The worst thing about failing the Magical Militia Academy was having to meet the Witch General to hear her expose my shortcomings to Father and Queen Cendrilla. I trudged through the palace’s triple-height hallways to my doom, my black, leather uniform squeaking with each step.
Ogre servants, some of them as tall as nine feet, eyed me as I passed. Those who only had one eye had to turn their heads, while those with four could stare with discretion. How many of them still recognized me? It had been years since I had visited the palace.
None of them spoke a word of greeting, and I didn’t make the effort to crane my head to make eye contact. I didn’t live here. Father’s ancestral mansion in Mount Bluebeard and the Militia dorms were my home. And although I held the title by royal decree, I certainly didn’t feel like a Princess. But being called Princess Alba was preferable to being called the illegitimate daughter of the half-ogre who had married the Queen for political gain.
My apprentice staff slipped out of its holster and rolled across the marble floors, its quartz tip catching the light with each revolution.
“Damn it!”
Teeth clenched, I hurried after the pencil-sized object. The staff rolled so quickly, the runes on its surface blurred. How typical that the item that exposed my lack of magical prowess was now propelling me towards a meeting to discuss said inadequacies.
It rolled into a cloven hoof the size of a serving platter.
“Cubs should walk and not run in the hallways,” said a booming voice.
I glared up, lips pursed, holding back from saying something immature.
Olivieri, the royal butler lowered his head to my level, nearly gouging my left eye with his brow horn. “You are late.”
Bristling, I glared up into his beetle-black eyes. “I got caught in a dust storm. Can I use the washroom? There’s sand in my breastplate.”
He scowled, lips thinning over lower tusks that stretched jaw to his cheekbones. “Her Majesty does not like to be kept waiting, especially now that Steppe is on the cusp of war.”
My jaw dropped. Steppe was one of the strongest countries in the Known World, as Queen Cendrilla had allied with most of the Royal families with strategic marriages.
I tilted my head to the side. “What do you mean?”
He lifted me by the back of my leather armor and walked me through the hallway, hoofs clomping on the marble. A pair of Queen’s Guardsmen snickered. Sure, I looked ridiculous, hanging limp off Oliveri’s arm like a smilodon cub, but unlike the guards, I wasn’t the one glamoured to look less ogreish, just to please a monarch who preferred males her own size.
“You can let go,” I muttered. “I’m seventeen, not seven months.”
“Ogresses are already well-established by that age.”
“But I’m not an og—”
“And apparently, you’re not a witch, either,” he said with a sigh.
Irritation, hot as an army of fire ants, crawled over my skin. He didn’t need to make me sound incompetent. Queen Cendrilla couldn’t perform witch magic, either. She was my maternal aunt and the only ogre-fairy hybrid in the Known World, except for me. But where she was the beautiful and powerful offspring of an Ogre Queen and a Prince of the High Fairies, I was an illegitimate mix of high fairy, low fairy, ogre and human.
“Her Majesty will be most disappointed.” He deposited me outside the royal study in front of four armed guards.
They opened the double doors, and Olivieri gave my back a gentle shove into a marble room lined with horned servants all wearing the customary black and white uniform. Among the study walls stood half-a-dozen guards, who relaxed when they saw it was just the butler and me.
Queen Cendrilla sat on her golden throne, honey-blonde curls flowing down the shoulder plates of her basilisk-skin armor, looking nothing like an Ogre Queen. Like me, she was only six feet tall with a lean, athletic form that curved like the heroine of a romantic scroll.
Two dragonets, one’s scales the same emerald as her eyes, the other a deep crimson, perched on either side of the throne’s three-foot tall, diamond-encrusted crest.
Beside her stood an easel holding a portrait of a brutish-looking man clad in iron armor, scowling beneath his bushy, blonde beard. He had the heavy features of a half-ogre and reminded me somewhat of Father.
Queen Cendrilla glanced up from a parchment-strewn table and gave me her warmest, fairy godmother smile. “Good evening, Alba.”
