Chapter 56: A Queen’s Trepidation.

The corridors were emptier now. The light from the high windows had turned amber, and the Academy’s noise had gotten softer. My legs ached. They had been aching since I had stood after the forging. It was a different ache from the humming of the Ember Core, but no more pleasant. I adjusted my stride. It was a small adjustment. I did not limp. A Queen did not limp. I simply walked with marginally more deliberation than usual.

In my hands were two small pouches, each one heavy with raw meat. I held them carefully, the way one might hold something precious. They were not precious. They were sustenance for my familiar, and I was carrying them because the Hero- because I just wanted to carry them myself. “Will these be enough for her?” I asked.

Ash smiled beside. “More than enough for a few days. I’m fairly certain you just took all of the spare meat the mess hall had. You do remember that she’s still tiny, right?”

“It was not all of it. There was a portion they claimed was reserved for the morning. I allowed them to keep that.”

“How generous of you.”

The errand had been Ash’s idea, or rather, it had been Ash’s response to my idea, which had been to go directly to Sol and not stop for anything. The problem had occurred to me as we had left the Atelier. Sol’s food had been enough for a few hours. It was now well past a few hours. She would be hungry. She would be waiting. She would be hungry and waiting and I was not there.

Ash, who had somehow learned the secrets of navigating this Academy, had steered us to the mess hall. We had eaten. Sparsely. Then I had approached the broad woman behind the counter and demanded that she give me all of the raw meat they possessed.

The woman had thought I was joking. She had quickly realized that I was not. The woman had been about to refuse. Ash had stepped forward, leaned close, and whispered something to the cook that I did not catch. The woman’s expression had shifted. She had looked at Ash, then at me, then at Ash again. Then she had gone to the back and returned with two pouches of raw meat.

“What did you say to her?” I asked now, as we turned a corner. I had meant to ask it before, but it had taken some time to force the question out.

“I can’t tell you. Call it a Hero’s secret.” Ash said. There was a faint smirk on her face, visible from the corner of my eye. My retainer was growing bold.

“It must be a great secret indeed. I was sure she was about to say no.”

“It’s nothing so great as that.” Ash’s voice was light. “People just have a way of…talking to me and trusting me.”

I looked at her. I knew the shape of this now, for she did it so very often. She was being modest about something that did not warrant modesty. I had seen it everywhere.

In Hamel, she had become part of the village so surely one might think her born there. On the road, even some of the surly guards had spoken to her, though they never had a word for me. At this Academy, she seemed to leave an impression on everyone we met. I suspected the only reason she did not have her own court was because she did not desire one.

I nodded. “I suppose it is a valuable skill for my retainer to possess.” I paused. The next words sat heavier than they should have. “Especially given my own shortcomings in that area.”

Ash looked at me. “I’m surprised you can admit that. You really wouldn’t have been able to, once.”

We kept walking, and I did not answer her. My retainer really was growing bold.

We rounded the final corner. The Beast Hall’s entrance was ahead. We heard the sounds even from a distance. Nothing should have been able to leak out past those heavy doors.

There were grunts and sharp, agitated cries. I heard the scrape of claws on stone. My hands went still around the pouches. I looked at Ash. Ash looked at me. We ran.

The doors slammed open. My legs screamed. I did not care. The Requiem stirred beneath the bracer on my right arm and I let it rise because if anything in this hall had so much as ruffled a single feather on-

I stopped. Twelve feet ahead, in the open space between two rows of pens, Sol waddled back and forth. She took three steps to the left, paused, turned, and then took three steps to the right. She was pacing, and it was a Queen’s pacing. There could be no other word for it.

Her pillow sat abandoned several feet away. Around her, the Beast Hall had gone mad.

The horse-sized spider in the far corner pen had pressed itself flat against the back wall. All eight of its eyes were fixed on Sol, and not one of them blinked. The crystal serpent had coiled so tightly it was nearly a sphere. In the next pen, a reptilian creature I had no name for had retreated behind its water trough.

