Chapter 10: The Goddess’s Chosen
Jamie awoke to a bundle of fur snuggled against her neck.
It felt strangely comfortable, considering how much Jamie had hated being crowded while sleeping in her old life. Every time Ashley encroached on Jamie's side of the bed in her sleep, Jamie would nudge her back to her own side.
This felt different. With Ember, being this close somehow didn't feel nearly close enough.
Forty-eight hours with a bond had changed Jamie in ways she wasn't sure she fully understood yet. Ember wasn't just Jamie's Familiar; she was her lifeline.
Jamie's hand began gently rubbing Ember's head.
Ember, it's time to wake up, Jamie sent.
Ember groaned. Ten more minutes.
That made Jamie smile. Definitely my spirit animal.
Before waking up in this world, Jamie had always been hard-pressed to get out of bed in the morning, but right now she was filled with energy. She looked toward the curtains holding back the new day's morning light. They were doing a commendable job of it. The windows faced east, and the rising sun was making its presence felt even through the little light that managed to slip past them.
“Sorry, Ember, but I've got a feeling today is going to be a long one.”
Jamie thought about that statement for a moment before continuing.
“To be honest, I'm excited to discover what's waiting out there for us.”
Ember didn't so much respond with words as she did with a series of discontented noises.
Jamie laughed, which turned out to be the wrong move.
Her laughter must have alerted the maid waiting outside that Jamie was awake, because not more than two seconds later, a knock came at the door. It was followed almost immediately by Kendra, one of the Royal Sprite Maids, opening it before Jamie even had time to answer.
“Morning, Princess,” Kendra sang out.
“Good morning, Kendra,” Jamie responded warily.
After confirming that Jamie was indeed awake, the maid on duty called for backup.
“Ladies, she's awake,” Kendra said cheerfully.
Jamie heard them before she saw them.
They were coming, and by the sound of things, they were not playing around.
Jamie had a bad feeling the morning routine she'd used her entire past life had just been thrown out the window.
Just like a SWAT team, they came storming in with the intent of dominating the room. Some maids broke left, some broke right, but they all kept their targets in sight.
Oh... crap.
That had to be what the bad guys thought when they saw a SWAT team come flying into the room, and right now, Jamie understood the feeling.
She had just enough time to leap out of bed before they swarmed both her and Ember.
Still not fully alert, Ember ended up being the first casualty as four fairy maids swooped down on the Kitsune still lying in bed, grabbed her, and flew her across the room.
Jamie watched them carry Ember toward what she was beginning to suspect was now her corner of the bedroom. Everything the fairies needed to work their particular brand of magic seemed to have been gathered there, all apparently for the purpose of making Ember look her absolute best.
The giggles escaping the fairies' tiny lips told Jamie everything she needed to know.
A lot of fun was about to be had.
Just not by Jamie or Ember.
Jamie tried to move on her own. Tried to pretend it was her choice to walk toward the other side of the room, where a vanity had clearly been set up for her, but the five Sprite maids now surrounding her weren't having it.
Jamie wanted to think of what happened next as her being respectfully escorted to where they were going to get her ready for the day, but she knew better.
The maids were in charge, and Jamie was just along for the ride.
“Arms up, Princess,” Kendra instructed.
Jamie obediently raised both arms as one of the other Sprite maids pulled her nightgown up and over her head. Another was already waiting with a warm, damp cloth, while Kendra had somehow produced a brush and was studying Jamie's hair with the kind of concentration Jamie normally associated with someone trying to defuse a bomb.
Across the room, Ember wasn't faring any better.
The four Fairy maids had deposited her on a padded stool in front of a much smaller vanity. One was brushing out the fur along Ember's back while another worked carefully on her tails. A third hovered in front of her face, inspecting one of Ember's ears, while the fourth appeared to be sorting through a collection of tiny ribbons.
Ember looked toward Jamie.
Help me.
Jamie smiled.
“Sorry. I think things are out of my hands at this point.”
Ember's eyes narrowed. Traitor.
Jamie might have felt worse about abandoning her Familiar to her fate if another maid hadn't chosen that exact moment to begin vigorously brushing Jamie's hair.
“Ow.”
