Natalia

Natalia’s stomach rumbled when the smell of bread, eggs, and roasted pig slices wafted to her nose. Her eyes squeezed shut and a reluctant groan emerged as though she were trying to scare her belly into silence. But it rumbled again, and she reluctantly threw the blankets off of her.

No sooner had she done that than a knock came from her door. Three sharp knocks, the time between each of them identical.

“My lady, your breakfast is ready,” said Mrs. Bartleby. “May I come in and help you don your morning attire?”

As if Mrs. Bartleby wouldn’t unlock her room with her jingling ring of keys if Natalia had refused.

She masked a groan behind a yawn, and leapt from bed. Across from the bed, pressed up against the door, stood a shelf. And atop that shelf sat the doll she’d bought the other day. Almost on instinct, her eyes found those jewel-toned ones. She pouted. How could Tsubame forget to visit? Well, it was Tsubame, but still! If her friend wasn’t going to visit her, then she would just have to visit her friend after breakfast.

But she still had to come up with a name for the doll. According to the seller, it’d been carved from wood of the Gangina tree. So maybe Gangina? Gangy? Gigi?

Another round of knocking interrupted her reverie, and she cast a look of sour deflation at the wooden door.

“My lady, your family is waiting.”

“Yes Mrs. Bartleby,” she called.

When she opened the door for the wrinkly handmaiden, her other hand held the doll that had yet to be named.

Mrs. Bartleby’s sunken eyes leapt down to it, faster than a hawk descending upon prey. Natalia’s hand clenched around the doll’s arm.

“The dining table is not a place of play, my lady,” she said.

“I want to bring it, please.”

Mrs. Bartleby’s head tilted down slightly to peer at Natalia more closely. The sun shone through the window curtains, illuminating her long, hooked nose in such a way that it resembled a dagger. But one made of stern maidservant, and not steel.

Natalia tried concealing a shiver. The woman before her, with those icy blue eyes staring out from a pair of hollow pits, seemed to stare through her skin, through the flesh beneath, and then the soul beneath even that.

Had her mother felt this way when Mrs. Bartleby had attended to her, like she attended to Natalia now? Maybe she was better off not knowing.

“Do as you like,” Mrs. Bartleby said.

“...yeah.”

“Ahem.”

“Err, yes Mrs. Bartleby,” she said, throwing off her slouch from her shoulders.

Her handmaiden proceeded to bathe the girl in her bathroom. She’d taken her bathroom for granted until she’d been allowed to spend the night at Tsubame’s. Two of Tsubame’s bathroom could fit inside just hers.

After Mrs. Bartleby had bathed and dried her, she dressed Natalia in a dark blue skirt and white blouse from her closet. Ribbons dangled from the sleeves, and the dark blue songbird carrying a silver key that was the family crest had been stitched at the center of the blouse.

When her socks and black shoes had been put on, she looked down at herself. This was all much too formal to be her morning garb.

Maybe her confusion at what the occasion might be showed on her face, as Mrs. Bartleby jerked her pointed chin toward the door.

“Your grandmother is entertaining guests for breakfast,” she said. “Jerimiah Goddard, one of the Hell Divers. So please be on your best behavior, my lady.”

Her tutor had mentioned the Empress’ Hell Divers before, people chosen to enact the will of the imperial family. The reverence with which he’d spoken at the mention of the title had caught her off guard at the time.

Mrs. Bartleby looked pointedly at the doll.

“Yes Mrs. Bartleby,” Natalia said.

After she’d been dressed, she reluctantly put the doll back on the table. She would just have to grab it on the way to visit Tsubame. Hopefully this wouldn’t take too long.

Natalia and Mrs. Bartleby left her bedroom, and went down the stairs. No sounds came from this floor; her mother, father, and grandmother must’ve all woken up earlier.

As they descended the polished stone flight, the handmaiden was never more than a step behind, her long arms ready to snake out like a pair Avali vipers should Natalia even begin to stumble. But rather than mouths, those snakes ended in talon-like fingers that could’ve belonged to a bard if they weren’t so pale.

Natalia shivered, and tried not to let any of this show on her face.