I jerked my gaze away from the monarch who had stolen Father. Her face usually fell whenever I ignored her, and right now, I didn’t need to feel any worse. Because of Queen Cendrilla, Mother had suffered the humiliation of being Father’s concubine, even though she had borne his only heir. Because of Queen Cendrilla, Father had spent most of his time away from home, supposedly busy with matters at the Ogre Senate. And because of Queen Cendrilla, Mother had left Steppe the moment I had joined the Magical Militia.
The small, silver throne opposite her was empty. My heart plummeted like an iron cannonball. It had been too much for me to hope that Father would make the effort to attend a meeting to discuss my future.
Between the two thrones sat the Witch General, her sharp, cerulean eyes ready to shred the last vestiges of my reputation. She wore the same black uniform as mine, but instead of my platinum blonde hair, hers was the color of crimson flames.
The Witch General pursed her lips. “Why did it take you an hour to make a five-minute carriage ride?”
“Sorry.” I walked to the table and lowered myself to the hard seat opposite her. The Witch General would smack me over the head with her staff if I repeated the sandstorm lie I’d told Olivieri.
Queen Cendrilla leaned forward, trying to catch my eye. A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard. If I so much as glanced in her direction, my heart would melt, and along with it my loyalty to Mother. Blinking hard, I pictured Mother sitting in the gardens, head bowed, face hidden by a curtain of mahogany curls, pining for Father and lamenting that he had chosen her royal, ogre-hybrid half-sister instead of the mother of his child.
Olivieri brought a plate of raw beef steak strips. “I know how much you enjoyed feeding the dragonets.”
I gave him a weak smile. “Thank you.”
The two dragonets unfolded their thin, leathery wings and swooped from Queen Cendrilla’s throne with a whoosh. They landed, with a cat-like grace, around the plate and chittered. Avoiding the tiny horns around its skull and spine, I stroked the delicate, little scales of the emerald dragonet, enjoying the warmth under my fingertips.
The Witch General steepled her fingers. “Should we begin without the Prince Regent?”
She was referring to Father. The way royalty worked, if a nobleman married a Queen, he was called the Prince Regent, and not the King.
When Aunt Cendrilla paused, the Witch General added, “I cannot be kept waiting another hour.”
If she’d been waiting for an hour, then Father wasn’t coming. Something inside me crumpled at the realization. I had joined the Magical Militia to gain his notice. Its headquarters were close to the palace and to the Ogre Senate, where he spent most of his time, and I had hoped he would pay me a visit. While I’d been growing up, those sensitive to magic had told me I was powerful. I’d thought that becoming a witch would make me worthy of him.
A slow, sorrowful sigh slid from between my lips. “We might as well.”
Father didn’t care. Why would he, now that he was finally free to pursue Queen Cendrilla? He’d probably forgotten all about Mother and me, the illegitimate daughter he sired with his concubine. Shame slithered up my gullet, its ascent smooth and scaly and suffocating. I gulped it down and blinked away the tears stinging the back of my eyes, hoping this awful meeting would soon be over.
“I’ll send a messenger.” With a flick of her wrist, Queen Cendrilla commanded the green dragonet to find Father.
While the two most powerful women in Steppe discussed my lack of aptitude for witchcraft, I threw chunks of meat at the crimson dragonet. The kitten-sized creature blew a plume of yellow flames at the steak, cooking it to perfection as it flew through the air. Then it caught the bite-sized treat and chewed it between sharp, little teeth.
The sight reminded me of happier times, when I would visit Aunt Cendrilla in the palace. When she was Mother’s younger sister, and my fairy godmother, and the most exciting person in the Known World. She would take me for rides on Fogo, her majestic, purple dragon and tell me stories of her adventures with Mother and Father. But now, she was the woman who had broken up my family.
“Alba, what do you think?” asked the Witch General.
Cringing, I mustered up a way to explain why I hadn’t been listening. “Actually—”
The door slammed open, and Father swaggered into the room, his blue-black curls in disarray, and one side of his long beard missing. His torn shirt sleeve gaped open, revealing a thin, red scratch. He’d been dueling. Again. Magic crackled from the curved blade of his Sword of Lightning, scorching the marble floor.