“Sorry, Princess.”
The brushing became marginally less aggressive.
Jamie sighed and surrendered herself to the process.
She watched in the mirror as her hair was transformed into something Jamie could only call miraculous. Her hair went from simply being a feature of her appearance to a crowning achievement.
Jamie let out a small gasp as she watched the maids work. Sections of her brown hair were separated and woven into intricate braids, the maids somehow incorporating the flowers that naturally grew there into the design rather than simply working around them. Before Jamie knew it, the braids had been arranged around her head in a way that made the flowers look almost like a crown. A few additional blossoms were carefully tucked into place to complete the effect.
As someone who loved a well-designed structure, Jamie had to admit that what the maids were doing was a work of art. She could see the thought that had gone into it—the balance, the symmetry, how each braid seemed to support the next while still making the whole thing look effortless.
“There is no way I'm ever going to show my hair this much attention,” Jamie commented.
“That's why we're here,” Nina said as she busily worked to brush out the last few wrinkles in the dress they intended to put Jamie in.
Jamie eyed the dress in Nina's hands.
It was green. Not the forest-green trim of her combat sundress, either, but a rich green that covered nearly the entire garment. Elaborate white embroidery traced along the edges and worked its way across the fabric in intricate patterns that Jamie couldn't begin to follow at a glance.
It was also considerably fancier than anything Jamie had ever imagined herself wearing.
Apparently, getting her hair done had only been the first half of this operation.
“Arms up again, Princess,” Nina instructed.
Jamie complied, and the maids went right back to work.
Getting into the dress turned out to be considerably more involved than putting on her enchanted sundress. Jamie had mostly figured out that one on her own. This one required assistance, with Nina and two of the other maids adjusting the fabric as they worked it into place and fastening things Jamie couldn't even see behind her.
When they were finally finished, Jamie turned toward the mirror.
For a moment, she just stared.
Between the elaborate green-and-white dress and what the maids had done with her hair, the person looking back at her didn't look like someone who had woken up beside a river two days ago.
She looked important.
Jamie wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.
Jamie was a wash-and-wear sort of guy...
Girl, Jamie corrected mentally.
If it ever took her longer than ten minutes to get ready on her own, she was going to lose her mind.
At least she couldn't complain about how she felt this morning. Yesterday had been another matter entirely.
What Jamie had intended to be a short nap after arriving at the Royal Manor sometime around noon had turned into nearly eight hours of sleep. She and Ember had finally crawled out of bed around eight that evening, both of them confused as to how they'd managed to sleep through most of the day.
They had eaten dinner—or breakfast, as Jamie had jokingly called it, considering they'd just woken up—and spent a little time exploring their rooms before Ember had started yawning again.
Jamie had made fun of her for it.
Then Jamie had yawned.
Less than an hour later, the two of them had been right back in this bed.
Apparently, spending a day and a half running around an alien world, fighting monsters, nearly getting eaten by Dire Rats, and generally refusing to stop moving caught up with you eventually.
Who knew?
Whatever sleep debt Jamie had accumulated, though, she seemed to have finally paid it. For the first time since waking up in Eldara, she didn't feel like she was running on adrenaline and stubbornness.
She felt good. Really good.
“Turn your head, please.”
Jamie did, and Kendra began double-checking the work they had done on Jamie's hair.
“So what's all this for?” Jamie asked. “Because this feels like a lot of effort for breakfast.”
“You're meeting with the Elders this morning,” Kendra said.
Jamie immediately became more interested.
“Lady Sylvara?”
“And the Council.”
“Oh, and don't forget Magic Mike will be there,” Nina added.
That got Jamie's full attention.
“Magic Mike?” Jamie asked. “Who's that?”
Kendra answered for the group while staring daggers at Nina.
“Mike, the Voice of the Goddess, will indeed be there. And never let him hear you call him Magic Mike,” Kendra warned, making sure to emphasize the word Magic as she spoke.
“He's a bit touchy about the nickname,” Yolanda agreed as she set out a pair of shoes for Jamie to wear. “That would be bad.”
“O—kay, I guess,” Jamie said, not quite sure what to think about this Mike guy.
Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, she decided.
