sun dec 21 15:55:29 cst 2014

Queen Chloe seemed to have a strange dream, in which she saw herself flying, not in the sky, but like an owl shuttling between the black branches, and she flew faster and faster, and countless horizontal branches rushed towards her, and she dodged away, and behind the jagged branches were straight and thick trunks, which squeezed towards her with their inky bellies, some of them made a rough laugh of torn silk, and some of them made a low murmur of ill intentions, and at last she could not dodge, and she could not fly, and she could not fly, She had to stop and fall to the ground, and the trees looked at her with smiling faces, and countless voices rang in her ears:

"She's a good-looking bird"

"No, she's not"

"She has black feathers"

"So what"

"Look at how beautiful the five long feathers on the tips of her wings are!"

"So what"

"Those feathers can make her fly"

"yes, because her feather tailpipe is empty."

"Empty" "Empty" "Empty"

……

The queen looked up from her dream, and the first thing she saw was empty above the ring and little fingers of her left hand.

It's still this room, it's still this table, it's still Coman's expressionless face, the queen screams loudly in her heart, let me go back to my dreams, that's the real world, I don't want to see this man, this cruel young man, oh, Solander, for God's sake, what have I done to you to make such a ruthless friend. Vanessa, my child, you are my last hope, no matter whose daughter you are, please hurry up and save me, before he cuts my fingers clean.

"Ha, you're awake, your mouth that never tells the truth can tell the truth this time?" Coman took a sip of the red wine in his glass, apparently changing a glass of wine for himself during the Queen's coma.

The only curses came from the Queen's mouth, she was too weak to lift her head, but in fact she didn't bleed much, Corman had grown up in the sand, and had learned how to treat wounds in harsh conditions, and he had just scalded the Queen's severed finger with an iron, and the smell of burnt flesh was still everywhere.

"Haken bought oats and grains from the city-states of ale, processed them into flour, and shipped them by trident to the land of the sandwiches, who exchanged the flour for gold. But their flour was always mixed with sand, and it was frightening to eat," said Koman, who poured Chloe a glass of wine, and the queen took the glass with her intact hand and poured it into her stomach, and Koeman filled it up again, and she drank it all in one gulp, "and then our king inspected the goods on the spot, and found a pint of grit in each bag of flour. He gave the merchant a choice, whether to return the gold as heavy as the grains of sand, or to eat all the sand in his stomach, and guess what? Coman took another sip of wine and looked into the queen's dull eyes, "The bastard chose the third way, and he fled." Of course, he was taken back again, and the result was that we disemboweled, hollowed out his heart, liver, and internal organs, filled him with grains of sand, and had the best weavers sew it up, and then returned his body to Haken Island. Coman nodded the queen with his glass, "You know, the last thing we need in the country of sand riding is sand, and the last thing you need in the country of midsummer is liars." ”

"Perhaps the merchant has a wife and children to support, and he does not want to die, and he cannot afford so much gold; Maybe he was reselling flour from someone else, and he didn't know it, and you brutally killed him without trial, an innocent man, so you all deserve to go to hell! The queen drank the wine, her face gradually turned bloody, and the two empty fingers on her hands began to ache heartbreakingly.

Coman shrugged and looked indifferent, "Anyway, no one has dared to sell us sand-mixed flour since then." He sat reclining in his chair, lifting his black cooked cowhide boots and placing them on the corner of the table, his shaking glass clashing with the liquor with a pleasant sound, "Your Majesty, you have mixed a lot of sand into your story." ”

"Which part do you mean?" The queen raised her eyes and glared at Koeman.

"The part about Ilia." Koman began to fiddle with the damn magic knife again, "You didn't say why you sent her to Weimar all the while, and Solanda has promised you that Ilia is under her own protection, and that the little princess will be safer with you than outside, what kind of mother would risk her child's life to escape from safety and find an irrelevant old nurse?" He gestured his dagger at the Queen's eight remaining fingers, "Be careful, you'll lose your fingers if you tell a lie." ”

What a shrewd devil this man is! The queen closed her eyes in pain, and now it was safer to tell the truth, "I want Elija to dance for you, and then wait for the opportunity to kill you." But Weima disagreed, saying that Elija was too young to understand these things, and that she would not let the princess die, and that I was not a good mother...... "She choked and covered her face with her hand, and when she looked up again, her eyes were full of tears.

Coman was indifferent, he sat still, staring at her with cold eyes, watching her sob, like a stone sculpture in a temple, "And where is our lovely dancing doll now?" ”

"Only Weimar knows." The queen trembled and whispered, her hair was messy, her lips were chapped, her face was as dark as iron, and she had long lost her queen's grace.

