Kingdom's Queen

Act 2: 8

I pull the glove up my sleeve, trying to cover everything I can. I listened to a little bit of Daniel's story and now I'm paranoid that someone will try to look down my sleeve.

"Wow, I look so cool." Daniel flexes in the mirror, armor covering him well. "This is so cool, isn't it, sis?" I turn, smiling at him. He giggles as he picks up a sword, energetic like a dog would be. It's nice to see he'd be happy with this.

I'm still nervous about seeing everyone else. Why do they want me back so suddenly? Didn't everyone dislike me? I want to know what happened to change their minds.

I pull at my gloves, wanting to take them off, but pulling them up higher.

"You shouldn't wear the gloves." Daniel points to my arms. "It would be such a power move if you walked into their meeting and weren't wearing any gloves. OH, that would look SO COOL." He pretends to walk in, "Wow, he looks so cool." He whispers, mimicking cheering.

I tilt my head, giving him a look. "No."

"Alright." He shrugs, "Nevermind. But you look so cool in your dress. AH, I would be in love with you if I didn't love you like a sister already." He steps over and grabs the sheer covering over the dress. "Oh, we're going to be such great rulers, you know that? Do we get our own kingdom?!"

"Not until we meet with the others." I lean on Daniel while he plays with the sheer layer. "But they might not trust me still."

"Why care what they think? Take back your kingdom, my sister." He laughs.

"It doesn't work that way, it could spark war or conflict if I just take-"

Someone at the door gasps, dropping something. We look over and see Lucia and a tray with small snacks on the floor.

"DARLING?!"

...

"To be fair, I was hoping you were going to stay AWAY." Lucia waves her hands around. "I told you before that I had a plan and that you had gotten in the middle. I didn't mean to involve you, I think you're a great person, but YOU'RE. STILL. HERE. That's not my fault, Darling."

"YOU KILLED WINSTON, GAVE A LETTER TO MY MOTHER THAT CAUSED HER TO MELT MY ARM OFF, YOUR INFLUENCE HAD ME NEARLY EXECUTED," I yell in her face. I locked us both in the basement and kicked Daniel out. "I don't know what you were planning to do, but you threw me right in the middle and had me take all the blame."

"I needed a diversion so I could get into Moda's records. I wanted to know what they had on my family, what they had on who had me listed as their child if anyone at all." Lucia glares up at me, eyes focused on mine.

"What did you find?"

"No one had me listed as their child. I didn't exist in Moda's records. And I've already tried Belle's and Badinage, so I came here."

"How did you get into Belle's records? And Badinage?"

"I didn't have to. Turns out Belle didn't have records, they kept them with Badinage, and they had them public. All I had to do was walk into their records building." She sighs. "And there I found nothing..."

"One more question: Why did you choose me? If I was just caught in the middle, why involve me? Why not choose someone else, someone that has real influence?"

She shakes her head. "I hate royalty. They can get away with whatever they want and no one bats an eye, all because they have the ability to send anyone to their doom. Then you came along and gained favor with all the people of the Five Kingdoms. YOU had the real influence... They loved you, even if you might've not been the true princess. I knew if I made the others turn against you, people would be against it."

"You wanted a rebelion to distract from you... A riot would turn attention from you."

"The people with magic were their biggest problem. They were furious the QUEEN of the magic kingdom had used magic-detecting powder on her daughter. Then all the adults went missing and left teens to take care of the riots. I didn't think it would get so out of hand, I messed everyone up."

"What about Winston?" I turn away from her.

"... You two were clearly in love and people were so excited for you to get married, knowing it would allow magic into another kingdom. I kill him, get you executed... No more magic art kingdom. Not with Will thinking you were responsible." She stands up from the seat I placed her in and holds my shoulders. "I didn't mean to break you in the way I did. I had no idea it would go like that, or that your mother had that powder, Darling... You were fearless, but I messed that up and made you scared of everything."

"Lucia..."

"You know what I did find though?" She lets go of me and pulls a piece of paper from her pocket. "Magic keepers."

Magic keepers were a HUGE problem back when our parents were kids. People the old rulers had chosen to reduce the amount of people with magic. The only problem? They also used magic. So they had that name, keepers of magic. I assumed they had killed each other out of wanting to be the only magic beings. Not a lot of people know about them, I only knew about them from a book Daniel gave me.

"What about them?"

"Do you know who they are?" She leans into my face. I take a step back, worried about what she might say next. She opens the paper, placing it down on my hands. "The council? They are magic keepers."