Today was about getting some answers, and Jamie wasn't about to let some guy and his apparent dislike of a nickname get in the way of that.
Yesterday, Jamie had been too exhausted to press for answers. She'd barely been able to keep her thoughts straight by the time they'd reached the manor, and when food, a bath, and an actual bed had been offered instead, she'd surrendered without much of a fight.
Today she wanted to know why people kept calling her Princess. She wanted to know why an entire town seemed to have been waiting for her. She wanted to know what Nia had actually dropped her into.
Most of all, she wanted to know what came next.
Judging by what the maids were setting out on the vanity, makeup was next.
Honestly, that felt like overkill. Jamie already looked amazing, and she wasn't sure what else they could possibly do to improve things. But the maids had a job to do, and Jamie had already accepted that she wasn't the one in charge of this particular operation.
She decided to roll with it.
Jamie took a deep breath.
“Okay,” she said, sitting a little straighter. “Let's finish getting me looking my best.”
Kendra stopped what she was doing.
Jamie caught the Sprite's reflection in the vanity mirror and saw the tear that escaped her left eye.
“What? Did I say something wrong?”
Jamie realized it wasn't only Kendra who had stopped. All of the maids were looking at her.
“No, Princess. You didn't do anything wrong.” Kendra blinked and wiped the tear away. “It's just... we've been waiting so long for this.”
Her eyes returned to Jamie's reflection in the mirror.
“And now you're here,” Kendra whispered.
Across the room came a tiny sneeze followed by an explosion of Fairy giggles.
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Jamie turned her head just enough to see Ember sitting rigidly on her stool while one Fairy worked a small forest-green ribbon into the fur near the tip of each one of her tails.
Ember stared back at Jamie.
I hate this.
Jamie couldn't help smiling.
No, you don't, Jamie sent back. I can hear your thoughts, remember?
Ember's answer came immediately.
Upsetting.
“Jinnie, you know what would go really well with those ribbons?” Jamie asked the Fairy maid leading the Ember beautification team.
Jinnie looked over. “What, Princess?”
“A pretty collar to match them.”
“Oh, that would be—”
Jamie never got the chance to hear Jinnie's thoughts on the collar before a very stern warning came through the bond. Ember made it perfectly clear that if Jamie didn't want to wake up tomorrow morning with a chunk missing from her leg, she had better make very sure that did not happen.
Jamie considered the warning.
“On second thought, Jinnie, I do believe less is more.”
“Of course, Princess,” all four Fairies said at the same time, not bothering to hide their disappointment.
Finding out that breakfast was to be had at the Hall of the Elder Council and not at the Royal Manor of the Verdant Court—the manor's official name—had been a minor disappointment. Even though most of what she and Ember had done since arriving at the Verdant Court was catch up on sleep, Jamie found herself quite famished by the time the maids were done with her.
That was fine. She wasn't about to pass out because of low blood sugar. The food could wait.
What couldn't wait were her morning cups of coffee.
That had been one of the main reasons Jamie had been so eager to start the day. Two days in this world, and not one cup of coffee in all that time.
Sure, this was a new world, and sure, Jamie was in a new body, but the soul had needs, and one of Jamie's was coffee.
They better have coffee at that hall, she told herself. Or—or I don't know what, but it will be loud and overdramatic...
Not sure what coffee is, but I need something yummy, Ember sent. Those Fairies didn't even let me have a snack before they kicked us out the door.
There was a brief pause before Ember sent another thought as she sat on Jamie’s shoulder.
Are you not someone important here? Couldn't you have made them feed us first?
I don't think that's how things work, Jamie sent.
Jamie stopped walking once again to admire a particularly interesting building.
Not all of the structures in Glenhaven incorporated living trees into their designs. Most of them didn't, in fact, but they all somehow felt connected to the forest around them. This particular stone building reminded Jamie of a mountain cliff. Different sections rose and fell unevenly instead of forming the straight walls she was used to, and a cascading waterfall had been built directly into the structure, spilling over the stone before disappearing somewhere below.
It immediately drew Jamie's eye.
The Royal Manor was less than two miles from the Hall of the Elder Council, and even though Jamie had only covered about half that distance, she'd already stopped several times to admire one building or another.
