(Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the setting)
Chapter Seven: When It Began
I decided to walk about the palace to see if I could hear anything of interest. Surely someone had to speak of the goings on while out and about. The maids usually did. But as I continued, I noticed how empty the palace was even with it full of knights, squires, pages, nobles, maids, and the like of them. It was as though everyone's personality was sucked out of them, leaving them empty and quiet.
"Aly?" a man's voice called. I spun around to see a man, aging like my parents, standing in the corridor with draping black robes. There were wrinkles marking his dark skin and gray streaking his long black hair. I gaped at the man. It had been far too long since I had last seen him. "Aly!" he exclaimed striding up to me with his extravagantly long legs.
This was my Uncle Numair.
"Uncle!" I said, astonished by his presence. "I hadn't expected you until late in the day. Alan said that you would be out most of the day." I leaned back to look into my uncle's black eyes.
"Did he?" Uncle looked displeased with what I had said. "Aly, do not listen to everything your brother tells you. He has a bad habit of lying. Something strange has been going on since Alan returned from the fief. His wife-to-be is also strange but kind, though I have my suspicions of the lady."
"I haven't heard that Alan had a fiancée," I said, feeling a little disappointed in my brother for not mentioning such a big thing. "Why didn't he tell me?" Uncle shrugged and sighed. "Tell me more about this woman."
"Why don't you go look at her yourself?" Uncle pushed me to the dinning hall where the nobles took their meals. I peeked in but there were too many faces, both familiar and unfamiliar. I couldn't tell who my brother's soon to be wife was. "Uncle, I don't know which one is her!" I whispered.
He chuckled. "Then a simple solution would be to go in and find Alan." He nudged me into the dinning hall. It was dark in the dinning hall for some strange reason. The windows were not covered and the sun was high, yet nothing was spilling into the castle.
A few people looked up at me with a stubborn look on their face. Alan waved, catching my attention. I strolled up to him, shoulders back and chin up. If I wanted to fit in, I needed to act like the nobles around me.
"Aly," he said, as he held onto a rather slender woman. "This is my fiancée. I wanted to surprise you." Her innocent face beamed up at me and I couldn't help but smile at her. Her green eyes glimmered from the unsteady candle light. Her delicate oval face held a fading bruise just along her well defined cheekbone. "Her name is Isabella."
"It's nice to meet you," I curtsied. "I'm Aly, as you heard." She nodded at me in reply. I watched as her eyes flicked to Alan as though asking permission to talk to me. "I just wanted to come and tell you that I'm all settled in. I'm going to go look for Aunt Daine." My brother bid me farewell and I took my leave. Uncle was waiting for me. "Warn me next time, will you?" I said to him.
"Next time," Uncle said. His eyes twinkled. "So, you want to see Daine?" I nodded. "Let me take you to her." He led me through a series of halls until we were finally to their dedicated room. Aunt Daine was sitting at a desk, reading a book about animals. "Love," Uncle said, calling her attention. "We have a visitor."
Aunt Daine turned around. "What- Aly!" She jumped out of her seat and hugged me tightly. There were speckles of age going across her features but they were only visible when one looked too closely. Uncle and her had a rather large age gap but that didn't matter to them. "We've missed you so much!"
"I miss you too!" I told her. I looked around noticing something was missing. "Where are your children?"
"They have chores to do," Aunt Daine said. "And they'd better be doing them." She gave her husband a dark look.
"They are, they are," Uncle said.
I didn't want to be in the middle of something that was going to possibly damage my mental processes so I stepped in before they could say another word. "What's going on here?"
"What do you mean?" Uncle asked.
"Everything about the palace is…wrong!" I exclaimed throwing up my arms. None of them said anything. They didn't need to. The look on their faces was clear, they didn't know. "No one knows what is going on?"
"No," Uncle said. "But we can tell you when it started."
"When?"
"It was just a week before Jonathan passed the crown to his son Roald," Uncle started. "The weather started acting weird; there were lightning bursts while the sun shone bright. The tide was high when it was supposed to be low. Then a one day sickness broke out, only affecting the children. The day that Roald was crowned King, everything went back to normal in a way. The children who were sick disappeared. One of them happened to be Roald's son." I listened intently to the story and wondered if those children I had been seeing in the alleys were perchance the children of the sickness. "Shinko was devastated that her son disappeared but she soon recovered when the man Nikolas came with your brother."
"I don't like that man," Aunt Daine supplied. "He looks at woman as if we are lower than him. His wife, Millie, is here too. She is a quiet little thing but I'm not surprised when Nikolas beats her." There was a hint of a wolfish growl in her voice.
"Since their arrival, everything has been turned around," Uncle Numair continued. "If you haven't noticed, life itself has left. The only people who aren't truly affected by it are mages or those with any sort of gift."
"Which explains why my family isn't affected," I said slowly. "Meaning, Alan shouldn't be affected." I contemplated a little. If Alan were truly behind the strange happenings then he must be acting at will. But why? Why would he do such a thing?
"This Nikolas," Aunt Daine said, "He is the one who convinced the King to consider war against the Copper Isles though Jonathan told him over and over that the Copper Isles wouldn't want war against Tortall – ever. Especially since you are their spymaster and you are important to a lot of people in this country."
"Apparently, not important enough for my godfather's son and my own twin brother," I said, feeling a bit angry. My fists clenched. "The worst part is, they know I'm the spymaster for Queen Dove."
"But they can't entirely arrest you until they have proof that you are spying," Uncle Numair said. "Or so they think that's how it's supposed to be." I blinked at him. There was something about his tone that made me not want to know what he meant, but again, curiosity was a strong force. "You'll understand later."
"Tell me more about what has been happening," I said. I wanted to make note of everything that I possibly can. "Where is this man Nikolas from anyway?"
"Nikolas is a mystery to us all," Aunt Daine said. "He has no trace of an accent and he doesn't have a specific ethnicity. We can't find out where he's from and Alan doesn't know either…either that or he won't tell us." She sighed, rubbing her delicate nose in frustration. "Alan is a bit softer on you than he will ever be with us. Even Raoul couldn't get anything out of him. Jonathan is getting frustrated with Roald because Roald won't speak to him about the 'important matters.' Queen Shinko is getting stressed out because Roald is pushing her out of his life…." Aunt Daine trailed off. "Something is wrong with the king."
"I can see that," I said shaking my head. "So I was called here to soften up my brother and try to convince him to tell me what he is doing to make our family miserable and how he is making Tortall fall?" I received a nod from the two of them. "My ma can soften Alan up just as well as I can."
Uncle shook his head at me. "After everything that has been happening. Everyone has been shunned. The only reason why we are still in the palace is because we were told to stand our post until you arrived." I raised my eyebrows. "Aly, we are going to be leaving here soon. So is Jonathan."
"You're leaving me alone here in his barbaric place?"
"Just be accepted here," Daine said, "And you'll find more information than you'll get from any of us. If you need us, we'll be here for the next three days, but other than that, we'll be living at the Pirate Swoop." I had a feeling that I was being dismissed. I nodded and spun on my heal. I had a lot to contemplate at the moment. I needed to organize my thoughts so I could possibly figure out what had been going on. I seemed to have difficulty keeping my mind in order since I arrived in Tortall. With a small goodbye, I went to my room.