Crossed Hearts | h.s

Twenty Seven

With the queen's permission to leave the palace, Harry was granted a horse for his journey to Crofton and arrived just as the sun rose to its highest point at noon. As he came upon the entrance to his village, he threw his legs over the side of his steed and jumped to the ground. Taking the reins in his hand, he guided the horse into the village.

"Harry!" Ivey appeared in the dusty haze of the village, her russet hair falling around her thin face and boney figure prominent beneath her thin dress. She ambled down the path to greet him, reaching her arm around his neck and hugging him. When she pulled away, she began to stroke the horse's snout. "What are you doing back?"

He tried to hide the frown that creased his face, but Ivey had clearly lost weight. She was almost as thin as she was before he left, when they were starving and barely made it through the day. "Are you receiving my pay?" he asked, ignoring her question of his arrival.

She sighed and began to walk, Harry and his horse following. "Yes, but we can't buy what doesn't exist." Harry sent her a questioning look. "There's no wheat to harvest, so no bread can be made. We're in a famine."

Harry gulped. He knew Geneva had no idea about this, but the people would still blame her no matter what; she was the reigning monarch, and the people needed someone to blame for their hardships. They would say that God wasn't pleased to have her on the throne, just like her father. A million horrible things ran through his mind—uprising, assassination, attacks from other kingdoms—and all of them would be justified by the small fact that people believed God willed it so, for in their minds the drought was punishment for her sitting on the throne.

"Harry?" Ivey prodded his side with a slender finger.

He shook his head, his curls dancing in the air. "Her majesty doesn't know of this. I worry for her safety."

Ivey came to a stop, turning her body toward him and staring up into his eyes, narrowing her own into slits of judgement. "Why do you care so much about a snobby royal?"

"She's not a snob," he snapped angrily. His sister pulled back, startled by his shift in tone. He noted the fear in her eyes and softened. "You know nothing of her."

"And you do?" she countered.

"Of course I do, I spend every minute of the day with her."

Ivey burst into laughter, the dimples that she shared with her brother carving out in her thin cheeks. "Oh, no," she wheezed between a cackle. "Don't tell me you've fallen victim to her hex?"

"Her hex?"

She stopped laughing and her smile was replaced with a thin line. "She's a siren, Harry. She'd do anything to secure her place on that damned throne. I heard talk at the pub that she bewitched Lord Crofton at her coronation party. If she marries him, she'd be set. The people love him more than their own queen."

Her explanation gave him a sense of unease, but he ignored it. "The pub?" Harry asked, "The bloody hell are you doing there?"

"Calm down, brother," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Only there to see Kai."

"She wouldn't marry Crofton, though," he said, going back to the topic of Ginny.

"No, of course not, she'd only keep him around long enough to use his influence for her personal gain."

"You don't know anything, Ivey," he huffed, "The queen is making plans to save Velora and it doesn't include marrying Crofton or bewitching men."

"Whatever you say. Speaking of marriage, Harry—"

"My boy!" Their mother popped her head out of the door of their cottage and beamed a smile as her eyes landed upon her eldest child. She hurried down the cobblestone steps and threw her arms around his waist.