The Royal Guards escorting her seemed to take the delays in stride. The eight guards continually arranged themselves in a loose protective bubble around Jamie and Ember. They did their best to make it look casual, breaking into two-person groups and holding conversations with one another while Jamie meandered along in the center, but anyone paying attention could see what they were actually doing.
If someone entered that bubble, they had better have a damned good reason.
This part of town appeared to be some kind of craftsman district, and Jamie took a moment to read the sign beside the entrance to the building.
THE COBBLERS' COLLECTIVE
Jamie really wanted to step inside.
If the outside looked this amazing, what did the inside look like?
One of the Sprite Warriors cleared her throat.
“Princess, I am very sorry, but the Elder Hall awaits,” Sergeant Astia said. “If you need new footwear, perhaps we can step inside on the way back after your meeting.”
Jamie's mood immediately brightened.
“We can check out some of these shops later?”
“Yes, Lady Dryad.” Astia glanced down at the clipboard she carried. “I've been given your schedule for today, and it very clearly states here that I am to, and I quote, ‘show you the town after your meeting with the Elders.’”
That was exciting news.
Jamie was no longer exhausted from her journey, and her head hadn't stopped moving since they'd stepped outside the Verdant Court. The place fascinated her. The buildings, the people, and the general feel of Glenhaven were all so alien to anything Jamie had known that she found it difficult not to stop whenever something caught her interest.
“That sounds like fun. I'm looking forward to it.”
Knowing she would have a chance to properly explore after the meeting made it considerably easier for Jamie to leave the Cobblers' Collective behind.
For now, it was probably best to hurry up and get this dang meeting over with.
Jamie hoped the Elders were finally going to answer most of her questions, but she figured it was probably best not to go into the meeting expecting them to.
Jamie's pace, now much quicker than it had been, suddenly jolted to an abrupt halt as an all-too-familiar smell hit her nostrils.
Like a dog catching the scent of something interesting, Jamie's nose immediately went searching for the source.
Her eyes stopped cold when she found it.
Just up ahead, in the direction they'd been walking, Jamie saw it. She didn't need to read the large wooden sign to know what it meant. The sign was beautifully crafted, with a large cup carved into its center and wavy lines rising vertically above it.
It was a café.
And judging by the long line of would-be patrons waiting for their turn, the place was rather popular.
Not missing a beat, the guards stopped just as they had the last seven or eight times Jamie had done this. Seeing where Jamie was looking, Sergeant Astia spoke up.
“Have you been to The Coffee Grounds before today, Lady Dryad?”
“No,” Jamie said, longing creeping into her voice. “Can we maybe stop here for a bit?”
“Sorry, Princess, but we still have that meeting.” Astia glanced at the clipboard in her hand and quickly wrote something down. “But I’ve added The Coffee Grounds to your to-do list.”
Jamie sighed before forcing her feet to move again.
She wasn't sure what all needed to happen in this all-too-important meeting, but it had better be fast.
With a clear goal in mind, Jamie marched double-quick toward the Elder Hall. With this new body, she made short work of the remaining journey, her eyes fixed firmly on the Hall now clearly visible in the distance.
A few minutes later, as they reached the doors, one of the guards stationed outside opened them barely fast enough to prevent Jamie from walking straight into one.
She was on a mission, and no would-be door was about to get in her way.
The dimmer light inside proved more of a challenge. Jamie slowed as she entered, giving her eyes a moment to adjust.
The sight that greeted her was not what she'd been expecting.
The Hall wasn't full of Elders this time. In fact, it was mostly empty except for four people standing near a long dining table that had been placed in the center of the Hall since her last visit.
The table was large enough to accommodate at least twenty people, so having only four people standing beside it made the Hall feel even emptier.
Jamie took a moment to cast Analyze on each of them.
Two gave Jamie the standard information she'd come to expect, but, to her surprise, the other two were different. Large portions of their Status Screens were hidden from her, showing nothing but question marks.
Analyze.
STATUS SCREENName: Lady SylvaraRace: Dryad (Elder)Sex: FemaleLv.: ??Class: Green Weaver / ElderAffinity Types: Life (Primary), Spirit, NatureWeapon Focus: ??
