Chapter 29 - Chapter 27: Ilana: The Disappearance of The Princess

Rowanda arrived in Ilana aboard the Yellow Rose expecting the kind of welcome she used to receive in the old days—cheers, drums, and the pride of a city greeting its favorite daughter.Instead, the harbor fell silent.No one shouted her name. No merchants called out greetings. Even Trader Theo, who usually had more words than fish in the sea, stood there speechless.Normally, a carriage from the palace would have been waiting for her at the docks.This time, there was none.A crowd gathered around the ship in uneasy silence. Then, from among the people, came Stan—wearing Rowanda's basilisk-skin cloak.Everyone else looked shocked.Stan looked terrified."What… how are you still alive?" he stammered.Behind him stood two men in black sheep cloaks, men who had once served under Rowanda. They stood like bodyguards now, hands near their swords.That was their mistake.Rowanda had fifteen elves behind her.Elves.In broad daylight.For fifty years they had hidden in the High Forests, wary of men and kings alike. But these ones had followed Rowanda back to Ilana after all she had done for their queen. She had promised them safety. In return, they gave her loyalty.And their arrows."It takes more than a knife in the back to kill me, Stan," Rowanda said as she walked toward him.Her hand settled on the hilt of her sword.Stan's men reached for theirs.A heartbeat later, both men had arrows through their eyes.Stan froze.Rowanda drew her blade and lifted it beneath his chin."Why did you do it, Stan?" she asked, her voice trembling.Anyone watching carefully would have guessed there had once been something between them.Stan's own voice shook too. "You lost your magic, Wanda! You failed! It was my time for quests now!"Rowanda scoffed."You could have left with the others who survived," she said. "But no. You had to betray me and grow rich off my sacrifices. You never had a backbone, Stan.""You can't kill me," Stan hissed. "Your brother won't let you."Rowanda smiled."Too late," she said, and thrust the point of her sword straight into his throat. "I've already killed you."Stan collapsed.Rowanda looked around at the crowd until her eyes landed on a black carriage."I assume that belonged to Stan?"No one dared answer, but many nodded."Well," she said, wiping her blade, "it belongs to me now."That same day, Rowanda stood in the palace before the Emperor.He was pacing.Obara sat quietly nearby, dipping biscuits in tea as though this were only a difficult afternoon and not a storm wearing human skin."I'm listening," the Emperor said sharply. "How are you alive? Stan swore he saw you die in the arena. And why do you have elves following you through my harbor like this is some old legend?"Rowanda sipped her tea."Haven't you guessed, brother?" she said lazily. "Stan lied. He betrayed me and stole the prize for himself. After that, we survived in Benevira as fugitives. We would have made it back sooner, but we took a little detour.""I want details," snapped the Emperor. "Not that mad little summary. Details, Rowanda."So she told him.She told him about Riverway, about cheating and being found out. About losing the cutter she had hidden. About running for her life as a fugitive. About the prince who forced them into a mad scheme involving his daughter and her lover. About following the elf queen back to Rovena. About the reward she received there.And eventually, inevitably, the Emperor asked the question he had been waiting to ask."So where is that scrawny blacksmith of yours?"Rowanda frowned. "What do you want with Leno?"The Emperor did not answer.Instead, he shouted, "Fetch Ashirai. At once!"Two servants hurried out and returned moments later with the princess.The moment Rowanda saw her, she nearly dropped her cup.Ashirai was heavily pregnant.Rowanda choked on her tea and coughed hard before finally finding her voice."She's pregnant? Ashirai, are you pregnant?""The huge stomach should be obvious," snapped the Emperor, though his own hands shook with anger."Who's the father?" Rowanda asked, setting her cup down carefully.The Emperor rolled his eyes. "Who do you think it is?"For a moment, Rowanda stared blankly.Then understanding struck.Her eyebrows shot up. "That's impossible. The last time they saw each other was over a year ago.""Yes," said the Emperor bitterly. "That is exactly what I said. But our sweet little princess has been sneaking out of the palace almost every day to meet that skinny blacksmith."Rowanda looked from him to Ashirai. "How did she get past the guards?""She used the same route you used when you were younger," said the Emperor. "The one you never showed me."Rowanda shrugged faintly. "I'm more surprised you let her keep the child.""Let her keep it?" the Emperor shouted, his face darkening. "Do you know how many concoctions I slipped into her drinks? How many herbs? How many medicines? The bastard simply refused to die!"This time, Rowanda did not choke.She just stared."You tried to kill the child?" she asked slowly. "And failed?""I was trying to save this family from disgrace!" the Emperor roared. "My only child. My heiress. Pregnant with some wandering blacksmith's bastard!"The elves in the room exchanged looks.One of them, a silver-haired elf woman with tattooed hands, stepped forward."If I may, your majesty," she said.The Emperor looked irritated. "Speak."The elf inclined her head slightly and studied Ashirai's belly from a distance, not with a physician's gaze but with something older."The child survived because it does not carry ordinary blood," she said.The room fell silent."What does that mean?" Rowanda asked.The elf looked to Rowanda first, not the Emperor."In the old forests," she said, "there were tales of sorcerer blood. Blood that resists poison. Blood that endures what should end life before it begins. We saw the signs when the queen's son was born. We saw lesser signs in other hidden lines. But this…"She looked at Ashirai's belly again."This child bears the blood of a sorcerer."The Emperor scoffed. "That filthy blacksmith is no sorcerer.""No," said the elf calmly. "He is something stranger."A second elf stepped forward, older than the first and far less patient."We