Lottery King 7, page 5
“Yes, we are,” I said. “Thank you… were you, uh, one of…”
I hesitated for a second, and I tried to come up with the best way to ask if she was among Koschei’s hostages. Then I quickly scanned the tether of lifelines that was an ever-present mass in the back of my mind, and I found a fairly strong line that ran straight back to the cook.
“Have you been here long?” I finally asked.
“Some years,” the woman replied. “Perhaps… four? It is hard to keep track.”
“I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through,” I said. “Have you been seen by the haljita yet?”
“Da,” the woman said. “They say I must put on some weight before I can be freed.”
I nodded.
The woman was pretty thin, and there were hollows under her brown eyes that concerned me. She was nowhere near as sick as the fae and werewolf who’d been beyond saving, or even as frail as Lady Rain had been when we’d rescued her. But I would feel a lot better about freeing her after she gained some strength.
“Is there no one stronger who can do this work?” I asked in a soft voice.
“I like to work, your majesty,” the woman replied. “It keeps me focused, and it gives me purpose. Being able to cook for such a good king and his queens now brings me joy, too.”
I pressed my lips into a thin smile, and I knew what she meant about purpose. Sometimes that was the only light in a dark situation, and I wasn’t about to take that away from her.
“Please, sit.” She gestured to a rough table with several wooden stools around it.
She spoke in a motherly tone, and I felt like a well-cared for child as my wives and I sat down at the table. The brown-haired woman and another maid who looked a bit more well-fed placed several plates of food in front of us.
It was all delicious, with rich savory flavors. There was thick beef and vegetable stew, hearty brown bread that was still warm from the oven, roasted potatoes in some kind of creamy sauce, and slices of a salty meat option.
I had a spoonful of the stew, and then it hit me like a load of bricks.
“I don’t want to be a bother,” I said. “But do you have any vegetarian options?”
“Michael,” Poppy whispered, and she gave me a grateful smile. “It’s okay, you don’t–”
“Oh, da,” the woman said, and she walked away before Poppy could protest more. The woman came back a moment later with a loaded tray of roasted vegetables and a bowl of fresh fruit. “Is this good?”
“Oh,” Poppy hummed, and she smiled at the woman. “Thank you.”
“Do you eat the…” The woman’s eyebrows furrowed. “The soy-meat? What is it called?”
“Tofu?” Poppy asked. “Yes, I love it.”
“We will get some for you, your majesty,” the woman said.
Poppy smiled softly, and I had a feeling the kind woman’s pleasant demeanor had convinced my wife it wasn’t worth fighting over.
“Thank you,” Poppy said. “That’s very kind of you.”
We enjoyed our food, and after only a few bites of the thick stew, Dinah’s pallor disappeared, and her russet undertones returned. She ate every spoonful of stew, and then she wiped her bowl clean with the hearty brown bread.
Ivis, Helena, Nyxx, and I also enjoyed the beefy stew and salted meat, and Poppy cleared the full serving of vegetables from her plate. The kitchen woman served us some kind of lightly flavored cold tea, and I snickered at how much sugar Poppy spooned into the glass.
It was so wonderful to sit with five of my lovers, and I couldn’t help but daydream a little about what it would be like when Gemma joined us permanently. I considered telling my wives about that, and I decided to let it be a surprise for later on.
By the time we finished our food, I was feeling anxious to speak with the strange woman in the village. The feeling of her power was a constant presence in my mind that ran alongside the lifeline tethers like a current, and it seemed to pulse like it knew I was going to be in her proximity soon.
“So,” Helena breathed as the kitchen maid removed our plates. “Where can we be most helpful?”
“Yes,” Ivis agreed. “What can we do?”
“You can meet with the survivors,” I said. “Nyxx, will you show them around? Introduce them to the people. The ones we’ve freed and the ones who aren’t ready yet. Give them comfort where you can.”
“Oh, we can totally do that,” Poppy said with a grin. “We’ll be your own personal team of diplomatic and royal envoys.”
“Great.” I smiled. “Thank you.”
“Where are you going?” Dinah asked.
“I’ve got to meet with that woman again,” I said, and my eyebrows furrowed. “We need to know everything we can about her.”
“Good luck,” Helena said.
“Thanks,” I murmured as I stood from the table.
I walked around and gave each of my wives and Nyxx a kiss, and I gave the shadow nymph a quick squeeze on her shoulder.
“Keep them safe,” I said.
“You know I will,” Nyxx replied.
I took a deep breath, waved at my lovers and the kitchen staff, and then I headed out of the kitchen in the direction I thought the front doors were. I knew there would be shadow nymph guards following close behind me for safety and in case I got lost within the enormous fortress, but I managed to find my way outside without much trouble.
A deep shadowy form solidified beside me as I stepped out into the cold winter sunlight.
“Your majesty,” Zeek said.
His tone and posture told me he didn’t have anything to say, he was just letting me know he was here if I needed him.
