First Light (24 page)

“No,” I cried. “He can’t catch us.” But it was too late.

“Adrielle, wait.” The next second Cristian was running alongside me and pulling himself into the still-rolling wagon. Florence was nowhere to be found.

As soon as he’d landed on the seat, I guided the horses to a stop. There was no point in continuing now that Cristian had joined me.

“We— thought— the carriage— would be more comfortable,” he explained in gasping breaths.

“It would,” I said, staring straight ahead. “But not for those people we’ll be giving the food to.
They
would feel most
un
comfortable around something so regal. And they’d be less likely to accept our help.” I sat stiffly, unsure I’d be able to control my feelings if I allowed myself to look at him.

Cristian was silent for several seconds, save for his continued, labored breathing. “I never thought of that. Would it really make such a difference?”

“Yes,” I said. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t have expected
you
to know it.”

“Look at me, Adrielle,” he said quietly.

“Is that a command?” I asked, hating the bitterness in my voice.

“No. It’s a request from a friend.”

This I could not deny, though I knew that once I looked at him, my anger and resolve would likely lose their strength. Still, I turned toward him.

I was right. Cristian looked much as he had that first day I’d seen him in the kitchen. His shirt was untucked, his hair disheveled, and a streak of dirt— along with a nasty scratch— ran along his hairline.
This
was the Cristian I knew, the one who was my friend— the devil-may-care youth who did as he pleased. But because of that behavior, I reminded myself, I was hurting.

“There are two kinds of poor,” I explained, this time my voice without reprimand. “The first are those who brought the condition upon themselves through dishonest living— drinking, gambling, laziness. To be sure those people are out there, but truly, they are few.”

“And the second?” Cristian asked.

“Those that— through no fault of their own— find themselves in dire circumstances. Drought, sickness, wrong-doing of others— any number of tragic things may have happened to them, and despite their labors, they are unable to provide for their own basic needs or the needs of their families.”

I looked away, uncomfortable under his intense gaze. I didn’t want pity, and in fact I didn’t feel many regrets about the way I’d grown up. We’d had little, yet enough that we survived. “The first type of poor— those who truly might have better lives if they mended their ways— are always eager for assistance. They often feel it their due that those more fortunate than they help them. Many, in fact, turn to a life of thievery.”

“But the other kind of poor are different,” Cristian guessed.

I nodded. “We—
they
would prefer most anything to accepting charity. They may be poor, but they’re hard-working and proud.” I sat a little straighter in my seat. “It galls them greatly to be unable to provide for their own.” I glanced his direction. “Those are the type of people we’ll be seeing today. 'Tis only the awful drought, curse— whatever you want to call it— that has put them in this situation, and I’d bet they’re still striving to get out of it.”

Cristian leaned back against the seat. “And if I were to show up in our fancy carriage…”

“They’d want nothing to do with you,” I said. “Though there is the possibility a few might go the other way and be angry that the royal family has done virtually nothing to help.”

“I see,” Cristian said. “I have a lot to learn.”

“Told you,” Merry Anne’s sing-song voice whispered in my ear. I brushed my hand along the side of my face as if there was an insect hovering there. I felt something, but when I turned to look, there was nothing there.

“Will you come with us if we take the wagons?” Cristian asked.

I shrugged, though in my heart I already knew what my answer was. Merry Anne was right. I would not miss the chance at an entire day with Cristian— even if it was the last we spent together.

“You can ride with Henrie if you like. I think he’s coming now.” At the sound of a wagon approaching, Cristian looked over his shoulder. I turned in my seat and saw the second wagon heading toward us rapidly. Henrie held the reins, a terrified look on his face. Realizing he would hit us if we didn’t move, I picked up the straps and called out to the horses. They loped forward onto the road only a few seconds before the second wagon was upon us.

“Tell him to pull back and slow down,” I ordered Cristian. He yelled the instructions to Henrie, and a few seconds later, I could hear his wagon slowing.

“Hasn’t he ever driven before?” I asked.

“Guess not,” Cristian said. “We ride a lot, but driving…”

I gave a grunt of disgust. “Looks like I’m going then,” I said. “I can’t risk three weeks’ worth of work getting dumped on the side of the road.”

Cristian turned out to be a better driver than Henrie, for which I was grateful. Once we’d passed the guards and gate— without the help of the pearls, though I was fairly certain Florence had something to do with our ease in leaving— he asked to drive, and I let him. We pulled off the side of the road briefly, where I instructed both him and Henrie on the finer points of handling a team and controlling a wagon. After that, Henrie continued to struggle, but Cristian seemed to have a natural ability with the reins. Soon I was able to relax and enjoy being outside on such a beautiful fall day.

“Do you think we might continue our conversation from last night?” Cristian asked when some time had passed with only silence between us.

I knew he was referring to the way I’d run off after his shocking announcement about his impending marriage. “There’s nothing else to say. For either of us,” I added.

“I’d like to explain, to tell you how it is between us.”

I wasn’t sure which
us
he referred to— him and Cecilia, or him and me. With a little sigh to let him know I didn’t really want to hear but was fairly certain I would anyway, I said, “Go on.”

“I was two when Cecilia was born. Our parents arranged the betrothal, and my family and I came here to sign the contracts.”