According to her grandmother’s stories, their ancestor had had the castle built in such a way that sound carried so that he would be able to hear servants conspiring to murder him. And while she wasn’t fond of thinking about that, it nevertheless came in handy as words from the dining hall drifted up to them.

“If you want all that food, you be the ones to ask around for it,” her grandmother said. “Buy it from the markets with all that coin you brought to sway me.”

Mrs. Bartleby’s mouth twisted into a frown at her grandmother’s usual incorrigible tone. It’d been carrying a rasp recently, and now was no exception. A coughing fit was soon to follow, and then the sound of water being quaffed down.

“I-I’m sorry for my mother,” Natalia’s father said. “Please pardon her, sir. She hasn’t been feeling well lately, and this might’ve soured her mood.”

“There’s been no harm done,” said the man she assumed to be Jerimiah.

His voice didn’t have the musical lilt that Tsubame and her family had when they talked, but it carried a kind of weight that reminded her of Kotori. “And I’ve heard of your malady, madam. I’ve even brought several healers from the Temple of Vildrave to attend to it. I’m sure you’re aware of how adept their curative spells are.”

Nobody spoke for a time.

“So that’s how it is,” her grandmother eventually huffed.

At first, Natalia hadn’t realized that her pace had slowed to a crawl. When she remembered herself, she tried to breathe as softly as possible. Eavesdropping happened all the time, so it’d be fine if she did it too.

“I see you catch on quickly,” Jeremiah said. “Truly, your wits are even sharper than I was led to believe.”

“Unfortunately for you,” Grandmother Corenlia said, chuckling. “But why don’t I propose a compromise?”

“What did you have in mind, madam?”

“Like I said before, just ask around town,” she said simply. “I won’t be the one to tell the people to part with their food stores a couple months before winter. Demon Lord’s general or no.”

“I ask that you reconsider, and offer your support in this endeavor, madam. It’s for the good of the realm, of all civilized society as we know it. Surely, you must understand how impactful slaying one of the Demon Lord’s generals would be, yes?”

“Then you can convince them of that much. Besides, why do you need to feed an army anyway? I hear rumors of that big, blustering hero you’ve got wandering about. Just have him deal with that general and whoever else they have with them.”

A long pause followed, and Natalia stopped on the steps.

But before the conversation could resume, Mrs. Bartleby noticed how Natalia had stopped to eavesdrop, and frowned. She cleared her throat loudly enough for those in the dining hall to hear, and all conversation ceased.

Natalia blushed and kept her head down as she descended the remaining steps.

Mrs. Bartleby went ahead of her and curtsied to the other members of her family.

“Pardon my lady’s lateness,” she said. “She will be coming shortly.”

Exactly three seconds later, Natalia followed after Mrs. Bartleby, and curtsied to everyone in the dining hall.

“Good morning,” she said.

The sheer size of the dining hall never failed to make her feel like a mouse. Blue and white paint covered the towering walls, and a mosaic depicting their crest: a pair of crossed blue wings draped across a downward pointed longsword, adorned the wall opposite the dining hall entrance.

At the center of this grand room sat the long, blackwood table. The family sat on the right of the table, and the guests sat on the left. Between them was a platter of the bread, eggs, and meat that had enticed her earlier. And continued to draw her in, as the aroma of breakfast wafted to her nose.

Her mouth nearly began to water, but she swallowed and kept her face proper before her eagerness could show. Or else her grandmother and father might scold her later.

Her grandmother sat at the head of this table. Her face and was about as wrinkled as Mrs. Bartleby’s, and rolls of skin hung loose from her stick-like arms. Her blue and white dress was more of a blanket around the woman’s tiny frame, swaddling her like a babe.

“Good morning Natalia,” she said, light wheezes accompanying her every breath.

Natalia’s father and mother sat on her right and left respectively, the latter somewhat rotund, and the former waifish, and a pinch to her cheeks. Maybe her mother was on another diet she didn’t really need.

“Did you sleep well?” her mother said. Her smile only highlighted the gauntness to her cheeks.

“I did, yes. Thank you mother.”

“And you must be Lady Natalia,” said the man seated at the tail end of the table.

