Shielded

by KayLynn Flanders

  I tried standing but fell back with a gasp. Romo and Chiara pushed their way to me. Romo sheathed my sword, and Chiara lifted my uninjured arm around her shoulders to help me stand.

  I paused for a moment, scraping my thoughts together. “How did you know the king…”

  Romo tapped his ear. “Even in the dungeon, servants hear everything.”

  They helped me limp to where Mari brushed dirt from the floor, exposing the square outline of a wooden door.

  Romo took a torch from a sconce and held it out to Mari. “Hold it high, Princess.” She hefted it with both hands. Romo tugged the door open, dirt raining into the gaping hole. A few stairs were visible in the dim, flickering light. “When the king attacks, we’ll be ready.”

  Romo turned to me. “Shall I accompany you, Miss Aleinn?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “The king needs you inside. If you can, get to the barracks. The remaining palace guards are prisoners there.”

  “Be careful,” he said as he gripped my elbow.

  “You too.” I wheezed out a cough and leaned against him for a moment before letting him help me into the cramped tunnel. My ribs screamed and my shoulder ached as I stooped. Ice slammed through my veins from the wound in my leg, fighting against my magic. I looked up at Romo, and nodded for him to shut the hatch.

  The blackness of the tunnel closed around us. We leaned toward the torchlight and hobbled forward until we could stand in the main tunnel.

  Pain fogged my mind, but I saw Enzo’s face in the darkness, the trust in his green eyes that I would protect his sisters. Shade mages were Graymere’s specialty, and the newest one had found me fast in the dungeon. Was he nearby, working with Brownlok? The key illustration sat against my leg like a millstone. We needed to get to the king as soon as possible. But first, we’d have to cross a camp full of soldiers I wasn’t entirely sure we could trust.

  Mari frowned and bit her lip as she watched me limp. “Can you make it?”

  I was running out of energy as I poured magic from my ring into my shield, but I couldn’t let Mari see me injured. I needed her to keep moving forward, to keep believing we were going to get out of this.

  “She’ll make it.” Chiara slipped under my good shoulder, wrapping her hand around my waist. “Let’s go find our family.”

  Mari went ahead of us, clearing the rocks from the center of the muddy tunnel. Rotting wooden timbers braced the roughly hewn walls. Every breath of the humid, muggy air sent knives into my cracked ribs. I couldn’t use my arm—my shoulder had to be broken. I leaned heavily on Chiara, each step forward excruciating.

  Little by little, the tunnel lightened. We caught a breeze of fresh air, and after one final turn, we reached the end. A huge boulder disguised the exit, with trailing plants covering everything.

  The land dropped away, rocks and scrubby bushes scattering the slope to the valley below us. If there had once been a path down, all evidence of it had long been erased. We rested for a moment while Mari scrambled down, looking for the easiest route.

  The shield around my wounds flickered. Chiara watched me, eyes wide with worry. The farther Mari explored, the worse I felt. Emptier.

  “Chiara. I think you should go on without me. Find Enzo.” I couldn’t catch my breath, and my words came out haltingly. “You can send…someone back. Later.” I leaned my head against a rock.

  “No, Leinn. We aren’t leaving you.”

  Mari came back, bouncing on her toes. “I saw the tents! Father’s here! But…” She bit her lip and studied my slouched form. “But there isn’t an easy way down.”

  The magic in me brightened, a tiny flare as Mari took my hand and helped me stand. The edges of my vision went white, and the blood drained from my head. But after a few breaths, I could see again.

  Chiara took my knife from Mari’s boot and pressed the tip into her skirt at her waistline. The fabric was filthy, and though it had once been a rich blue, it was now a grayish brown. She ripped the top layer from the waistband, leaving a plain cream-colored one underneath.

  “What are you—” I started to ask.

  Chiara fanned out the fabric. “You can sit on it, and we’ll pull you down.”

  She set her jaw, brows furrowed. I didn’t have the energy to get her to relent, so I let her help me sit on the makeshift sled.

