by Megan Linski
I suppressed an inward groan. I already knew where this was going.
“Don’t give me that look. I won’t be around forever, Ethan. I need you to find a mate, so that you can carry on in my place and make sure Malovia is protected.”
I wasn’t sure why having a Marked to stand by my side as queen was so damn important. And I’d told him so, many times. “Perhaps I’ll never find a mate. I haven’t yet. Maybe the time’s already passed,” I said.
“Don’t speak of such things.” Father’s tone was gruff. “Do you wish for the Seven Gods to curse you?”
“I am not cursed.” I spoke sharply. I knew others whispered such things about me, going unbonded for this long. Most people found their mates within their freshman year at Arcanea University. As much as I wanted to prove the rumors wrong… I didn’t feel ready yet to find a bride.
“Your queen is your greatest ally. She is your fiercest warrior, your most loyal protector, and your most faithful friend. A king cannot run his kingdom properly unless he has a sorceress to stand by his side.” Father sighed. “And I am worried you may never find yours.”
“I’ll find someone.” If I wanted to participate in the King’s Contest at the end of the year, I had to have a mate first. The rules said I needed to be engaged first in order to compete. Yuck.
“I don’t want you to find just any girl. This is the most important decision of your life. Time is running short,” Father scolded. “You don’t want to end up like me.”
I made a non-committal sound. I knew my mother was not my father’s Marked. My father’s true mate had run off a long time ago, though he never said why. He always vowed he could’ve accomplished ten times more than what he already did if his real Marked had become his queen, although he never spoke this openly in the presence of my mother. He loved her, too, and Mother was an accomplished sorceress herself… but having a wife wasn’t the same as having a mate, something he’d drilled into my head from the moment I’d come out of the womb. There would always be a part of him that was missing, and he didn’t want the same to happen to me.
Myself, I didn’t get it. I was never one for romance. Didn’t interest me. Girls were pretty, and they were nice, but I had bigger concerns on my mind than dating them. Mostly snowboarding and hockey, and learning as much as I could from my dad about ruling Malovia, so I could do the same one day.
Father seemed to notice I was getting melancholy, so he pressed his shoulder into mine. “I have faith that within the year, you will find your true mate. But whatever may come, know that I will always be proud of you. You will be a great king.”
The statement humbled me. I’d spent most of my life fearing that I would screw up. That I’d fail to win the King’s Contest, or even worse, somehow ruin the kingdom.
My Da had faith in me. And that meant everything.
I went to say something back, but words failed me. As I finally came up with something, there was a cracking sound somewhere up ahead—- the sound of saplings breaking in half.
“Shh. Something’s here.” Father paused. I kept my mouth shut and pricked my ears up, listening.
I heard something moving before us, tearing up roots. A strange scent filled my nose. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever smelled before. It was equal parts sweet and woodsy, as well as slightly rotten. It screamed at me to keep away.
“It’s there. In the glen,” I whispered. There was a part up ahead where the trees broke and the wilderness became a long, sloping valley. That’s where our monster was.
Father crouched. “Perhaps we can sneak up on it, before it determines we are here.”
This would be an easy kill. Sneak up, jump, and give a fatal bite to the monster’s neck before it even saw us coming. We’d barely see any action.
I followed his lead. “I’m right behind you.”
“Stay low.” Father advanced. I remained behind him, though it was hard to see where I was going with his big wings in the way, blocking my view.
The trees ended. Father crouched, then sprung, spreading his wings wide. I copied him, raising my lips in a snarl as I leapt into the air, planning to tackle whatever he had spotted into the ground.
But then Father faltered, and his wings drew back. He weaved in the air and hovered over the ground, avoiding whatever he’d initially tried to attack. I had no such way to prevent myself from halting my charge, so instead, I shifted my weight in mid-air to turn away. I hit the ground and rolled, wondering why the hell my father had drawn back.
