by Tracy Deonn
I nod, but wave his hand away when he reaches to pick me up. “I can walk.” Still, he takes most of my weight easily with one arm wrapped about my ribs, and we turn in the direction of the Lodge. Tor and Sarah fall in on one side, and Evan on the other. Flanking us, I realize. For protection.
When we walk down the path, I’m the only one who looks back.
The Kingsmage and I lock eyes once more just as the three piles of Shadowborn dust swirl up in the air around him, then spark out of existence.
31
“IT ITCHES.”
“I didn’t take you as a complainer,” William murmurs, his hands hovering over my forearms.
“I’m not a complainer.”
“Mhm-hmm.” William leans down to watch as the last bit of skin closes up over a fresh scar. He makes a twisting gesture with his wrist, and the silver aether coating his fingers and my arm disappears with a quiet pop. “That’ll do. You’ll wake up without scars. Try to keep my arms in good shape next time?”
I’ve been leaning over a silver hospital tray for ten minutes as he worked. It feels good to finally lie back in bed under blankets, but then the rest of the aches immediately become more apparent. I grunt when my head hits the pillow. William makes a soft, displeased sound. “I can use aether to heal those bruises.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “The ones all over my ass and back? I’m good.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m a medical professional, or I will be soon. Pre-med, in addition to being the Scion of Gawain, remember?” He wiggles his fingers. “Double healer.”
“So”—I puff up the pillows around my head—“you’re saying that I should feel comfortable getting down to my skivvies with you.”
“I’d never tell someone what they need to be comfortable with,” William says, his gray eyes thoughtful. “I was just offering context. If it helps, I’m happily in love and not at all interested.”
I grin, despite my fatigue. “Oh yeah? Who’s the lucky person?”
“He’s not Legendborn, that’s for sure.” William laughs warmly. “Dating inside the Order is nothing but trouble.”
I perk up. “Why’s that?”
“Bloodlines, oaths, inheritances? Pick one.” William pulls the table away and leans back against the other bed. “Pages can date Pages, easy. Squires dating Squires is fine, but tricky. A Squire’s job is to protect their Scion, and that bond is unbreakable, sacred. In battle a Squire can’t prioritize their partner’s well-being over their Scion, and the Warrior’s Oath is forever, even after the eligibility period ends and the inheritances disappear. Who wants to be with someone who’s already emotionally and magically bonded to someone else—for life?”
I grimace. “That sounds awful.”
“It is.” He whistles low. “You should hear the jealous snark that comes out of people’s mouths at the Selection Gala. It’s all Order grudges and gossip and drama. But even that’s just… awkward and inconvenient.” He shakes his head. “Dating Scions is a whole different ball game.”
I push up on one elbow, eager to learn more. “Why?”
“Sixty generations, give or take, of managing the bloodlines… It gets complicated. The Regents had to step in and lay down rules at some point. Order law forbids crossing the bloodlines, so no hanky-panky between anyone who could become a Scion or whose kids could become a Scion in the line of succession. If they didn’t prohibit it, there’d be babies with two, three, four lineages running around. It’d be chaos trying to track who’ll be Called next and how the bloodline will be preserved. It’s easier for couples where pregnancy is one hundred percent impossible. But for couples who could get pregnant? They’re screwed. In the not-fun way.”
“That’s…”
“Awful, I know. Though it’s sort of a modern fin’amor. The medieval ideal of courtly, ennobling love that can never be consummated. Very romantic concept back then. But today? There were rumors of a Scion couple at another chapter who hid their relationship, but the Regents have spies everywhere. They were caught. And punished.” He furrows his brow at that last word.
I know that, if I asked, William would tell me what the Regents do to the couples they catch, but the shudder that passes through his shoulders tells me I might not want the answer. The more I hear about the Regents and the more I hear about how much they meddle in both Onceborn and Legendborn lives, the more I hate them. No one in the chapter has spoken of the Regents without a touch of fear, or at least deference, in their voices. Not Nick, not Sel. Not even Lord Davis. Who are these all-powerful figures who keep the Order’s records, control its bloodlines, and send Merlins out in the world like demonic assassins and hypnotists?