  My relief didn’t last long. As we started downhill, rocks bit into my backside, and one particularly vicious bush snagged in my hair, pulling the leather tie from my braid. But with every new jolt in my leg and ribs and shoulder, my mind wandered further, recalling something warm…someone warm…next to me.

  “Leinn?” Mari called, trying to get my attention.

  We’d reached the bottom, a grassy field between us and the sea of white tents. So many. How would we find the king among all of them? How could we trust any of the soldiers between here and there?

  Mari knelt next to me and took my face in her little hands. “You can do this, Leinn. We need you. I believe in you.” My magic stirred, and the ice faded the tiniest bit.

  I licked my lips and swallowed. “I don’t know who is still loyal to your father, so we’ll stay together, and I’ll shield us.”

  “Do you have the strength for that?” Chiara whispered. Her skirt was streaked with brown, there was a long tear in the hem, and dark smudges circled her eyes.

  “We can make it,” I said. I’d survived several attacks from mages and a week in the Wild on my own; I could survive this. I held out my hand, and Chiara pulled me up, looping her arm around my waist again. Mari’s hand held my elbow. “Let’s go.”

  The smooth grass waved against my legs as we limped toward the tents. There was magic in the ring still; its heat warmed my finger. I used its magic instead of my own and threaded it around us, weaving a thin shield. One I hoped would get us to the king.

  The sun hadn’t risen yet, and most still slept in their tents. Watchmen stood guard along the periphery of the camp, but they kept their focus toward the city, toward the threat.

  There wasn’t a clear path to the center, where Chiara thought her father’s tent would be. So she led us, zigzagging through the stomped-on grass, around small firepits.

  I wished Enzo would appear before us, or Luc, or anyone I could trust, so I could hand the sisters over and stop trudging over this cursedly uneven ground.

  “That’s father’s tent,” Chiara finally whispered, pointing to one much larger than the others.

  Mari lifted the flap, and we stumbled inside. Enzo stood behind a table with maps spread over it, speaking with his mother and father. Luc was pacing off to one side.

  “Stop!” Enzo growled. Instead of the warm welcome I’d expected, he drew his sword and leapt over the table, angling himself between us and his parents.

  Luc drew his sword but looked around in confusion.

  I squeezed my eyes shut—I’d forgotten that Enzo could “see” magic. I let the shield dissolve, and Mari raced to her parents.

  Cora’s strangled gasp broke the tension. She met Mari’s embrace, and pulled Chiara in. Marko put his arms around all of them, then pulled Enzo in, too.

  “My darlings, what’s happened to you?” Cora asked. She was laughing and crying, keeping a hand on both daughters, unwilling to let either go.

  “We had an adventure, Mama!” Mari said. “You’ll never—”

  The room spun around me, and I seemed to float to my knees. I looked up, and Luc was helping me, keeping me from falling on my face.

  “How did you escape?” I heard Enzo say. “And why do you smell like fire and mold?”

  “I’m so glad you’re safe,” Marko whispered.

  Luc eased me to the ground, somehow sensing to be careful of my shoulder. He couldn’t see my wounds; the magic still threaded tightly around them. I tried to release it, but it was like when I’d clenched my hand a
round my sword too long and my fingers didn’t respond to let go.

  “Leinn?” Enzo’s voice came from so far away.

  A hush fell over the tent like a too-heavy blanket as everyone’s attention turned to me. He stepped around his sisters and knelt by my side.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he whispered.

  Luc’s gaze flicked over my body. “I don’t know, diri. She’s holding her hand funny, but there’s no wound. Her breathing is too shallow, and she feels like ice.”

  “She’s hurt.” Chiara’s words twirled together like dancers who’d drunk too much. My eyes fell shut, and I let them.

  “What’s happened, Leinn? What’s wrong?” Enzo’s hushed voice asked, hands now cradling my face.

  “Mother, take Mari out, please,” Chiara said, her voice full of authority. “And find Yesilia.” Shuffling footsteps left the tent, and the ice spread into my chest. I let the quiet wrap around me like a shroud.

