Prince's Fire

by Amy Raby

  He couldn’t regret the act itself, which had been transcendent, a fantasy made manifest. He’d woken rested and potent, his magic returned to its full strength. After he’d nearly drowned last night, his joy at being alive was fierce, and when Celeste had turned her naked body toward him and put her breast in his hand, his desire overwhelmed him. Any remaining shreds of self-control had fled, along with his common sense.

  He understood why she’d tempted him. She wanted the marriage, after all. Her brother had probably ordered her to seduce him, if that was what it took. And without really trying—just by being herself and in extraordinary circumstances neither of them could have foreseen—she’d succeeded.

  He had no one to blame but himself. She hadn’t forced him to put his cock in her.

  Who were the men who’d attacked them in the cabin? They were war mages disguised as sailors, obviously, but beyond that, he hadn’t gotten a good look at them. Had they been Kjallans?

  “We’d better get moving.” He extracted himself from Celeste’s arms and climbed to his feet. The fire had died down. He gave the burned-out wood a kick and goaded the flames with his magic. They responded with an anemic sputtering and dropped back to a flicker.

  Celeste stood and brushed the sand off her body, naked except for the riftstone on a chain around her neck. Rayn stared at her, unable to help himself. Even bedraggled, she was beautiful. Black hair spilled over her shoulders, unkempt and wild, framing full, round breasts. The shape of her—gods, he wanted to run his hands down her body and feel those curves, especially that glorious one between the waist and the hip. She was like a sea spirit come out of the ocean. His blood rushed south. Given the tiniest bit of encouragement, he would take her again.

  Her eyes rose and met his. She started. “Don’t look. Please.” She turned around.

  She was shy. Too bad. With a body like that, she ought not to be. He found his clothes on the sand and wished he’d thought to hang them on something last night. They were mostly dry, but not completely. He pulled them on, making a face as the salty grit rubbed his skin. He needed freshwater for bathing and washing his clothes. Not to mention drinking. He was dry-mouthed and becoming uncomfortably thirsty.

  He heard a rustle of fabric behind him. Celeste was getting dressed too.

  Where had they washed ashore? He saw no signs of civilization. The beach was gray rather than tan, its sand coarse and spattered with logs, jutting rocks, and pieces of driftwood. Beyond it the ocean was a leaden blue expanse stirred, in places, to peaks of white froth. Not a ship to be seen.

  He turned. Celeste was fastening the hooks of her sadly ruined dress. Behind them was a forest, scattered and bare in patches where the sand had taken over, but thickening farther in.

  “Shall we wait here?” he said. “The ship may still be looking for us.”

  “But will they find us?” said Celeste. “We’re pretty far from where we went overboard.”

  “They might explore the shoreline.” He frowned. There was an awful lot of shoreline for them to explore.

  “We shouldn’t go back to the ship. The assassins may have survived. Do you know who they were?”

  “I assume they were Kjallans, since it was a Kjallan ship.”

  “I doubt it,” said Celeste. “Why would a Kjallan want to murder you?”

  “Any number of reasons. I can’t speculate as to motive when I know so little.”

  “You have enemies in Inya, don’t you?” asked Celeste.

  “Of course.” He swallowed. His mouth felt like cotton. “If we’re not getting back on the ship, what then? Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “Some,” she said. “We’re definitely in Riorca. We were only a few days out from Denmor when we went into the ocean.”

  So walking wasn’t entirely out of the question. An overland journey might even be shorter, because the ship had to first go north and then turn east, following the coast, while they could head straight for Denmor. But there was a problem. “Without water, we won’t last long.”

  “I believe I can find water,” said Celeste. “I’d rather take my chances walking to civilization than waiting.”

  “How will you find water?”

  “I’ll show you.” She headed off into the trees.

  “We have no shoes,” he pointed out.

  “I think we can manage without them.”

  Rayn reached out with his mind to extinguish the dying campfire and trailed after her. “I hope you have a better plan than just walking and looking around, because I wouldn’t bet on our finding any water that way.”

  “I’ve a plan.” She slowed as she entered the forest, looking everywhere. Down at the carpet of leaves, straight ahead into the bushes, up into the treetops.

  He couldn’t imagine how she would find water by looking up at the trees, but he held his tongue, trusting that she knew what she was doing.

  A jaybird popped out of a bush and onto a nearby branch. Not the blue-and-white kind he knew from Inya, but an unfamiliar variety, dark blue with black points. Celeste stared at the bird, and the bird stared back. Then it fluttered away to another bush. “Follow the jay,” she said. “And don’t frighten him.”

  “You think the bird will lead us to water?”

  “I’ve commanded him to,” said Celeste.

  Impossible, he thought, but then he remembered the shark. Had that been a dream? No, it had been real—how else would they have reached the shore? Clearly she could control animals. He wouldn’t question it; the skill had saved their lives.

  When the bird had led them farther than a mile into the forest and he hadn’t seen a droplet of freshwater, he was less certain. “He’s leading us on a merry chase. Are you sure this will work?”

  “It ought to.”

