Maybe she should let the Sun Elves do whatever they liked to do with alchemists. It couldn’t be pleasant, but maybe it was better than having to face her father and the consequences of her foolishness.
Chapter 3
While Hellebore was a princess, as an alchemist, she was not squeamish or priggish, but having her hands bound behind her and being thrown over the shoulder of the elf who had caught her was the most undignified situation she’d been in.
She faced his back, his arm wrapped around her legs, holding her in place as his shoulder dug into her stomach. She would have preferred being dragged through the dirt to this. Honestly, for all they knew she was a random alchemist, so why not give her a few bumps and bruises while transporting her?
While the heat flooding her whole body at the humiliating position refused to ebb, she instead tried to focus on what she did remember about Iubian Elvish. Unfortunately, they’d mostly fallen silent as she hung over his back, blood rushing to her head.
She glanced at her alchemist’s belt in the other hand of the elf carrying her. Her hands were bound, but if she could twist just enough, the pouch closest to her—
She let out a sharp yelp when she was jostled and the hand gripping her legs tightened. And then the elf spoke in her language, “Stop it. You’ve been enough trouble, alchemist.”
He spat the word alchemist like it was an insult and not a badge of honor. Reluctantly, she understood why she was the monster in his eyes.
Finally, she was no longer upside down but was being thrown into a carriage and went rear over front until she came to a stop in a jumbled heap on the floor of it, hands still bound. She rolled over onto her front to see her captor moving to shut the door, back to speaking Iubian Elvish as he directed the elf carrying the Sunrise Iris and another approached him with reins to a horse.
“You speak Chymesian?” Hellebore called out.
He turned back and raised an eyebrow. “Enough. The way you speak enough Iubian Elvish.”
Hellebore wouldn’t personally qualify what she spoke as enough, given she’d been unable to translate most of what she’d heard. Why he thought she could was beyond her, but before she could respond, he shut the door.
Within seconds, the carriage was rolling forward, taking out the legs Hellebore had managed to get under her and sending her to the floor again with a loud thud. She heard a laugh on the other side.
Her cheeks burned furiously as she got back up, awkwardly with her hands behind her, to take a more dignified seat on the bench.
Alright. She was a captive, in a carriage, and—she peered out the window—heading deeper into Iubian territory. Now she needed to decide if she was going to let them think she was a random, rogue alchemist to try to escape, or accept whatever trial and punishment that awaited her for trying to take a Sunrise Iris and using a Sun Elf’s blood in her attempted escape,or tell them exactly who she was and hope that afforded her protection without costing Chymes too much.
Her racing heart refused to slow, and Hellebore had to close her eyes and take long, deep breaths. She could not panic. She would not lose her head. If she was going to get through this with the least amount of damage possible, she needed to remove all distracting emotions and feel absolutely nothing. It was the only way to think clearly.
She kept watching out the window, observing the patrol that captured her.
Why had a border patrol had a carriage to throw her into in the first place? Right, their king was still in Chymes. Maybe they’d been assigned to wait for his party at the border to swap out for a fresh carriage? But then why would they use it for her?
Unless of course the king had already passed through and taken the fresh carriage, leaving behind the tired horses, which would then be her carriage. Callahan and Emerson would only have been able to arrive if the talks were over and everything settled.
Hellebore wrestled with her twisting heart; this wasn’t the time to miss her brother. She needed to think of him with only cold reason attached.
So if everything had been settled between Chymes and Iubar, that was a point in favor of revealing her identity. They couldn’t change any terms in order to negotiate her safety without having to reenter negotiations entirely, and if she apologized to the king and explained she was a great admirer of plants—she wasn’t, only in the way they died—maybe he’d be forgiving.
She looked at the elf she’d cut open, who was brushing a hand over the bandage wrapped around her arm. Maybe not, since she’d cut open one of his border guards and used her blood for an alchemic attack against them.
If trying to steal the plant was a crime punishable by death, stealing their blood ensured an agonizing execution. Even if they didn’t kill her, they would want Chymes to pay dearly.
No. After trying to fight her way out, her best chance was still a brilliant escape, if she could manage one. She couldn’t trust a Sun Elf to have mercy on her even if he knew she was a princess.
The voice in her head saying that sounded exactly like Aunt Palladia.
Nightfall would be her best chance. It was when the Sun Elves were the weakest. During the Great Abductions, the alchemists had always succeeded because they’d raided the elves at night.
The Great Abductions were an atrocity of her people’s from over five hundred years ago where they’d stolen Sun Elves and used their blood to access their magic in their alchemy, creating weapons, tools, and anything their imaginations and formulas could transmute the magic into. Her people had paid dearly for it. The Sun Elves had spilled her people’s blood above and beyond what the alchemists had spilled in their studies. The conflicts leading to the raids and the ensuing war of that age had been deep and complicated, and none of it changed the fact that Hellebore was going to use the elves’ biological and magical disadvantage under the moon to her advantage.
She certainly wasn’t going to try and abscond with an elf to experiment on. She wasn’t even going to try and take the iris—unless, of course an opportunity presented itself.
In the meantime, she acted like she was watching the scenery, but instead strained her ears for any conversation around her so that she could brush the rust off her Iubian Elvish and understand what was going on. Callahan had always been the one better at foreign languages and politics; he had no choice in the matter. Hellebore had protested at the lessons since she was destined to go to the Royal Alchemist’s Academyand become the King’s Alchemist. She regretted that flippant attitude now but was grateful that despite her flippant attitude, she had gotten good marks on her assignments, so there had to be some knowledge of Iubian still in her head.
The elf who had captured her rode toward the front, occasionally looking back at her with narrowed eyes. He didn’t speak much to anyone. However, he had an air about him and from the way the other elves treated him, she assumed he had to be the captain of the patrol.