“That was before Queen What’s-her-name interfered,” I said.

Cristian nodded. “Nadamaris, and yes. Only a few days after we left to return home, she and her son appeared, demanding their kingdom be the one joined to Canelia.”

“Would that have been so bad?” I asked, thinking that would nicely solve all of my problems if Cecilia was to marry into some other royal family.

“At one time, no,” Cristian said. “Nadamaris’s father was reputed to be a good and just man, as was his father before him. But the corruption started when Nadamaris was a young girl. The story goes that she had a twin sister, and they were very jealous of each other, always vying for their father’s attention.”

“How did that corrupt an entire kingdom?” I asked, thinking this wasn’t the turn I’d imagined his explanation to take.

“Well,” Cristian said, “according to my History of Politics tutors, the girls were always pulling stunts— using the magic that ran in their family— to outdo each other and gain their father’s approval. They knew that someday only one of them could be queen, and each dearly wanted the role for herself.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, turning to Cristian. “You mentioned magic. I thought you didn’t believe in such things.”

“I’m not sure what I believe,” Cristian said. Leaning back in the seat, he looked at me. “Though that was something how we got past the guards and through those gates this morning.” His brows rose, as if asking me to explain.

I shrugged. “Florence arranged it. That’s all I know.”

“And all I know is the story of Queen Nadamaris’s magic as it has been told to me.”

“What sort of magic did she and her sister do?” I asked, thinking of the coin pulled from my ear and other sorts of tricks my brothers used to perform.

“Harmless pranks, mostly, except for the spell that supposedly changed everything.” Cristian stopped talking a moment as he guided the team over a particularly rough patch of ground. “The name of Nadamaris’s kingdom is Baldwinidad— after a great warrior who fought there centuries ago. But Nadamaris and her twin, Naominclel, thought of the name differently. The last part they broke into
win-a-dad
, meaning to win their father over.”

“What about
bald
?” I asked, finding the story, to this point, rather silly and amusing.

“That is where it gets good.” Cristian winked at me as if he knew of my skepticism. “Naominclel convinced her sister that she’d come up with a spell that would catch her father’s attention and keep it forever. Every time he looked at her, Naominclel told Nadamaris, he would think of their kingdom’s name as being synonymous with Naominclel.”

Again Cristian grew silent, and I waited while he slowed the wagon as we went down a steep section of road. He handled the team with ease— unlike Henrie, behind us, who continued to struggle with his load. I couldn’t help but admire Cristian’s strength and skill, and I sighed inwardly, wishing with all my heart that I might see in him a spoiled and wimpy prince instead of the capable man I knew he was.

“Well?” I asked impatiently several seconds after the road had leveled out once more and Cristian remained silent.

“Well, what?” he asked, not quite able to hide his grin.

“You know what,” I said. “Tell me about Naominclel’s spell."

“It was more than a spell,” Cristian said. “She’d created a potion, one Nadamaris discovered would transform Naominclel’s appearance into that of the great warrior Baldwinidad whenever her father looked at her.”

I wrinkled my nose. “She wanted to look like some old dead guy?”

“An old dead
hero
,” Cristian corrected. “The very man whose strength and courage were responsible for founding the kingdom.”

“And in seeing this hero, naturally her father would bestow his power on Naominclel when the time came.”

“Yes,” Cristian said. “And there you have it.”

“No, I don’t.” I turned to him, irritation flashing in my eyes. “That
obviously
didn’t happen, because I’ve never heard of Naominclel until now. It’s always Nadamaris this, and Nadamaris that. She’s become the bane of my existence.” As I spoke the words, I realized how very true they were. If not for her, curse, sickness, famine, and drought would not be sweeping the land, and I might still have my family and home.

If not for the possibility of breaking that curse, Cristian would not feel so obligated in his betrothal to Cecilia, and our friendship might have had a chance to grow into something more. I at least needed to hear the entire history— or legend, if that’s all it was. Maybe then I could decipher if there really was magic about— both good and bad— and how it played into my life.

“Nadamaris snuck into Naominclel’s chamber, found the potion, and drank it,” Cristian said. “But it did not have the effect Naominclel had boasted of. Instead of transforming Nadamaris temporarily in her father’s presence, it transformed her
permanently
, in a most unusual and disfiguring way— removing all the hair on one half of her body.”

“Bald,” I said, linking the spell to the first of the kingdom’s name.

Cristian nodded. “Bald and hideous. Legend says the potion also cast an eerie sort of glow to Nadamaris’s skin, causing those in her presence to look away, repulsed.”

“And Naominclel?” I asked. “Was her father so angry with her that he gave Nadamaris the kingdom anyway?”

Cristian shook his head. “He never knew what she’d done. Nadamaris was in such a rage that she killed both her sister and her father the very night she drank the potion. The girls were barely nine years of age.”

“How is it exactly,” I began sometime later, when I’d absorbed the shock of hearing that a nine-year-old girl had murdered her family, “that your marriage to the princess is supposed to stop this evil woman?” I knew there must be more to the story, and I’d spent the past few minutes worrying over it. Aside from a marriage he didn’t want, what else lay in store for Cristian? If there was any truth to what he’d told me, I feared for his safety.