21. Chapter 19 Arden

Chapter twenty-one

Chapter 19: Arden

D ira, Solina and I stand, and I slip out of my flats and into the heels. The second my toes touch the edges, the shoes expand, and as I slip my foot inside, it contours to fit my foot perfectly. Magic is so fucking cool .

As Ursa leads us out of the room she says, "Any time you are out and about in the castle, those heels are to be on your feet. We will have a few pairs of your own designed and made for formal events once we're about two weeks into our sessions. We want to make sure that you can hack it before we invest in good shoes for you."

"These are terrible," I grumble. "Is this what Cyndair wears? No wonder she's so cranky and on edge all the time."

Everyone laughs but Ursa who spins around to face me and says, "You will refer to her as 'The Queen,' 'Queen Cyndair', or 'Her majesty' while in this castle. I don't know how Prince Zorvan does things in Feldorn, but a person's station is important and should be treated as such."

"Yes, Ma'am," I say with an unimpressed arch to my eyebrow.

She turns and begins walking again, and we follow. Her helpers look wounded.

"Enchantments are placed on items using spell work and magical substances and items. Many of the gems and crystals in Sangaris are powerful and when in the right hands, can be used to imbue items with their powers. The same goes for particular plants, water from certain areas, and the body parts of certain animals.

"Spell work requires a lot of time, concentration, and energy being poured from the person placing the enchantment. It's difficult and draining. Weaker enchantments, like those shoes, may still put an enchanter out of commission for multiple days, unable to even call upon their elemental magics. More powerful ones such as a magically drawn carriage may take them out for a couple of weeks."

"When can I learn how to do that?"

"Oh don't be silly. We have people we pay to do that sort of thing for us so we don't have to waste our time."

"But I want to learn," I insist. "I know you've lived here your whole life, but being raised with humans, magic is kind of awesome. What use is it if we can't play with it ourselves?"

"Dear, if you're not careful, you won't ever get a chance to use your magic at all. So how about we take things one step at a time."

I let out a frustrated sound. I know that to her, I probably sound like a toddler, but not being able to use my magic is ridiculous.

"Sounds like that are not ladylike. Do it again, and I'll deduct points."

"We're on a point system?" Dira asks.

"Yes."

"Are you going to tell us what it is?"

"You earn points for doing things right, you lose them for doing things wrong. I assumed that would have been pretty straight forward."

"Right, but what are we aiming for? How many points do we lose or gain for things? That sort of thing?"

"You need one hundred and fifty points to pass the training. Point addition and removal is at my discretion, however at the end of your training you will have an exam that is broken up into sections. Each section is worth twenty five points. So that will account for half of your overall points if you pass each one.

"You two mutts," she's clearly talking to me and Dira, "Will only get your magic back if you receive over two hundred and seventy five points. If by the end of the training you are adequate enough to pass your exam, and have received all one hundred and fifty points needed to complete your time with me, then you'll be permitted to mate with whomever you see fit. That remains true even if you don't reach the higher number required to regain your magic."

"And if we get one fifty and still want our magic?"

"Then you will repeat the course until you've received enough to get that privilege back."

"That's complete bullshit," Solina mutters to me. "I barely passed last time. I can't imagine needing two hundred and seventy-five."

"That's because last time you refused to participate beyond what was absolutely necessary, and I imagine that if your magic were on the line you would have tried harder.

"Two points for swearing," Ursa adds.

We're escorted to a small room with a dining table and chairs situated around it. Ursa steps out of the room assuring us that she'll be right back, and the three of us take a seat around the table.

"So today is useless crap? Like fork placement?" I say with a snort to Dira and Solina.

"I assure you that none of what you're learning is useless," Ursa says, strolling back into the room with a box. "Well, it will be if you don't take this seriously and you end up decapitated in the center of the town. But should you succeed—and I have no intentions of letting you fail—you'll need every single skill I'm teaching you."

