Finding Eden (20 page)

“
Are you alright?”

“
God, I'm fine.
Just frustrated.”

“
Want to talk about
it?”

“
Not really,”
I admit.

We make it to my office.
I push the door open and I'm petrified. What the hell happened? I
turn my face toward Kal.

“
What the hell? I
had nothing left after last night,” I motion at the piles of
papers covering every spare inch of my desk.

“
Well, didn't you
know?” Kal glances around at the room, “A queen's work is
never finished.”

After what feels like
weeks of endless paperwork and strategy meetings, I finally managed
to reduce my workload by making Marius my lead strategist. I rub my
face and stand from my desk. I look around the impressively small
looking space and double check to make sure everything is where it's
supposed to be and that I don't have any paperwork that I didn't see.

I close the door of my
office behind myself, pulling a key from my pocket to lock the door.
I turn around and walk down the hallway. My head is throbbing and I
wish I had some aspirin or something. But no, things like that don't
work over here.

I sigh and rub my
temples, walking down the hallway. My eyes are closed and I feel the
steady weight of the crown on my head. I hear others in the hall, but
they don't stop me at all; they don't talk to me either. The voices I
do hear are low, so low I can't even understand what is being said.

Yellows, blues and pinks.
Even though I can't see them I can somehow feel the emotions of
everyone in the hallway. There is the gray worry over the war which
is threaded with orange courage. And through it all I can still feel
the steady blue loyalty. That lends me courage knowing that these
people, my people, are behind me. A smile spreads across my lips, and
despite my headache, I open myself up and spread my growing courage
through the people around me.

I walk further into the
castle, reeling in my powers so I don't exhaust myself. I stop and
lean against a wall, rubbing my face some more and yawning a huge
yawn.

“
We really need to
stop meeting like this.”

I smile. I know exactly
who it is despite my eyes being closed.

“
Hey, Marius.”

I look up at him, his
deep blue eyes staring down into mine and I get that weird tingly
sensation all down my body again. The blue swirls lazily around him,
curls around his feet and dusts its way toward me. Orange, yellow and
pink ribbon around him like his own personal sunset and his pupils
dilate.

“
Haven't seen you
outside of the war room lately,” he says conversationally.

“
Yeah, you know me.
I love to spend all my time in my office going through stacks of
paperwork. Isn't there someone I can promote to do it for me?”

He chuckles.

“
Not to my
knowledge,” he says, “but I'm sure you can get yourself a
personal assistant with whom you can split the work load.”

“
I will have to
look into that.”

“
You should.”

“
Why's that?”

“
Well, if you
continue to spend so much time holed up in your office I will never
get another opportunity to kidnap you and force feed you delicious
food.”

“
Oh,” I say.

I can feel my face heat
up and I see a faint thread of red swirl around Marius. He continues
to smile at me and laughs lightly when he sees the red creep up on my
face. God, I can't believe I'm blushing.

“
Anyway,” he
says, “what are you doing right now?”

I give myself a few
moments to recover before I speak.

“
Nothing right now.
I actually just finished up with my paperwork for the day.”

“
Oh, really? That's
amazing. And it's even still daylight out.”

“
I know right?”
I say, “My office has begun to feel like a prison.”

“
Well,” he
says, “I don't suppose you'd like to join me for an evening
meal?”

“
You mean dinner?”

“
I guess,” he
says, “but that makes it sound rather date-ish, don't you
think?”

I laugh, “I suppose
it does.”

“
Alright then,
follow me.”

I follow Marius through
the halls, the last time we ate making all of this feel like deja-vu,
but we're not walking the same way we did before.

“
Okay,” I
say, “where are we going?”

“
To the dining
hall?”

“
Oh. I thought you
were planning on kidnapping me to your room again.”

“
Oh,” he
laughs, “no, sorry. After the first time I felt it would
probably be really inappropriate to be alone together. But I also
thought that you should get out a little more, rather than staying
cooped up in your room or your office. You know, for your sanity.”

“
Thanks for keeping
an eye on my sanity. It's a good thing too,” I say, “because
someone has to since I'm not, because I really don't want to lose
it.”

“
Not a problem.”

We walk together to the
dining hall, although “together” is a little more of a
stretch since Marius is staying about a foot behind me. At least he
doesn't talk to me like I'm an old lady. He treats me like me. I like
that.

The dining hall is
deserted when we enter, which is a relief. I don't know if I could
stand it if there were many people around. A server emerges a second
after we enter asking us what we want. After a short while, our food
is served and we're soon left alone.

“
Uh,” Marius
looks around.

“
What?”

“
Where's Kal?”

