9. Dagmara

Dagmara strolled through the courtyard with her brother by her side. The sun helped warm the cool air of Azurem, and the smell of flowers danced in the air. In the small courtyard adjacent to the throne room a few children were playing, pretending to be guardians. The servants played along with them, happy to have a day of rest and join in the festivities happening around the many towns. King Bogdan had declared today a royal holiday, and he had even halted work in the mines.

Dagmara wished she could run and play with the children, but stayed in the shade for the sake of her health. She couldn’t exhaust herself too early in the day, especially when she had used all her energy for the week on her mission the previous night. The only reason she was still functioning was because of the adrenaline and nerves.

Teos coughed, barely covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow.

Dagmara snapped her head in his direction. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Teos said, clearing his throat.

“You’re not sick, are you?” Dagmara placed her hands on either side of his face and tilted his head up. His eyes weren’t bloodshot, but coughing was the first side of zowach, the illness that was killing youth all through Azurem. Without a medicine supply from Ilusauri, any child or teen that caught zowach was practically given a death sentence.

Knocking her hands away, Teos jerked back. “I said I’m fine. How would I catch zowach in the fortress? I’m one of three teens there.”

“I walked by some kids that may have been infected last night.”

Teos rolled his eyes. “You think I caught zowach because you’ve been going into town? Doubtful.”

“We don’t know how it is transferred.”

“How hard did the guy punch you last night? You’re being paranoid.” Teos laughed before intentionally changing the topic. “Oh, I have something for you.” He propped the crutch underneath his armpit before reaching into his vest. Her brother cautiously withdrew what appeared to be a metal ball. “I’ve been experimenting.”

Dagmara stepped directly in front of him, covering the object with her body. She glanced around hastily, but everyone was deep in their own laughter and conversations. “What is that?” she demanded.

“Calm down.” Teos chuckled. With a twitch of his head, he brushed a blonde lock of hair out of his eyes. “Instead of the jasny we use for the light explosion, this is a little more powerful. Try it.”

“No.” Dagmara wrenched the object from his hand and shoved it back in his vest. “Why would you bring it here?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to leave it in our room where someone else could stumble upon it.”

“You’re experimenting?”

“Sis,” Teos inclined his head, his jovial tone wavering. “We’re a team. My light detonation helped you escape last night, didn’t it?”

“Shhh!”

“No one’s paying attention, but if you keep acting like that someone will.”

Begrudgingly, Dagmara replaced her serious expression with a halfhearted smile and crossed her arms. She leaned against the wall nearby for support, pretending to appear like she was having a good time.

“We’re a team,” Teos repeated. “You handle the potions, and I handle the explosions. I’m better at it anyway, and I don’t know a thing about poisons.”

“You shouldn’t have to handle anything.”

“Don’t you think mom would have wanted both of us to be assassins like her?”

“No, frankly, I don’t think that’s what she wanted. She accepted Bogdan’s offer so we could have a better life, not one like hers.”

Teos let out a sigh. “Well she’s gone now, Dagmara. And if we want to keep our plush spot in the castle with money for days, we have to fill her role.”

“I’m filling her role.”

“You’d be dead if it wasn’t for my explosive last night.”

Dagmara bit her lip, remembering when she killed the captain of the Ilusaurian army. Her stomach curled.

Teos continued, “I can’t survive outside the fortress, but you can’t survive without both of our concoctions. Unfortunately, this is what the guardians ordained for us,” Teos gestured to his twisted leg, “so until I can walk correctly again, which will never be, and until the doctors find out what is wrong with you, which will never be, we’re a team.”

A sigh escaped her lips. She only wanted to protect him, but she wished he wasn’t right. How different her life could have been if she were born to another mother. How different Teos’s life would be if he wasn’t involved in the accident at the cliffs. How different her life would be if she was someone else. Sometimes, she wished she was.

She opened her mouth to speak, but her brother cut her off. He said:

“Dreamy prince, northwest, five seconds until arrival.” He batted his eyelashes at her mockingly.

Shoving his shoulder, Dagmara said, “Knock it off.”

Teos rolled his eyes, ending in a boyish grin.

“Ceremony is about to start,” Prince Aleksy said when he reached their side. Even though Teos had given her a heads up, her heart still fluttered at the prince’s proximity. “You ready?”

“Yes,” Dagmara said.

Aleksy flashed Teos a smile. “We can sneak out for our card game after the ceremony, when it gets boring.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Teos replied. “I’m going to take my seat inside.”

With that, Teos headed off, entering the throne room and making his way to a seat on the first floor.

