She stepped up to the door. Here was the moment of truth. Something told her that if this was a dream, she would wake as she stepped through the door. Dreams had a funny way of waking up at major transitions. If she made through to the other side, she might pinch herself just to make sure. If she felt pain and didn't shoot up out of bed, then she there was absolutely no question that she was in Tortall and this really wasn't a dream. It did her no good to look back as she stepped through the door. Looking back, she felt, would tell the gods she might regret what she was doing, and she didn't. She might miss things at some point but this also felt right and as the door disappeared behind her in the warm summer night of Tortall she felt a bubble of uncontrolled happiness rise up from her stomach. In any other situation she may have squealed with joy. But the need to remain quiet kept her held back enough to only let a wide grin appear on her face.
Her feet touched the stone floor and her eyes adjusted to the flickering torch lights lining the stone hallway. Turning, she saw the cosmos disappear behind her leaving only more corridor. She did not wake up. She gripped a bit of skin on the inside of her wrist and pinched until she felt pain; she did not wake up. She was in Tortall and this wasn't a dream. Reality dawned on her that this was real. She was utterly alone without a friend in a world she had only known through fictional books. She wondered for a moment if revealing what she knew about each person would be a benefit to her, if it would solidify her validity as the Godssent. The thought lasted only several seconds before she noted her own foolishness. Not everyone she would meet would have been mentioned in the books or even mentioned in detail, and sooner or later it would come back and bite her in the behind for not knowing as much about one person as another with no explanation she cared to give. No she had to keep that information to herself like a secret hidden dictionary.
Suddenly voices caught her attention, men's voices speaking in muted tones. Turning forward again and looking down the hall she saw brighter light spilling out from a cracked door. She took an easy guess that the voices were coming from there. Her skin prickled as she inched down the hall towards the door knowing she was about to make contact with her first Tortallans. She certainly didn't feel ready but at the same time it was silly to stand in the corridor not knowing what she should do. As she got closer to the door she started to make out the conversation and nearly blushed when she realized it was actually about her. She moved just a little closer to hear better.
"Shouldn't the Godssent have been here by now? The prophets spoke of their arrival over a week ago." A clear, deep, voice sounded anxious as it grumbled.
"Maybe we should scry for him?" A second man's voice pressed. "Alanna, Numair, or even you Jon. Maybe he's already in the city and no one knows him for what he is yet."
"We don't know what to look for. We don't even know what he looks like." The first voice said. There was a sigh and a long pause. Gwen felt the tiniest bit of sting to her pride that they seemed to believe the Godssent would be a man. "Are we prepared if he shows up? We need to make sure he knows he is welcome and honored."
"The Godssent will have a fine suite of rooms in the most secluded part of the palace, furnished with only the best. They will be showered in gifts from all of the noble houses. They will eat only the best foods and wear the finest clothing we can get." Another man's voice droned sounding far more bored and distracted than the first two voices.
"They will be have at least two members of the Own on hand at all times to do whatever they need done and to guard them from any threat." A fourth man with a pleasant soft voice added. She had a guess at the owner of that voice and inched a little closer to the door wanting to get a look at the famed Lord Raoul the Giantkiller. She had certainly always been a fan of him. She was almost to the door when something made her pause.
"Wait," a fifth voice with a slight lilt to it made the conversation stop. She heard the rustle of cloth and then a head poked out of the doorway and hazel eyes narrowed as they met hers. She caught herself thinking his nose seemed slightly too big for overly handsome but he was good looking. "Eavesdropping on a royal advisers meeting isn't good for your health lass." The man's voice was dangerously low and too quiet for the people inside to have heard. He stepped out into the hallway completely and closed the door to the meeting going on inside.
"I wouldn't be dropping eaves if the gods had dropped me outside like the doorway originally showed me." Gwen planted her hands on her hips and glared at the man. She admitted to herself that it was true. She wouldn't have been in the right place at the right time to hear such information if she had been dropped outside. It didn't matter that she had had to get closer to the door from where they had put her to actually listen in.
"The gods dropped you off," she felt the slightest annoyance that his comment sounded a bit like disbelief but then his eyes swept over her clothes and she knew she certainly wasn't wearing anything common for, well, anyone in their world. "The Godssent." He whispered the words as he eyes went wide. After another moment of staring at her, he shook his head and offered a hand to her and she took it, giving his large hand a firm squeeze.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? It's fairly late." Gwen thought over her response. She really wasn't all that hungry though she should have been. It had been nearly twelve hours her time since her last meal, in Tortall time it had been days if not weeks. She wasn't all that tired since the gods had stolen her from her sleep.
"Maybe something to drink?" She asked wondering where exactly that would go. She didn't drink tea and she didn't drink alcohol. That only left her fruit juice and water it seemed. She realized, dully, that he still held her hand.
"What's your name lass?" She was beyond a shadow of a doubt certain the man in front of her was none other than Baron George Cooper of Pirates Swoop, also known as the Whisper Man and the former Rogue. If he decided to like her, he would be an invaluable ally. If he didn't like her, she didn't stand much of a chance.
"Gwendolyn Jade Lumen, Gwen," she offered George a smile. He opened the door again and pulled her into the room. The room went suddenly silent as they entered and Gwen tried to keep her attention focused on George as many eyes turned to stare at her. If this was in fact a royal advisers meeting, then she was most likely in the presence of many very powerful people in this particular realm. She felt a blush rise up to her cheeks and she squashed it down hoping she looked serene if anything. She could feel many things in the room all at once: arrogance was most of it, but also fear, boredom, curiosity, and anger. She hoped she was imagining most of it but she knew she probably wasn't. She could feel emotions in the very air sometimes if they were felt strongly enough or if she really concentrated on someone.
