drink and dragged you home by your ankles.”
“Why didn’t you then?” I asked, my own eyes full of angry tears. “Why not just leave me in my own fuckup like you clearly wanted to.”
“Because you are my princess, and my responsibility. The Crown cannot be seen to let injury to your person go unpunished, and so it became necessary to bring Mr. Foster in.”
She sighed, some of that anger flowing out of her and being replaced by a quiet sadness, drawn in with her breath like the mist. “Surely you had to know what that would do to him. I cannot believe otherwise.”
“I mean, I figured you’d bring him in for questioning, maybe a little fine or something and he’d get let off with a slap on the wrist. Right?”
Loste looked at me incredulously. “Gods of east and west, you really are that stupid.”
I bristled and drew myself up, which had the unfortunate side effect of banging my injured arm against my chest. “Remember who you’re speaking to, Guardswoman.”
“Apparently I am speaking to a petulant child. Let me explain this to you, Your Highness, since you apparently do not understand how close you came tonight to destroying a man. The Crown cannot punish her citizens without charge. You are correct in that Mr. Foster is technically guilty of treason, and that is what he would have to be charged with. Do you know what would happen to a man found guilty of treason in this city? The people love your mother, and for some reason I cannot fathom many of them love you. He would be lucky to simply lose his job. I think it more likely we’d find him dead in a ditch by this time next week.”
I stopped. Stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped anything.
“Nor can the Crown simply release a suspect brought in on such a charge without any justification. I have chosen the only middle path I could find. The matter is obscured, the man who did it will not speak of it, and all that is left is a story that makes us seem both mysterious and strangely merciful.”
“Oh.” I managed, after a long moment of silence.
“I don’t have the authority to do this, you know.”
“I–What?”
“I’m a junior guardswoman. We’ve all gotten training in politics and subterfuge, but this was supposed to be an easy assignment. Watch the Princess get drunk. Maybe she’ll get laid and give us all a break. Ha.” Loste laughed bitterly and without humor. “You could destroy me, if you wanted. Tell your mother I acted beyond my station, that I waited too long and put you in danger. Tell her I broke your arm myself if you like. She’ll make sure Iyengal punishes me because Her Majesty loves you beyond all reason.”
All this time the woman had been slowly sinking to the ground as she eviscerated me, first to her knees to meet me eyes and then slowly melting back. Finally she lay fully supine on the ground, eyes to the firmament.
“I don’t believe you will though. As close as you came to ruining Mr. Foster’s life tonight, I choose to believe you will not ruin mine.”
We stayed there, in silence, for who knew how long. My brain was abuzz with thoughts I could not fully think as the haze of pain and misery and guilt grew and grew. Finally, Emily Loste got off the ground and lifted me back into her arms, and together we made our way home.