with Connie too when the chance came. Finally, working up his courage, Tor approached them all seriously.
“Your majesties? If I may have a word with you, in private?” Tor said so seriously and quietly they stiffed and stared at Denno Brown as if he was suddenly a threat. Denno just looked at him as if interested.
The King didn't smile at all, not even a polite grin, “Of course Tor, at once.”
They all went to a room through a hidden door in the back of the dining hall, the heavy thing nearly sound proof, Tor figured. Looking around he reached out to touch first Connie, then Rich on the arm to stop them a little over ten feet into the space, it wasn't a huge place, but had chairs. Tor didn't need a chair though, he wanted to not be heard instead. He openly hit a noise canceling sigil on one of his consolidated amulets and explained what he was doing to grim nods.
The King spoke first once it was done.
“Is there a threat?” He said, ready to spring into action.
Tor nodded, but held the hug mans arm to keep him from running off.
“Yes. It's Karina. She's… not in a good way. I want to take her back to school with me. We can add guards and put her in with the special school kids, but…” He readied for the fight to come, the arguments, all good ones, about the school not being safe enough, about their desire to protect Karina and hold her back in case something happened to Rolph. That logically meant keeping her in a different location.
The King sighed, stopped for a moment and then gave Connie a look.
“Alright. It's clear that she isn't getting any better here, it hurts to watch her suffer and I can't do anything to help. Maybe you, and her friends, can? It's cowardly of me to send her away, I just don't know what to do any more.”
Connie nodded, tears in her eyes, make-up running slightly.
“I've tried and tried, but nothing works. She's so angry about Daria Serge walking away like that. If this goes on I fear she'll run away to Austra to try and find her on her own.”
And kill her, Tor filled in mentally. No one doubted it, not for a second. It would be a bad plan for the kingdom at the moment, but who could blame her? Tor may not be able to bring himself to seek the girl’s death personally, but he wouldn't cry at her funeral either.
The whole conversation took about four minutes, then another two for Connie to fix her make-up with the help of a man that ran out of the wall, a panel that opened quietly, holding a brown lacquered case, who's hands moved to reapply things so fast that Tor nearly reacted as if he was trying to hit the Queen. Tor actually found a weapon in his hand and nearly tapped the activation sigil before the whole picture made sense to him. Connie had her eye closed and the man with the makeup was too busy to notice, but Richard saw and after Tor put the white piece of stone that looked almost like glass, eight sigils shining on it, back in the pocket on his right side, nodded somberly.
“That, in part, is why I'm willing to entrust both my son and daughter to you Tor.” The words were soft, almost too deep to be heard. It was a giant thing, all the men had those deep and booming voices, but when they spoke softly it was hard to really hear them, you felt it more than anything.
They returned to the party as soon as that was done and Tor walked straight to Karina. He'd done this before with her, so decided to skip the seventeen steps of him fumbling around and simple moved into her with a kiss, she smelled, obviously having gone without a bath for a while. That must have taken some real work, since bathing was practically a sport at the palace and it was suggested to you often, even if you'd already bathed that day.
“Alright you, you're coming with me and we're ditching this get together. Ali!” Tor called waving her over gently.
“We're going to our room with Karina.”
The Princess shrugged.
“Whatever.” It was dark and moody. Worse than before. By far.
The walk was in silence, but he touched her the whole time and she didn't throw him off and walked with them without being pulled. They got to the room and Tor, without asking or waiting led her to the bath and tapped her clothing sigil, turning it off. She didn't start, or say anything, just stood, still looking down. Ali ran a bath, the tub a large ceramic thing, tan and long, but not as big as the ones at his house. When the tub was full he asked her to climb in, but she didn't move. Instead of fighting over it, he picked her up and stepped in himself, still clothed, then sat with her on his lap. His hands were tied up so he focused intently on his own clothing device and turned it off too, then started scrubbing the girl clean. His body reacted to the contact, his manhood stiffening, but he ignored it. This wasn't about him, it was about Karina.
It took time to get her clean, this being about as awkward a way of going about things as possible, if close and cozy, but over the course of about forty minutes they managed it well enough. They drained the tub and let it empty without moving. Karina grew chill, not wearing a temperature equalizer or anything else and didn't bother trying to dress herself for warmth. Great, Tor thought. She was clearly suicidal.
Oh, it wasn't “give me the cutter so I can end it now”, but for her to go without a shield was still courting death and was something that for her had to be on purpose. She knew better than that. A subtle thing, but serious. Using towels they dried her off and took her to bed, tucking her in naked.
“Alright silly, Stop this now. Pull yourself out of it and don't make me do something more drastic.” Tor looked at Ali, signaling for her to get her clothes off too. The girls had told him flat out that they'd been lovers, and had since Ali was twelve. Illegal, but then, not really. A Princess could do whatever she wanted and Ali had always looked older, even now at fourteen she looked closer to Karina's seventeen. Plus, back then she'd lied about her age and no one questioned her claim of fifteen. No one blinked at her being married to Tor even, not that nobles would. Naked she actually looked like the older and more developed girl, between the two of them, if shorter still. His wife was shooting up, and would end up nearly as tall as the Princess most likely. Her mom was tall at least. Tor didn't know for certain if Count Derring had been her biological father, but if so, he was pretty tall too. Or had been, before his mysterious death.
Karina glared.
“What drastic action? A bath? Some sex? You're just going to leave me again. Everyone always does.”
Tor kissed her, but she turned her face away, growing surly. He let her do it and kissed her cheek instead then took her chin gently so she'd look him in the eyes.
“What kind of thing is that to say when I just had a horrendous battle with your parents to get them to allow me to whisk you off to school with us? They were winning too, lots of hammer blows and logical reasons you couldn't go, until my begging and crying won them over. It was a close thing though. I think I won them over when I hammered my head against the floor begging on hands and knees.” Toe shook his head, eyes innocent and face blank, Karina glared at him for a bit, then tilted her head.
“Really?”
“Well the part about you coming back with us. I didn't cry though, I was quite manly and no one hit me. They really do want you to be happy you know. Now, you don't have to come if you don't want to, but if you don't, I'll have to come down here every day and tickle you from now on, which will absolutely destroy my grades. Barely passing as it is.” Tor grinned a little and hoped she'd come, since that really would just about end his schooling all together.
They didn't make love, just held each other all night and talked about things, mainly how lonely she'd been feeling.
Ali poked her, several times.
“You were supposed to come visit us! We have a house and everything, so you don't even have to share my little dorm room bed. No excuse. No excuse! If you feel lonely you should have done something about it. If nothing else you could have gone and visited with Box and Debbie, they'd have loved to see you and Box could probably use a little extra attention about now. I know he likes you too.”
Karina agreed, a mumbled thing that sounded more contented if still sad. Tor nudged her a little.
“I don't know for sure, but her own dorm bed will probably be just as little and uncomfortable. I suppose we should come up with a nickname for you too, so everyone at school doesn't instantly know who you are. Keep the hair like this, black and short.” It was a real point, Tor knew, especially if he didn't want to wake up one night with the Royal Guard beating him for making their job impossible.
“What? I'm going to school there?”
“Right. I said we were keeping you, didn't I? What did you think I meant, a two week stay? Nope, we're stealing you properly. Special school though, with Trice and Sara and their friend Ridley? I don't know what they