"Looks like I'm going to have to go back to Weimar's room to find clues." Coman straightened his beard, but didn't mean to get up and leave, "Speaking of clues, what other clues does Vanessa have that make you think she's not your daughter?" ”

"I don't have any specific clues," the queen struggled to muster herself up, pondering the answer to her question, "but my husband has investigated and was captured by the Sand Knights. ”

"I want to hear about it."

The queen looked at the empty wine glass, and Coman immediately refilled a glass of wine for her, and after the queen looked up and drank it, she sorted out her thoughts and began to talk from the beginning: "My husband Zach? Valentine was born into a small family of lords, and my mother and sisters were opposed to our marriage, so he never received the title of prince and the title he deserved. Then I conceived for the second time, and my father died suddenly when I was about to give birth, and he died very suddenly, almost at the same time, Vanessa was born, and I was so busy with my father's funeral that I didn't give a second look at the newborn. Afterwards, Zack said that the crying of two babies could be heard in the castle on the night Vanessa was born, and the ingredients of chronic poison were found in his father's daily diet. I immediately ordered him to investigate, but the investigation found that Zach had disappeared at the edge of the Misty Forest.

"I frantically searched for my husband, but I got the news from the carrier pigeon flying in the land of the sand riders that Zach was captured in the country of the sand riders! However, the opening and closing of the shield is in my hands, how did he get there? ”

"I think I can explain it to you." Coman held up a hand.

"You. It turned out to be you! The queen pretended to realize that the moment Coman revealed her magic, the queen understood that he was the little boy who brought Zack into the land of sand riding, and only this kid's magic could shield the magic of the shield, "But how could it be so coincidental?" What are you doing here at Shield? ”

"I remember the day my mother told me to go to the edge of the misty forest to collect some firewood," Coman opened a distant memory, "and I found a rabbit, so I put down the firewood and chased it, I was very young at that time, and I didn't know what kind of magic I had, so I chased it all the way to the depths of the forest, and the rabbit was gone, and I got lost." You know that the Misty Forest is actually just a narrow strip, not very wide, and the section I crossed should be relatively narrow, so when it was dark, I actually walked to the side of the Midsummer Country. Then I was caught by a knight. ”

Queen "Zach" longed for that name.

"He didn't tell me who he was," Coman pouted, "and apparently he was stunned by me." I saw a fire not far away, and believed that it was his camp, but he didn't alarm anyone, and he asked me where I was coming from, and if I was alone, and he asked a lot of questions, but I was too young to answer most of them, so he carried me and tried to go into the misty forest. ”

"He didn't go back to inform the people in the camp first?" The queen asked incredulously. Coman shook his head, "This fool! ”

"He's stupid enough to be unworthy of you at all." Koman's eyes sneered playfully.

"Thank you," the queen replied stiffly.

"The way back is much faster, but your Zach was not as lucky as I was, he met the patrolling sand cavalry and was taken down on the spot." Coman poured himself another glass of wine, which hit his cheeks and made him look a little smug, "And I, because of my skill in capturing thieves and being found to have such powerful magic, was brought into the palace by King Voguson to raise me. It was there that I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with your daughter, the sweet Princess Solanda. ”

"Sweet?" The queen almost burst into tears and laughed, "If you dare to say this to her face, she will definitely turn her face with you, the word sweet is not for Solanda, never." ”

"How do you know she's not sweet? You don't know your daughter at all – all three! Coman narrowed his eyes at the Queen, "She was indeed sweet when she first arrived, she behaved like a princess, she loved to sing and dance, she spoke softly and firmly, and treated people without being humble or arrogant, which is the style of a princess of a great country that we have never seen." But within a week, she was just like us: she was beaten by Achilla, beaten by the sandriders, beaten by everyone who saw her. ”

The queen was stunned: "How can this be! Vogtson promised me that I would protect her! ”

"If the oath works, what do you need a sword for?" Coman snorted coldly, "At first, Old Vogtson only wanted to save Solanda's life so that he could contain your Midsummer Country, but when Solanda was old, his eyes changed when he looked at her, like a rat smelling fermented cheese miles away. But by then Solanda had become a sand knight, and with me and Finney, all Vogtson could do was add a few more wounds to us. ”

The queen didn't want to believe it, but she had to believe the cruel truth, because she had seen the wounds on Solanda's body, the shocking, screaming wounds.