  Someone stroked my hair, and Chiara’s voice said, “Leinn. You got us back to our family. We’re safe.”

  “Safe,” I muttered, trying again to pry the magic away, and slowly opened my eyes.

  Enzo stroked the side of my face. “I’m here.”

  The magic finally slipped away like a leaf in the wind. His ragged inhale was the only sound in the tent.

  I didn’t have to look down. I knew what they saw.

  My left arm was bent at the wrong angle. A gash in my other arm spilled blood onto my hand. Blood soaked my shirt, though most of it probably wasn’t mine. My leg, with its makeshift tourniquet tied around it, and a slash with white edging and green veins.

  Enzo’s gaze traveled back to mine. He brushed my hair from my face. Chiara dashed to the tent flap and called for the healer to hurry.

  Then Enzo froze. Lifted a section of hair, letting the strands run through his fingers. Studied my face.

  “Jennesara?” he whispered so softly I barely heard.

  Enzo knew. His betrothed was alive.

  “Well, she’s not an assassin, then,” Luc muttered from somewhere above me. Then a blanket was pressed to my leg to stop the trickling blood, and I let the darkness waiting at the edge of my mind consume me.

  * * *

  Strong arms lifted me gently, and cool water trickled into my mouth and down my throat. Sharpness pulled at my arm again and again, and the greatest flash of pain I’d ever known seared through my shoulder.

  I felt everything, but I couldn’t find the strength to function or care. My job was done—Chiara and Mari were safe.

  Something else nudged the back of my consciousness, something else I was supposed to do.

  The darkness was numbing. I was shutting down, slipping away, getting colder and colder.

  Then I felt warmth in my leg replace the ice, and the warmth was next to me, surrounding me, pulling me away from the numbing ache of darkness.

  From far away, a deep voice whispered, “Stay with me.”

  Only then did a different blackness wash over me.

  * * *

  The white-hot fire in my ribs jolted my mind back into consciousness. A groan escaped my lips, and I cracked my eyes open. The flaps of the tent had been lifted, letting a cool breeze ruffle against my side while the sun beat down and heat rolled through everything.

  Enzo’s face came into focus. He knelt by me, gently lifting my head with his hand, and brought a cup to my lips. He had a line between his eyebrows, a fixed question. I sipped the warm water, and he laid my head back on the pillow. I leaned into his touch, my body reacting on its own.

  “You could have told me,” he whispered.

  Sunshine filtered through the white tent and filled it with light. But I couldn’t read him. Couldn’t tell if he was mad I’d lied while his kingdom suffered. If he’d ever forgive me. If he even cared that his betrothed was still alive.

  A muscle in his jaw jumped, and he rubbed his hand through his hair. “I’ll be back,” he sighed, and I realized I’d waited too long to speak.

  “Wait.” My mind jumped in fits and starts, and, glaciers, everything hurt. “I wanted to tell you. But I watched Graymere kill everyone I was traveling with. If I revealed who I was, where I was, I was afraid he’d find out. I couldn’t bring him here and watch him kill your family, too.”

  Enzo settled on the floor, his head in his hand, elbow on his knee. “So you’re alive. Jennesara,” he said, testing my name out. “I can’t—”

  King Marko marched into the tent, and Luc, who’d been stationed just outside, untied the flaps and let them close us in.

  Marko took my hand—on the arm that wasn’t strapped to my side—and bowed over it. “Thank you for protecting my daughters, Al—Princess.” He carefully set my hand on my stomach, then folded his arms over his chest, every inch the king. “But my men are dying at the pass, and you are playing guard in my palace? What really happened on your journey here, and why didn’t you say who you were?”

  I swallowed down the guilt until it lodged deep inside me. “The mage.” I closed my eyes and took a breath. I had to make them see. “The mage said that my family was all dead because of you, before killing my maid instead of me.”

  Enzo got up and began pacing the small tent. I missed having him by my side.