TITLES:
Greater Noble (+15 Charisma)
Keeper of Glenhaven (+5 Charisma)
Matron of Living Roots (+5 Spirit)
Elder of the Verdant Domain (+5 Intelligence)
Analyze.
STATUS SCREENName: MichaelRace: Gnome (Elder)Sex: MaleLv.: ??Class: Mind MageAffinity Types: Psychic (Primary), Spirit, UnnaturalWeapon Focus: ??
TITLES:
Voice of the Goddess. Nia (+5 Spirit)
Taker of Souls (+5 Willpower)
Ferryman of Souls (+5 Spirit)
Elder of the Northern Domain (+5 Charisma)
For as little information as Jamie had gotten from the two of them, Lady Sylvara's Status Screen seemed to fit what Jamie would expect from a Dryad Elder.
The Gnome was a whole other story.
The guy sounded creepy as hell, and Jamie very much hoped she never found him waiting for her in some dark alley.
Taker of Souls?
That just screamed Sith Lord to her.
Emperor Palpatine much?
Jamie studied the little Gnome more closely. It was almost comical to think of this guy as someone scary. And she did mean little, because his head was barely visible over the table.
Then again, it was kind of like being afraid of Chucky, the demon-possessed doll.
On the one hand, it was small...
On the other, holy heck, this thing could be hiding under your bed with a butcher knife and you would never even know it.
Jamie narrowed her eyes slightly.
I've got my eye on you.
“Princess Jamie. Thank you for coming,” Lady Sylvara said as she indicated where Jamie was expected to sit at the table.
“Thank you,” Jamie said as she walked over to the head of the table closest to the door.
She took another look around before settling into the chair. Everyone else still stood beside their places, apparently waiting for her to sit first.
I hope there isn't some sort of ceremony I'm skipping out on, Jamie sent to Ember.
Who cares? What I care about is where the food is, Ember sent back as she hopped off Jamie's shoulder and claimed a place of her own on the table beside Jamie.
Jamie had to shift a few times in the chair to get comfortable thanks to the overly elaborate dress she was currently wearing. Green with elaborate white embroidery, the dress was certainly doing its job of making Jamie look important.
She was still new to this whole wearing-dresses thing, but clearly not all dresses were made the same. Jamie couldn't help but wish for her original dress. As strange as it was, her combat sundress had quickly started to feel right.
This one made her feel like a fish out of water.
“Kenneth, would you be so kind as to have the morning meal brought out for us?” Lady Sylvara said over her left shoulder to an attendant Jamie hadn't even noticed until then.
“Right away, my Lady,” Kenneth said before hurrying toward a door that led somewhere deeper into the Hall.
The combination of Jamie sitting down and Lady Sylvara calling for the food seemed to be everyone else's cue to sit down as well.
Jamie had barely gotten comfortable before the door Kenneth had disappeared through opened again. He returned at the head of a small procession of attendants carrying trays, bowls, pitchers, and covered dishes.
The smell reached Jamie before the food did.
Fresh bread, roasted meat, something sweet she couldn't immediately identify, and enough other competing aromas to remind her stomach that dinner had been a very long time ago.
Ember's head came up.
Food.
Yes, Ember. I noticed.
The first dishes began appearing across the table. There were baskets of still-warm bread and small pastries, bowls of sliced fruit and berries, eggs prepared several different ways, thick slices of some kind of smoked meat, roasted potatoes seasoned with herbs, and several dishes Jamie couldn't immediately identify.
Jamie watched as one platter after another was set down.
Okay.
Maybe being a princess had some perks.
Ember apparently reached the same conclusion. She had gone from complaining about starvation to sitting perfectly upright beside Jamie, eyes tracking every plate that passed within range.
One of the attendants placed a smaller plate directly in front of her containing sliced meat, eggs, and several pieces of fruit.
Ember looked down at it.
Then up at the attendant.
I like this place.
Jamie smiled.
Amazing how quickly your opinion changed.
They have food. I like food.
Fair point.
Jamie was about to start filling her own plate when another scent reached her.
