Legends of Astræa: Cupid's Arrow Book 1 (Legends of Astræa Series) Page 39

  Had Demyan given me those documents as an act of chivalry or did he fear something—like the primordials? Why was he actually helping me?

  Time was going fast before afternoon teatime. There were a couple things I’d wanted to do, like telling Gavril about the good news—well, sort of—and paying another visit to Émil’s room first.

  I heard Enit knocking at my door. Crap.

  I panicked.

  Enit would enter the room looking for me. I scrambled to hide all the papers, letter, and leather backpack from Demyan underneath the largest thing I could find. A large pillow over a circular settee. I had no time to reopen and close the secret compartment before Enit would be walking through my dressing room door. I inhaled to calm my hearts, as I opened the dressing room door to meet her. I had to distract her away from my dressing room. Crap. I also had to postpone my revisit to Émil’s room for later.

  “Enit, could you get me one of those nice pastries I saw Francis have this morning?”

  “You are having tea and some food in less than five minutes, with the prince no less. By the way, his Draugr seems fond of you. She says he is head over heels for you,” she bragged. Ugh.

  “You discussed my love life with his Draugr?” I was flabbergasted.

  “Well, you are the main novelty and the most important news happening since… well, never mind,” she said. Crap. Crap. “So tell me why exactly do you need me away?” She was too smart, and I was a terrible liar, so I resorted to bribing her.

  “I’ll trade you my chocolates.” I pushed the half-empty box her way. I had already eaten three of them. I felt the box disappear from my hand. I saw her pick up one piece and chewing it.

  “Hmm—so good.” The chocolate piece literally disappeared. Who knew Draugr were addicted to good chocolate.

  “Mara will love these,” Enit said. Mara, as in Nicholas’s Draugr—great. Resigned to lose Demyan’s chocolates, I watched them float in the air as she left me alone in the room.

  I sighed and walked into my dressing room and put everything back inside the secret panel. Everything but the egg piece. I looked through the many clutches and handbags in my dressing room. I picked the cute silvery one with a long strap I could hang across my shoulder. I threw the egg piece inside and went to open the queen’s main doors.

  “Uh, can you tell me where is tea served?” I asked one of the circus guards.

  “Oui—Yes, if Son Altesse so wishes, we could show you how to get there.” He bowed respectfully. I sighed. This guard was already assuming I was his regent.

  “Perfect.” Except, it wasn’t. Reginald showed up out of nowhere in the hallway. I sighed again.

  “Lady Pearson, we shall be honored to escort you.” Reginald smirked at me.

  I guessed last time’s escapade with Demyan wasn’t going to be repeated. They weren’t going to let me wander around by myself. I followed Reginald, and his two circus guards followed me. We were all a happy family. Nuh.

  Time was moving, so I called on Gavril telepathically.

  Gavril—Ga-aavril… I screamed his name inside my head. If I ever did such a thing for real, I would have driven the entire palace crazy.

  He made a mental harrumph,

  Are you purposely avoiding me? Yes, he was—again.

  What do you expect? You are supposed to be smooching with the prince not talking to me, Gavril said, frustrated with me. God only knew that if he was going to start with me now…

  I thought we had that straightened out?

  Well, yes, but Prince Charming read my rights for a second time after you came back. He still thinks you are in love with me. Why is that? he prompted.

  I sighed. The prince had beaten me to delivering Gavril the news.

  Because he agreed to let me see you when he and the circus clowns are present. We are having tea in five… Well, more like in three minutes, and you are welcome to join us—but you already know—I guess. He didn’t say anything, so I finished for him. You’re welcome.

  Ailie, you have to consummate the imprint. For the good of all of us. He was way too serious lately. The worst part was that he acted as if this was the end of the world. Would someone would please give him a chill pill?

  Imprint?

  The strong connection between the two of you, is called imprint, Gavril informed me. So the effect of the golden arrow had a name. Such a strange term to use for sex, and I had read a couple dictionaries.