  “She was wearing my cloak.” My breath rattled in my chest. “I should have stayed and fought, but our general told me to escape into the Wild. I had to survive and find out who had turned against us and why. If the mage had known I’d survived, he would have come after me here. In your palace.”

  Enzo stopped pacing, but all I could see was his back. I couldn’t tell if he believed me.

  The king’s voice was icy. “And you didn’t think you could trust me not to reveal your identity?”

  “I do trust you, Your Majesty.” Something caught in my throat, and I coughed. I gasped and coughed again at the pressure on my ribs. Enzo turned, his face an unreadable mask, and drew water, then tipped me up so I could drink. He moved away once I’d caught my breath. Stood next to his father.

  “There is more happening on the Plateau than we realize, Father. Lei—Jennesara thinks there are actually three mages, and—”

  “And now you have been keeping information from me?” King Marko glanced between us with his piercing gaze.

  I pulled in more air, gathering energy to respond, but Enzo spoke first. “She found evidence in the library, and shared what she had learned. It was I who suggested we wait to tell you.”

  His father’s jaw clenched in frustration. “Tell me now.”

  The tent flaps snapped as wind snaked through the camp. Enzo faced his father. “It’s something Jennesara was looking for. She has a theory that the mage who attacked her wasn’t some new radical who’d learned magic. She believes he was an original follower of the Black Mage from the Great War.”

  Marko’s expression froze.

  I cleared the dryness from my throat. “The mage who attacked in the Wild matches the description of Graymere—the Gray Mage. He could conjure shade mages—projections of his desires and powers in shadow. The text mentioned a Red Mage and a Brown Mage, too. And both my father and brother were killed at the same time the Gray Mage was with me.”

  “How do you know it was at the same time?” he asked roughly.

  I swallowed. “I’ve always had a sort of connection with my family. I could feel it, that they were dead.”

  Marko frowned and turned to his son. “When were you planning on informing me of your theories?” His voice was calm. His jaw and shoulders, though, were tense with disappointment.

  Enzo folded his arms across his chest. “When I had more than just a fragment of a theory of who they might be or what they might be after. I didn’t want the idea dismissed by the council until I had enough proof to back up the claims.”

  His father s
ighed, and the tension in the tent eased slightly.

  “And one of these mages is in my palace now?”

  The white ceiling of the tent spun around. I closed my eyes, but the world still turned. “He’s working with Koranth, who bribed palace guards.” I paused to catch my breath, and the silence in the tent swirled and thickened with each passing moment.

  “Chiara and Mari said you used magic to shield them from the invaders.” King Marko’s gaze, fierce and determined, cut to mine. “But Hálendi’s secondborn does not inherit magic.”

  My hair was fanned out behind me, an answer in itself. “They do not. But I did.” I tried to get my thoughts in order, to fight against the sleepiness the wintergrain root on my leg wound produced. “A shade mage came after us in the dungeon—” I shifted and winced, remembering his murky voice, a crushing wall, the ice.

  “Cavolo,” Enzo said under his breath.

  I nodded stiffly. “And if Graymere sent a shade after me, he knows I’m here.”

  Enzo tousled his curls. “And if the mage comes for you now—”

  “We are vulnerable camped on this field.” The king’s gaze locked with Enzo’s. “We need to retake the palace immediately.”

  He swept out of the tent without a backward glance.

  Enzo hesitated, and I took in a rattling breath. “Did Chiara and Mari tell you—”

  “Yes,” he nodded, and took a step closer. Knelt next to me. “They told us about the west gate and where the guards and servants are.”

  “Take…my ring.” My thoughts and words slurred together as the herb in my thigh fought the poison, as my magic sputtered inside me.

  Enzo hesitated but peeled back the blankets and reached for my left hand. It was curled on my stomach, blood etched in the creases.

  “Your knuckle is swollen. I won’t be able to get the ring off.” He gently stroked my hand and tucked the blankets up again. He gathered my hair and brushed it back. Fingered the strands. Shook his head. “Lei—Jennesara, we’ve got numbers. They won’t have a chance.”