[ONGOING: New Chapters Every Sunday]
Kingsblade. Rise of the Raven Queen.
Her kingdom is in ashes.
She's supposed to save it, but there's one problem.
She doesn't remember she's the queen.
She doesn't remember anything at all.
With war looming on...
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"You didn't have to do this, y'know," Socorro's melodic voice barely penetrated the trance-like state Liliana had fallen under.
"No, no. I'm happy to help," she replied, holding in a yawn. "It sucks to do this stuff by yourself. Besides," she added with a nostalgic smile, "my mentor did the same for me."
"Lady Adeniyi?" Socorro's voice wandered over from the aisle across from Liliana.
"Mhmmm," Liliana, blinking several times in a row like that would somehow keep the blurry wave of exhaustion from returning again.
Maybe it had all been a bad dream. That would make more sense.
Liliana laughed to herself. Her, a princess? She stared down at her calloused hands, threadbare tunic, many-times mended breeches, and bare feet. She'd believe in flying pigs before she'd believe she was somehow royalty.
With that thought, another yawn teased the corners of her mouth as it stretched her jaw open. She unable to contain it this time and yawned as she tossed another sheet over the line that zig-zagged across the wide stone courtyard. Liliana expertly slid the basket of laundry over to the next open space on the clothesline with the inside of her bare foot to the left like she might a jupa ball.
She was a little ashamed of the dull ache in her shoulders and forearms and the blisters that had formed at the base of her palms. Usually it was a job for seventh-years, but Socorro had insisted that the senior cadets chip in this week since it was exams for the sevenths. Liliana was proud of her cadet, but it had still been years since she had done the washing. After over two hours of scrubbing, she could still feel the sticky sand of sleep in corners of her eyes and now her arms were tired, too.
Sighing, she stopped to wipe it away and winced as the lye that was still on her hands stung the soft skin around her eyes. There will be coffee at breakfast, she told herself, and everything is always better after coffee.
Even mornings.
"Y'know, Lili, you might stand a chance in a mejenga if you could kick a ball as well as a basket."
Liliana couldn't help but smile. Coco, on the other hand, had never lacked energy in her life and consequently never needed coffee to make anything better, either. Liliana shook her head in bewilderment: morning people were strange, rare creatures she had long stopped trying to understand.
The wingwoman couldn't see her apprentice, but every few seconds a few of her long, black curls would fly up over the line as she jumped up to throw a towel over the line. There was a flash of her deft hands and then the almost imperceptible sound of two feet hitting the stone cobbles as she landed.