The Hell Diver had a more muscular physique than she expected of someone in a political position, and his locks of sand-colored hair bobbed somewhat as he nodded to her. She could barely make out the color of his tunic beneath all the badges and medals pinned to it, and her eyes fell upon the one on his chest, just above his heart: a crown resting upon a ring of purple feathers: the symbol of the Meliodan crown.

Mrs. Bartleby brushed her side, and she wrenched her eyes from the sight.

Flanking the man were priests wearing grass green robes that draped over their hands. Depictions of red and white birds shone upon their chests. The masks they wore covered the lower halves of their faces, and an upward curving line resembling a smile had been drawn on the fabric. But their eyes were cold, and flicked to her grandmother with every labored breath she drew.

“Hello sir,” she said. “I appreciate the opportunity to meet someone of your standing.”

“And I appreciate the opportunity to meet the future of the Corenlia family,” he said. “May I ask how old you are now?”

“Eleven years old, sir.”

“I see.”

He looked back at their parents.

Her father fidgeted beneath his gaze, and her mother looked down at her lap.

“If this situation turns more favorable, I would be happy to reach out to some of my family about finding suitors for the young lady. Boys around her age, I assure you.”

Suitors? Marriage?

She recalled the stories of a heroic knight going through many trials for a princess, and wondered if she would find someone like that. But she knew better than to show any signs of distaste in public.

“I appreciate the offer, thank you sir,” she said, keeping her tone even like Mrs. Bartleby had taught her.

“We’ll consider it, thank you,” her grandmother said stiffly.

“Good. And I don’t mean to keep you from your meal, Natalia. Please eat.”

She sat down beside her mother and ate breakfast.

The talking turned to other topics, and things she didn’t really care much for. About the granaries to the south being overburdened.

And then things changed.

“And the livestock on the farms to the east aren’t mating or eating anymore. They just stare everyday at the pastures,” he said. “They don’t make a sound, even when hit.”

Natalia shuddered as her mind conjured up images of dozens of cows, chickens, and other animals, their eyes all glazed over.

He had to be exaggerating.

“Farmers are feeding them by hand as best they can. The Court Wizard Barthalmus is thinking about sending some casters out there specialized in Enchantment. If they’re not mating or eating, we’ll just have to make them.”

Natalia shivered, and rubbed her arms to push away the chill that coursed through her at the thought. It didn’t work.

Maybe her father noticed her discomfort, as he spoke up while adjusting his posture in his best attempt at appearing firm.

“I appreciate the conversation, sir, but would you please talk about something else?”

“My apologies. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. Then how about the east? Spies arrived back to the capital recently, and reported that the beastfolk tribes in the Shroudlands are uniting under one leader. And this was months ago, so who knows how mobilized they are now.”

“And those spies are fine with you telling us these things?” Grandmother Corenlia said, one of her bushy gray eyebrows rising.

“I’m sure there’s no harm. And I’m just informing you of what’s happening elsewhere so you can make an…informed decision,” Jeremiah said.

Her grandmother’s nostrils flared, and she turned toward Natalia and Mrs. Bartleby.

“Would you mind escorting Natalia to her room, Brenda? I believe she has lessons with a tutor soon.”

Mrs. Bartleby nodded, and motioned for Natalia to follow her out of the room.

“Goodbye mother, father, grandmother, Lord Jeremiah.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” the Hell Diver said, smiling at her. “I’m sure we’ll get to

know each other very well for the time that I’m here.”

Unsure of what to say to that, she nodded, and made her way out.

Mrs. Bartleby’s glance as they walked back up the stairs snuffed out any thoughts of

eavesdropping.

“My apologies for that,” Mrs. Bartleby said. “Lady Corenlia was thinking that this would

be a good opportunity for you to learn how to interact with people of higher stations. But it seems that things are a bit…complicated, right now. But nothing you need to worry about.”

“I…right,” she said. But how couldn’t she worry about things like beastfolk tribes uniting, or talk of one of the seven Demon Lord’s generals being out in the field?

