~~
Trinity
~~
"Wait!" Reece called out as soon as I started to walk toward the door.
"What? Why wait? I know that we need to get back to the city as soon as possible. Something terrible is going to happen if we don't hurry." I gave him an exasperated look as I questioned his questioning of me.
"How are we going to prove their innocence? I mean, I know that we all trust and believe in Vincent's assessment of them, but will Gloriana and Valerian believe it? They both seem to believe that Hibiscus is innocent no matter what you say to the contrary."
"Well, it just so happens that I planned for something just like that." I grinned at him.
"How exactly did you plan for something like that, Trinity?" Vincent looked at me with confused eyes..
"When she healed me." Sterling was the one to answer the question on my behalf.
"That is right. When she healed him she called on me for my magic. It was then that she prayed to the celestials for their assistance. She asked that we be marked if we were innocent."
"OK, well that would be convenient, but what markings did she give you? I don't see any right now."
"You don't see them because they're on their collar bones under their shirts. The marks are where the goddess blessings usually show up on the people that I bless."
"Well, that is convenient. But what do the marks look like? How are they different? How will they prove that they are innocent?" Reece was still not convinced that things were going to go smoothly when we got back.
"Alloy, Sterling, would the two of you mind showing us the marks that you have been given?" I saw the shock and fear on their faces.
"D..d..d..do we have to?" Alloy looked at me nervously.
"It's alright, Alloy." Sterling took his hand and squeezed it tightly. "All we need to do is show our new marks, nothing more will happen other than that. I promise, we will be fine." Alloy looked as if he had been through something that made him afraid to show his body to others.
"A..a..are you sure that nothing more will happen?" Alloy asked with fear in his voice now.
"I promise you." I answered him instead of Sterling. "I will not allow anything to happen to you. Not here and now, and not back in the city. I will make sure that everyone knows the truth." I saw the fear begin to ebb as tears filled his eyes slightly.
"Thank you, Queen Trinity. Truly, thank you for caring so much about what happens to us." Sterling was the first to respond to my words.
"Y..y..yes, th..th..thank you. I..I..I don't kn..kn..know what we w..we..would do without you here Queen Trinity."
"I may not be the Queen of the Fae, but I am still part Fae, and that makes you my people as well. I will protect my people when they need me."
Everyone that was inside the shed was looking at me with reverent eyes. It was like they thought that I had said something very beautiful and wise. That just made me feel awkward at the moment.
"A..a..a..alright, w..w..w..well, lets s..s..s..see these m..m..m..marks so that we can get a move on." I was the one who sounded like they were embarrassed now.
"Yes, I think that it is time for us to get this over with." Reece agreed.
"Right." Sterling nodded.
"OK." Alloy reluctantly consented.
I watched the two men as they slowly unbuttoned their shirts just a little. I thought to myself that Sterling could have just pulled the gaping hole in his shirt up and showed us that way. Then again, that would have left just Alloy being the only one unbuttoning his shirt and he would have felt awkward and embarrassed because of it. I guess this was Sterling's way of showing solidarity.
It seemed like it was taking a long time for them to reveal that part of their chests, but I know that, in reality, it wasn't really that long. No matter how long it did or didn't actually take, eventually I did see the marks start to appear.
The marks were a vibrant mix of three different colors. There was a bright and shining green and blue background that looked like a landscape with a pure white songbird that seemed to be flying over the untouched land in the back. It was an image that, to me, spoke of pure innocence.
"Well, I don't know about you, but that to me says that Danu recognized them as being as innocent as babies." Reece laughed at his own words. "You gentlemen have my respect. I am sorry to make you do this, but I thank you for obliging."
"That is fine King Reece, we understand what this all must have looked like to an outsider that was not there when we were attacked." Sterling was the one to answer, as always.
"Alright, well, I think it's time to head back to the city. We need to prove their innocence, prove Hibiscus's guilt, and save Aunt Glory. I have a feeling that something is going to happen very soon." I just had a really bad feeling coursing through me. There wasn't really an explanation behind it, I just had an inkling that Hibiscus did all of this for a reason and that she was going to make her move soon enough.
"Well, we still need to find out if she was truly being controlled by someone or not." Nathair was the one to respond from beyond the shed door. "I know that most likely she has not been, but you know that Queen Gloriana will be inclined to believe that she has been." He had a point. I didn't want to think that Aunt Glory would still stand in my way, even with all this evidence presented to her, but that didn't mean that it wouldn't happen.
"Yeah, well, I plan on proving that she isn't." With that, we left the shed.