When I lifted my eyes to witness the creature, I understood why. We had made a critical mistake.
The creature was like something out of a storybook. It was twelve feet tall, with tree roots for feet and long, dangling arms that dragged along the ground and ended in black claws, connected to a masculine form. Its head was that of a deer’s, with large antlers growing out of either side of its head. The deer’s head had sharp, ravenous teeth, and a skeletal body that had grey skin dangling loosely off bone. Plants grew out of every orifice. It was hard to tell what was bone and what was branch.
It was much worse than we feared. A leszy… a leshane. A demonic deer spirit of the forest, rumored to be given black powers by the Seven Gods themselves. We couldn’t fight this.
Father knew it. “Ethan, run!” he shouted. I didn’t need to be told twice. I tried heading to the safety of the trees, but the leshane raised his clawed hand, and roots sprung up along the edge of the forest, preventing my escape. I had to dodge as roots sprung up from the ground in a brutal attack. They barely missed my torso as they stabbed upward through the dirt.
Father had changed back into his human form. He was blowing on a twisted ram’s horn, signaling to the other hunters that we needed help. As he continued calling the others, I did my best to outrun the leshane as its magic followed me through the valley. The ground shook underneath my feet like an earthquake as roots went shooting up from the ground moments where I’d been before. One false step, and I’d be impaled.
Father snarled, and he erupted into his wolven form. He took to the skies and charged at the leshane, trying to distract it. He attempted to get close, but every time he tried the monster swung his large claws, preventing him from landing a secure bite.
Now that the leshane was distracted, I went to help. I ran forward and sank my teeth into its leg. It was like biting through a tree. The leshane gave no indication that it hurt, merely kicked me off. The blow sent me sailing into the root wall. I heard something crack, most likely my ribs. I moaned in pain, struggling to get up as I watched my father war with the leshane.
The leshane’s claws came too close, and they cut across my father’s chest. He snarled, and blood went everywhere. The cut was deep. I gasped. Despite the agonizing pain in my ribs, I forced myself to stand and return to the fight. My father needed me.
I pleaded with the Seven Gods to send help as I launched myself onto the leshane’s back. I dug my claws in and refused to let go, pinpointing where was best to sink my fangs in. But I wasn’t sure where to bite. We’d never studied leshanes in class, as it was assumed anyone who was unlucky enough to find one in the woods would be dead within minutes anyway. There was nowhere to rip out a jugular or pierce a vein. Every part of the leshane was wooden and bone. I didn’t think I could break its neck. This truly was a creature sent by evil.
In response to me clinging on, the leshane grew wooden spines out of its back, sharp and dangerous. One of them went through my paw. I howled in pain and let go, dropping to the ground and rolling away. My father remained in the air, blood pouring from his wounds as the leshane continued to advance.
The leshane threw back its head and let out a wicked cry. There was thundering in the trees, and a sleuth of bears stampeded through the root wall and into the valley. There were dozens of them— the leshane had used dark magic to call them to his aid.
This was bad. This was really, really bad.
Father paid no attention to the bears, just kept focusing on the leshane. One bear tried to whi
p him out of the air, until Father turned on him and pinned him to the ground, tearing out his throat before returning to his original task. The leshane battled cooly, as if certain that this was a battle it would win.
Finally, I heard the sound of help coming. Griffins and alicorns came flooding out of the trees to defend the king. They leapt over the root wall that the leshane had caged us in and charged forward. Eagle-lion hybrids battled alongside unicorns with massive wings, struggling against the bears that the leshane commanded.
I searched the skies for dragons, but they’d been sent farther away than the other groups, and it would take them longer to arrive. Where was Stefan? We needed him!