  You know something about the golden arrow, Gavril? You better start talking, or I’m asking psycho Francis to refresh your memory, I threatened, as I was trying to step correctly down the main staircase. The dreadful high heels that Enit had insisted on matching with the wine-colored chiffon, knee-length dress weren’t helping me to keep pace. I hated them.

  All right… I guess, since you have already kissed the prince, explaining to you that the arrow will protect both of you always, once you have… done it, wouldn’t constitute breaking any rules.

  I knew well that Gavril was embarrassed of having “the talk” with me. I almost understood what some of the girls went through when one or both parents would sit down to have “the talk.”

  So, technically, you had orders to make sure we would fall into each other’s arms and consummate our union, get married, have children, and live happily ever—whether I wanted or not? I thought you were my friend. Sometimes I wanted to strangle him, if only his effin collar wasn’t in the way.

  Don’t be such a baby. The prince is totally in love with you. All you have to do is say yes. In fact, you don’t even need to speak, Gavril said, a tad irritated.

  I huffed air and shook my head then stopped mid-stair. Holding the limestone handrail, I took the infernal instruments of torture off my feet and began to walk barefoot. If the guards or Reginald thought it was unladylike of me, well, I could care less.

  No-no-no-o. If what you say is true, then… everything is even worse than I thought. He is under the hocus-pocus impression that he is severely attracted to me. That isn’t true love. Suddenly the air in the palace felt thick, and I couldn’t breathe. I realized then that I felt heartbroken. That I wanted Nicholas to be in love with me. That I wanted somebody to love me—for real. I wanted this thing I felt for him to be real, even when marrying him could be the death of him. I almost broke into tears.

  No, you are wrong. It is a gift from heaven. You saw the painting. It is true love in its purest form. Divine and absolute love is what protects you and him from evil. Gavril’s words made me stop and gasp. The golden shield had protected me from those ghouls. It also had protected me from their evil chant. Love? I wished he had told me this before. Crap. Nicholas was in love with me—for real. Shut the door. My tummy fluttered with excitement. Crap, this was so confusing.

  See you in a few, I told him, marching without shoes into the terrace.

  Tea with a prince, ha. Most girls at St. Mary’s would have committed murder to do that. Well, the concept struck me as something little girls did when they played with dolls. Although, at St. Mary’s we had a teatime on Parents Day. Usually, most moms would show up to the annual event. During those times, I preferred working in the kitchen since I was the only orphan. There was nothing worse than seeing all those girls holding hands, kissing, or embracing their mothers. They didn’t know how lucky they were.

  Nicholas stood up as soon as he saw me coming into the terrace, where he was hosting afternoon tea. He looked delectable in his navy blue sports jacket and crisp, white shirt. His wicked gaze gave me a long once-over, glossing over my cleavage and slowly building a sweet smile on his face. Instantly, I felt butterflies, sparks, and all. I felt my emotions raw and my hormones on edge. My arms crossed instinctively to cover my chest. The prince’s eyes grew amused at my reaction.

  My eyes deterred from his and searched for my friend. Gavril looked really good in a suit and polished Italian shoes. I was pleased to see Francis had made sure he got anything necessary besides Émil’s torn monk robe. Not exactly Gavril’s style,
but clean clothes were a good thing after being in that cold grimy dungeon—I should know.

  I smiled at Gavril, raising my hand to wave a hello at him before greeting anyone in the room. Nicholas frowned. Francis had stood as well, checking his watch. I was about two minutes late for tea. Scary-face took longer to stand up and greet me politely. I should have known Count Rutabaga was going to be here.

  Everyone was staring at me, especially the Count. He had a disdainful smirk for me, as if he was forced to endure my presence. They were my feelings too. This afternoon, he wore an ugly purple laced jacket, a white blouse, and black pants that fit inside his boots. The poor Count really needed to stop reading Sheridan Le Fanu Victorian stories or stop listening to Marilyn Manson music. Immortality was becoming a handicap on his fashion trend.