"So today's lesson is how to cut my own meat?"

"Today is etiquette. You will learn when to bow, how deep to bow, which silverware to use, when it's appropriate for you to speak, and other very important lessons. If you plan to keep giving me attitude, then you can just go ahead and leave. Snark and sass have no place at the table next to manners and dignity."

Everything in me wants to snap back at her, but I bite my tongue. "Fine. Let's just get through this, please."

She opens the box and pulls out what looks like a slab of stone and approaches me.

"Sit up straight," she instructs, and I listen.

She places the rectangle on my head, and I try not to groan as understanding settles over me.

"Today's lessons will be completed as you try to correct your posture. Hunching like you do decreases from your appeal. If you allow the stone to fall, you'll lose five points. For every hour it remains on your head, you gain five points. Now let us begin."

***

We spend the morning learning everything there is to know about the different sizes of spoons and by the time we're done I want to use one to dig my eyes out. I manage to keep the slab on my head most of the morning, and by the time we're done, I'm up twenty points. Dira, on the other hand, is in the negative by five.

After lunch we roleplay different scenarios, pretending we're greeting people in different situations. The entire time I feel ridiculous. Then as we retire for the evening, I'm gifted a book on the history of Solardin that I need to have memorized by the end of my training.

Then they escort us back down to the dungeons and lock Dira and I away. I expect Camus will be down soon to see me, and my body aches for him in an unhealthy way.

"I don't know about you, but I hated everything about that," I say as I plop down on my cot.

"It wasn't so bad, I've spent the last several years living like a barbarian, so it was kind of nice to see what life would have been like if we hadn't been raised in the human realm."

"Feldorn isn't as formal as Solardin is. I don't think we would have had to do as much of this stuff," I say, thumbing through the book I was given.

"Yeah, shifters are a lot more relaxed than the vampires."

"Have you met any Kildarans?" I ask.

"No. My understanding is that Ardeth encouraged their return home when Grandmother went missing. He became kind of paranoid."

"Between her and the missing women, I can't say I blame him. I don't understand why you didn't try to go see him."

"My dad thought it would be a bad idea," she says with a shrug.

"Because then he couldn't control you and the narrative he was spinning for you?" I ask.

"He didn't think I would be safe," she snaps.

"You would have been safer than you were raiding villages with him."

"Can we not fucking do this again? Please?"

She's actually begging me. I'm tired of this discussion, too, but I want to make it very clear where Nevidian stands with me. I'm not just going to welcome him into my life with open arms after everything he's done. He'll be lucky if I don't turn him in to Zorvan and the keepers so they can beat the shit out of him.

"Fine," I say and then lay down and begin reading the book they gave me.

The book is dense, giving a play-by-play of every ruler of the kingdom and their offspring since the origin of the territory. I had read similar books while I was in Feldorn, and something strikes me as odd. Feldornite princes and princesses who were slated to take the throne had mated Solardinites and Kildarans over the years. Solardinites had never allowed for their next in line heirs to mate with anyone other than a pure-blooded vampire.

The more I read the more apparent it becomes that the royal vampires have spent centuries thinking they're better than all other other fae. It wasn't until about two hundred and fifty years ago that they even allowed other types of fae to live within the kingdom. Then they reframed it as if they were doing shifters and Ashylans a favor by allowing them within the city limits.

History books have always been written from a biased position, and this is no exception. They've been refusing to mix shifter or ashylan blood into their bloodlines, while attempting to intermix their bloodlines with the other royal families for thousands of years.

How did Feldorn allow this for so long?

The reading is dense, and eventually I doze off, just to wake a few hours later with Camus cuddled up next to me. The sun has set and it's pitch black in the cell. Camus' front is pressed to my back, and his hand is resting on my belly under my shirt. The cot is so small that it's hard for the two of us to be comfortable, but he swears that he prefers this to sleeping alone in his bed. And if I were to be honest with myself, I've come to prefer him being here as well.