Dancing On Ice

Unicorns and Courtiers

Aeralie stared at Kazimir.

The horror in her face meant, to his relief, she understood the severity of and, for a moment, everything else came second place to the fact that not only was there one Heart in the hands of humans, there were two.

She took his arm and they hurried away from the rest of the group, out onto the balcony, turning their bodies to hide the fact they were weren't using hand signals to communicate.

"There's a second Heart?" she hissed.

"A sapphire."

"This is madness," Aeralie said, "There can't be more than one. One is enough! How? I don't understand!"

"Neither do I. I made the suggestion of a collection but..."

"But how many Hearts can go missing before we hear?" Aeralie said.

"Exactly as my mother said," Kazimir said.

Aeralie rubbed her brow, grimacing. "Maybe we should come clean to my father," she said.

Kazimir stared at her in shock. He'd never expected to hear something so responsible from her when it would so obviously interfere with what she wanted.

"What have you done with the other Heart?"

"In my pocket. I'm going to have to get it back to the queen soon."

"You're going to give it back?!"

"Of course, we can't let anyone know it's missing. Stealing from a member of the royal family, think of the consequences. Our position is already tenuous seeing as there's no proof what so ever that were who we say we are – which we're not."

"Of course, of course that makes sense but what about the Heart?"

"Whoever owned that Heart is dead."

The words shocked Aeralie.

"They won't miss it. The owner/owners of the other Heart/Hearts may still be alive. We need to focus out attention on finding them."

Aeralie was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Alright," she said, "Agreed. But they could be anywhere in or out of the palace."

"Yes, but if that other Heart stayed within the palace, the chances are, the others did as well. And think of this, the most important people in the country will be arriving over the next few days for the winter season."

"So the people most likely to have been gifted jewels like that could be the courtiers who will be coming here," Aeralie said.

"Exactly."

Aeralie glanced at him. "So we need to be on our best behaviour and keep an eye out."

"Exactly," Kazimir said again.

Aeralie was quiet for a moment. "So no killing random ladies Prince Dalton might take a shine to..."

Kazimir glared at her.

"I'm joking, I'm joking," Aeralie said, holding up her hand, "Don't worry... I understand."

Kazimir glanced at her. He opened his mouth then stopped.

No, he wasn't going to discuss it, if she was coming around to idea of giving up on her human all on her own, he would leave her to it. She would follow her own mind sooner than his.

"So we're agreed," Kazimir said. "We'll stay, for a time, and keep an eye on things and see what we see."

"If there really are more Hearts up here, we need to figure out how many there and then..."