  I didn’t care if I was being disrespectful to the crown, no curtsies or handshakes. I had enough of formalities and such. All these protocols were kind of old-fashioned and undeserving. Particularly when a large amount of circus guards and armed Draugr stood next to Gavril, almost hoping he would commit a simple mistake, so they could take him down.

  As I sat, which one of the servers was patiently waiting for me to help me do, one of the circus guards placed my shoes down next to me, and another, a linen napkin embroidered with an azure-blue crown over my lap. Another sat my porcelain teacup in front of me and began pouring. Everyone took their seats.

  Tea with zombie-bots as servers, the Count and Francis as our audience, and a small army to keep me from Gavril was going to be truly annoying and uncomfortable. Everyone observed Gavril’s reaction to me. I realized how selfish I had been, trying to put him through this.

  I am sorry, I mouthed at him. He shrugged his shoulders, silently acknowledging my observations. Nicholas fixed his gaze on me, still frowning.

  I was seriously troubled by the emotional reactions Nicholas put me through. The humming energy alone, pulling us to be as close as we could to each other, got even worse than I thought after Gavril told me the truth about the golden arrow. Nicholas was in love with me—for real. That what I felt for him at that moment was real. Crap. I inhaled nervously.

  It scared me. It confused me to the point of breaking the rules and excuses I had constructed as a tall infrangible wall. The truth was that we needed with a desperation to be back into each other’s arms. If I was to be honest, I didn’t think it would take long before I’d say yes. The side of me that wanted to feel loved was cheering endlessly. The other part was in denial, reminding me that I had a personal and unfinished payback. I had to avenge Mother Clarisse’s death.

  A zombie-bot server uncovered a silver tray with an assortment of small sandwiches with salmon, cheeses, cucumber, pastries of all sizes, chocolate truffles, and petite fours. I declined the choices. My hunger had just taken off, and if I were smart enough, I would have too. I looked at my empty food plate, hopeless.

  “What does Lady Pearson think of the palace?” Count Full-of-Something-Shiver-ish directed his question to Francis as his invisible Draugr served him tea.

  Actually, I really, really dislike the place—

  “Miss Pearson is impressed with the history of the place.” Francis gave his best-rehearsed answer.

  I was glad Francis took the opportunity to silence my thoughts and that the Count thought I was too of sub-intelligence to speak to me. After that, most polite conversation didn’t include me, unless I was mentioned on a third-person basis, like I was not sitting at the same table. I sighed.

  I couldn’t wait for every afternoon teatime, every morning ride, every royal dinner, and every day inside this golden prison. I felt like screaming and turning everything around me into ashes.

  Calm down, do not go all queen of the dammed on us. The prince might dig you even more, but Dracula here might piss on his lace and silk undies, Gavril said, sanctimoniously pouring tea in Francis’s cup.

  I almost blurted a laugh at his description of the Count’s underwear, but I swallowed my hot tea instead.

  After what seemed an endless petulant yapping from the Count, I found my way back to Émil’s room. Reginald had left me with his two guards, who never said no to me. I was glad for that. They didn’t question my second visit. I found the door unlocked when I twisted the handle. I prayed I could find something related to the medallion. Anything.

  The guards stayed outside as I closed the door behind me. I turned around to examine Émil’s room. I pulled out the egg-shaped toy he had given me. Why did he give me such a thing? Why? It didn’t feel somewhat like a consolation gift because he never told me about the medallion. No.

  I strode toward the messy table stacked with of large pieces of paper and books. Old bottles of dry ink and pens with feather points lay in disarray. I guessed the absence of Émil’s Draugr was noted. There wasn’t anyone who cared for his things. He had books everywhere, Egyptian, Norse, and Greek mythology—none of them were Sumerian or Akkadian history, which is most likely what contained the Legend of Ishtar. Then my eyes caught a small worn-out leather notebook sitting underneath the table atop a few other notebooks. This one seemed older and more deteriorated than the others beneath it.

  I opened it and glanced through it. The pages were stained and wrinkled. Each of them displayed a sketch of different mechanisms with formulas and personal notes. I had a feeling this was the one with some answers about the egg thing in my hand.

