The Journey
POV: Lucien
I had dropped the date bomb on all the attendees to the retreat and the only one who didn’t seem surprised about that was Jess. She nodded at me and winked. That was likely her way of saying that she was happy I took her suggestion. I wanted to get a hold of how I felt about Alexandra and I thought a lot about what Jess had said about not being aware of my own feelings. She said this would help me to understand, if she was going on dates with the three other guys in our party. I held out my hand to Alexandra since she was the lone woman travelling in the carriage. I was obligated to have Blake in the first carriage and Alexandra could not go anywhere without one of her bodyguards. Since Jess had volunteered to sit in the second carriage, Derek would have to share with us. She shook her head at me, “I believe decorum is that you and Blake go first.” I sighed, “Remember what I said earlier about ranks? Ladies first. Right, Blake?” She looked over at Blake and he nodded, “Absolutely.” She walked over to me and took my hand; I could feel the electricity of her hand in mine. I looked up at the back of her head as she climbed up into the carriage and wondered if my body knew I loved her before my brain did. One thing was certain is that by the end of this trip, I would find out. I think most of what was going on was that my brain was putting up a barrier so that I wouldn’t be heart broken should the panel choose someone other than Alexandra. At this point in the competition, it didn’t appear that she would lose but who knew. They had several more events to see how the ladies would deal with being the Queen.
I had already been informed that the next event, with the help of the Seely realm, was how the ladies treated a foreign diplomat. They were all too eager to send someone to us with this purpose. Since the two realms were no longer at war, this decision would affect them too. In the Seely realm, the Queens were the ones to have discussions so my selection for Queen would affect peace in both realms. The women had all the power there and we had to concede to them this right since it was in the peace treaty. I had wondered what sort of diplomat that Queen Reine would send to us to represent them. The announcement would have gone out to each family on the next event while we are at the retreat so I will likely let the ladies know while we are out there so they aren’t blind sided coming back.
The rest of our party had climbed up into the carriage and we were on our way. Alexandra looked across at me, “So how long is this journey?” Blake chuckled, “The coachman driving this carriage has the ability to open portals so it won’t be a very long journey. He will place us near the retreat gates.” She sighed in relief, something told me that she wasn’t a huge fan of riding around in carriages. I asked, “Do you not like riding in a carriage?” She shook her head, “Lucien, I don’t know if you know much about Terre but they have cars and planes. I’m not a huge fan of planes but cars are much more comfortable than carriages. The seats and the bumping is hard on my rear end.” Blake sighed, “I’ve always wanted to ride in a car, I imagine they really are far more comfortable. I wonder if the humans would be willing to share how they do that with us once a deal is in place with them.” Alexandra looked over at him, “The problem is that cars are rather polluting so unless you want your air to be tainted, it’s probably best to avoid the use of them.” Blake chuckled, “Well I think Vellum’s brilliant minds could take the concept and make it clean. We have magic here whereas Terre doesn’t. I imagine we could have magic powered vehicles, maybe with built-in portal magic.” I laughed, “My brother was ever the dreamer always. I don’t think the magic portal system is a possibility since a witch or warlock would have to power it right?” Alexandra shrugged, “Maybe Vanessa could come up with something. She’s been able to work wonders, especially with Mordred’s help, on the magical tool for my uncle. By the way, Lucien, thank you for acting so quickly on my request for help.” I remember receiving her note and knowing that I couldn’t let her stay behind and I had doubted Talon wanted to hang out with a bunch of kids. I thought of how Vanessa would feel if we took her fiancé away from her again. I smiled at her, “It was nothing, I really only took as long as I did because I needed to look into why he was exiled.” She sat up straight, “What was it? No one I talked to seems to have known.”
