Chapter 62: Episode 062: Iris’s Emotional War.
The morning sun crawled slowly through the cracks in the heavy wooden window shutters. Rue opened her eyes. The stone bedroom was quiet, but it felt entirely wrong. The space next to her on the thick furs was completely cold.
Caius had not come back. He was still at the royal palace dealing with the massive panic from the festival last night.
Rue sat up. She looked over at the ironwood crib in the corner of the room. Theron was already awake. The little boy was lying on his back, quietly chewing on his own toes. He was completely unbothered by the heavy tension in the world outside.
Rue got out of bed. She changed out of her pale pink dress from last night and put on a simple, comfortable gray tunic and soft pants. She walked over, picked up the baby, and carried him out into the small living room.
Knox was sitting right in the middle of the room.
The Panther King had pulled a heavy wooden chair directly in front of the locked front door. He was sitting with his massive legs spread wide. His heavy hunting blade was resting across his knees. He looked completely exhausted, but his yellow eyes were wide open and highly alert. He had clearly not slept a single minute.
"I am going to the palace," Rue stated flatly.
Knox immediately stood up. The wooden chair scraped loudly against the floorboards. He shook his head.
"No," Knox said. His deep voice left absolutely no room for arguing. "The snake gave me a direct order. The perimeter of this cabin is completely locked down. We stay inside this room until he comes back and says it is safe."
"Caius is a general, atleast he was..." Rue explained logically. "He is currently busy locking down borders, looking for assassins, and organizing guards. He is focused on military security. He is not checking on Iris. Iris is a kind soul, and to some extent I am worried and I need to see her."
"It is not safe out there," Knox argued. He crossed his thick arms over his chest. "The crowd from the festival is panicked. The roads are a mess. I am not letting you walk through the woods right now without me going with you."
"Knox."
But he didn’t budge.
Rue looked at the giant panther. She adjusted the baby on her hip, tilted her head, and looked directly into his eyes with a had stare and a small smile..
"I understand," Rue said. Her voice was very soft and entirely clinical. "You just want to see me safe. You want to stay here inside the cabin where it is warm and safe. That makes perfect sense for you."
Knox frowned. "I am protecting you."
"Of course," Rue continued smoothly. "I will simply go by myself. I will strap the baby to my chest and walk down the path alone. If I trip in the mud, or if a rogue beast attacks a small, defenseless female and a baby, you can stay here and tell Caius you were being a very good guard."
Knox’s jaw twitched.
He stared at her. His golden eyes went wide with horror. The mental image of her walking alone into a crowd with a baby was not something he wanted to live with.
"You... you would not actually do that," Knox muttered, taking a step forward.
"Watch me," Rue said. She took a step directly toward the door.
Knox groaned loudly. He dropped his head back and rubbed his face with his massive hands. "You are entirely unfair. You fight dirty. Fine. I will take you to the palace. But you will stay exactly one inch behind my back the entire time."
"That is a highly acceptable compromise," Rue agreed.
The walk to the royal palace was completely different from the night before. The Convergence valley looked like a ghost town.
The beautiful paper lanterns that had lit up the sky were torn and lying in the wet mud. The wooden merchant stalls were completely empty, left exactly as they were when the panic started. The bright, happy festival was completely dead. The heavy silence was very uncomfortable.
Knox walked in front of her. He was incredibly tense. His hand never left the hilt of his blade. He guided her safely through the empty market and up the large stone steps leading to the main palace doors.
The palace was heavily guarded. Vanguard soldiers in dark leather armor stood at every single door. They held heavy spears. They looked incredibly stressed. Caius was clearly running them ragged, even though this was no longer his job anymore.
Guess, a general will always be a general.
When the guards saw Rue, they immediately stepped aside. Nobody stopped the her, because they had already identified her.
Knox walked her all the way to the royal wing. He stopped outside the heavy oak door leading to Iris’s private chambers. He stood guard in the hallway while Rue knocked once and pushed the door open.
The room was massive. It had tall windows letting in bright, warm morning sunlight.
Iris was sitting right in the middle of a giant, soft bed. She was not sleeping. She was not crying in the dark.
Instead, Iris was completely surrounded by massive silver trays of food.
There was entirely too much food for one person. There were huge plates of roasted bird, five different kinds of thick bread, massive bowls of fresh red berries, and tall cups of sweet juice. It looked like a feast meant for ten people.
"Rue!" Iris shouted.