Once Teos had gone, Aleksy beckoned Dagmara. With a gesture to follow him, Aleksy headed toward the back of the throne room, on the other side of the courtyard. There were two identical circular staircases, wide enough to fit four people across. Aleksy led the way up the stairs, Dagmara following, meticulous about her breathing. Stairs were her worst nightmare. Something seemingly trivial was what spiked her heart rate the most. It was embarrassing, and disappointing. And once again a constant, incessant reminder that she would never be normal.

They reached the upper balcony. There was a side door, nearly concealed by the way it blended in with the wall. Making sure no one was looking in their direction, Aleksy opened it, revealing another set of stairs.

Letting out an exhale, Dagmara readied herself.

“I can do this by myself,” Aleksy said, noticing her hesitation.

“No.” Steeling herself, Dagmara scaled the next flight of stairs. She wasn’t going to let the flights of stairs stop her, not in a moment like this. They were about to fool the entire kingdom, and she wanted a front row seat.

By the guardians, she would be in bed the rest of the week.

They reached the third-tier balcony, this one closed off to the guests. It was almost amongst the rafters, and there was no seating, just a simple ‘U’ shaped roundabout. A thigh-high wall barricaded the edge of the balcony, and a few pillars supported the weight of the ceiling. A few of the banners and flags were tied off to the ropes along the rim of the third floor, revealing the behind the scenes of the glorious display on the ground. It was lined with stained glass windows, casting in pastel colored hues. They weren’t nearly as large as the ornate windows on the second story, but they were still the size of a full-grown man.

At the center of the balcony, Aleksy lowered to a crouch on the ground, his elbows resting on the balcony wall while he peered at the sight below.

The ceremony below had already started, and a sage was reading in a booming voice from a scroll at a central pedestal. Magda was sitting in her throne, completely done-up in her blue dress, and her silver hair fell loosely around the crown. Beside her, sat King Bogdan and Queen Bernadette.

Dagmara crouched down, leaning her back against the wall, facing the opposite way of Aleksy. She didn’t need to see the scene yet. She would know when the display began. For now, she was catching her breath. She wanted to loosen the corset around her waist, but decided better against it, remembering it was concealing the dagger that she had used to kill the Ilusaurian captain. There were too many people here, and it made her nervous.

“Do you think it will work?” Aleksy asked.

Unable to answer right away, Dagmara steadied her breathing, her heart pounding against her ribcage. There was a shooting pain at the center of her ribs, and she clutched her chest, waiting for it to cease. “Fooling the entire kingdom?” Dagmara panted. “It has to. We don’t have another option.”

“And what happens after the ceremony?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do the three of us take this secret to the grave? Shouldn’t we tell my dad?” Aleksy fired question after question. “Someone is going to find out eventually. Then Magda won’t be the only one to blame. All of us will go down with treason.”

Dagmara put her hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be alright,” she said. “Let’s get through this plan first. Then we will come up with another. No use figuring out what comes next if we don’t know this will work yet.”

Aleksy gave her a soft smile. She thought he was reaching for her hand, but instead, he removed her hand from his shoulder. “It’s almost time.” He stood to his feet, getting a better vantage point, but still remained in the shadows. No one could see them from up here.

The gesture stuck with her. Was he mad she was roping him into this? Did he blame her? She was only trying to help Magda.

She couldn’t think about any of that. She shook her head, readying her breath, when a shadow flickered in her peripheral vision. It could have been a trick of her eyes, or a cloud masking the sun. However, the hair on the back of her neck rose in alarm.

The room felt eerily silent, except for the echoing voice of the sage downstairs, and she could hear her own breathing. There was a creak in the rafters, and her heart lurched in her chest. They weren’t alone up here.

She looked at Aleksy. He was focused, his hands at his sides, and his gaze dead set on the center of the room below, waiting for his sister to approach the fountain and display her magic. A blue sparkle began at the center of his irises. She couldn’t distract him now.

Quietly, she scrambled to her feet, ducking in a crouch as she rounded the ‘U’ shaped balcony. She let her palm skim the wall, making sure she was underneath it. The last thing she needed was to cause a noise and have the whole audience—or one person for that matter—look up and see Aleksy orchestrating the magic.

Slipping between two columns and brushing underneath the backside of a few ropes holding the banners, she saw a figure. Whoever it was remained crouched, their head barely peeking out over the wall. She scanned his appearance, first noting his thin-soled shoes. He came from a warmer climate than theirs. The glistening dagger on his belt notified her that this was not a friend from the court. Then she saw his black doublet, stitched with silver.

Whoever this was, they were Ilusaurian.