I remembered looking through my father’s papers about the matter, there wasn’t a whole lot of detail. I sighed, “My father didn’t place too much detail into the exile order but it had something to do with insulting a noble so egregiously that my father was asked to send him away. Since this noble was seemingly very powerful, he had no choice. I was going to ask Elder Edgar about it since he signed for the Council but I didn’t have a chance since I was dealing with results for the competition that came in from Grand Pretre and the setting up the next event. I figured since it was something like murder or putting Vellum in danger, that it wasn’t something that I had to keep him away for.” Blake spoke, “What about the noble though? Aren’t you afraid of angering that powerful noble?” I shrugged, “I figure if the noble that was offended would eventually learn of the return of Mordred, I would hear about it. I also figure that Mordred wouldn’t try to re-enter Vellum if he knew that noble was still around. I just assumed that the one he offended was likely gone from this world.” Blake nodded, “Good point.”
Alexandra was rubbing her chin, “What I don’t get is he told me he was a grandfather to me. I have my Grandfather Darren and my mother’s dad died after Talon’s supposed death so how is that possible.” Derek patted my shoulder, “You don’t have to be related by blood. In Vellum certain families create a blood pact that basically imprints a person into their family.” Blake laughed, “The lycan speaks of imprint but in pyrios it is called sangre.” Alexandra nodded, “So it’s like a form of adoption.” I smiled at her, “Exactly what it is. House Batiste has long line of sangres in their family and more recent ones were Whisperia, Mordred and Vanessa. Darren has always had a soft spot for what he would call wandering souls with no families of their own. I know for a fact that Darren’s father developed a sangre with Whisperia and Mordred and declared them his children. Unfortunately, despite the sangre with Mordred, it wasn’t enough to save him from being banished. House Batiste is probably the most powerful house in Vellum other than Doré but he had to have angered someone more powerful. It’s the only way my father would ever offend his friend like that.” She frowned, “I wonder who the jerk was that split the family apart then. I wish I could have a few choice words with them, maybe even a strongly worded right hook.” Derek laughed hard, “I would love to see that!” She pouted, “Hey man, you mess with my family I have no mercy. Keep that in mind puppy boy.” This sentence caused Blake to laugh so hard that he grabbed his side and winced.
I grumbled, “Brother, you need to relax. You’ll pop at stitch and have to go to the retreat’s doctor right away.” He shrugged, “I couldn’t help myself when Alexandra called the meathead puppy boy.” It was well documented to me by my brother that he was no fan of Derek since he knew how Derek felt about Alexandra. He saw him as a rival and didn’t much appreciate that he didn’t recognize that she could have lost her modern sensibilities when he allowed her to seduce him and drink his blood. I had to say after hearing about that, I wasn’t a fan of his either but not to the point of hating the guy. I sighed, “Be that as it may, you first and foremost need to think about the consequences of doing too much. Alexandra spoke up, “Blake, I have to agree with Lucien. I really don’t want to see you hurt, seeing you that day with all that blood was scary enough.” He relaxed and settled back into his seat and just as usual my brother conceded to Alexandra’s wishes.
We pulled up to the gates of the retreat and we passed through. I figured after we unloaded and went to have dinner that I would announce the next event to the ladies. The servants showed each attendee their room, the building with the rooms was a huge square around the hot spring. The inner doors went out to the hall and that led to the banquet hall where our meals would happen and the outer doors led out to a square deck above the hot spring. The spring was imbued with water dragon magic that had healing properties. I was happy to come when we did because the two people, I cared about needed those healing waters. The deep wounds of the body that Blake had endured in protecting the one he loved and the deep wounds of the mind that Alexandra had endured in protecting the ones she loved. She was always so strong in my mind that when she collapsed it was the most frightening thing that I had seen in a while. She needed these few days to heal her heart and mind. I had no doubts that she would take well to the healing waters here. I was going to suggest that we all take a dip after dinner. We had all settled in to our rooms and finally went to dinner. I saw Alexandra emerge from her room yawning, "That was one of the best naps of my life. Lucien, you have to tell me what sort of mattress is that. I need to get me one of those.” I smiled at her, “I can have one sent to you if it was that helpful to you.” Her face lit up, “Really? Gods bless you; it was like sleep on a cloud.” We entered into the banquet hall where everyone else was already there. Derek spoke, “Fashionably late?” I shrugged, “Not by my calculations, you all are early. Anyhow, before we dig into this meal, I have something to announce.”