"What's your drink of choice?" George asked as he set her down in an oversize arm-chair next to the fire.
"You wouldn't happen to have some juice about?" Her voice felt too soft and she felt afraid. If George didn't approve of her, he could have her poisoned on the floor in seconds.
"Certainly." He went over to a table against one wall and began the long process of getting her a cup and then pouring the drink seemingly as slow as he could. The rest of the people in the room kept watching her and Gwen resisted the urge to check her hair and smooth her clothing. George returned to her side and gave her the cup. He winked at her and she brought the cup to her lips to sip at the cold cider that swished around inside.
"Thank you." She kept her eyes lowered.
"It seems like we may have prepared for the wrong Godssent, Sire," George grinned addressing the rest of the room. "Miss Gwen here was left in the hallway by the gods just a few minutes ago." She heard an audible intake of breath go around the room. Certainly she didn't look like much. She was small boned leaving people to think her weak. She was young but she often looked younger, sometimes more than just a few years. At that exact moment she remembered getting ready for prom and getting her makeup done professionally. A woman passing the counter stopped to ask where she was going so dolled up. When she replied 'prom', the lady had only smiled at her and turned to her friend 'I thought she was twelve or thirteen,' she had said thinking that the subject of her conversation couldn't hear her. She had in fact been seventeen. At the time she had laughed it off. Now if they guessed her to be younger than eighteen they might be worried for their futures more so than they already were. Even if they guessed accurately at twenty-two she still was very young.
"Miss Gwen is the Godssent." She looked up from her cup to see a man in his mid-forties with black hair, bright blue eyes, and when she focused on him directly she felt a lot of arrogance radiating from him. His voice had been the first voice she had heard from the hallway. He also did not sound like he believed George's words. It put her on the defensive fairly quickly, and she felt a blush rise up to her cheeks that she could not push back down. She sipped at her cider to try to calm herself down.
"Yes, Miss Gwen is the Godssent." George assured everyone. When no one seemed to move for some time, a portly man with a full graying beard stood up and walked over to her and bowed.
"I am Sir Myles of Olau. Allow me to introduce you to the people in this room. The man you met in the hallway is Baron George Cooper of Pirate's Swoop. His wife and my adoptive daughter is Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau." He pointed to a red-headed woman with purple eyes. "King Jonathon of Conte, his son the Crowned Prince Roald of Conte, and Queen Thayet." He pointed out the royal family in the room, all seated together. "This is Sir Gareth of Naxen the Prime Minister. Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak, Knight Commander of King's Own." He pointed to the two largest men in the room. "Numair Salmalin," a long, thin man in his late thirties with black hair tied back and a very attentive look on his face. "And this is Duke Baird of Queenscove, he's the Chief Royal Healer. And this man is Lord Imrah of Legann."
She made sure to fix the faces with names she knew so well. Many of them looked how she imagined, but others caught her by surprise. She knew that Jonathon was supposed to be handsome but he looked somewhat creepy to her, but that could also have been an immediate dislike of his tone towards her. Sometimes that had a way of tainting someone's physical looks in her mind. Roald on the other hand looked very handsome and more filled out than she had originally thought and Thayet was indeed a very beautiful woman. Alanna was indeed short but Gwen knew that size didn't matter much. Myles looked like the absent minded but very happy college professor she always had felt he was. Duke Baird exuded a feeling of calmness that she was certain came from years of being a competent healer. Imrah looked tough but she also sensed a soft side he probably reserved for his family and close friends. Every single person in the room was someone mentioned in the books. She was actually well in the know when it came to royal advisers. But some were missing. She expected to see Buri, Daine, Princess Shinko, maybe a Minchi of some kind, and whoever the Lord Provost was at this time.
"Well we shall have to rethink how we had your suite designed then." Thayet acknowledged with a genuine smile plastered to her face. "Now is that outfit all you have? Let's take measurements tonight then. Roald? Be a dear and fetch my measuring cord and something to write down her measurements." Roald nodded and hurried out before Thayet could even blink after her sentence ended.
Gwen sat quiet uncomfortably for several very long minutes with everyone staring at her and the King himself somewhat glaring at her. His attitude irked her. Clearly he didn't like a young woman being the Godssent. Would it have been any different, she wondered, if she had been a man walking into this room. Would she have been celebrated rather than feel like she was on trial? She bit back comment after comment flipping through her mind, saved as Roald came back with a slate, chalk, and a length of knotted cord.
Thayet asked Gwen to stand, had her go into a smaller room and took measurements of her shoulders, bust, waist, hips, total height, length of her waist, length of legs, and then measured her feet. She wrote everything down but said little to the girl in front of her. Then they were back inside the main room and she was left sitting in front of the advisers again.
"We shall have to find you a guest room to sleep in for the night." The King said finally. It seemed like they had discussed her while she and Thayet had been out of the room. "Myles, will you take charge of her for now? Good. There is a lot of planning to, well, to redo." Jonathon stood and left the room and the others filtered out leaving Gwen alone with Myles.
"I don't like him," she hissed looking at the door when it clicked shut. She heard Myles chuckle next to her.
"I believe he could say the same about you right now. Though it has nothing to do with you. He just doesn't like being wrong and the women in his life won't let him forget this. Try not to take it too personally." He patted her arm. "Now, I'll only take a little bit more of your time. I'm sure you must be at least a little tired."