NELNIFA CORLEDIA has a weak voice. When outrage sparks because of her mistake, she diverts the attention to the real problem: the truth to why their territory is poor. This takes Nelnifa to fishing ports, weaving districts, and back to the very plac...
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2404 Rab 16, Kindreth
Loud clamors woke Nelnifa from her dreamless sleep. A groan escaped her lips as she pushed herself out of bed and crawled to the corner close to her window. All sleep left in her system evaporated when she registered what was going on.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people swarmed their front yard, faces contorted into angry scowls. They shouted in a language Nelnifa should have recognized as the Desaran dialect but garbled when they were uttered all at once. Nelnifa scratched her eyes, just to make sure she wasn't still sleeping and having a nightmare. The horde stayed. And they stayed angry.
What were they even angry about? Also, why take it to the Potentate's house and not the official manor? Were they so lazy to climb up a few more miles?
"Desara must be freed!" one voice shouted louder among others. Nelnifa froze on her way out of her bed. Her eyes landed on a sprite who wasn't quite an adult yet. His eyes held such blazing intensity, like he truly believed what he was saying. Gods of Calaris, this was bad.
Nelnifa tore her eyes away from her window and jumped off the bed. She closed the space to her door in two long strides. As soon as she opened the door, her father's face slid into view. "Father!" she blurted. Her hand clapped against her mouth, her eyes widening at the glowering frown in her father's face. "What's going on?" she dared to ask as he pulled her out of her room and shut the door. Even in the narrow hallway of their shack, the protests could still be heard, thundering through the patched walls.
"They're protesting for Desara's freedom from the Imperial influence," the Potentate said. "In front of our house. Do you have an idea why? This hasn't happened before. I've been getting ripple-calls the whole morning. The whole Court is looking for me and I can't even go out of the front door without being trampled."
Nelnifa walked away from him and stalked to the kitchen. On the dining table, their mother, apparently back from Aresving, cradled her brothers close to her, covering their ears with her hands and muttering soothing words. She flashed Nelnifa a stern look but didn't say anything. Nelnifa knew that look all too well. She had to fix this, somehow.
Because as the recent memories of what happened flooded back into her sleep-deprived mind, she felt like this was all her fault. Somehow, somewhere, the sentiment she blurted in front of the others in the Weaver's Circle made it to the rest of the water sprite population and now they were looking for their hero.
With shaking knees, she stumbled to the front door and threw it open. The people saw her otherwise disheveled state and erupted into cheers, the booming sound almost bursting her ears.
"The princess is here! We're marching to Lanteglos now!" the most prevalent voice yelled above all other cheers and shouts.
Nelnifa raised her arms in an attempt to quell the crowd. "Wait! Don't—"
Her voice was buried under more piles of shouts. Someone started whistling, setting Nelnifa's nerves on edge. She wanted to shout at them but she doubted her timid and weak voice would do any good. Then, the crowd began advancing towards her in a deranged craze. Her throat closed up. All she saw were shadows closing up on her, swallowing her until she was no more. The cheers turned into shrill screams of the damned, sending chills down her spine and locking her limbs in place. Her palms turned clammy, the air becoming harder and harder to breathe.
She stepped backward. The shadows followed. Against the morning sun, they looked like blobs of slime. She took another step. And another. The house's door frame went by over her head. Then, she was running. None of them followed her in but she couldn't stop the heartbeat pounding in her head, pumping air into it. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything besides plop against the patched wall and clutch her head in her hands.
"Nifa!" her father's voice brought her back partially. His face was just a mess of hazy blobs in her blurry eyes. She didn't even realize she was crying. "Are you alright?"
"I'm sorry, father," she wailed. "I did this and I don't know how to stop it. I'm sorry. Please make them stop. I didn't mean any of it."
Of course, that's what she said. Her father didn't appear to understand a thing she said with her blubbering like an intoxicated dagrine. Instead, he pressed a kiss on her scalp and nodded to somewhere behind Nelnifa before standing up and heading towards the door.
Her mother, with her brother's in tow, took Nelnifa in the hands and sat her down on the only couch they had in the shack. Varran and Dewyn looked at Nelnifa with questions in their eyes but she couldn't bring herself to speak or do anything other than sniffle and wipe the tears streaming endlessly from her eyes with the back of her hand.
She shouldn't have let her mouth loose yesterday. She's the Potentate's daughter, for Shirope's sake. Whatever she said would be taken by the people as the Corledia family's stance, especially in certain things like politics and governance. This was part of the deal when she first earned her title and her duty. How stupid could she have been?
Her father's turned back standing by the door frame, facing the cheering crowd, brought a fresh set of tears to her eyes. She couldn't even fix her own mess and insisted on having people fix it for her. How much of a disgrace could she be after this? Once Lanteglos hears of this, the Corledia family was done for.
Nelnifa closed her fists against each other, her knuckles turning white. Soon, the shouts died down, her father's voice rising above all the others. The words jumbled and didn't make sense to her but it seemed to pacify the crowd. What did her father say to control an unruly crowd that it would take her a whole lifetime to come up with? Would she ever be good enough for his job as his heir?
When the crowd had dissipated and quiet had once reigned over the forest, the Potentate retired to the couch the rest of the family were in. He rubbed his temples with his palms—a habit he had since Nelnifa was old enough to remember. Then, he looked at her mother and said, "The people are going to march to Lanteglos as soon as they mobilize enough forces."
Nelnifa felt like throwing up. How big was this mess she created? And what exactly had she done?
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