Now Julian looked about wildly. "Kylia? She didn't escape? I — "
"Majesty!" She gave him a hard shake. "Leave that to me, I'll send her to you, I swear! But I can't get to her if you don't keep up the distraction of the attack, and — " She shook her head, wondering how to tell him of everything planned without confusing it more, when he suddenly calmed, and gathered himself together.
"Never mind," he said. "Alex is in command; he went to the Academy. Whatever he planned will be the best that can be done."
She slapped him on the back; he staggered a little, for she had forgotten her armor. "Can you fight?"
"Maybe not, but I make a damned good figurehead," he replied, with a grim smile. "Good luck, lady. Send my wife safe to me."
"Good luck, Majesty." She scrambled onto Sergei's back, as the King led his men towards the thick of the fighting. In a moment, the darkness had swallowed them; a moment later, she and Sergei were in the air.
She was supposed to wait until Alexander made his single-combat challenge, but she felt as if she was better off not waiting. For one thing, the longer the attack went on, the more likely it was that extra guards would be sent to watch the Princess. For another —
For another, she wanted to get her hands on that evil magician's heart. Alexander's life would depend on it.
There were no safeguards — none — on the Princess's tower. There probably had been something winged up there to keep watch, but all the noise and the fighting must have been irresistible to them. That was one of the odd things about most magical creatures; like Nightsong, like the unicorns, the vast majority of them were not all that bright. It almost seemed as if a creature born of magic could have magical abilities and be beautiful, or strong, or intelligent — but only two of the four. Sergei and his brother were excellent examples of that. That was the reason why the wise magician did not entrust the safekeeping of anything he was concerned about to a magical creature, unless it was an extraordinary one.
Elena and Sergei landed on the balcony without incident; had Sergei been the size of his brother Nightsong, they couldn't have done it, but the balcony was just large enough for something pony-sized. She slid off, and pushed open the balcony door.
Clang!
She staggered back, reeling, from the blow to her head. Which fortunately, had been mostly absorbed by her helm but still — her ears were ringing and for a moment she had seen stars! "Hey!" she shouted indignantly, fending off the angry, poker wielding young woman who advanced on her. "What do you think you're at, wench? Julian sent me! I'm here to rescue you!"
"What?" the poker dropped from the young woman's hands and clattered to the stone floor as she stared at Elena in shock. "You — "
Once again, Elena felt the weight of The Tradition collapsing around her and even as she seized on the opportunity to replenish her magical stores, she was pulling off her helm. The Tradition had its own path for those who rescued ladies in Durance Vile. And Princess — now Queen — Kylia had spread her arms wide to embrace her "rescuer," automatically, impelled by The Tradition. And in a moment, Kylia was going to find herself a different sort of prisoner, manipulated and pushed into falling in love — or at least, into something that felt just like love. And she might, possibly, recall that once she had felt exactly the same thing for her husband, but at that point, it would already be too late.
"Yes," Elena said, shaking her hair loose, firing the words out as quickly as she could to warp The Tradition back to the path she wanted. "I'm Godmother Elena. Your husband, Julian, sent me — he's leading a frontal assault on the gate as a distraction in order to set you free to join him."
Kylia stopped dead in her tracks, as stunned for the moment as Elena would have been if that poker had connected with her skull instead of her helm.
"Oh," she said, in a small, uncertain voice. "A woman?"
"Julian sent me," Elena said firmly. "I am a Fairy Godmother, come at his call for aid. He's single-handedly leading an heroic assault on the front gate to act as a distraction so you can escape."
This was, of course, a lie. That didn't matter. What mattered was to deflect The Tradition from the course it was on with certain key words. It wasn't quite a spell, as such, but it had all the force of a spell. Kylia — and through her, The Tradition — heard
"Julian — single-handedly, heroic — so you can escape." The force impelling Kylia into falling in love with her rescuer (which had been the source of no end of tragedy in the past) was deflected by the clear impropriety of Kylia falling in love with a woman, and by the apparent sacrifice that Julian was making of himself. Given those key words, she was impelled right back into the love of her husband.
This was the problem with Tradition-created "love." It was manufactured. In time it would solidify into the real thing, far more often than not, but in the first year or two of marriage, the bond was fragile, easily broken, and easily reformed onto another object of affection.
The Tradition created tragedy as well as happy endings; The Tradition did not care if a story ended happily or in sorrow, so long as the tale was powerful enough. For every Sleeping Princess, there was a Fair Rosalinda. For every Mark and Yseult, the Tradition was perfectly prepared to create a Trystan....
Not in my Kingdoms.
"Julian," Kylia breathed, "he's out there, you say?"
"He is, and waiting for you." Elena took the opportunity to shove her out the door of the balcony before she had a chance to object. And before she had a chance to react to the presence of a horse on the balcony, Elena had lifted her into Sergei's saddle. Just in case, she tied off the poor child's belt to the saddle. Kylia grabbed the pommel reflexively.
"Off!" she shouted, darting back inside. "Good luck!" Sergei shouted back, and leaped from the balcony with Kylia suddenly coming to her senses and shrieking in fear at finding herself several hundred feet above the ground and plummeting towards it like a stone.
But that was not Elena's problem; that was Sergei's.
With luck, if any of the winged things were attracted back to their guard-post by Kylia's shrieks, Sergei would already be on the ground. By that time, Kylia would be silent (or even fainted, poor thing), and they would find the balcony door open and the balcony vacant and assume that, rather than become the bride of their master, she had flung herself from the tower.
And, being no fools, if not very bright — and, as were the minions of most evil creatures, believing firmly in the principle of looking out for themselves first — if they were not magically bound, they would swiftly bugger off before their master found out what had happened, rather than go looking for a body.
She dashed for the door to the room; if winged guardians did come back she wanted to be sure that she herself was not here. The door to this level wasn't locked, and she darted into the staircase, closing and locking the door behind her, creating one more reason to believe that Kylia had plunged to her death.