With the arrival of the griffins and the alicorns, the leshane changed. It mutated from his horrifying form to become a monster that ran on four legs, a skeleton poking through skin, dripping thick blood. It looked more animal than human now. The leshane moved with incredible speed, appearing a blur as it ran through the valley. He passed griffins and alicorns alike, slaying them both. Roots came up to suffocate or spear through the Arcanea gathered all around the woods. I watched the scene in horror, paralyzed. I wasn’t sure what to do. People were dying. Our warriors were falling to the leshane. We were all going to die.
Father hadn’t given up. His grey pelt was soaked with blood, but he was determined to bring down the leshane at whatever cost. He ran at the creature with teeth bared. My father and the leshane met, rearing up on their hind legs to strike out at each other with antler and fang.
I was limping now, and could only move but stiffly for the pain in my ribs, but I wasn’t content to die unless it was on my feet and defending my country. I charged forward, and took my father’s side as the two of us tag-teamed taking the leshane down. I got a mouth full of splinters each time a bite managed to hit its target, but I didn’t care. This was life or death.
There was a roar from above, and a black shape blocked out the sun. My heart lifted.
Stefan had finally arrived! He hovered above the scene, pumping his massive black wings, and let out a stream of fire that billowed around the leshane and set it aflame.
The leshane made a high-pitched, screaming sound and went for the closest thing it could take its anger out on— me.
Things happened so slowly that I felt the moment would replay for the rest of my life. The leshane, still on fire, lunged forward with its jagged mouth wide open— my father went to push me out of the way. The leshane got its sharp fangs around my leg, slightly above the knee. There was a tearing sound below, like bone and flesh breaking.
The pain was incredible, white-hot and blinding. But I couldn’t focus on it with the sight of my father’s body limply dangling from the root that had sprung up out of the ground, a thick knot of wood speared clean through his chest.
I was briefly aware of the feeling of the monster biting clean through, and my father’s dying screams, before the world went dark.
Chapter Two
Emma
“Your immune levels didn’t change during testing. The diagnosis is positive, Emma.”
It felt like all the breath had been beaten out of my lungs. I nearly had to gasp my next word. “What?”
“You have it,” Dr. Luticifo repeated. His words had a bit of sadness, but there was more of a formality there— like I was just another number in a sad statistic... not a human being.
A hollow feeling grew inside me and settled there. I was certain I’d carry around that emptiness for the rest of my life. I was different now.
Then a bit of denial surged through me. This wasn’t real. I couldn’t be sick. No way.
But I was. Now I knew. I had a disease that no one knew of and that I could hardly pronounce. I hardly knew what any of this meant.
Common Variable Immune Deficiency disorder. It was a rare disease that hardly anyone knew about. It basically meant that my immune system didn’t create enough antibodies for me to fight infections. I was one out of sixty-thousand— or more.
I could die. A bacteria or virus could come along, I could catch it, and that would be my end.
It was a terrifying reality that I didn’t want to deal with. Because I couldn’t handle it.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “So what do we do now?”
“We start treatment,” the doctor said. “You’ll need to take infusions of human plasma to replace the missing antibodies, monthly or weekly, your choice. You have the option of intravenous or subcutaneous.”
Sub-what? “I don’t need infusions,” I argued. “I’m fine.”
Dr. Luticifo gave me a disapproving look. “I know you believe you can keep yourself healthy just by being stubborn, but that’s not the case. You’ll need these infusions to survive, for the rest of your life.”
It seemed so dire. Dr. Luticifo rattled on and on about all the different options I had. His voice sounded like it was muddled and full of static. I was too trapped inside my own head to listen.
“That sounds good,” I said in a far-off tone. I wasn’t even sure of what I was agreeing to. All I could think of was that I had known all along I was sick. I’d felt it in my bones the first time Dr. Luticifo had suggested we do testing. I’d just been waiting to hear the confirmation.
Dr. Luticifo again repeated subcutaneous or intravenous. I chose subcutaneous… sub-q, I called it, because I hated long fucking words… because he said I could do it myself and didn’t have to bother with going to a stupid hospital. He set things up as I checked out at the front desk. I proceeded out into the parking lot of the hospital, feeling like a zombie and probably moving like one, too.