“
Oh,” I say,
“we came to an agreement that I wouldn't risk my life on a
daily basis and he would only guard me when absolutely necessary.”

“
Well I guess
that's a good compromise.”

“
Yep,” I say,
“Oh! I'm curious. How's the strategizing coming along?”

“
It's alright,”
he says, “We haven't done much of anything. No decisions have
been made. All the meetings turn into a room full of men bickering
over god knows what.”

“
I'm sorry.”

“
Don't be. It's not
that bad. I'm just waiting until they start debating on whether or
not I have the authority to make any actual decisions.”

“
Why would they
question you?” I ask, “I told them your decisions are
mine, and for them to take them as such.”

“
Unfortunately,
just because you tell a bunch of men something doesn't necessarily
mean they'll listen.”

I burst out laughing at
the bit on knowledge Marius has given me.

“
Hey I have a
question,” I say after a moment of being able to breathe again.

“
Hmm.”

“
You speak a lot
differently than a lot of others do. Why is that?”

“
You mean I speak
more like you?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Well, it's
simple,” he says, “I've spent more years in the human
world than a lot of others. The only other who has spent as much time
would be Sahariel. Well, more recent years to be exact.”

“
He guarded my
mother in the human world, didn't he?”

“
Oh, he did, but he
didn't really socialize that much.”

“
And you did?”

He chuckles.

“
To an extent, yes.
I was at the stage in my life where I wanted to travel and go to
different places. So I did.”

“
I wish I could do
that. But I can't. I have too many things to take care of right now.”

“
Don't lose hope,”
Marius says, “once the war settles down you should be able to
do more.”

“
That's good. I'd
like to be able to do more than just paperwork, eat and sleep. All in
that order.”

I take a bite of my food
when I feel a presence to my left.

“
Your highness,”
a servant boy is standing next to me, nearly scaring the crap out of
me, “My lady wishes to know whether or not we are observing the
autumn festival during this time of war.”

I give myself a moment
before answering.

“
I don't see why
not.”

“
I shall inform my
lady,” the boy says and walks away just as quickly and quietly
as he had approached.

I run through numbers in
my head, counting the days of the week.

“
Shit,” I
mutter.

Marius raises an eyebrow
at me.

“
That particular
festival is next week,” I groan, “I don't suppose there's
a committee or something that normally does those things?”

“
Actually, I happen
to know one of the women who is on the committee. If you'd like, I
can pass along the information to her.”

“
That would be
awesome. Thank you!”

I fork another bite of
food into my mouth and look past my lashes at Marius, enjoying the
tingly feeling that's running down my spine. I swallow my food and
open my mouth to say something, but a tug stops me.

There's a tug on the
connection that I managed to ignore for the past month or so. A very
strong emotion that I can't quite understand. I sit up in my chair
and look around for the owner of the other end of the connection. I
twist in my seat looking around the room. Then I find him.

My eyes meet Sahariel's
over Marius' shoulder. I see the man I hadn't seen in over a month
and I don't know what to think of the expression on his face. Is he
angry? It's not quite anger. It's something else. But what?

I don't have time to
really think about it. After only a second or two, his face goes
completely blank and he walks away down the corridor and out of
sight.

Fingers snap in front of
my face, a hand waved.

“
Are you alright?”

I blink, “I'm
fine.”

“
Are you sure?”
Marius says, “You look like you've seen a ghost or something.”

More like a man I hadn't
seen in over a month and with whom I have an eerily strong connection
with. But I don't say that to him.

“
Yes, I'm fine.”

“
Are you sure?”
He looks concerned.

“
Yeah,” I say
into my food, “I'm fine.”

“
You've got to be
kidding me,” I stomp down the hall.

“
I'm terribly
sorry, your highness, but they were adamant that I get you.”

I sigh and look at the
girl who was walking slightly behind me, her legs moving fast in an
attempt to keep up with my strides. I have to give her credit though;
she is keeping up.

I barge into the war room
and almost immediately Marius sees
me.

“
My lady,”
Marius bows to me, a smile on his face.

“
Marius.”

Marius straightens from
his bow, his eyes dancing at some untold joke. The room is filled
with all of the other strategists, and despite having made Marius the
lead, for some reason no one is listening to him. Marius knows I
don't want to be here. That's why he's laughing at me. And that's why
I'm not.

“
Is there a reason
why I'm here?” I ask the room full of argumentative men.

They hesitate before
answering me. They feel that I'm angry. I'm keeping my powers in
check, but this isn't the first time this has happened. A few moments
pass before someone steps forward.

“
We needed your
council, your highness,” one of them finally says.

“
This is why I made
Marius lead,” I say, trying desperately not to facepalm, “I
trust him to make the right decisions on my behalf.”