by K. A. Linde
Cyrene cursed under her breath. She didn’t have any answers. She just had to decide whether or not she trusted Dean.
She gritted her teeth and remembered the bite of the butt of his blade against her temple. The way he’d drugged her. The way he had held her imprisoned.
No, she didn’t…couldn’t trust him.
But, as the moon started to rise toward its zenith, she realized she had no one else to put her faith in. No one to help her. No one, not even herself. Just this little green vial. And Dean.
Cyrene unstopped the cork on the vial and took a big whiff. She coughed gruffly as the cloying sweetness enveloped her senses.
Creator! Guide my hand.
She glanced once more at the moon and then tipped back the vial.
Cyrene was swaying.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
That was all she could feel as she was jolted awake. Then, everything came to her in a rush. The vial.
She bolted upright and screamed at the top of her lungs. But the scream was muffled through her gag. Her eyes widened in horror as she observed her predicament. Her hands and legs were knotted, trussed up like a prized turkey. A blanket had been hastily thrown over her body. It obstructed her view of where she was or was headed, but she could already tell by the swaying that she was on a boat.
A boat? How did I get on a boat? Why am I no longer in prison?
Out of nowhere, a hand shoved her backward, and she wrestled with her captor. She tried to scream again but had no luck through the gag.
“Quiet you!” hissed a disembodied voice from above her. “How the hell is she awake?”
“I have no idea.” Dean’s crisp voice cut through the humid night.
“She’s supposed to be dead!” the man said. “You just said you were dumping the body.”
“And we are,” he said evenly.
Cyrene seethed. Dumping the body! He had thought that the vial of liquid would kill me! What had I been thinking? How could I have trusted him? She had been an idiot, and now, she had no idea where she was or where they were going. Now would be a great time for her magic to come back to her.
The blanket was yanked over her head, and a man peered down at her. She recognized him at once as Dean’s personal guard and Maelia’s former lover, Darmian. He was the one who had caught Maelia with blood on her hands…literally.
“Shut your trap, or we’re going to be noticed. Then, you’ll be in real trouble,” he growled out. His voice was gruffer than she remembered. His face harder. He must be taking Maelia’s death hard…or he just hated Cyrene now.
But she didn’t stop wriggling or attempting to shout for help. She doubted she could get away so easily without her powers, but she wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
“Listen here, you want me to knock you out again? We’re all out of puffer fish liquid since you burn it up faster than humanly possible. So, shut your mouth, or I’ll make you!”
Then, he threw the blanket back into her face, and she stilled.
Puffer fish liquid? What in the Creator’s name is he talking about? Is that what Dean had given me? She knew puffer fish were extremely poisonous. She didn’t think that her magic should have been able to resist the toxin, but apparently, it had its uses. Even if she couldn’t reach it.
She didn’t relish the thought of being knocked out again. She’d rather be alert to witness what they were up to, sneaking her out and dumping her body in the middle of the night.
Then, taking one soft breath through the gag, she closed her eyes and reached for her powers again. Whatever Dean had given her might have died out, but her magic was still held at bay.
Then…like the soft flutter of a butterfly’s wings, a tiny source opened up within. Not much. Nothing that she could really do much with. Not like before when she had been working with her tutors, Matilde and Vera. But, still, she had enough to tug on her bond with Avoca.
Feeling the bond brought a wave of relief. Her fear had been that she’d burned out her magic and would have to suffer a life without it. She couldn’t imagine that life now. But the power was still there, just numbed from the amount of energy she had used and whatever Dean had given her.
An answering call came almost immediately, like a beacon in the night, and Cyrene knew she was not alone. Avoca would find her. She was sure of it. After Cyrene had saved Avoca’s life from the Indres—evil wolflike beasts—she had forfeited her life to Cyrene and now owed her a life debt. Even without their bond, Avoca would go to the ends of the earth for her. And Cyrene felt the same way for her Leif sister.
As soon as the tug came to her, the boat rocked hard, and Cyrene listed toward the edge. Without her hands free, she nearly tumbled over the side. Arms roughly grabbed her around the middle and hauled her back to safety. The blanket fell from her face, giving her the first real glimpse of where they were.
Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes rounded.
“No,” she tried to yell into her gag.
Darmian kicked her side to silence her. She grunted and started to squirm around, trying to sit up, as she stared at what was before her in horror.
As far as the eye could see were Byern warships.
Cyrene’s heart sank. She hadn’t known whether she would feel better or worse if Edric came for her…and now, she knew for certain. Worse. Much worse.
She had left Byern and given up her place. She had agreed to marry Dean and become an Eleysian princess. The last thing she wanted was to return home.
Yet it called to her. She could feel a pulse on the ship nearly as strong as what she held with Avoca. A pulse that sang to her.