I got into my beater of a car and slammed the door shut. I looked at the papers they’d given me at the front desk before I angrily threw them to the floor. I slammed my hand against the steering wheel and got a headache for my trouble.
“This is bullshit,” I said. I was eighteen fucking years old. I was too young to have a chronic illness. It’d get in the way of my skating. It’d get in the way of everything.
But that was my life. Mom always said she had bad luck. I had the worst.
I started up my engine. Tears beaded at the corners of my eyes, but I wiped them away and told them to fuck off. I didn’t cry. I was tough.
I knew where I had to go. I left the hospital and floored my car in the direction of the ice rink. I ended up cutting someone off and they beeped their horn at me, but I flipped them off. Screw them. I was definitely having a worse day than they were.
I didn’t feel relief until I pulled into the parking lot of the ice arena. I grabbed my bag and headed into the rink, hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I didn’t like people in general, and I liked talking less. I didn’t think I could handle making small talk after the news I got.
The ice was empty today. Thank God. No one was hanging around the rink in the middle of a weekday. I avoided making my way to the front desk, as I didn’t need to pay. I worked part-time at the rink in order to get ice time for free, whenever I wasn’t pulling long hours at my mom’s diner as a waitress.
Dr. Luticifo had told me that I’d have to quit working eventually. That I’d be too weak to hold down a job as time went on. I was better off on welfare— you know, for my health.
This thing was sounding more and more like a death sentence and less like a diagnosis.
If I couldn’t hold down a job, my hope of being a pro athlete was long gone, too. Not that it had been much of a possibility in the first place. But thinking about that only made me more depressed.
At least I hadn’t gone to college. That would’ve been a waste of money.
I pulled on my tights, a black practice skirt, and slipped on a fleece practice jacket before throwing my red hair up into a bun. I went onto the ice and a gust of cold wind hit my face. Freedom. No matter what happened, nothing could touch me here.
I warmed up by practicing all my spins before I moved onto jumps. I did all my doubles with ease, then practiced my triples. The triple toe loop, triple loop, and
triple flip was easy. I messed up my triple-triple combination a few times and stepped out of my triple lutz before trying it again and landing it perfectly.
This was it. The big moment. I focused all my intention on my goal. I built up speed, then took a flying leap forward.
It was wild and undisciplined. I corrected myself and was able to get myself into the correct jumping position. I felt myself going around once, two times. I felt excited. I was going to do it this time!
Then the bad news from earlier broke into my head, and I faltered. I ended up landing on my ass in a very painful way as I lost control of the jump and went crashing back down to the ice.
Dammit. No matter how hard I’d practiced over the past few months, I still couldn’t land a triple axel. It was really frustrating. I tried again and again, but the result was always the same. I either popped it or fell.
This wasn’t getting me anywhere. I was here to try and feel better, not beat myself up over what I couldn’t do. I skated to the box, where a music player system was set up. It connected to the speakers that were over the ice. I put in a CD, pressed play, and skated out to my starting position on the ice.
My long program was set to the music of Swan Lake. I tried to put as much passion and emotion into my program as possible, though it felt like I was going through the motions. I did all my jumps and spins with ease, skipping over where the triple axel was supposed to be and doing a triple loop instead. As the program continued, I noticed my legs were shaking.
This is what I loved to do. I wasn’t going to let any shitty diagnosis take it from me. I slowed down and focused more on the choreography instead of the technical elements. I came to a halt at the end of my program, chest heaving.
I felt dizzy. The world blacked out for a moment as the ice span around me. My lungs felt like they were on fire, or were being ripped in half— or both.
It had gotten harder and harder lately to perform that program like I’d used to. Now I knew why.
I grabbed a bottle of water at the boards and chugged it, to recover my strength. As I drank, I noticed someone standing in the corner of the rink near the stands.