There were other reactions. The pair of mirroring foxes both leaned toward Sol, their translucent bodies overlapping at the edges where they met. Their heads were tilted in unison. A bird with trailing feathers perched at the front of its cage watching Sol with something that I could only call attention. The Inker was nowhere to be seen.

I crossed the distance. My legs ached as I knelt and the Ember Core ground beneath my ribs. Neither was enough to stop me. Sol’s back was to me. I leaned down until my face was level with the floor. “Hello,” I murmured.

Sol turned. Those round golden eyes found mine. They were very large for a creature her size. I had noticed them before, and I noticed them now. She regarded me for one full second. Then she chirped.

The sound was loud, louder than her size should have permitted. It rang off the stone walls and made the spider flinch in its pen. I had received many greetings in my time, both reverent and fearful. This was closer to an accusation. One that I deserved. “I apologize,” I said. “It seems I was away for too long.”

Sol chirped again, louder. Then again. Then again. Each one was more pointed than the last. Sol’s four wings flared wide as she chirped, and the effect was of something very small trying to be very large.

In my very long life, I had been dressed down like this only a few times. Most of them had been before I’d become Queen, back when I still had equals, and even the rare superior. After I had ascended, only the Gods themselves had tried, and I had broken two of them for their trouble. This was worse than all of them.

“I apologize,” I said again. I opened one of the pouches and held it so she could see inside. I had already bathed all the meat in the Cradle. Sol’s chirping paused. She regarded the offering. Her head tilted and she let out a single trill. I still felt the accusation, but it seemed she had spared my execution in favor of a warning. I would have to teach her manners, in time. For now, I would bear with this.

She hopped forward. I had expected her to lunge for the meat. She did not. She bypassed the pouch entirely, pressed her small body against my outstretched hand, and stayed there. Her feathers were impossibly soft against my palm. The gold ones caught the light, and the black ones swallowed.

I smiled. I could not have stopped it even had I tried, and I did not try. Ash was kneeling beside me now.

I remembered something. Edda, reaching toward Sol’s wing. The way Sol had permitted the touch when she had refused Ren’s. Edda had scratched beneath one of the black wings, and Sol had trilled.

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I reached, slowly, toward the nearest of Sol’s black wings. My fingers were uncertain. I had held this creature since before she was born, and yet I did not know how to do this.

I scratched beneath the wing. The motion was clumsy. Too firm, perhaps, or in the wrong direction. Sol shifted. I adjusted, and Sol let out a soft trill. She raised herself slightly, lifting the wing higher so I could reach better.

“See?” Ash said quietly. “She was fine.” I nodded. She was fine.

The Inker stepped in from somewhere around the back of the hall. Inker Hesta was wiping her hands on a thick cloth that was stained with things I wished not to know. She stopped when she saw us. The sigh that left her could have filled a sail. “Thank the Divine you’re back for your bird,” she said.

I rose and ignored the ache that came. “You were not at your post,” I said. “You left her unattended, for however short a time. What do you have to say for yourself?”

The Inker regarded me. “One of the beasts was having a fit,” she said. “Had to go and calm the thing down. It was having a fit because of your bird. Hit its head trying to back away in the pen too hard.”

“Away from Sol?” I pointed. Sol had currently folded herself on my right foot…so I could not raise my leg. I hadn’t even noticed her weight until I’d looked.

“They’ve all been at it, ever since you left her here this morning.” Hesta’s gaze swept the hall. “Strangest thing I’ve seen in twenty years. It doesn’t make any sense. She’s the size of a mouse. They act like she’s a dragon.”

“It makes perfect sense,” I said. “Even a beast can recognise royalty when it is plain enough.” Hesta stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Did you follow all of my standing instructions?” I asked. “To the letter?”

“I followed most of them Your Highness.” The words were respectful, but they certainly sounded like an insult. And why had she said them at all? I ignored them.

“Most,” I repeated.

“Most. You did give me one impossible one.” What was she talking about? Hesta’s gaze moved between Ash and me.

“Stop being vague,” I said.

The Inker sighed again. She moved to the pouch I had left that morning and picked out a strip of Cradle-infused meat. I was sure it would have been empty by now. She stepped towards me and leaned down.