I change the subject. “So… what about a Scion dating their own Squire?”
“Like Russ and Felicity? Or Tor and Sar?” William makes an iffy motion with his head. “Scions dating their Squires can work—but imagine breaking up and then being bonded to your ex forever. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather eat my own aether sword.”
“Ah,” is all I can manage.
“ ‘Ah,’ she says,”—William lifts a mocking eyebrow—“as if this is just idle conversation and has nothing at all to do with her relationship to one Scion in particular.”
“Shush.”
William laughs again. I like his laughter. It brings small crow’s-feet to the corners of his gray eyes.
“So”—he wiggles his eyebrows playfully—“shall I heal your ass, or are you still worried I’m gonna check it out?”
I sigh and reach down to tug my jeans off. “You can check me out if you want. I’m not not cute.”
“Ha!” he says. “I knew I liked you.”
Once I’m in my undies and on my stomach, William begins. The aether feels like heaven over my tender skin. I stifle a moan.
“You know,” William says thoughtfully, “while you’re not as banged up as one could be from facing multiple demons, your vitals were all over the place when they brought you in.”
Apparently somewhere between the graveyard and the Lodge, I’d passed out. Nick had carried me the rest of the way and then down the elevator to the infirmary. I’d woken up to Nick and William bickering over whether the would-be king could stay in the room during my treatment. Once I opened my eyes, Nick had grumbled and left William to finish his examination in peace. William sponged off the muck, disinfected the wounds, and got to work.
“I’d guessed at first that you would be in shock, but that didn’t quite fit. High blood pressure, increased oxygen levels, shallow breaths, dilated pupils. Typical signs of an adrenaline rush after a demon fight. I see ’em all the time. Fight-or-flight responses are inherently draining, and after an hour or so, vitals return to standard ranges. But your numbers were subnormal: pupils constricted, slow breaths, sluggish heart rate, low body temp.”
I chew on my bottom lip, remembering the shining red flames around my fingers and what Sel said about generating my own aether. “Is that bad?”
“ ‘Bad’ is a subjective term around here.” William hovers over a particularly painful spot on my lower back. “But it’s not typical. It was like your system had fired so intensely that instead of simply leveling out, it put you into hibernation.”
Firing intensely seems like the right way to put it. The very first time in the shower after the Oath, I’d been… terrified, overwhelmed, sad, but I’d been able to put it all behind a wall. Tonight I’d been angry in the graveyard, and terrified for my life with the hound, and the flames had faded away on their own. Sel’s right, I truly have no idea how this works, and I don’t have a lot of options for help. Sel has no interest in trying to help me understand, nor would I want to experiment with him to figure it out. I could tell Nick, but… he was pissed beyond belief tonight. And scared, after Tor’s Awakening. He and everyone else in the building are on edge. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to spring another surprise on him. Maybe Patricia—
The door opens, and Nick walks in. “Hey, Will, is—”
/> I screech and twist into a ball, pulling the thin blanket up over my entire body. It’s not fast enough. Nick’s face has gone summer-strawberry red. He definitely saw my butt. And my back. And my bra straps. And maybe some side boob.
He chokes out a strangled, “Um, sorry!” and disappears into the hall, slamming the door behind him.
“Ugh!” I pull the sheet up higher so my face can hide too.
William taps on the fabric like it’s a door. “Pardon me?”
I yank it down so that only my eyes are visible. “What?”
His eyes twinkle. “In past centuries, some courtiers wanted nothing more than for an eligible king to ‘accidentally’ see them naked.”
“Shut up, William!”
* * *
When I’m fully healed, all I feel is tired. I just want my own bed. I thank William, and he walks me to the elevator. Nick greets us upstairs. His cheeks are still flushed, but they’re less summer strawberry, more peach.
