A flash of memory. And then Ampelio spoke again.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
Evandro groaned and rolled his eyes.
“Why can’t I even be left alone with my brooding for a moment? I think I’ve earned as much!”
“As I was about to say—you’re brooding. You do it all the time. It’s not good for your spirit, you know? Not when you have someone who could listen to your ailments and offer a sympathetic word.”
“Odd. I don’t think I’ve ever said a word about wanting a shoulder to cry on.”
“That you didn’t, but among my many qualities…”
“ … which don’t include discretion,” he interrupted him. Ampelio ignored his tone.
“… there’s empathy. I can’t help it, I’m a storyteller, I need to feel what runs under the surface of people’s attitudes. And you, good man, are literally dying to have someone you can talk to freely.” He stretched his back, and from the corner of his eye, Evandro saw him grin to the clouds. “But I’m not pushy. When you’re ready, I’ll happily listen to your stories. As confidences, I promise! Nothing I’d put into a tale or anything.”
“Forgive me if I’m having a hard time trusting you.”
“I’m feeling generous, so don’t worry, everything’s forgiven. But you know where to find me, and I’m confident we’ll get a moment to talk once we bring this stubborn princess home safely.”
Evandro shook his head, glad to take the hint. Gaiane came first in his priority list at the moment, and he was confident Ampelio would stop being so nosy once they were back in Nikaia.
By the time the idea was formed in his mind, Evandro knew he was lying to himself, and there was no chance to avoid the interrogation. What was worse, though, was that it was something he almost looked forward to, and not just in dread.
Later. Princess first.
He cleared his throat, extending his arm to point at the trail of tracks ahead of them--a broken fern, a blue thread caught in a branch. She couldn’t be far, and he opened his mouth, a practical explanation at the ready.
The flash of blue light and the crackling before a loud boom just above the hill turned his words into a gasp. His horse reared up and kicked the air, and Evandro gripped the harness not to roll away. Ampelio squealed as his own ride turned around and ran away.
It took them a couple of very chaotic minutes to calm the beasts down and reunite, and by then Ampelio's face was white with shock, his eyes wide and shiny.
“What was that? A lightning bolt? I thought the storm was yet to…”
“Not a storm,” Evandro said. He patted the horse’s neck, then, before taking off, looked at Ampelio. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Sort of. My ears are buzzing.”
“Good,” and he spurred his steed downhill.
Too close to be a lightning bolt, to straight and bright.
That was magic. Lots of it.
Evandro didn’t slow down to make sure Ampelio was right behind him and drew his sword. He bent down on the horse’s mane as leaves slapped his face, his hair in his eyes. The armor was all hard edges and stiff plates, but it felt right. He was back in his own skin.
He had a princess to save.
Or maybe not, he thought in confusion as he emerged in a yellowing meadow.
His horse neighed and shook his massive head, spraying froth all around when the white-blue blaze exploded again. Evandro had a second to make out a black figure in the light, and more people scattered around, then the blast wave invested him. The saddle vanished from under him, and he flew back in the air.
The collision against the tree crushed his back and squeezed his lungs, and he lost the grip on his sword. Sliding down, his head buzzing, the faint taste of blood on his tongue where he’d bitten down, Evandro struggled to breathe. It hurt. His mind was slipping away.
Dawn Star!
Eliodoro was calling him. From his dreams, from his past, a voice he had almost forgotten. But it sounded so real, so warm and urgent…
Dawn Star!
He couldn’t move. His eyes wouldn’t stay open, and his head throbbed with wet pain, sticking to his hair. He was failing his prince--his king, his love--again.
“Evandro! Shit, get up!”
He blinked.
The cut on his scalp bled and hurt, but not that much. And the more he blinked, the more reality seeped through his senses.
Not Eliodoro: Ampelio, riding down the slope on his reluctant poor horse, with leaves in his hair and terror in his voice.
