Page 26 of Princess Takes Academy
Queen Shara’s house had always fascinated me. It looked like a gothic fairytale come to life, with all kinds of towers and interesting places to hide and explore. In the years since I’d visited, several new buildings had been added along the back. I wasn’t sure what the long building was used for. The other rough-looking building was rather out of place against the grandeur of her mansion. A three-sided shed that looked like a goat hut? It didn’t make sense.
Where were all her Blood? She’d already had twelve Blood as far as I remembered. She’d taken the Triskeles Triune, so surely that number had at least doubled or tripled. I’d heard Mama tease her about it years ago. I scanned the sky but didn’t see the dragon or Uncle Tlacel anywhere.
Surely they wouldn’t let us just walk into Queen Shara’s home without an escort. Granted, they knew us, and we weren’t a threat, but it seemed… odd.
Something brushed my hand with the faintest sense of fur. I glanced down and swore for a second that I could see a wolf. But it was gone before I could convince myself I wasn’t just jumpy with nerves.
As a child, I’d never stopped to think about how odd it must have been for visitors to just enter the back door of a queen’s house without even knocking. But that was exactly what I’d done for years, and Mama didn’t hesitate to open the door and walk inside Queen Shara’s house.
An older white-haired gentleman shut the oven door as we entered the kitchen. Winston—I didn’t know if that was his given name or surname—was the Isador butler and general go-to person, at least when it came to the workings of the household. My mouth watered at the scent of blueberry muffins. Cakes, cookies, and muffins had always been my weakness, especially Winston’s goodies. The man was supposedly human, but for his food to taste so good, I was sure some kind of magic had to be involved.
Winston wore a beautiful pin-striped pink dress shirt, a purple tie, and a frilly white apron over the top of it that made me smile despite my anxiety. “Good afternoon, ladies. Her Majesty awaits you in the library. I’ll follow you shortly with a tray of muffins and tea.”
“Thank you, Winston.” Mama kissed his cheek. “How’s she feeling?”
“A bit peckish today, but company will cheer her right up.”
The library? Really? I thought for sure she’d make me walk down a formal presentation hall. Or at least receive us in one of the more formal rooms. The Isador library was a wondrously dark, secret cave loaded with stacks of ancient books. Stacks—not shelves—because Carys and Mehen, the dragon, were always fighting over how the precious books should be ordered. Carys would pull all the books and start sorting them to suit her, and the dragon would sneak downstairs and mess them all up again.
I’d helped him as a child. It’d been great fun watching the older queen stomp around the room exclaiming about scaly cretins and grubby toddlers messing up her books.
As we walked down the hall, another thought occurred to me. I’d never heard of an Aima queen being sick. “Is Queen Shara ill? What does peckish even mean?”
Mama gave me a mysterious smile over her shoulder. “Peckish means hungry, and maybe grumpy at the same time. Hangry, I guess you’d say. Queen Shara has definitely been grumpy and hungry.”
Grumpy? Great. Just what I needed to hear. At this rate, I’d never be allowed to go join Keras.
Mama didn’t pause at the library door either. Evidently Queen Shara had told her to just come on inside. It still seemed so… informal. Granted, House Isador had never seemed too impressed with formalities when they’d visited us at Zaniyah, but for a Triune queen, I expected so much more glitz. At least a little bowing and scraping.
Okay, I had to admit that I was a little disappointed. I didn’t want to be bored out of my mind and put on display, but I’d expected at least a little ceremony and formality. This was my first official visit to a Triune queen to ask for her permission, and we were meeting her in a dingy library without any court procedures.
It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but I immediately felt the presence of several people near the door. I expected her Blood to stand guard, definitely, but it seemed odd that so many were crammed in here with her, rather than spread out keeping guard across the nest.
A low voice spoke softly, more of a rumble than speech, though I did make out a word here and there. It sounded French, but I wasn’t sure. Two wingback chairs were placed in front of the fireplace, still there as they’d been ten years ago. But they were both empty. A fire crackled on the hearth, completely out of place in the middle of summer, but the room didn’t feel hot or smell smoky. I’d have to get closer to be sure, but the fire didn’t seem to be releasing any heat into the room.
In fact, it was quite chilly in here, even with so many bodies packed inside.
“She dozed off,” one of the Blood whispered beside us. I didn’t immediately recognize which one by his voice. “Mehen’s been reading for hours.”
“The boring shit he reads would put anyone into a coma,” another man muttered beneath his breath.
“I’m awake.” Her sleepy voice came from a dark pile on the floor. “Someone help me up.”
The pile shifted as she sat up. She’d been sleeping. On the floor.
Correction. Not the floor. A pile of bodies. Everybody was here, on the floor, letting their queen sleep on them.
I was both horrified and secretly amused too. It was just the wonderful sort of rebellious thing I pictured Queen Shara doing when I was a child. She’d thumbed her nose at Marne Ceresa herself and did exactly as she pleased. So of course one of the most powerful queens in the world wouldn’t care about putting on some big performance of ritual and respect for visitors.
This was Shara Isador, exactly as she was. The same beautiful queen I’d idolized as a child. Years as a Triune queen hadn’t changed her. At all.
Well, her hair was longer than I remembered, falling down past her waist to mid-thigh. Instead of jeans and a sweater, she wore a long white T-shirt. It looked like one of the guys’ undershirts.
She was barefoot, didn’t wear make-up, and most certainly didn’t have her crown.
Yet I’d never seen a more queenly queen in my life.
My uncles rose up from the pile and took her hands, helping her to step over the other Blood who hadn’t moved from their positions on the floor. In the darkness, I couldn’t tell how many she had, if there were any new Blood that I didn’t know.
