“Court Jester!” Came a familiar voice from his right, near the door, Ambassador Mutta from Afrak. His great niece and cousin. Tor stopped himself from wincing but it took work. His family tree was so convoluted it hurt his brain to think about.
Tor and Rolph both spun, smiling. The vision that walked smoothly towards them was incredible. Dark skin that was so brown she nearly looked blue, ice blue eyes and brilliant bird like red hair that stuck up several inches and fanned out just a bit all over. She was wearing a proper court dress, a deep almost purple red, which was both lovely and a subtle blending of her hairs color and the royal purple of Cordes. There was lace on it and she looked stunning enough that everyone had turned to stare, even Denno.
Mutta may have called his name, but her eyes were only for one person, Rolph, who stepped forward and bowed low to her, while she fumbled at a curtsy laughing.
“My lord,” she said through the chuckles.
“Princess Abbie.” The Prince returned.
Mutta was trying to wrangle a marriage with Rolph, which, as big a surprise as it seemed to Tor, was working. She really was approximately a Princess, though they didn't really have those in Afrak, as it had been explained to him, but she was the third person in line to rule. The first one was an Ancient, Tor's grandmother it turned out, so Abbie would never gain any more power there. Here she could be a Queen, but really, she just seemed to actually like the Prince. As a reason to get married, there were worse ones.
Tor gave her a familial hug.
“Great niece, how are things going?” She knew what he meant, even without his very direct and obvious look at Rolph, a gesture that made her smile.
“Very well. I'm here tonight for a reason.”
“A reason?” Tor said, smiling. “Sounds important.”
She just nodded and kept looking at Rolph.
Nothing was said except for small talk at dinner, a rule at the royal table, Tor looked for Karina, but she didn't attend at all, which was a little strange, since the rest of the royal family was there. After the meal was over she walked in, wearing a plain black outfit that didn't highlight her athletic figure at all, her hair straight, short and black now, instead of the near red he'd last seen and had look on her face that seemed dark and sullen. Tor stared, but she didn't look back, and didn't even wave to Ali, who was one of her best friends. Tor reached out to her, trying to find out what was wrong, but she just moped and sat looking at the table, barely noticing the room. Waves of depression came off of her. Crap.
It was Tor’s fault.
Not that she was depressed, that was the situation, her friend Yardley had been murdered and the murder had gone free, back to a life of luxury and fun. That was beyond his control. But he'd left her. He was her friend and Tor had gone off to school and just left her to sit and stew in her own salty tears, not even bothering to visit, just because he was too “busy”. He hadn’t even contacted her on the communications device, which, he realized, wanting to kick himself, he could have done daily. All her friends had left at the same time too, Ali, Sara Debri and even Trice. That had happened because they all had to follow Tor for one reason or another. Double crap.
No one talked about it or looked at her overly, as if ignoring her obvious pain would make it better. Even Ali paid attention to the King as he announced something.
Prince Alphonse was to wed Princess Abumanintali Mutta. That was good, but not the most important thing at all. Tor made himself smile and so did Karina, so at least there was enough left inside her to try and fake being polite. The wedding was to take place in a year, which was quick for a royal… anything really. If there was no reason to hurry, they just didn't.
The King smiled and welcomed Abbie to the family, and she smiled back, gave a humble seated bow and thanked him. For her that was huge, given how little the Afrak thought of men in general. She was definitely trying her best. Then if she didn't, Tor would have to take her to Two Bends so that his mother could yell at her. The rest of the evening was subdued, going into more small talk. Denno stayed with the King most of the time, but flirted 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.