Evandro fumbled and found the hilt of his sword, then slowly stood up, still leaning against the tree.
Gaiane was standing in a circle of soldiers. Some were struggling to get up, others moaned weakly. And the princess herself, with her hands splayed in front of her and her hair loose and writhing like black snakes, was a vision out of a nightmare.
This was not the girl who had cried for a twisted ankle or begged for mercy as they took her to Nikaia. The grass around her was sizzling.
This was a woman who could single handedly turn the tide of a battle.
He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tasting leather and sweat, and took a tentative step forward.
The Asares banner was in the dirt, its tails smoking gently. He counted five soldiers on their backs, their hair standing up on their heads, smears of black on the reddened skin of their faces. They were still breathing, but hardly.
Three more were getting up on wobbly knees, blood streaming from their ears.
Evandro took a step forward.
“Gaiane?”
He could only see her back. Her dress was stained with dirt and grass. Her legs trembled lightly.
“Princess, it’s Evandro. I’m here to help you, if you…”
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped. Her voice was low, dry.
“I won’t. But we must leave at once, or more soldiers will come for you.”
“Let them come,” she snarled. She tilted her head, and a flaming blue eye nailed him in place. The mark on her brow shone bright like a star. “I’m sick of hiding. If they’re after me, I can stop them.”
“Not them all, Gaiane. Or maybe yes, but at what cost? It’s your family!” He took another step toward her, and his mouth was dry.
“I said I will stop them, not… not how. I won’t shed any more blood if I can avoid it!”
* * *
“Nice sentiment, but it kind of clashes with reality…”
“They want me alive. And they can’t hurt me,” she insisted. Electricity danced on her fingertips once more, and Evandro shook his head.
“They could come for Nikaia. How many innocent people could…”
“Not one more!” she cried out. “I’m sick of victims weighing on my conscience!”
“It’s very noble, Gaiane, and you were incredibly brave to sneak out on your own.”
And very stupid, but he didn’t say it out loud. He kept eye contact, and the burned ground under his boots crumbled with every step. “You proved you’re not your family’s pet.”
“I will find my way to Zafiria. I will fight my family if needed, because I will never let them use me again, and then…”
Her eyes shot open, wide and wild, and her mouth dangled without a sound. Evandro's nerves flared with anticipation and he lifted his sword.
“Watch out!” Ampelio yelled somewhere behind him, halfway up the hill.
The warning came too late. Gaiane slowly looked up, and the bubble of energy hit her across her chest before she could put her hands up in defense.
The girl rolled on the ground like a rag doll, her head dangling around and bouncing against the rocks.
Evandro let out a primal scream and charged on. The soldier was still panting, his arm outstretched in the aftermath of his spell. Evandro lowered his blade in a wide arch; its edge sunk in the metal of the armor with an explosion of sparkles, bending the man’s elbow at a wrong angle. The soldier fell back with a shriek, holding his arm. His mou
th was a perfect round “O,” his eyebrows burned by Gaiane’s spell. Evandro lifted his sword, ready to finish him, but a movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention.
Another soldier limped toward Gaiane, slumped and still in the grass.
They were going to take her. Give her back to the Asares.
Not on my watch.
Evandro sunk his elbow in his enemy’s face and didn’t stop to see him fall. He turned on his heel and jumped over his first opponent, kicking his head in the process.
“Don’t touch her!” he yelled, and the soldier, predictably enough, ignored him.
The soldier crouched, sword in hand, blade inches from Gaiane’s throat.
“Stop right there or I’ll kill her!”
A bluff. Evandro was charging on already. He didn’t even bother with the sword, this time. The soldier trembled, his eyes going from Evandro to Gaiane, then to Evandro again.
Just in time to let out a loud grunt when Evandro's shoulder got him in the stomach. The leather pauldron held the impact against the chain mail, and Evandro ignored the tingling in his arm. He slammed the man on his back and pounded his face with the pummel of his sword, until the nose cracked with a gush of blood.