William squeezes my arm. When he steps back into the elevator to ride up to the residence level, he gives a wink before the doors close. “Call me if you need anything, courtier Matthews.”
Nick’s confused expression bounces between the elevator and me, but I wave it away. “William being William.”
I’m relieved when he decides not to mention any accidental sightings of my flesh. Instead he wraps me in his arms and presses a kiss to my forehead. It’s meant to be comforting, but his lips on my skin make me shiver, send goose bumps down my spine. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
I nod and lean against his chest. Right now I just want to enjoy the feeling of being folded into him, breathe the clean smell of his new shirt. “I could sleep for a full day, but I’m okay.”
He pulls back to examine my face, runs a thumb over my lower lip. “I never should have let you go off with Sel alone. It was my Rule Three, and I broke it.”
“He challenged you in front of everyone,” I counter.
“It won’t happen again. I swear it.” He pulls me in for a soft, lingering kiss to seal the vow.
This boy makes my chest ache.
“Let’s get you home.”
Early morning light streams through cracks between clouds, diffusing the open, quiet foyer with sleepy sun. We only make it a handful of steps before two figures sitting on a bench in one of the foyer’s recessed alcoves stand up to greet us. I drop Nick’s arm before the figures move out of the shadows, and the small hrmn sound of disappointment he emits fills me with warm, fizzy bubbles.
“Bree!” Greer rushes forward with Whitty beside them, worry etched across their face. They wrap me in their arms, then pull back to look me over. “Hellfoxes?”
“Sar said they took Sel’s aether?” Whitty asks. “Right outta his weapons?”
Greer punches him lightly in the arm. “We’re worried about Bree right now, Whitlock.”
Whitty flushes. “Sorry. Ya all right there, Matthews?”
“I’m okay, really.” I rub my healing, itching arms and look around at the dimly lit foyer. All the other Pages have gone back to their dorms, and the Legendborn are in bed in the two floors above us. “Y’all didn’t have to wait up for me.”
“You and Sel were missing for over an hour,” Greer says, not standing close enough to Nick to clock the tension that their words are causing, “and neither of you were answering your phone. No one knew if the trial was over, still going, or what. Then Tor collapsed right out front while we were waiting, everyone started freaking out—”
Whitty notices Nick’s expression and bumps Greer in the shoulder to cut them off.
I turn their words over in my mind, speechless for a moment. I’d completely forgotten how the night started. The scavenger hunt, the trial, the tournament. Right.
Nick fills me in while I’m still recalibrating. “You, Vaughn, and Whitty found far and away the most objects on the list, followed by Sydney, Greer, and Blake. Carson only found two objects, and Spencer”—a line appears between his brows—“got pinned by one of Sel’s hounds. They’re both out.”
Down in the infirmary, William said that the Kingsmage hadn’t come home yet. I wonder if he’s off somewhere licking his wounds after the fight with Nick.
“It’s only the combat trial left now,” Whitty says, stifling a yawn. “I heard that’s Thursday, with everythin’ headin’ the way it is.”
“Thursday?” I croak. When Lord Davis announced the accelerated tournament schedule, six weeks had sounded like enough time to at least learn how to fight decently with one weapon. Maybe the cudgel. But today is Saturday. What could I learn in five days? “What happened to six weeks?”
Nick stiffens beside me. “That was before Tor was Called.”
“Sorry, Bree,” Greer mutters, shifting their weight from one foot to the next. Whitty winces, his expression sympathetic. They both know what I know, which is that there’s almost no chance I’ll do well in the final trial. Greer and Whitty say their goodbyes and head out the front door. I watch them go, my heart sinking.
“I may as well quit now.”
“Only if you want to,” Nick says with a sigh, looping our fingers together. I send him a questioning look, and he shrugs. “I made a few calls while you were downstairs. I requested that one of the Lieges who trained me—one of the good ones—lead the training sessions for the group. Gillian’s solid. I trust her.”
“Is she a miracle worker?”
The side of his mouth lifts. “Better. The former Scion of Kay. You don’t need to win every match on Thursday. You just need to lose well.”