“Stay in the shadows,” I said. “I don’t want her to be afraid. The full shadow nymph team is still on guard duty, I assume?”
“Yes, your majesty.” Zeek nodded, and he faded back into the shadows on the ground near my feet.
The dark, shapeless figure followed slyly behind me as I walked purposefully toward the small house that was in worse repair than the others in the small island village.
As if the too-thin blonde woman could sense me coming, she walked outside the house when I was about thirty yards away. She stopped just outside the exit of her house like she knew exactly how far she could go before my guards would have stopped her. She stood there and watched me approach with open curiosity in her golden eyes, and I mentally noted the dark shapes of my shadow nymphs that I’d come to be able to recognize.
It gave me a few dozen seconds to stare at her again, and I longed to give her a calorie-rich diet for the next several weeks to help fill out her willowy frame. The hollows of her cheeks were just a bit too sunken, and it gave her sharp cheekbones an eerie appearance. Her shoulders were dwarfed in the too-big shawl she had wrapped around herself, and her color was a bit too pale. I suspected she was lacking in iron, and I wondered how her cheeks might pink up with a more nutritious diet. Her long blonde hair was just as tangled as the first time I saw her, and she stroked a hand down the long tresses that hung over her shoulder as I approached.
“Hello,” I said, and I felt a bit awkward for a second. I hadn’t really needed to introduce myself in a pretty long time, and I felt out of practice. “My name is Michael.”
“You are the king,” the woman said in a pleasant and light Irish accent.
“Uh, yes, I am,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve been through a lot during your, uh, time here on this island, but I need to know whatever you can tell me about Koschei.”
The woman stared at me with wide open eyes, and the sunlight shone in the green flecks in her golden pupils. The colors of her eyes and the presence of her Irish accent made me think of shamrocks mixed into a bright field of daisies, and I tried to guess how old she was. She looked like she was in her late twenties, but that was based totally on human aging patterns. I knew she could be any age from twenty to several hundred years old.
“My name is Vallia,” the woman said, and she narrowed her eyes as she lifted her chin with interest.
A tiny flare of annoyance burned in my chest. That wasn’t what I’d asked, and I really needed to know anything this woman could tell me about Koschei. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of all the hell his other hostages had been through. There was no reason to think Vallia wasn’t terrified, and maybe starting with our names helped her to feel safe in telling me more, so I went with it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Vallia,” I said in as patient a voice as I could manage. “I’m sure this is hard for you, but it’s really very important. Can you tell me how long you’ve been here on the island? How long has Koschei used your power?”
“I don’t know,” Vallia said, and her eyes drifted away from my face in an unfocused way. She glanced behind me in opposite directions before she brought her gaze back to mine, and she tilted her head to the side. “Time is impossible.”
“Uh…” I breathed in utter confusion.
What did that even mean?
Chapter 3
Time was as real as anything, or at least humans and paranormals alike had agreed eons ago that time was real. The universe might not give a damn about how we sentient beings divided the passing of everything into incremental fragments called hours, days, and years, but that didn’t mean it was “impossible.”
I started to think Vallia might be just as touched in the head as Lady Rain had been when we’d rescued her.
After a deep breath, I pushed forward in a soft and unthreatening tone.
“What do you mean time is impossible?” I asked
“Koschei told me once that I was three thousand years old,” Vallia said, and she turned and started to walk along the front of her house. “I understand the number three thousand, and I know what a year is in a scientific use of measurement… but the two in combination make no sense to me.”
I barely heard anything she’d said after her statement of her supposed age. I tried to think of any reason why Koschei might have lied to her about being three thousand years old, but I couldn’t think of anything. What could he gain from telling her that if it wasn’t true?
“I cannot comprehend such a passage of time as you or others do,” Vallia continued as she inspected a loose nail at the corner of her door frame. She gestured at the nail as she turned back to face me. “I see that time affects things. Decay happens, people age, but I do not.”
“Well…” I breathed. “I mean… most paranormals don’t age the way I would expect them to–”
“Time moves forward,” Vallia said, and her tone was a bit more insistent. “And from what I have learned from others, it passes at a relatively steady pace, yes?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” I hummed. “Sometimes it feels like time goes faster when I’m having a good time. Boring things feel like the hours drag by…”
“It is not this way for me,” Vallia explained. “For me, time moves fast and slow all together. The days blend together in a meaningless passing of sunsets. The movement of the sun through the sky is the only way I can tell one day from the next. When was the last time we spoke, your majesty?”
“Yester– no,” I corrected myself. “It was two days ago.”
“For me it feels like moments ago,” Vallia said. “I have known many people in my life, and I can remember them all as if I had known them what you would call today. But I have been informed they died centuries ago. It is the passage of time for other people that gives me this information. Time feels… impossible to me. It is as if I live my entire life all at once in an instant that stretches on forever.”
My mouth fell open as I tried to wrap my head around what she was saying. I wondered if she could see the future, but I didn’t like the idea of asking. I recalled what the Goddess had once told me about the dangers of knowing the future, and it felt like a bad idea to ask Vallia now.