  She kept moving. Having no better solution to offer, Rayn followed, picking his way carefully and trying not to step on anything sharp with his bare feet. Half an hour later, he heard the finest sound in all the world: the prattle of water over stones. “Forget the bird—I can hear it.” He broke into a run, and she hurried after him.

  It was a small stream, no more than a trickle, furrowed deeply into the ground and almost completely hidden by ferns and leafy cabbagelike plants. Rayn dropped to his knees and lowered his mouth into the water. It was ice-cold. His lips numbed as he drank, but he gulped greedily. When one was thirsty enough, water was finer than whiskey.

  He came up gasping, refreshed and a little chilled. At the same time, Celeste lifted her head from the water. Her lips were blue.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He called fire, sending it spiraling up through his body and into his mouth and lips, and kissed her, sharing the warmth. She moaned, worming her way closer. She tasted exquisite, a mixture of clean, pure water and woman.

  “I’m starving,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could command a rabbit to come over here and stand still while we slaughter it.”

  “Uh.” Celeste looked uncomfortable, and he guessed from her expression that it was actually possible. “There’s a spinefruit bush.” She pointed at a low, sprawling plant cowering in the shade of a nearby tree. It had several spiny fruits on it, all of them green.

  “Those are edible?”

  “No, they’re still green,” said Celeste. “We need a yellow one.”

  Rayn sorted through the branches. “All the fruits are green.”

  “Find another plant, then.” She wandered about the forest. “The Riorcans cultivate them in these forests. Mushrooms too, but I don’t trust myself to pick the right varieties. Here’s one.” She plucked something from the bush beside her and held up a spiny yellow orb.

  Now that Rayn knew what to look for, he saw that the plants were everywhere, tucked up close to tree trunks and shaded by ferns. He moved to the next plant, searched it with no success, and tried another. A glint of bright y
ellow winked at him from behind the leaves. He plucked the fruit. “Got another.”

  Between them, they found four. Not a feast, but better than nothing.

  Rayn sat on the bank of the creek and studied his prize. It was hard and spiky, not something he could sink his teeth into. “How is this eaten?”

  “We have to get the spines off—we’ll need a sharp stone or something.” She looked around her feet.

  Rayn’s hand went to the knife holster at his belt. Had the blade survived its dunking in the ocean? The scabbard was damp on the outside and wrinkled, but he could feel the knife within it. He tugged at the hilt, working it back and forth a little, and the blade popped free, tossing a few drops of seawater into the air. “Will this do?”

  “You’ve had that with you the whole time?”

  He grinned.

  She took it and cut into the fruit, peeling away the spines and the hard outer rind. She struggled with the task—clearly this was not something she had much experience with—but managed to expose the soft fruit within. She cut the edible part in half and offered Rayn a piece.

  He bit into it and chewed. It was mildly sweet, like a watery potato with notes of pear. “It’s not bad.” He’d have preferred rabbit.

  “They taste better cooked,” said Celeste.

  When they finished eating, Celeste captured a crow with her mind magic and tasked it with leading them to the nearest village. The creature took the job seriously. It fluttered to a nearby tree and looked back, fixing them with sharp, black eyes, scolding raucously when they were slow to catch up.

  “I’m still trying to figure out those people who attacked us,” said Celeste as they walked. “You said you had enemies at home—”

  “I can’t see them infiltrating the ship,” said Rayn.

  “These enemies at home. Are they the Land Council?”

  “Yes,” said Rayn. “Councilor Worryn especially. He’s head of the council.”

  “I was told they hate you because you opposed some laws they tried to pass.”

  Rayn eyed her. “You’ve got your ear to the ground, haven’t you? Yes, they tried to pass some laws that my father would have opposed, had he not been ill. I rallied the Inyan people and managed to defeat the laws.”

  “Tell me about your father’s illness. Can the Healers do nothing?”

  “It’s incurable.”

  “What is the nature of his illness?”

  Rayn balked. He didn’t want to talk about this. He didn’t like to even think about it. “Physically, he’s healthy. The problem is with his mind.”

  She turned, startled. “He’s mad?”

  “It’s more that he . . . forgets things.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Important things, like the names of people he’s known for years. Details of how Inya’s government is supposed to work. When I was a child, he was a wise and thoughtful ruler. He gave me lots of advice, things I’ll never forget. But now . . . he’s not the same man.”

  “I’m so sorry. Do you know the cause?”

  Rayn shook his head. “I don’t. It happened gradually. We first noticed when he began forgetting important meetings and misremembering the councilors’ names. Then he started getting lost in the palace. A year later, he set his bedsheets on fire—he’s a fire mage, like me—and we had to take away his riftstone.”

  “Three gods, I can’t imagine. How long ago did this start?”

  “When I was eleven,” said Rayn. “By the time I was fourteen, he was helpless, and the council was quietly issuing decisions through him. Bad decisions he would never have made when his mind was intact, decisions he would have advised me not to make. That’s the worst of it. He had friends. I thought they were his friends. But when he became weak and needed help, they abandoned him or turned on him.”

  “What were these bad laws the Land Council tried to pass?”