Her voice was incredibly loud. It was way too loud for a quiet morning. It echoed sharply off the stone walls.
Iris threw her hands up in the air. She gave a massive, completely chaotic, open-mouth smile. She looked exactly like her normal, loud self.
"You came to visit me!" Iris cheered loudly. "I was just about to send a messenger bird to your cabin! Come in! Look at all this food! I ordered the kitchens to send up everything they had."
Rue walked into the room. She did not smile back. She stopped right at the edge of the large bed.
"I am so embarrassed," Iris laughed loudly. She grabbed a handful of red berries and tossed them into her mouth. She chewed quickly, talking with her mouth full. "Can you believe I ruined the entire festival last night? I was so stupid. I just forgot to eat yesterday! I was so busy talking and playing with the baby, I forgot my own meals. Total low blood sugar. I got so dizzy and just blacked out. So silly!"
Iris let out another loud, ringing laugh.
Rue stared at her. She did not say a single word. She kept her face completely flat. She just narrowed her pink eyes a tiny fraction.
Rue’s brain automatically ran a clinical diagnostic on the girl sitting in front of her.
Rue looked at Iris’s hands. Iris was laughing, but her fingers were shaking violently. She reached for a wooden cup of juice, and her hand trembled so badly that she spilled bright red liquid all over the clean white bedsheets. Iris just laughed even louder and quickly scrubbed the stain with her sleeve.
Rue looked at Iris’s eyes. They were wide and bright, but the edges were completely red and heavily swollen. There were deep, dark purple circles under them.
Iris was faking it. She was putting on a massive, heavy, brightly colored mask. She was trying to hide the fact that she was completely breaking apart inside.
"Eat with me!" Iris insisted. She pushed a heavy plate of warm bread toward Rue with shaking hands. "I am absolutely starving. I feel perfectly fine now. You really don’t need to worry about me. You should probably go home, actually. Caius must be so stressed out with the guards. You should go make sure he is okay. Seriously, you can go."
Iris desperately wanted her to leave. She wanted to be left alone so she could drop the act.
Rue did not leave.
Rue looked around the large room. She saw a heavy wooden chair sitting near a writing desk in the corner.
She walked over to the chair. She grabbed the back of it and pulled it across the stone floor. The wooden legs made a loud, heavy scraping sound that completely cut through Iris’s forced laughter. Rue dragged the chair all the way over to the bed.
She set it down. She sat in the chair. She placed Theron carefully in her lap, supporting his head with her arm.
She crossed her legs. She looked directly at Iris.
"I am not leaving," Rue stated flatly.
Iris stopped smiling for one split second. A look of pure, raw panic flashed quickly in her dark eyes before she forced the bright, chaotic smile back onto her face.
"But Rue, really, I am fine," Iris argued. Her voice was starting to get a little thin and highly strained. "It was just a fainting spell. The royal healers checked me last night. I just need to eat some meat and get my strength back."
Rue did not argue back. She did not call Iris a liar. She did not ask Iris what she saw at the market. She did not push her to talk.
Rue simply sat there in total silence.
The minutes slowly ticked by. The room became very quiet.
Iris kept trying to eat for a few more minutes, trying her hardest to keep up the loud, happy act. She chewed her food quickly. She tried to make another joke about the clumsy bear-shifter.
But the silence in the room was entirely too heavy. Rue’s blank, unbothered, steady stare was completely impossible to fight against.
Slowly, the chaotic energy started to completely drain out of the Wolf Princess.
Iris put down a piece of half-eaten bread. Her shaking hands fell loosely into her lap. Her shoulders slumped forward, completely losing their rigid posture. The bright, fake smile finally melted completely off her face, leaving behind an expression of absolute, terrifying grief.
Iris stared down at her own empty hands. A single tear rolled down her pale cheek and dropped onto her lap.
She did not say a word. Rue did not ask any questions. They just sat together in the quiet room, letting the silence hold the weight of the panic.
Suddenly, the air right in front of Rue’s face warped.
A bright blue screen popped up into the air. It cast a faint blue glow against the wooden chair and the white bedsheets. The text was sharp and completely clear.
[Would you like to solve the emotional war inside Iris?]
Rue stared at the glowing blue screen for a long moment. She looked at the silently crying girl sitting on the bed. She looked back at the digital text hovering in the air. She knew this was going to cost her a lot of calories.
She let out a long, very tired sigh.
Rue raised her finger and tapped [Yes].
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