In her room, Mrs. Bartleby helped her out of her attire and into a simpler tan tunic and trousers that she would wear when going out into town. Last came her shoes and the necklace father had bought for her. The small sapphire settled against her chest underneath the tunic.

She snatched her doll from where she’d left it, and Mrs. Bartleby escorted her through the castle toward the main entrance hall. The many servants going about cleaning and maintaining the rooms and corridors bowed and curtsied to the lady and her handmaiden on the way.

Natalia returned their gestures with nods.

“I will escort you to your friend’s home, and pick you up at precisely seven in the

evening,” Mrs. Bartleby said as they neared the entrance. “Will you be inviting your friend over for dinner or to stay the night?”

“I don’t think so,” Natalia said.

“Very well. Then I won’t make preparations,” she said, nodding.

Once outside, Mrs. Bartleby summoned the family carriage. After they’d gotten comfortable, the two of them were off to the town below.

“While manners are important, remember to not eat anything spoiled. And if you’re not sure if something is spoiled, I will fetch a tincture from the local chemist that will let you vomit it up.”

“Yes Mrs. Bartleby,” she said, vowing to not drink that tincture.

Mrs. Bartleby produced a bundle of tea leaves, their edges tinged a deep blue, from the pockets of her dress.

“And give Tsubame’s mother these when you see her.”

“What’re they?” Natalia said, putting them in the pocket of her trousers.

“Herbs that will help sleep,” she said. “When one doesn’t know the fate of their loved ones, their mind conjures things that eat away at rest.” After a moment, she added, “And if the woman would like someone else to talk about her fears with, I can try to make some time. Would you relay that to her?”

“Ah, I can, yeah. Err, yes!”

Now that she thought about it, maybe Tsubame hadn’t shown up because she was still worried about her father. How could Natalia think so poorly of her friend in her hour of need? She would have to apologize for thinking that Tsubame had forgotten.

Wait, this would mean that she would have to be nice to Kotori too.

“Urgh,” Natalia groaned at the thought. Maybe it’d help if she considered it like eating vegetables.

“Is something the matter, my lady?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, throwing away the vegetable idea. “Err, maybe we could invite Tsubame tonight after all? If her mother is fine with it?”

With any luck, Kotori would probably just stay inside and read books all day, and she and Tsubame could play.

“It’s important that a liege be committed to their decision, my lady,” Mrs. Bartleby said. “It’s fine to take back decisions now, but when you end up responsible for other people’s lives, retracting orders once others have begun acting on them isn’t so easily done.”

“Please Mrs. Bartleby?” she said. “I’ll be more careful about it in the future, I promise.”

“I suppose I can make arrangements when I get back to town,” she said.

Natalia beamed.

“Thank you Mrs. Bartleby!”

“You’re quite welcome.” A smile graced her handmaiden’s face, her eyes softening. “Your father was much the same at your age.”

Many passersby waved to the carriage as it went past.

As they made their way through the market, Natalia peeked out the window of the carriage in the hopes of spotting any strawberries. Only to find very few.

“Someone beat me to the strawberries, it looks like,” she grumbled.

“It seems like there are several handfuls of fruits and vegetables missing,” the handmaiden added.

A second glance found that to be the case; it didn’t seem like too much, but enough that it snagged her attention after that second glance.

Natalia recalled the conversation she’d eavesdropped on during breakfast.

“Do you think people are prepping for winter? Buying food for later, maybe?”

“They could be,” Mrs. Bartleby said. “It’s a bit early, but people tend to act prematurely in tenuous times. Looking out for them and theirs.”

“Hey Natalia, have fun with Tsubame!” Mrs. Rowena called from her stand. “Wish them well for me!”

“I will!” she called back.

The marketplace soon gave way to the rows of houses that had been the living space for the people in their dominion for decades upon decades.

They stopped by one of the homes that looked especially different—its walls reinforced with wood grown from magic, and the window boxes decorating the house bearing bright purple flowers with blue spots on the petals.

Natalia knocked on the door to the Hikou household, her doll in her free hand.

Mrs. Hikou answered the door, and even Natalia’s growing excitement didn’t stop her from seeing the gaunt sleeplessness in the woman’s eyes.

