Chapter 325: Lina’s problems.
It seemed impossible that someone could sleep for almost an entire day, but that was what Sienna did. When she finally opened her eyes, she noticed a hand casually thrown over her waist. It turned out to be Princess Lina!
Sienna groaned. "What are you doing in my bed Lina?"
"Your grandmother told me to come and check on you." Lina yawned. "When I came, you pulled me down and hugged me like a pillow." She sat up, stretching her arms. "Your body is soft, like a marshmallow."
Sienna snorted in response and rose to prepare for dinner. She went downstairs with Lina, and they found most of the relatives in the large kitchen. The rose-jam making session had ended, and all the jars were lined on shelves inside or in the green houses. The kitchen smelled of smoke and spice. Elias, Eli, Geo and Miro stood at one grill. Elias was the only one doing any work of that group, grilling skewers of chicken and vegetables that sizzled as he turned them with a quiet focus.
Sienna found a seat and found her gaze lingering on him longer than she expected. Lina, sat next to her, and the princess noticed where Sienna’s eyes dwelled.
Lina leaned closer, her voice pitched just loud enough to cut through the crackle of the grill. "You are lucky, Sienna."
"What?"
"You got lucky, with him." Lina smiled at Sienna, then shifted her gaze to where the younger falcon cousins were sharing soft drinks, pretending it was wine. "Elias is one in ten billion."
Sienna smiled. "I can’t argue with that."
"Yeah." Lina received a paper plate from Linera that held three chicken skewers, three beef skewers, three vegetable skewers and two potato and mushroom skewers. The plate was heavy enough to require both hands. "He looks at you as though the world bends around your presence." She added, while resting her plate on the small table Corven Junior carried over.
The boy was dragged away imemdiately by aunt Linera, as though the princess was an explosive.
Before Sienna could reply, Lina sighed, her expression shifting. "I didn’t cancel my wedding because of you, by the way. I saw my fiance hugging Kessara, my cousin. And not in a way friends hug, it was intimate." Her voice trembled, though she tried to mask it with a laugh. "Apparently, some people were already aware of their closeness. My mother told me to look the other way and be glad a man was willing to marry me."
Sienna’s eyes hardened. "Scums," she said flatly, the word cutting through the smoky air. She reached out, resting a hand on Lina’s arm. "You deserve better than betrayal dressed as affection. There are hundreds of men with crushes on you in the empire. I am sure Miro Veythar is one of them. Dump the scum and start over with someone who accepts you, not tolerates you."
Lina’s smile faltered, and for a moment, she kept quiet. "I didn’t want to be this way, you know," she whispered, "my over talkativeness is an illness. That is what the priest of our tribe says. Medicine keeps it manageable. My family has been secretly drugging me, thinking I was not aware. But I am. I know everything that goes on in the palace."
Sienna looked at her curiously. "If you know you have this condition, why don’t you control yourself? You often spill secrets that should not be shared."
Lina laughed. "Every secret I share is something that will harm me or my family. I am a princess, not a fool. I spill those secrets deliberately to see who is truly good to me. If the secret circulates, then I know exactly where it came from and who I can’t trust. In every story I tell, I add a fake detail."
Sienna’s mouth opened slightly. She looked at the princess in shock and shook her head. Indeed, as expected of a princess raised in a royal family where struggles for power and schemes happen in the dark. It seemed that she was underestimating Lina like many people.
"Do you think I am good to you?" Sienna asked her.
Lina raised her brows. "I think you tolerate me, and sometimes, you indulge me. But, you don’t hide it when you are displeased with me and you don’t do things to please me to get benefits from me. In my books, that is good enough." She smiled slyly, "I love the way you grimace whenever I call you bestie."
Sienna picked up a chicken skewer and bit into it. Around them, the kitchen was alive with a slice of chaos. Grandma Jess shuffled in, frowning at the sight of everyone gathered around the grill. "Why are we rating in the kitchen when we own almost all of this sea side? We have over thirty dining rooms. Choose one and sit there." Her voice was sharp with tradition.
Uncle Jorik chuckled from the corner, waving a carving knife. "Because the kitchen is where the heart is, Madam Jess. And the grill is hit."
Elias, unbothered, flipped another skewer, the scent of charred peppers and marinated chicken filling the air.
Chuckles came from Ali. The little one had claimed the largest thigh cooked tonight--a turkey leg, prepared for her especially by uncle Jorik. She bit into it with ferocious delight, grease smearing her cheeks, her small hands gripping the bone as though it were a trophy.
The family laughed, the sound mingling with the hiss of the grill and clatter of plates.
Suddenly, Lina leaned against Sienna’s shoulder, tears spilling from her eyes. "I have no friends," she whispered, her voice breaking. "And I didn’t get a turkey leg."
Sienna rolled her eyes. "Can we deal with one problem at a time? You have friends Lina, I met them."
Lina sniffled. "They are not true friends. They smile at me and whisper about me behind my back. None of them listen to anything I say about my dreams and ambitions. They spy and report all I do to my mother." She complained, voice breaking.