  But Émil’s notes were not in Latin, Greek, old English, or French. I had tried to read Esperanto before, but this wasn’t Esperanto or any other known dead language I could identify. I wondered if he had developed a different language—a code only he could decipher. That would explain the unlocked door. No one understood his genius or his craziness. Émil was like an unknown Leonardo da Vinci.

  I continued to glance through the notebook. It was fascinating. Then I saw the drawing. The egg toy. Underneath, it had an inscription, Emew Uadjet, and the drawing of an eye I recognized as an Egyptian symbol next to it. I bent under the table again and searched for that Egyptian book I had seen before and grabbed it.

  I fanned the book in search for the symbol until I found it. It was a symbol of protection, royal power, and good health. The eye was represented with a tear called Emew and was personified in the goddess Wedjat, also written as Uadjet. The name derived from “wadj” meaning “green,” hence “the green one.” Crap. My body glowed bluish-green when I’d visited Marcum. Wedjat, the goddess, was the protector and wardenship of evil. I look again at the egg shape in my hand. It did resemble an iris of an eye. How could this little thing protect and ward evil?

  Next, I turned the page on Émil’s notes and saw two other mechanisms. The drawings depicted a man wearing a bionic-like arm and shoulder armor. The egg was drawn next to the figure along with the words Emew Uadjet, again. These drawings that had the Tear of Uadjet also had a symbol printed on a little corner of the page almost run over by the size of his notes.

  The symbol was the astrological sign of Aquarius—the water bearer.

  He had a great bunch of trinkets around. I wondered if this arm protector was among them. I looked for it inside his room, but I couldn’t find anything that resembled those drawings. Although it was relatively clean, it was cluttered with books and crazy machines everywhere. My eyes caught a metallic piece by the base of the odd clock.

  I walked over and picked it up. I examined the artifact in my hand, feeling disappointed it wasn’t what I was looking for. My gaze then turned at the clock in front of me. I had no idea why he had designed a seventy-two-hour clock. That was like three days’ time. Why?

  The hole in the center of the clock face looked like it had some purpose on close view. Quickly, I grabbed the Tear of Uadjet from the table and placed it inside the clock. It fit perfectly, but it had no purpose except that it filled the hole. There had to be something else that made the mechanism work.

  I examined the clock more closely, and I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. It had a brass cone
protruding from the clock on the side. It was marked with the same water sign as the notes in Émil’s notes. I wondered if… Aquarius. Tears. Water.

  I looked at the pitcher left on Émil’s night table. It was empty. I took it and filled it with some water. I poured barely a couple ounces of water over the cone and waited for anything to happen. And I waited. What if I had just wet Émil’s precious machine that had withstood the test of time just to be rusted with water by my hand? Crap. I had been too impulsive to do something without double-checking if that would work. I crossed my fingers Émil would never find out.

  A minute or so went by. I sighed, feeling like I was going nowhere. I looked at the clock again and noticed the four hands of the clock. I moved them to match the position markings on the Tear of Uadjet. The moment the last one reached the right position, the egg opened inside the clock and twisted the engrains inside the egg. After one short motion to the left and then a clock rotation to the right, a small implosion of steam startled me. The mechanism began to rotate crazily, then it came to an abrupt stop.

  A cuckoo door opened, except there was no cuckoo bird but a small parchment letter rolled and held with a piece of leather string. Hesitantly, I took it. It was dusty, like it had been inside the clock for a very long time.

  I undid the leather strap on it and unrolled it. The note was written in middle perhaps early English. I read just the words that made sense to me.

  Grénnes Ma’rtialis,

  useth armeth’r to ward thyself,

  f’r God has’t seen thee square evil

  two and seventy hours aft’r thee readeth this

  might not but remaineth faithful and valorous

  Doth not seeketh the unbless’d King talisman

  only desolation and weakness as timeth runs shalt followeth

  I think it translated something like,

  Green Warrior,

  use Armor for protection,

  For God have seen you fight evil