She froze. Everything else disappeared. Slowly, Jamie turned her head toward Kenneth as he approached carrying a silver tray. Sitting atop it was a ceramic pot accompanied by several cups.
Steam curled from the pot's spout.
Jamie knew that smell.
Coffee.
Actual, honest-to-goodness coffee. Her entire morning immediately improved.
Kenneth placed the tray within easy reach of Lady Sylvara, who reached for the pot.
“Princess?”
“Yes, please.”
“How do you take it?”
Jamie stared at her for half a second.
That was a much more complicated question than it had any right to be. She had no idea what they used for sugar here, whether they had cream, or whether either tasted remotely like what she was used to.
“Do you have cream and sugar?”
“Of course.”
“Then a little of both, please.”
Lady Sylvara prepared the cup and passed it down to her.
Jamie wrapped both hands around it and breathed in.
Two days. Two entire days. She took a cautious sip.
It wasn't exactly the same as the coffee back home. The flavor was a little different, richer in some ways and carrying an almost earthy undertone she wasn't used to.
Magic, she decided after a moment. The coffee was infused with magic.
Jamie took another sip.
She could work with this. She took a third, considerably larger one.
Oh, yes.
She could definitely work with this.
Is that the coffee? Ember asked.
Yep.
Is it yummy?
Jamie considered the question as she took another drink.
Very.
Ember leaned toward the cup and sniffed.
Her nose immediately wrinkled.
That smells terrible.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
It smells burned.
Jamie pulled the cup protectively closer.
More for me.
By then everyone had begun serving themselves, and Jamie finally turned her attention toward her own breakfast. She filled her plate with a little of almost everything she recognized and a couple of things she didn't, deciding that if she was going to live in another world, she might as well find out what people ate in it.
For the next several minutes, conversation around the table remained light as Jamie and Ember concentrated on the considerably more important business of eating.
Jamie quickly discovered she was far hungrier than she'd realized. Between bites, she sampled the unfamiliar dishes, mentally sorting them into things she would happily eat again and things she wasn't quite sure about yet. Ember had no such reservations. If something smelled good, she ate it, and when her own plate began running low, her attention increasingly shifted toward Jamie's.
Don't even think about it.
Think about what? Ember sent.
Jamie moved a piece of smoked meat farther from the edge of her plate.
Ember watched it move.
Jamie smiled and took another drink of coffee.
Whatever this meeting was about, whatever the Elders wanted from her, and whatever being a Princess in this world was actually going to mean, all of that could wait for a few more minutes.
Right now, Jamie had breakfast. More importantly, she had coffee.
After a while, Jamie decided she couldn't eat another bite. She leaned back in her chair and patted her stomach, feeling considerably better about the world than she had when she'd walked through the doors.
Over the course of the meal, Lady Sylvara had introduced everyone at the table, and the conversation had remained surprisingly casual. It had given Jamie a chance to put names to faces without having to remember them while someone explained whatever monumental thing was apparently happening to her life.
As the last of the meal wound down, attendants began moving quietly around the table, collecting empty dishes and carrying them away. Jamie held on to her coffee.
That wasn't going anywhere.
And thanks to Ember, neither were any of the leftover scraps.
The easy conversation gradually faded with the food. Jamie noticed the change almost immediately. People settled back into their chairs, attention slowly turning toward her until it became obvious that breakfast was over.
Now came the reason they were all here.
Lady Sylvara waited until the last attendant had left the table before looking toward Jamie.
“Well, now that everyone has been fed, I think this would be the right time to get down to business. Let's start this meeting with some good news,” Lady Sylvara suggested. “Michael, if you would, please.”
“Thank you, Lady Sylvara,” Mike said in a soft voice with an edge of gravel. He sounded like a friendly old man, but Jamie wasn't fooled by its disarming gentleness.
This guy was dangerous with a capital D.
Even though his chair had been built to accommodate someone of his stature, he still looked like a small child sitting with the grown-ups because there hadn't been enough room at the kids' table.
“I am pleased to report that Lady Akari's sister—your mother,” Mike clarified, looking toward Ember, “has been located safe and sound. She and your brother should be arriving in Glenhaven within the next few days.”
