Tale of the Princess

XXII

"How far away is your Maya?" Arina asked for the umpteenth time, huffing and clutching at her sides. Shyra sighed and shrugged, causing Arina to groan. "Why couldn't we take a vessel with us? It would have been much faster and less tiring."

"Because, princess," Shyra said with barely strung-together patience, "All of us are on the run. If any of these people realize who we are, they'll try to hand us back. And then it's practically game over."

Arina grumbled to herself but kept quiet after that. Shyra really wished that their handmaidens had accompanied them, but accepted the fact that they chose not to partake in the dangerous quest.

After a few moments of silence, during which Arina kept quiet, Shyra sighed in relief, unfolded a map of Ronin, and studied it carefully. According to it, they should be nearing the forests, beyond which the Maya was said to reside.

She was about to inform them when Arina muttered something like, Oh, for Cosmos' sake, and snatched the paper from Shyra, thrusting the metallic device instead.

Shyra curled her lips in distaste and promptly exchanged the items back. "Thank you for your concern, princess," she said coolly, "but I'm not familiar with this technology. Pranali has been quite technologically backward, so we've been using..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Arina said, nodding her head sagely. "You're new to technology, and you must be quite frightened by the opportunities it opens."

"On the contrary," Shyra said, stifling a laugh, "I've never really trusted those things."

Before Arina could come at her with fists, Hira placed a hand on her shoulder. "Stop fighting, both of you," she admonished them. "And look, you were so busy arguing that you didn't even realize that we reached the forest."

Arina gave a huge sigh of relief, stretched her arms, and marched into the forest, with Shyra and Hira trailing behind her like annoyed parents.

A piece of light string music floated through the trees and caught in their ears. Perplexed at the unexpected sound, they followed it to a lake surrounded by trees. They looked everywhere, but nobody seemed to be around, so they spread out and began searching for the mysterious musician.

"I've found her!" Arina called after a while, drawing Shyra and Hira to a large tree, upon which a young girl perched with an old-fashioned guitar. Shyra's eyes widened as soon as she sighted the girl, and the girl gasped in response.

"Empress Shyra? What are you doing here?" she asked, strapping the guitar to her back and nimbly climbing down the tree. Shyra could only blink in shock as Princess Fitoor landed on her feet before her, dusting leaves from her thick, long hair and hunter's outfit.

"I could ask the same thing of you," Shyra said, raising her eyebrows at Fitoor. The teenager blushed in response and kicked her feet with her eyes downcast.

"I've temporarily run away, Empress," she admitted, placing her hands on her hips. "My father has lately been ignoring important issues and is contenting himself with solving petty crimes. I love my father, but he needs to step up and take responsibility for his actions."

"And so, you've run away to make him solve his problems?" Shyra asked, growing more perplexed by the passing kshana.

"Ah well, I didn't intend to run away in the beginning. I just wanted the aag daanav to stop terrorizing us, so I tried to goad father into action, but when he refused to listen to me, I ran away and refused to come back until he did something about it."

Shyra's head was spinning with many questions, but when she met Arina and Hira's eyes, the question that she needed to ask naturally rose to her lips.

"Aag daanav? There's an aag ka daanav in Ronin?"

Fitoor frowned when she realized that Shyra didn't know about the daanav. "Yeah well, a few maasas ago, a daanav randomly appeared at the surface of our lava beds, and killed all our smiths," her voice trembled as she recounted the terrible reports she had heard. "Since then it's been lurking here and disrupting our work. It doesn't attack the subjects though. Just roams the fire beds and roars."

Shyra pursed her lips and pressed the tips of her index and thumb fingers together. "And do you have any clue of what it wants? Where has it come from?"

"Well," Fitoor said, glancing around as if she was worried that someone might overhear her words. "I've spent a lot of time among the people lately, and according to them, this daanav is the work of a Maya."

All of them glanced at each other with wide eyes. "A Maya? " Arina asked, crossing her arms. Fitoor mistook her gesture for rudeness and crossed her own arms.

"Yeah, a Maya," she said, drawing out the word. "It sounds ludicrous, but I have enough reason to believe it."

"And do you know where the Maya lives?" Shyra asked urgently, placing her arms on Fitoor's shoulders. The girl pursed her lips and nodded.

"I was planning on confronting her soon. I wanted to find out why she's terrorizing us, and ask her to leave us alone," she said, her lower lip wobbling, and for the first time Shyra felt bad for the young girl who'd taken on difficulties she shouldn't have had.

"Don't worry, kid," Shyra said, smiling gently. "We came here to have a little chat with the Maya as well. We'll convince her to destroy the daanav." For the first time in their meeting, Fitoor smiled brightly.

"So can you tell us where she lives?" Shyra prodded her.

"I can do even better. I can lead you there myself."