Lunamae by April Sadowski

that—would be such
a waste to let him die here,” a woman near Lunamae said. It looked
like that was Tegan. She was a conceited sort. I saw Lunamae’s face
turn a lighter shade of pale.
    “Who said anything about dying?” I said
(loudly too, I might add). “ No one is dying.”
    “No one survives long in the dungeons either. Dear ,” Tegan said, overly sweetly.
    “That’s what you think,” I said
defiantly.
    “That is what I know ,” she retorted. I
got up, furious, and stomped out of the room, Lunamae following.
She roughly shut the door behind her.
    “They won’t really die, will they?” the girl
asked me, worry conquering an otherwise complacent face.
    “Not if we see to their survival,” I said
with a sigh. “It isn’t as though we can tell the maidens that.”
    “I don’t like Tegan,” Lunamae said coldly. “I
wish my mother would get rid of her.” She followed me to the cook
house and we gathered the food and started our way back to the
keep.
    “I need to go ask one of the servants for a
large amount of hot water. If you could follow me until I find one
…,” I said, my words trailing off as I noticed Lunamae was as well.
“Where are you going?”
    “I figured that they might like something
nice to drink too. I was looking for lemongrass to add flavoring to
their water,” Lunamae said, looking around the sides of the keep.
The plant was used mainly in decoration around the village.
    “You’ve kept the knowledge from your years of
following Talfrin around,” I said proudly. “Good job.”
    “Yes, yes. Can you hold my plate while I
gather some?” she asked me, although not waiting for an answer
because she loaded hers on top of mine before I could speak.
“Thanks.” When she had a few strands in hand she took her plate
back and we went in the keep. Luckily there was a servant there
dusting so while they went to get hot water we went back down to
the dungeons. When we arrived, we told the guards of our business
and saw to the prisoners. As before, Marcus was served most of the
food.
    “So is your father important?” Lunamae asked
him while his mouth was full. He didn’t really seem to notice that
he was still eating and replied,
    “All the Dominars are important.”
    “Why did you come here then? Shouldn’t you be
at home?” she questioned.
    “Because, my dear girl,” Gaius interjected
while Marcus ate more. “He would like to become an ambassador
rather than a Dominar like his father. He would like to use his
status as an enabler to be more at the same level with those he is
initiating profitable conversation with.”
    “Oh,” Lunamae mumbled. The servants came down
with the hot water and I told Lunamae that it would be best if we
departed for decency. She nodded and handed over the lemongrass to
Gaius who took it with appreciation. Apparently they have
lemongrass in Kyrie because he knew what it was.
    We decided to continue our work on the
tapestry instead of going back to the house, so once emerging from
the depths of the keep we turned and made our way up the tower
staircase. When we arrived in the sewing room, Lunamae changed her
mind.
    “I want to do something more exciting,” she
said.
    “Like what?” I asked curiously.
    “Oh I don’t know. Perhaps we could see what
Logan is doing or check up on Talfrin’s progress in labeling
bottles,” Lunamae answered. Talfrin had gone through his inventory
of dried herbs and was working on the sorting and labeling of them
for sale.
    “You think labeling bottles is exciting?” I
laughed.
    “Well no, but I don’t want to weave anymore
today,” she mumbled.
    “When I was your age I didn’t want to either.
You will need to be skilled in it eventually. I suppose if you try
at least a few days a week you’ll be fine,” I said, relenting.
Lunamae smiled in satisfaction.
    “So does that mean we can do something else?”
she asked.
    “When is the last time we went riding?” I
inquired. She shook her head and started