The soldier sputtered and moaned, and Evandro realized he’d been holding his breath all along. He gasped and rolled off his opponent, crouching by Gaiane’s side.
“Mother’s buttocks, girl, what have you gotten yourself into,” he moaned. The princess was breathing, thank the Spirits, but her lips were white, and the hair on her temple sticky and wet. He shook her gently, and relief melted his knees when she groaned softly.
Dozens of needs crowded his brain: pick her up, call Ampelio for help, finish the soldiers, bring her back, check on her wounds. He could only look at Gaiane’s ashen face, her eyes squeezing as she came back to her senses, and something inside him crumbled.
He had wanted her dead. He’d dodged his own ruination by seconds, and only because of…
“Evandro! No!”
Ampelio's voice rang near and desperate.
Evandro looked up from Gaiane’s body and saw the spell roll right in his face. A fireball, red and golden in the gloom of the stormy afternoon.
The faded scar on his brow tingled in vain, and he closed his eyes, breathless.
Fire came.
Fire went.
Evandro gasped, his body thrown across Gaiane in a last desperate attempt at protecting her. Flames parted around an invisible glass in front of him.
Ampelio, on his knees, held his arms high to support the barrier. He was shaking, bending under the energy.
The fireball died away in the clearing, and Ampelio collapsed on his face, his back heaving with shallow breaths.
Evandro swept the invasion of thoughts from his head and rolled over Gaiane. The remaining soldier, exhausted after his final attempt, dropped his arms and sat on the ground, panting.
It was easy. The sword in Evandro's hand was an extension of his will. And he wanted blood.
He strode to the soldier. The wind caught into his hair, slapping it across his face. Red. Like the heart he wanted to stop once and for all.
But easy, sometimes, wasn’t right. Wasn’t good.
The Asares soldier was chuckling, his eyes hooded.
“Come on, Dawn Star. Is it really you, then? Kill me. And then the others. Strike the unarmed.”
The words burned, but it was a wound Evandro had come to acknowledge and accept. He grabbed the man’s helmet and snatched it off, causing the soldier to whimper when he pulled his hair. He threw the helmet away, leaving it to roll among the smoking grass.
“You wish,” Evandro snarled. He pointed his sword under the man’s chin, and suddenly felt nothing. Easy, he’d thought, to end that life.
Irrelevant.
He abandoned his sword and grabbed the man by his breast plate and hauled him to his feet. He wasn’t chuckling anymore.
“Tell queen Cibele that her daughter is free, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Not even imprison her again,” he whispered in the soldier’s face. Before the man could answer, Evandro headbutted him. Once, in his mouth, and the broken teeth bruised his brow. And then once more, in his nose. The wet cracking was both disgusting and satisfying.
His head throbbed a little when he released the motionless shape, shoving him back in a heap of metal and bloodied flesh.
“... here, it’s alright. Do you feel like throwing up?”
“N-No…”
“Good sign. Look at me, here, I’m the handsome one with a perfect smile--well done, princess. It’s nothing, you’ll be fine, I promise.”
Ampelio was whispering to Gaiane. His voice was warm and full of concern, and Evandro swayed as he joined them.
The girl was awake, shaking but back to herself. Evandro knelt by her side and hesitantly took her hand. Gaiane didn’t snatch hers back, only looked at him with her blue eyes, now bigger and more innocent than ever.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why did you run away?” he asked, rubbing her cold fingers.
“I… I…” She turned her face and curled on her side. “I wanted it to stop. I wanted to fight, and I couldn’t do it while I was with…”
She didn’t say Leo’s name out loud, but Evandro understood anyway. Larsa was right, after all.
He brushed her hair back.
“You were very brave, but now we need to go back and…” And prepare for the reckoning, because half of Epidalio must’ve seen your spell. The Asares will come for you. “And tend to that nasty cut on your head.”
Gaiane nodded and sat up, but didn’t move.