“I have lived in many places in the world,” Vallia continued. “I have seen how cities and people change, but it’s as if I stay the same no matter how much time passes.”
“Where were you born?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Vallia said with an apologetic look. “I have no memory of being a child. I have only ever been what you see before you now.”
“What can you tell me about your power?” I asked.
“Very little,” Vallia answered. “I do not have magic the way others do. I can’t fly or enchant things. I seem to have no practical magic of my own. I am only a source of power that others can tap into.”
My brain had turned into mush, and I felt like I was trying to decipher calculus in hieroglyphics. None of what she was saying made any sense, and I started to think someone might have fucked up her brain or memory somewhere along the way.
But I had an easy way to test that, and I took a deep breath before I reached out to touch her mind. I stretched slowly forward like I was testing the temperature of a stove, and I was prepared to snap my mind back if it was hot or dangerous.
I’d thought of her like a nuclear reactor before, but as I looked closer, I realized she was so much larger than that.
The presence of Vallia’s power glowed like a star right before me, and it felt like staring at the sun with my eyes closed. Even through the protective layer of my eyelids, the sun was blindingly and uncomfortably bright. Vallia’s mental presence was just as intense, but it wasn’t painful and it didn’t burn me.
I felt gingerly around the pulsing aura of her star-like mind, and I couldn’t sense a single trace of Rhaiden’s influence. There didn’t seem to be any immediate confusion or insanity to be found, and I couldn’t sense the lingering presence of another mind within her essence.
So, by all accounts, she wasn’t in need of recovery. She was just… elusive as all hell.
I decided there wasn’t any use in trying to gather information about her origins from her. I could set a research team on tracking her back through history if I wanted to know more about her. And none of that was especially crucial to the real problems we faced.
It was Koschei I needed information on. His life and actions were the more immediate issue.
“What can you tell me about Koschei?” I asked instead. “Did he have any distinct habits that you can think of? Did he ever tell you anything that seemed strange? Did he ever make any threats or speak about his friends or subordinates?”
“There was great movement on the island at points,” Vallia said. “People would come and go. They never spoke to me much. They simply stayed away as the people do now.”
Her green-flecked golden eyes moved around as she focused on things somewhere behind me, and I could almost feel the eyes of the other villagers on the back of my head as they stared at us.
“Why do people stay away from you?” I wondered.
“I don’t know,” Vallia said. “I think I make them uncomfortable, though I don’t try to.”
Her eyes became suddenly unfocused and dazed, and she turned back toward her house again like she was noticing the splinters in the door frame for the first time. She hummed as she reached out to touch them.
I half expected the wood to magically repair itself or implode or something, but the splintered wood remained exactly the same as she pulled her hand away.
I watched her as she sort of wandered back and forth in front of her little house, and I started to mentally lay out some plans for learning more about her.
Rune would be put in charge of this. It was too important a matter to go to anyone else, and I trusted him to sniff out all information about her like a bloodhound. He would have to delegate some of the other searches to other members of the team to focus on this, but I knew the golden-haired fae wouldn’t argue with me.
I would have him begin his search in Irish paranormals. Maybe there was something in the small country that would give us a direction based on her immense source of magic and apparent lack of practical skill. I decided it might be worth trying to interrogate Koschei as well.
The bastard hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with information, but maybe if we asked the right questions, we could get something that could point us in the right direction.
I wondered if there were any witches or clairvoyants or mind readers out there we could pull in, too. After all, I was the king. If I needed to hire someone with a unique set of skills, I would do exactly that.
My eyebrows furrowed, and I thought about how I hadn’t heard anything about anyone being able to read minds. I figured that was probably the kind of skill that would have been brought to my attention in the past if such a thing existed.
Maybe we could bring my deceit-tasting gnome chef, Gerald, out here to Russia to help us interrogate Koschei. He’d been incredibly useful in solving the first assassination attempt on my life and sussing out the lies from my twelve-times great-grandfather.
I sighed as my mind spun with questions, theories, and possibilities, and I realized Vallia was staring at me like she anticipated another question.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I have to go now. I have so much to do. Thank you for your time, and I assure you my staff will remain here on the island until every one of you and the other villagers are safe and ready to move on with your lives.”
I turned and left without another word, and I tried to organize my questions and search topics in my head as I walked back toward the castle.
There was so much to fucking do.
It definitely wasn’t always easy being the king.
Zeek materialized out of the shadows and hurried to open the front doors to the castle for me, and I didn’t even slow down as I speed-walked inside.
I hesitated for just a half second at the top of the stairs before Zeek silently started to lead me back toward Koschei’s rooms that had been converted into our base of operations.
“Thanks,” I muttered as we hurried down the halls.
We found Rune deep in the process of organizing teams, and I waited for a moment until he’d finished giving directions to a pair of shadow nymph guards. I walked over and stood in front of the huge display board, and I studied the files, photos, and notes while I waited.
