*Isla*
The content of the letter continues to play through my mind for the next several days as I try to concentrate on other matters.
More important matters.
Like… whether or not Maddox is going to go ahead and announce the baby’s existence to the world. I have only asked him once, though, and when he practically growled at me that he hadn’t made a decision yet, I knew I just needed to wait and let him tell me.
For the most part, the two of us have been getting together very well since the appointment with Mystica, so I don’t want to irritate him. He just doesn’t know how to speak to me sometimes.
I often wonder how Rebecca would’ve responded if he’d growled at her, but I probably don’t want to know. From what I know about his wife, she didn’t take shit from anyone, whereas, even my own mother will tell me I am often a doormat.
Wonder whose fault that is….
Other more important matters include trying to decide on a name for this little one. I would like to know what to call him. Maddox says it’s not important yet, and we should use our brain cells on something else. So I don’t bother him with it. But I do spend a great deal of time thinking about it. He probably needs a royal name, something from Maddox’s past, his long line of kings, or what-have-you.
I decide a good way to take my mind off the letter is to go to the library and look for information about previous kings that might come in handy when naming my son. I am showing a little more these days, so I always wear baggy clothing, just in case some of the other women who are living in the castle should come across me. They really don’t hang out in the same areas that I do since all of their rooms are on a different floor in a different wing, but sometimes I hear them outside of my window in the garden or traipsing through the hallways when I’m on my way somewhere, like Maddox’s room. They tend to hang out in gaggles, like a bunch of chirping geese. Goddess only knows what they would chirp out if they saw me.
I don’t plan on giving them that opportunity.
I sneak into the library while the girls are at lunch. They tend to eat together in one of the less formal dining rooms every day from around noon until at least 1:00, sometimes later, depending upon whether or not they have something to speak about.
Most of my information regarding their activities comes from Trinity. She’s done a fabulous job of making them think she’s one of them and still be friends with me. A lot of the girls don’t really trust her because they think she is the frontrunner in the contest, but then, Maddox spends only a little more time with her than he does the others—which is basically none. We do still eat together in the dining room in the evening, all of us, from time to time, but a lot of times I will excuse myself and not go at all.
Managing to get to the library is no problem. I do know that many of the other girls read, or pretend to, so I can’t spend too much time in here. If I can find a book or two about Maddox’s ancestry, I can take them back to my room and read them there.
The historical nonfiction section of the library is one of the larger areas, so it may take me a while to find what I’m looking for.
I peruse it slowly, checking the spines carefully to see if I can find a book that fits what I’m looking for. I don’t want to miss anything and have to go back over it again.
Lots of these books are old enough that their stitches are hand-sewn. They smell of leather and decaying wooden slivers. I look through them, deciding to take a few of them back to my room, and am about to leave when a book on a shelf adjacent to where I was searching sticks out to me.
It’s the color of the book that first attracts my attention. The cover is a bright ruby red on one side and emerald green on the other. For some reason, it’s pulled out slightly, as if it wants to be noticed. Or, I suppose, more logically, the last person who read it didn’t push it in all the way.
I can’t help but wander over to it, abandoning my other books on the top of a low bookshelf so that I have both hands to check this one out.
I’m not surprised to see the word Maatua in the title. It’s not written in the same language that I read, though, so I have no idea how I would have any idea what it says.
Still, I carry it back to the low bookshelf and rest it on top, opening it up and looking through the pages to see if anything jumps out.
I don’t have to look very far before I see something that I don’t have to be able to read the native language to understand.
It’s a map.
Flipping through the pages, I see that there are actually several maps in this book. Some of them are of the actual island itself, but this one is a map of the Sea of Moritzka. It’s not that large of a body of water, unlike some of the other oceans around us. I see my current location and trace a path to the port closest to Maatua. Port Westerly. I wonder if that’s the port my family used to come here or if they took a roundabout route.
A train travels from the village to Port Westerly twice a day. I know this from some of the trips I’ve made with Poppy to the village. She always points out the whistle of the train and how you can tell where it’s going depending upon the time of day.
Shaking my head to clear it, my eyes travel back over the map and land on the island of Rudak. It’s not that far from Maatua at all. I think, if the sea were calm, a person could make that voyage in a small boat. I wonder if that’s what Aunt Mary did to mail the letter.
Why am I thinking about the letter, or any of this, again?
I don’t know, but my eyes also fall on another large island across a wide expanse of sea from Maatua. KiloKilo, the island of magic, allegedly, where my aunt was originally from.
I don’t understand why she didn’t just go back. If there’s nothing in Maatua but a destroyed society and a few people living in the jungle, why not just go back to her home?
Was it because she was trying to get the treasure back to the people?
“Well, well, look what we have here. It’s the girl who thinks she’s better than all of us.”
My head shoots up to see a group of girls standing in the doorway, led by a girl with long, dark hair that falls past her waist, her hand on her hip, and a snarl on what would otherwise be a pretty face.
I snap the book closed and gather up the volumes I pulled from the shelf. “I was just leaving,” I tell them.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Another girl, a blonde with a hooked nose, steps in front of me. “We want to talk to you, weirdo.”
My eyes widen. Did she seriously just call me a name?
Six girls stand between me and the door. I can use the mind-link to call for help. Maddox is quite busy today, in meetings with Seth and the commanders, but he will send a guard to my aid or be himself in a second if I call out to him.
I don’t want to be that person, though, the one that screams for help every time anything goes wrong. I am a princess, after all. These girls don’t know that, but they should know better than to mess with me or anyone.
“What is it that you’d like to know?” I try being friendly, seeing if that makes a difference.
“How come you always get to sit next to the king at dinner?” the girl with the dark hair asks.
“Yeah! Are you fucking him?” another blonde behind her shouts at me.
My eyes widen. “I don’t see how any of this is any of your business.” I try to walk between them but one of the girls pushes me, hard, in the shoulder, and I have to take a few steps back.
The pain in my shoulder is real, and I immediately think of my baby. “What the hell!” I demand.
“What are you going to do? Call for help from the guards or some shit? We’re tired of you getting all of the attention. It isn’t fair!” the dark-haired girl in the front barks at me.
“If you have questions about who the king chooses to spend his time with, perhaps you should speak to him about it. You need to step aside right now and let me pass.” I speak with as much authority as I can muster under the circumstances. I am scared, but I can’t let them show it.
Maybe I should’ve called for help to begin with. Even if I just had Poppy come and help me, I think they would scatter. That girl is scary when she wants to be.
But my maid is on the upper floors helping to clean up after these women at the moment, so I don’t want to disturb her either.
Surely, these women will act civilized. They are the daughters of Alphas, after all.
The same Alphas that attacked the sitting king?
“You’re going to let us know what’s going on,” the original blonde says, stepping up to me so that her unattractive nose is almost touching mine. “We’re sick of this shit.”
“Besides,” another girl from the back says loudly, “you’re outnumbered six-to-one, and we hear you aren’t even old enough to shift. So what are you going to do against six wolves when there’s just one of you?”
I open my mouth to say something, though I’m not sure what it is I intend to say, except that Maddox is going to be pissed at all of them if they even consider shifting in his library, when another voice roars from behind them.
“Make that two against six, and I’m pretty sure we can take you!”
Looking past them, my eyes lock onto a friendly pair, and I feel much more confident than I did before.