Red Hood's Revenge

their human patients.
    Talia checked to make sure the hallway was empty before pushing back her hood and looking upward. The skies of Lorindar were rarely so clear. She searched until she found the faint band of light that stretched across the sky. The River of the Dead, the old priests used to call it. Guarded by Halaka’ar the dragon, who made sure each soul found its proper destination.
    A cry of pain made her flinch. The sounds of the injured were familiar as well, though that was one thing Talia hadn’t missed. Without conscious thought, she found herself hurrying to the front of the temple to help. She smiled, remembering Mother Khardija’s voice. If you’re to stay with us, you can make yourself useful, princess or no.
    Talia spent the next hour holding a young boy in place while another sister attempted to remove splinters of glass from his hands. She had fought grown men who struggled with less ferocity, but eventually the last of the glass was removed, and the boy’s father was able to rock him to sleep.
    Talia ignored the thanks of the sister and returned to her room before anyone else could try to talk to her. She found Snow sleeping against one wall, her mirrors still maintaining the illusion of her brown skin. Roudette was curled tightly in the corner, twitching as she dreamed.
    Danielle sat beneath the window, holding her bracelet in her hands. Talia had no doubt that if she looked, she would see Prince Jakob’s sleeping form in the glass. One of the temple cats was curled in Danielle’s lap. Talia remembered this one: Haut el’Faum, the fish thief. Haut had lost part of his tail as a kitten, making him easy to recognize.
    “Hello Talia,” Danielle said softly. “I tried to sleep, but—”
    “You’re not her.” Talia glanced at Snow. “Falling through fairy rings or traveling across an ocean doesn’t bother her in the slightest. You’re different. You worry.”
    Danielle pressed her lips to the mirror, then returned the bracelet to her wrist. “I never understood how hard it must have been for you when you first arrived in Lorindar. Everything is so different. The language, the clothes, the smells—”
    “Anything was preferable to staying here to be beheaded for murder.” Talia sat down beside her. “When I first awoke, Arathea was almost as alien to me as it is to you. You wouldn’t believe how much can change in a hundred years. I nearly pissed myself the first time I heard a cannon fired. Everything was strange, with just enough similarity to remind me of what I had lost.”
    Danielle smiled. “It’s still your home. You’re more relaxed here, even with fairies and nobles hunting you. Especially here in the temple . . . you trust these people.”
    “They saved my life.”
    Her smile grew. “One of the first things you ever told me was that I was too trusting.”
    “You are.” Talia rested her head against the familiar bricks of the wall. “Khardija risked the lives of everyone here to protect me.”
    Danielle scratched Haut’s neck. “Snow told me some of what Khardija said in the gardens. About the vines from your hedge.”
    Talia rubbed her right hand, remembering the night an assassin had given her the teardrop-shaped scar in the meat of her palm. He had come upon her in the afternoon. Dressed in black with a simple ribbon of red round his brow, he had attacked the instant he spied her.
    Talia could still remember the zaraq whip lashing out like a snake. She had dodged the first attack without thinking. The weighted tip of the whip shattered the window behind her head. Talia tried to flee. He followed her into the hallway and attacked again.
    Fairy-blessed reflexes allowed her to block the second strike with her palm. A stupid move, looking back. A direct blow would have shattered her hand. Even deflecting the weight had broken one of the bones.
    The barbs of the weight tore her flesh. Blood welled from the wound. Talia fell, and with her, so did three hundred years of her family’s rule.
    She glanced at Roudette to make sure she was asleep before saying, “Once my family fell under my curse, the rumors spread quickly. Only a true prince, the rightful ruler of Arathea, could awaken Princess Talia from her slumber. Soon every man and child with any trace of royal blood was traveling to the palace to try his luck.”
    “The hedge killed them?” Danielle guessed.
    Talia allowed herself a small, bitter laugh. “Not directly. That would be a violation of Siqlah