"Look at the good you have done to her," Coman slapped the table loudly, "You know, once Akira, jealous that her waist was thinner than herself, had her skin stripped of her waist and put a large piece of fat horse meat with skin on it. "Do you know how many teeth your daughter is missing from her mouth, do you know how many pieces of flesh your daughter has lost, do you know how many of her bones have cracks, have you seen the poisonous blood that comes out of her—you don't know anything?" ”

Large tears dripped on the table, dripping into specks of light, each of which reflected the Queen's grief-stricken face, and Coman could tell that she wanted to stop, but she had to listen to it, and she had to feel the pain of Solanda to understand why she had to wipe out the Sand Riders, and only then would she know what it was like to be more painful than a broken finger. "Then she finally learned to be obedient and began to use her fists to earn respect for herself, the day I first met her, she had just killed a man twice her height with a dagger, and the guy tried to snatch the rune ring from Solanda's hand, but lost his life, and Solanda got the boots on his feet."

"They didn't even give her shoes to wear?" The queen asked, raising her teary eyes.

Coman gave her a sneer, "How do you think the title 'Marauder' came about, those who swore to be Sand Knights, what thing about them didn't take them from the dead!" - Not only the shoes, it is said that when Solanda first entered the palace, she was no different from the slaves, with only a strip of yellow cloth around her waist. God forbid, Solanda was not yet in her lap at that time. Corman rested his head on his hands, leaned back in his chair, and stretched his body as much as he could, "And then things went much better, she won back her belt from Raph 'Spatula', and she got a scimitar from the corpse of 'Horseshoe-Face' Anchorage, followed by an oversized pair of woollen trousers, a roll of wolf skin, a couple of rings, and finally Joseph Sr.'s shirt, well, it didn't fit, but it was better than nothing. ”

"Tell me how you met," the queen cried, "what else has happened to my daughter?" ”

"I was about to pee in the alley, but I saw Solanda being robbed, she was stabbing the man in the stomach with a dagger, covered in blood, like a ghoul who had just climbed up from hell, and when her bloodshot eyes saw me, I immediately understood that she wanted to finish me together. I should have been afraid, but for some reason my chest was filled with anger," Coman recalled, his eyes half-closed, "and I rushed towards her, and the two rolled together, beating each other until neither of them had the strength to stand up. Eventually, the three of us formed a sworn friendship – me, Solanda, and Phoenix. ”

"Phoenix, the youngest prince of the sand riders?"

"Yes, that's him." There was a hint of fascination on Koman's face, "He is also bullied by Akira as often as we are, but he is a prince after all, and the Sand Riders dare not really hurt him, and the situation of the two of us is much worse, Akira is conceited and magically powerful, and she is the princess of the Sand Riding Country, she disdains everyone, and her greatest pleasure every day is to torture us." ”

"What did she do?" The queen asked with teary eyes.

"Many, too many to count like a sand knight." Coman said nonchalantly, "Oh, in the last all-around competition, Achilla was afraid that Solanda would do better than herself, so she ordered someone to gouge through her calf, into the rusty chains, and on both sides of the trumpet iron balls. But even then, Solanda won her. Solandar earned the respect of all, and her Blood Wolf Guard followed her ever since. "Your daughter is brilliant, she's a great fighter," he stood up and walked to the window, frowning and staring out, "Now you understand that she wasn't born to be violent and reckless, and behind every twisted heart there is a bloody past." ”

Of course I know this, and I will find a way to compensate my daughter, and I don't need you kid to teach. "Indeed," the queen swallowed her anger, "but what I don't understand is why she fled back so suddenly, when she has fully adapted to your circumstances?" ”

Coman smiled slyly and shook the magic knife in his hand, "That's another story, it's not free." ”

Damn, he's just an unshakable boulder! The queen thought to her chagrin that she had seen through my intentions and would not let me get to the bottom of it easily.

"Enough! As a queen, it's sad enough to lose your fingers, do you want me to wear black silk gloves on both hands forever? The queen put away her tears and shouted angrily, "If you have to leave some tokens for my nominal daughter to see, cut my hair, Vanessa will naturally understand that I am your hostage when she sees them, and she will not dare to attack you lightly." ”

"Okay." Coman turned back contentedly, "It's time for lunch, too, guard!" ”

A soldier dressed in bright silver light chain mail entered. The man had a thin, angular face, and a gloomy and grim look, oh, I don't know him, the queen thought disappointedly. I used to know everyone around me, the guards, the noblewomen, the maids, the old men, and even the stableman, but after I lost power, they changed into the same way I didn't know, cold and distant.

The queen heard Corman tell the guard: "Go and issue a wanted warrant and search for Princess Ilia in the whole city!" She didn't hear what was said afterwards, but Elia's name was ringing in her ears - how could it be, he was mistaken! Why not Vanessa? The queen asked, "Why didn't you hunt down Vanessa?" ”

Coman closed the door and turned to squeeze a happy smile out of Blackbeard, "Because she's my sister." ”

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