With a sigh, Evandro caressed her shoulder and stood up. When he met Ampelio's eyes, he called him with a tilt of his head.
“We must get the horses,” he said matter-of-factly. Ampelio didn’t reply as they retrieved the rides from the shadow of the trees where they’d hidden.
Only there, with Gaiane out of earing range, Evandro stopped and took Ampelio's forearm.
“You saved me.” he said under his breath. Ampelio stared at him, oddly serious. The sign on his brow was visibly paler, his pupils blown.
“I did my best.”
Evandro arms twitched. He moved an inch forward, but then stopped. There was a time and place for hugs and gratitude, and this was neither. He simply nodded and patted Ampelio's arm, looking at him longer than necessary.
“That you did. Thank you. For my life, and Gaiane’s.”
A shadow of Ampelio's grin stretched his lips.
“So you don’t regret me coming with you, after all. I told you, you might’ve needed me, and I was right. As usual, because…”
Evandro snorted and punched his shoulder, making him laugh some more.
“Now don’t push your luck, kid. We have a princess to take back home.”
And for the whole ride back, under a sky that went from grey to green and purple, announcing a storm, Evandro held his head high. Gaiane was perched behind Ampelio, and he opened the way.
Every now and then he stopped to check on the two kids. Ampelio managed to make Gaiane laugh, and talked endlessly about the beauty of the land around them.
Trouble awaited. A siege, maybe, and a town to evacuate.
He’d done that before. He had failed.
And now life was giving him another chance.
Through the veil of dread of his past mistakes, he set his jaw to a stubborn angle.
He needed to try and be more than the man he’d become, no matter how much it hurt.
Chapter 18
“You endangered us all! I knew it, I knew you were trouble the moment you entered the gate!”
* * *
“I know very well what I did, thank you very much! If you only let me explain…”
“There’s nothing to explain! I can’t believe your naivety, I can’t believe this nonsense came from someone who needed to earn our trust!”
“I’m aware of how reckless I’v
e been, but that’s exactly why I did it! To prove you I’m not a burden, let alone an enemy!”
Althea pinched the bridge of her nose and paced around the cellar they called throne room.
“You are…”
“Althea. Enough,” Ligeia said from her throne. The way she looked at Althea spoke volumes of who was the real queen, and who was still hanging to a crown she no longer wore. Rea was peeking from behind the backrest. The child stared at Gaiane with huge eyes, twisting the end of her long sleeves. On her face was sincere pain, not the anger Gaiane could see on the old queen’s grimace. It hurt even more. She swallowed and clenched her fists.
“Why, why in the name of the Mother did you have to run away like that, girl?”
“I…” She opened her mouth, but words failed her. How could she explain to strong, sensible Ligeia that it had seemed like a good idea at the time? A way to impress the ragged court and show how brave she could be? She gritted her teeth and looked down to her feet—something Althea misunderstood entirely.
“Stop crying! I’ve had enough of your scenes, and I demand an explanation!” Althea’s voice rose.
Gaiane looked up sharply, narrowing her eyes. They were dry, but her shoulders trembled with fury.
“I’m not crying, and you don’t even want to listen to me!”
And in fact, Althea ignored her. She stopped in front of Gaiane with her hands on her hips. “Do you even understand what you’ve done, you foolish child?”
Evandro, standing behind Gaiane, shuffled into place with a creaking of leather and clinking of metal.
“She does, my q-Althea,” he grumbled.
It was true. She’d expected this all--the scolding, the disappointed looks, the crawling feeling of being in the wrong place, the need to hide. The guilt, though, was all new.
“Why is granny so angry?” Rea said in a perfectly audible whisper.
Gaiane sniffed and shivered in place, rubbing her foot on the ground.
“Because Gaiane did something very risky. She had good intentions, but she couldn’t see the consequences of her actions,” Ligeia replied softly.
“Oh. She’s grounded, then?”
Ligeia chuckled briefly.
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