[FM, when you come back on, please reply to my previous posts.
]
Althea's old teacher threw up his hands in frustration. Ever since the Lady had gone, the problems just seemed to keep coming and coming. It was as if all of Zircon's luck and protection had gone up to the surface with her. If that was the case, he fervently wished for her return.
If the Lady came back safely, most of the people's fears would disappear. And much as he refused to admit it, much of the tutor's fears would subside as well.
Ever since the voice - Althea's voice, her subjects claimed - had called to ever single person in the kingdom, the Zirconians had been in constant worry about her. Even the old tutor was anxious about her well-being, although he insisted that it was a hallucination.
'Most of you probably never heard any voice at all and just imagined you did,' was his argument. A few people were swayed by what he said but most staunchly stood by what they believed: that they had heard the Lady crying for help.
No one knew just how they had all managed to hear their ruler's pleas or why she had been calling in the first place. No one knew what had happened to the Lady afterwards and if anyone had saved her. Some of the more pessimistic ones whispered that perhaps the Lady had been seriously injured ... Their thoughts were quickly quenched by the others who did not want to hear of anything bad happening to their beloved Althea. But even the pessimistic ones would not say what everyone was thinking: Was she, their Lady, dead?
It was an unthinkable notion, yet it remained in everyone's heads.
Then a little child had been playing too near the water and had slipped and fallen in. Not knowing how to swim, he splashed about helplessly before he sank and drowned. By the time he was rescued, he was close to death's door and crossed over despite the healers' best efforts to save him. People wept that if Althea had been there, she would have saved him, just like she had saved Dev. Althea was by no means the most skilled and knowledgable healer, but she had arguably the most raw healing power.
And there was more.
The tutor's face sank into his hands as he groaned.
That morning when the fishermen had prepared to go out for a day's work, they had reported the water was covered by a thick, dense layer of black oil. All the fish in their traps were dead and rotting and no fresh fish could be caught that day.