Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 21 of 55

The King's words hung over the table. Elodi's mother had found her. Riders waited at the harbor, and they knew her name. She set down her fork. "If they knock, what will you tell them?" Queen Diana answered before the King could. She slammed her cup onto the table. "No. She is safe here." Her pale eyes fixed on Elodi. "We will tell them we have seen no girl new to our halls. We will even let them search the castle." Elodi's stomach dropped. "But I am here. They will find me." King Daeron laughed, low and easy. He turned his cup in his broad hand. "Bloomspire has many rooms these walls do not show. You will wait in one for a few hours. The riders will look, and they will leave with nothing." Elodi looked from the King to the Queen. Diana had welcomed her at the gates without a single question. The King had granted her sanctuary over supper. Now both offered her a place to hide from her own mother's men. She had run for weeks to reach this. She would not lose it at the door. "Show me," she said. Diana rose. She led Elodi down a corridor lined with pink blossoms spilling over stone. At the end she pressed a carved panel. A section of wall swung inward. Behind it lay a small room with a cushioned bench and a narrow window. The otter slipped in at Elodi's heels, its jeweled collar bright. "Stay quiet," Diana said. "Do not open this for anyone but me." She squeezed Elodi's hand once, then closed the wall. Elodi sat in the dark and listened. Time crawled. She heard boots in the corridors, far off. Voices rose and fell. Once, footsteps stopped just outside her wall. She held her breath and pressed a hand over the otter's back. The boots moved on. Hours passed. Her legs cramped. She counted the seams in the stone to keep steady. At last the panel swung open. Diana stood there, calm. "They have gone," the Queen said. "They searched every hall and found no princess. They will sail back and tell your mother you are not here." Elodi stepped out into the light. Her knees shook with relief. The riders were gone. For the first time since she fled, no one hunted her across these grounds. But a cold thought followed. The riders would return to her mother empty-handed. Queen Evangeline had crossed a sea of grief to keep her caged. She would not believe a lie for long. She would come herself. Elodi straightened. She had won this day inside these walls. Yet the walls were still walls, and hiding was only another kind of cage. To be truly free, she could not keep vanishing behind panels. She would have to face her mother, not flee her. "Thank you," she told Diana. "But I cannot hide forever."