Lips Like Ice

XXVIII

The scar-spell burns. Lydia bites hard on her own tongue to keep from screaming as the Prince carries her over the threshold of his apartments and into the hall. She literally cannot do it herself, and the Prince has no ability to lift the restrictions placed on her by the scar-spell himself, nor the time to wait for the Queen to come and do it for him. Assuming she is willing to remove the spell at all.

There is nobody in the hallway save the stream of servants carrying the Prince's things. No Elder Brother. No mother. Not even a nanny, or a tutor, or a beloved librarian. The Prince is being sent away, has been sold, and there's nobody there to say goodbye.

The sizzle-ache between her shoulder blades is matched somewhere under Lydia's rib cage. When the Prince said that Lydia was all he had in the world, he meant it.

They are being hustled along by the servants and though it leaves her writhing and grunting in agony, simply yanking Lydia across the magical barrier is the quickest and easiest option. All the way down the hall they go. Past rooms, and the feeling of unseen but nevertheless prying eyes Lydia cannot see through the tears in her own, cannot care about amid the pain. And the whole time, the Prince holds her against his side like a child, petting her hair and crooning soothing non-words into her ear. Eventually, he sets her down somewhere big, and open, and wide, and really quite cold.

There is something that looks like an icicle propped on its side before them, but it's huge, big enough to get into and... oh. It's a ship.

An ice elf in a uniform, something that looks like a kind of officer or captain, will not allow Lydia onto the strange, shard-like transport while she is loose. The Prince is ordered to shut her up in the basket or she will be left behind. And indignity of indignities, the Prince concedes. With no other choice available, Lydia sits down in the basket that rests on the seat next to his, and looks up at him as he fits the lid on over her head. She arches her eyebrow, makes her mouth into a moue of distaste, so he can see how very unimpressed she is with this whole arrangement. The Prince, the little bastard, looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh at her.

It's not too bad, more like a small covered bed with pillows. There's enough room for her to sit upright, if she wants, or to lay down curled up. There's a glass jar of water, and an apple-thing. But the look the transport officer gave her as she climbed in was as if she was some sort of scratching, hysterical cat, and not a reasoning creature.

The Prince does up the big black buckles that hold the lid in place, and sits back against the plush red velvet of the banquette seat. The interior of the carriage, what Lydia had seen of it before she was shut up, looks very much like something out of Jane Austen, all austere and carved wood and warm, overly embroidered fabrics. It is probably big enough to hold ten elf-aliens, but it is just the Prince, her, a bored looking nurse-guard thing with a naked sword slung across its lap, and the pilot over at the windshield and a bank of controls that remind her of something she'd seen in a classic sci-fi film.

Lydia wishes she could see where they are going, how they are getting there, what the propulsion is like. Are they leaving the planet? Are they just going through a wormhole, or underwater, or through the air, or over land? Beyond a small initial lurch to prove they are in motion, the whole carriage feels like they're completely still. She doesn't even know how long this will take.

So she asks, "How long will this take?" in a voice that's soft, low. Just for the Prince.

He leans against the lid of the basket, and Lydia lays down, curling into the pillows and peeking through a gap in the weaving. All she can see is his sash, right about where his hips would be.

"How is your hand?" the Prince asks in lieu of an answer. "I'll live."

The Prince chuckles, and the nurse-guard-thing makes a noise like it's surprised. Like the Prince has never laughed in front of it before. Thinking about it, Lydia supposes that the Prince probably hasn't. Lydia shifts in the pillows and feels the hard poke of the glass shard at her back. She could probably take it out of her waistband now, put it under the cushions where she couldn't accidentally hurt herself rolling over onto it, but she doesn't dare let it go. Not yet. Not until they are situated and... safe. Home again.