Jamie's attention immediately shifted to Ember.
That's great! And you have a brother. Did you know about that?
Ember remained quiet for a moment.
No. I don't remember having a brother.
Jamie's smile faded slightly.
“Ember just told me she doesn't remember having a brother.”
“Yes. This is an ailment that both of you share due to the traumas the two of you have suffered,” Lady Sylvara cut in.
Jamie looked toward her.
“I have it on good authority that, in time, both you, Princess, and you, Ember, will recover those memories.”
Sylvara's attention shifted toward the Kitsune sitting beside Jamie.
“What is important right now is that you do indeed have a brother, Ember, and you will be able to see both him and your mother soon.”
“You do not need to worry,” Mike chimed in. “Your family has been made aware of your current condition.”
Ember remained quiet, but Jamie could feel some of the tension through their bond begin to ease.
“Now, to the next bit of business,” Lady Sylvara continued. “Why you are here. Both of you, as it turns out.”
Jamie sat a little straighter.
“Jared, if you would.”
Lady Sylvara motioned toward a large book sitting on the table beside him.
Jared was Lady Sylvara's secretary and right-hand man. Like all of the other Sprites Jamie had met since arriving in Glenhaven, he had white hair. He was well dressed, but there was something about the way he carried himself that told Jamie he could probably defend himself just fine if the need ever arose.
Jared hopped down from his chair, collected the book Lady Sylvara had indicated, and carried it over before placing it on the table beside Jamie.
The thing landed with enough weight to make Jamie reconsider just how much she wanted answers.
“Inside that tome, you will find everything you need to know about this world's history, the Dryad Forest, and the Spirit-folk as a whole,” Lady Sylvara explained. “We'll be covering the high points today, but properly going through all the information contained in that book would make this meeting last for days, and I'm sure there are other things you would rather devote that time to.”
“So, you're giving me the CliffsNotes version?”
“For the most part, yes. However, we will be expecting you to spend as much time as possible reading the information contained in that tome when you can. Two or three hours before retiring to your bedchamber each evening should do nicely.”
Lady Sylvara made it sound like a suggestion. Jamie was fairly certain it wasn't.
“In a nutshell, the kingdoms of this world are led by descendants of the Gods. Any nation without a royal line is viewed by the other nations as illegitimate. The Dryad Forest's royal line was betrayed and murdered a little over one thousand years ago. We have been without one ever since.”
“Lady Akari should have been here to explain this part herself,” Sylvara continued, “but you know why she needed to leave.”
“What had been intended as a diplomatic summit to establish new treaties with the Chaos Lands to the east turned out to be a trap,” Mike explained. “We made the terrible mistake of sending the Queen and all three of her children to attend the summit.”
Mike's expression hardened.
“None of them survived.”
“Akari was serving as a scout at the time,” Mike continued. “Her duties kept her away from the summit, and because of that, she was not caught in the trap.”
“Yes,” Sylvara confirmed. “Without a royal line, other nations have not fully honored treaties and agreements that had stood for hundreds of years before the attack.”
“Our Goddess has seen fit to correct this injustice,” Mike said.
Jamie looked at him.
“She smited the perpetrators?”
“Sadly, no,” Mike replied. “The Gods of this world cannot intervene directly on this plane of existence.”
Jamie frowned slightly.
“They can only bestow a limited number of blessings upon their followers,” Mike continued. “Three followers, to be exact, and only one of those three may receive greater blessings.”
Mike turned his attention fully toward Jamie.
“Yes, Princess. That would be you.”
“You and I are currently the only two people in this world who have been blessed by the Goddess Nia,” Mike continued. “You carry her greater blessing. I carry one of her two lesser blessings.”
He paused.
“There is no third.”
“So... you're saying I'm—”
“Yes,” Lady Sylvara said. “All Spirit-folk see ourselves as Nia's children, but there is only one true descendant of Nia now.”
Jamie pointed at herself.
“Me?”
“You,” Mike and Sylvara agreed together.
“Wow.” Jamie sat back slightly. “That's... a lot.”
Mike and Sylvara both chuckled.
“We've only just begun to cover your role in all of this,” Lady Sylvara said sympathetically.