examined the young blacksmith in Rovena," he said. "We found traces, but nothing clear. His bloodline concealed itself.""Concealed itself?" Rowanda asked.The old elf nodded. "Only the purest lines can do that. Blood so ancient and undiluted that it hides by instinct. It bends the signs around itself. That is why we could not fully identify what he was."The silver-haired elf continued, "But the child in the princess carries no such seal. No concealment. No sleeping chain over the blood. That is why the concoctions failed. They met sorcerer blood and could not overcome it."Ashirai looked up for the first time.Her lips trembled."Then my baby will live?" she whispered.No one answered immediately.Because at that very moment, Ashirai bent forward with a cry.Blood stained the floor beneath her.The midwives were summoned at once.Ashirai was carried to her chambers, leaving a thin trail of blood across the palace floor. The Emperor and Rowanda waited outside in dreadful silence while six midwives rushed in. Not long after, the Empress came running in her gown, hair loose, half-mad with fear."Where is my daughter?" she cried. "Where is my baby girl?"No one stopped her from entering.The Emperor, who had been raging moments ago, now looked like a man standing before an executioner.An hour passed.Then the chamber doors opened.A midwife stepped out, her robe stained with blood.The Emperor rushed toward her with tears already breaking free."Oh no," he wailed. "I killed my only child. What have I done?"The midwife blinked. "You misunderstand, your majesty. The princess lives. She is weak, but she will recover."The Emperor sagged with relief."Then… the baby?"The midwife hesitated.Before she could answer, every candle in the corridor flickered.The nearest elf stiffened.A strange silence descended.Then a voice entered Ashirai's mind.Not through ears.Not through air.Straight into her thoughts.Mother.Ashirai gasped from inside the room.Rowanda heard her cry out.The midwives shouted in alarm.Everyone rushed inside.Ashirai was pale with sweat, but alive.And in her arms lay a small child wrapped in blood-stained cloth.Its eyes were open.Far too alert.Far too aware.The child should have been crying.Instead, it was watching everyone in the room.Then the voice came again.Not from its mouth.From nowhere and everywhere at once.Do not let the emperor touch me.The Emperor stumbled back so violently he nearly fell.The Empress screamed.One midwife fainted on the spot.The child turned its eyes toward Rowanda.You are the aunt who survives.Rowanda's hand went to her sword by instinct.The silver-haired elf dropped to one knee, face pale with awe and fear."A speaking newborn…" she whispered. "No. Not speaking. Thought-casting."The old elf beside her looked stricken."Sorcerer mind," he said. "And something else."The child's gaze drifted upward, as if looking through everyone and beyond the roof.Then the voice came again, quieter, colder, older than any infant had a right to be.I know what I am.Ashirai started crying, not from fear now, but from the unbearable relief of hearing that voice and knowing her child still lived.The Emperor stared at the baby as if he wanted to order soldiers into the room and burn the world down with it."What is that thing?" he whispered.Ashirai clutched the child tighter. "My son."The baby's eyes shifted toward the Emperor.You tried to poison me.The room went still.The Emperor opened his mouth, then closed it.The child looked back at Ashirai.Do not cry, Mother. We must leave this place.Ashirai froze.The baby had gone still again, but his eyes remained open.Watching.Learning.Knowing.Later, after everyone had been forced out except Ashirai, the Empress, and two trusted midwives, the child spoke into Ashirai's thoughts once more.I was not sealed like my father.That line alone stole her breath.He carried the blood sleeping. I do not.I remember more than I should. I know enough to understand that if we remain here, they will either use me or kill me.Ashirai trembled as she held him.Who are you? she thought, not knowing whether it would work.Your son, came the answer.But also the child of hidden blood.He paused.And if you want to find Father one day, you must live long enough to follow him.That night, Ashirai did not sleep.Nor did she tell anyone what the child said.Over the next two weeks, she recovered in silence. She bathed. She ate. She dressed herself again. The whole palace believed grief had hollowed her out and left her quiet.They were wrong.She was listening.Learning.Planning.At night, when the lamps were low, the child spoke to her in silence no walls could overhear.He told her things no infant should know.That there was sorcerer blood in Leno.That Leno's mother had sealed his lineage, burying knowledge with it.That his own blood had no such seal.That vampire instinct and sorcerer memory could exist together, however unnaturally.That if Ashirai wanted to survive the forces hunting Leno, she could no longer remain merely a princess.You must become something else, he told her.A sorceress, if you wish to ever stand beside him again.Ashirai did not argue.She only asked, How do we leave?The child answered with terrible calm.By making them believe you left in madness.Two weeks after the birth, Ashirai rose from bed fully dressed, had a proper meal, and let the palace think she had finally accepted her fate.Late that night, she disappeared.But before she vanished, she burned Leno's armoury and his house.The palace believed it was grief.Rage.A princess driven out of her senses.It was neither.It was erasure.A final fire to turn memory into smoke, to make pursuit harder, to sever the trail they would expect her to follow.By dawn, Ashirai and her child were gone.No guards saw them leave.No servants heard the gates open.No horse was missing.Only ash remained where Leno's home had once stood.For six months, the Emperor searched for Ashirai.Then he gave up hope of finding her quickly and moved south to his far castle in Hekhenden, leaving Rowanda to govern Ilana in his absence.But Rowanda never forgot the look in that newborn's eyes.It was not the look of a helpless infant.It was the look of someone who had arrived with a purpose.