“A-Are you okay, Mrs. Hikou?”

“I…yes. Yes, I’m okay. Things have just been…complicated.”

There was a long pause, and then the faint sound of something shifting behind the woman from deeper within the house.

“I’m sorry about Mr. Hikou,” she said, and produced the tea leaves Mrs. Bartleby had given her. “Mrs. Bartleby said that if you ever want to talk, she can make time.”

“I-I see, thank you Natalia. You and her, and your family. I might take her up on that, we’ll see. Does she still come to evening readings at Marsha’s on Saturdays?”

“I think she does, yeah.”

“Good.”

After a long stretch, Natalia’s lips pressed together.

Normally Tsubame would come running at the sound of her voice. But today, nobody else was bothering to see who had answered the door, never mind realizing that it was her.

“Is Tsubame not feeling well?” she said. “I was hoping we could play a little.”

Mrs. Hikou’s nose wrinkled, and her eyes flicked upward to the floor above.

“I don’t know if that would be a good idea. But you did come all this way.” The woman spent a few moments deliberating while more shifting could be heard. “I suppose it can’t hurt. But before you go see her, we had…something of an accident last night. All the chickens are dead.”

“A-All of them? But how?”

A moment of silence passed, and Mrs. Hikou’s nose wrinkled, as though she’d just smelled something horrible.

“We…I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it was a sickness that took them. Maybe it was Kotori practicing some magic on them, and that was the result.”

Of course that stupid Kotori would try something like that. Didn’t she care about those poor things?

“I’m gonna go cheer her up right now!” she said, but her attempts to push past Mrs. Hikou were futile.

“And about Kotori,” she said. “She’s fallen into a deep sleep. She hasn’t woken up.”

“But it’s morning!” Natalia said.

“Yes, but we think it might be sickness. Don’t get too close to her, just in case. We’ve moved Tsubame to my room, just in case, but still.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have thought all that bad stuff about Kotori on the way here. She would just have to write an apology note and ask Tsubame to put it next to Kotori for the girl to wake up. But writing an apology to Kotori sounded like an awful way to spend her time.

“Okay, I won’t get too close,” she said, having no plans to visit Kotori in the first place.

“And one more thing,” Mrs. Hikou said.

It took every last bit of restraint to not start hopping from foot to foot as her patience wore thin.

“Yes?”

“A visitor came from…Dainai, last night. She doesn’t know our tongue, and nobody here speaks hers, as far as I know. And we don’t know anything about her family or the ship she came here on.”

“Ooh, like the doll!” she said, holding it up to Mrs. Hikou so she could see. “Maybe we can use that somehow? I can ask Grandmother, Mother, or Father for ideas, maybe?”

She seemed surprised, no doubt taken aback by the great idea.

“Oh! Err, you don’t have to go that far. I just don’t want you to be alarmed by another person living here, who won’t understand you, or you them.”

“Oh. Okay?” she said, slightly put out.

“But if you don’t mind my imposing, when you’re done playing, would you mind letting Mrs. Bartleby know that I might ask for her advice when I see her? It’s difficult for me to provide for three people. If my husband were here, we could get by. But he isn’t.”

“I’d be happy to do that,” she said.

Mrs. Hikou’s mouth broke into a relieved smile, and her shoulders relaxed.

“Thank you. Thank you very much, Natalia.”

Finally moving aside, she let the girl pass and enter the home.

And Natalia did so, and it didn’t take long for her to find the source of the shifting she’d heard: a little ways behind the door, sitting in the corner of the entrance in a chair, was the Dainain woman. Her hair was freshly washed, and their eyes met.

“Err…” Unsure of what to say given the language barrier, Natalia settled for a smile and a wave.

The woman waved back uncertainly, and pointed toward herself.

“Nia Kumar.”

Neither of those sounded Dainian, but she dismissed the thought for the time being. After all, Tsubame’s safety came first.

“Natalia,” she said, pointing to herself as well. Then she pointed up the stairs. “Tsubame.”

Nia’s eyes grew soft, and she hung her head as though in apology.

Natalia took the opportunity to bound up the stairs to Mrs. Hikou’s room.