  “They require some explanation. Do you have King’s Lands in Kjall? Perhaps you’d call them Emperor’s Lands.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Celeste. “My brother owns a great deal of land, most of it surrounding the Imperial Palace. But we don’t call it anything special.”

  “In my country, the King’s Lands aren’t for the royal family. They’re for everyone. Nobody owns them—well, technically my father does—but they’re maintained for the benefit of all Inyans. They are lakes, beaches, forests, mountains. Nobody is permitted to settle in them or build structures on them, but many of our poorer citizens hunt and fish in the King’s Lands. Otherwise they might starve. You have something like that in Kjall?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Celeste.

  “The Land Council wanted to sell the King’s Lands off to private buyers—wealthy farmers and merchants who I’m certain were lining the councilors’ pockets with bribes. They tried to do this in secret, without the Inyan people knowing. But I knew. I made some speeches on the subject, and the people rose up in opposition. Land councilors are elected. They cannot afford to anger the people, so they stopped trying to sell off the land.”

  Celeste was quiet for a while, considering his words. “Before all this happened, you had promised to tell me about Zoe and your daughter.”

  “So I did.” He frowned. This wasn’t a subject he liked to discuss; he knew it reflected badly on him. But hiding it from her didn’t feel right. Against his better judgment, he was beginning to take this marriage offer from Lucien more seriously, not because he was convinced it was the right move for his country, but because he really liked the woman. “I helped Zoe when she was in trouble—rescued her from someone who was mistreating her and gave her a job at the palace. Later I slept with her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. It was a casual thing, and I thought she understood that. But then she got pregnant.”

  “Weren’t you warded?”

  “I thought I was,” said Rayn. “She ought to have been warded too. I can’t explain it, but we know that wards sometimes fail.”

  “If they are mislaid,” said Celeste, sounding skeptical.

  “My first assumption was that the baby wasn’t mine,” said Rayn. “But Zoe submitted to a truth spell on that account, and it turns out I was her only partner at that time. So there is no doubt. Unfortunately, the fact that I’d sired a child on her led Zoe to believe there was more to our relationship than I’d intended. I had ended things with her already. But since she’s the mother of my child, I have to keep Zoe at the palace.”

  “Does she take care of your daughter?”

  “Oddly, no.” Rayn frowned. This was something that bothered him. “I thought she would want to. But Aderyn—that’s my daughter’s name—didn’t gain much weight during her first few weeks of life, and it came out that Zoe was neglecting to feed her. So I put Aderyn in the full-time care of a wet nurse. I come by to see Aderyn from time to time, but the nurse tells me that Zoe never visits.”

  “That’s . . . disconcerting.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” said Rayn. “I want to hear more details about this marriage of convenience you suggested for us.” He glanced at her to see if he’d made her blush. Yes, he had.

  “Oh—well,” she stammered. “I think I was pretty clear on the details.”

  “Not at all,” said Rayn. “The deal was that you would have time to work on your treatise, and I would sire heirs on you. But the siring of heirs requires bedroom activities.”

  “Of course it does.” Her face was pink all over.

  “How often would these bedroom activities take place?”

  “I don’t think we have to specify. We would take care of the business as needed.”

  “I beg to differ. The contract must lay out all the details.”

  “Twice a week?” she offered.

  “What about when you’re pregnant? Obviously you have no need for my
seed then.”

  “That is true,” she said.

  He glanced at her. Did he hear disappointment in her voice? “I’m afraid such contract terms won’t be acceptable to me. I expect my wife to be in my bed every night.”

  She glanced at him shyly. “Every night?”

  “And sometimes during the day,” he added. “We should also discuss the sorts of relations that don’t result in pregnancy. I will want those frequently.”

  “Do you always tease your women like this, Prince Rayn?”

  Rayn said nothing because, in truth, he did not. There was something about the Kjallan princess—her demureness, her tendency to blush like tinder sparking—that inspired him to tease. Zoe had been so eager, so forward, that she’d have his pants down around his ankles and his cock in her mouth the moment he’d closed the door to her rooms. But Rayn found that teasing a little, whetting his appetite and his partner’s, made him more eager for the action when it came.

  He clambered over a root that grew between two trees, and halted. The ground dropped away, and below them shimmered a crystalline pool ringed by spongy green moss. A tiny waterfall trickled, crisp and clean, from the high ground. “Look where your crow has brought us,” he said.

  Celeste entered the clearing and gasped. “Three gods. This is beautiful.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” He was in desperate need of a bath to wash away the salt and sand, and Celeste needed one too. Perhaps they could scrub each other’s back . . . and who knew where that might lead? He was already in trouble for making love to her on the beach. What difference would it make if he made love to her a second time?

  “That water will be freezing,” said Celeste.

  Rayn grinned. “Not for a fire mage.”

  10

  Though she knew he’d seen her naked before, Celeste felt a little shy as she stripped out of her clothes. Their unexpected lovemaking on the beach seemed like ages ago, yet it had taken place that very morning. Then, she’d been disoriented and emotionally wrung out after their harrowing adventure in the open ocean. Now she felt more aware and in control.