I sigh and shake my head. “Losing well sounds a lot like regular losing.”
“They aren’t the same thing,” he murmurs, his thumb passing over my knuckles. “Believe me.”
We pause in the middle of the foyer and stare up at the windows as the sun creeps forth and early morning birds start their day. I glance at Nick beside me, his head tilted back and eyes closed, his blond hair turned gold in the light. His face appears illuminated from within. I try to imagine him as a king in a painting, noble and stern. I can almost see it. Especially after tonight. Maybe I should try to tell him. Explain what happened to me.
“Nick?”
“Hm?”
“What Sel did was wrong…” Nick tenses, but drops his head to stare at me. The mix of anger and fierce protectiveness in his eyes takes my breath away. My heart, slow as William said it was, wakes up like the sun, ba-dumps in my chest. I ignore it, just to get this out. “But I am lying to people. I’m not here for the same reasons as everyone else, and we both know it…”
Nick’s eyes are twin blue moons, shining bright. “What are you saying?”
What am I saying? “That he has a point. I don’t belong here. I’m a… a distraction.” The words feel true as soon as I say them out loud.
Nick’s head jerks back like I’d slapped him, and his eyes flash. “Sel used his powers to directly threaten a member of this chapter! If you were Legendborn, his Oath of Service would have burned him alive. Do you have any idea what my father would do to him if he were here?”
I blink, startled by his vehemence. “Yes, but he thought I was here to hurt you, Nick! He was just doing his job. You’ve said it yourself, I’m an anomaly. The things I can do—”
He presses a finger to my mouth. “Not here.”
He’s right. The echoing foyer isn’t exactly soundproof if someone above opens a door. I lower my voice. “Sel didn’t hurt me.”
“He’s the reason you got hurt!” he insists in a rough whisper.
“No, he’s not,” I counter.
He laughs, incredulous, and releases me to tunnel both hands through his hair. “How are you defending him right now?!”
“I’m not.” I groan. “Sel shouldn’t have sent his hound after me, but he’s not wrong to be vigilant. You didn’t see those hellfoxes, Nick. They’ll eat the Legendborn’s weapons and armor, steal it away. Leave all of you helpless—”
“Which is
why I need to be able to trust my Kingsmage,” he fires back. “And right now, I don’t trust him. I don’t!”
“But—”
He grasps my hands, his eyes turning pleading in the dim light. “If Camlann is coming, and I become king, I’m going to have to make hard decisions, Bree. But they will never be the kind of decisions that make it okay for us to turn on our own or behave as badly as Shadowborn. I won’t be the leader that allows our opponents to turn us into reckless monsters, and that’s exactly what Sel let happen tonight. He allowed his anger and fear to twist his perception of facts and turn him into his worst self. If he succumbs to—” He stops short. Grips my fingers, turning them so that he can press his lips to the back of my hand. “That’s not the type of warrior we can afford to take into battle.”
The words rattle around in my chest. “What do you mean? What are you going to do? Are you… can you…”
He rests his forehead against mine and takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, B. The only thing I know right now is that we both need rest. We’ve been up all night. You need to heal. Your trainer will be here in twelve hours, I’ve got to call my dad by lunch…” He presses another soft kiss to my cheek. “Let me drive you home?”
I nod weakly because Nick’s right. We’re both exhausted, and maybe right now isn’t the best time to have serious discussions about leading a kingdom or punishing a Kingsmage, or what makes a person a monster.
But nothing about how I feel—how everything feels—seems right at all.
32
THANK GOD FOR Saturdays.
I sleep until noon, and even then I only drag myself out of bed because my bladder and growling stomach begin protesting with alternating pangs of discomfort. I glance at my image in the mirror of the bathroom and shudder.
William may have healed my injuries, but I still look like someone who’s been fighting hellcreatures. I guess even aether can’t fix that. Between the tangled, sweat-matted curls under my scarf, the bags under my eyes, and the morning breath, I feel like a hellcreature.