She wanted to ignore it. She knew that it had to do with the illegal binding of Affiliates and High Order to the Byern throne and lands. But this somehow felt different, more precise. It wasn’t her lands or the Dremylon throne calling her. It was one Dremylon in particular.
Without knowing why, Cyrene leaned into the bond, like bathing her face in sunlight. The king. It must be Edric.
She had told Dean that she did not love Edric, but the truth was that whatever was between them was more than that. Not love but connection. A bond she had felt the very first day she gazed up into his face at her Presenting ceremony. Though, at the time, she had not known what the electric zap that passed between them was. She now knew. And it called to her.
With him so near, she had no idea how she had ever believed their connection diminished.
If anything, it felt stronger.
They rowed right up to the side of the first ship. It was enormous, ten times the size of the barge they had ridden in on the trip down the Keylani River for procession and significantly bigger than the vessel she had come into Eleysia on with Dean. Of course, Eleysian vessels were more for stealth. Their navy was beyond reproach.
In the moonlight, the ship seemed to glow supernaturally. The dark wood planks were from the Hidden Forest on the banks of the Taken Mountains near her home. The sails were white and crisp. A Dremylon flag in the traditional green and gold flew high overhead with the D in flames. It was magnificent.
But this amount of force from Byern baffled her. Edric had sent dozens of warships just for me?
“Untie her hands and feet,” Dean said coarsely. “But watch her. She’s cunning.”
“Aye,” Darmian mutter.
He hauled Cyrene to her feet with one easy tug of the ropes on her wrists. He withdrew a wicked-looking knife and sliced the ropes, as if they were made of butter. As he worked on her ankles, she removed the bindings, rubbing her wrists to soothe the chafing.
Her eyes darted out to the water. How far out are we? Could I swim away from here and get back to Avoca?
“Don’t even think about it,” Dean said.
She glared at him. Her mouth was still gagged, so she couldn’t even retort, but if looks could kill…
A rope ladder descended from the top of the ship, and Dean reached out for it.
“Prince Dean,” Darmian said at once, “le
t me.”
“You stay behind Cyrene. Don’t let her do anything…stupid,” he said, his eyes remaining on Cyrene.
As if she were prone to doing stupid things. Well, she supposed that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
Dean scrambled up the rope ladder, as if he had been born to do it. Darmian, who still had the scary knife in his hand, edged her forward with it. She wanted to reach up and yank the stupid gag from her mouth, but the way Darmian was eyeing her, any small movements might get her disemboweled. And she didn’t care how fast she could heal; she wouldn’t come back from that.
Cyrene reached out for the ladder and wrestled it into place. The stupid thing shook and moved with Dean above her.
“Go on,” Darmian growled.
She sent one more withering look his way, hiked her dress up, and then stepped out onto the ladder.
It was hell.
How Dean made this look easy, she had no idea. No wonder female sailors wore pants. How could they manage this in fine dresses? Not that she was wearing a fine dress. And she wouldn’t mind hacking it off with Darmian’s blade right about now. It tangled between her legs and tried to trip her with every step she took. She might like sailing, but climbing a moving rope ladder was not her forte.
When she finally made it up to the top, two men grabbed her beneath her underarms and unceremoniously hauled her onto the deck. She stumbled a step and then righted herself. Her hands went to her gag, and she wrenched it out of her mouth. She had to remain confident, despite her fury and…fear.
If they were to drop my remains, then why am I on a Byern warship?
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded at once.
Dean shot her a look that told her to hold her tongue, but that was another thing she’d never really been good at.
She took in the deck before her. Even in the moonlight, she could make out a half-dozen sailors standing in a semicircle, facing her. All of them were in the Dremylon green military uniforms. No one answered her question.
“Where is he?” Dean growled impatiently.
“He’ll be up when he’s up,” a woman spat out in a fierce tone.
She had one arm at her side and the other resting on a broad sword. Cyrene had every confidence that the woman knew exactly how to use it.
“He?” Cyrene snapped.
She already knew whom they were talking about, of course. Dean was selling her out. Handing her back over to Byern rather than giving her a proper trial and proving her innocence. Now, he wouldn’t even look at her.
“Who is he?” Cyrene stalked across the deck toward Dean and made it with only a few inches between them before a hand encircled her wrist.
“Stop right there,” Darmian said.
She’d been so set on Dean, her anger burning so bright, that she didn’t even hear Darmian climb onto the deck behind her. She also hadn’t even realized that she had grasped her magic. Her skin tingled from the raw energy coursing through her system. It was more than the bond but still feeble and diluted. It crackled and spit, as if it were reaching down into a once-bottomless well and finding it lacking.
“Leave her be,” Dean said, calm and collected.
Darmian released her, and Cyrene extinguished her magic at the same time.
“How could you do this?” she demanded.
“There was no other choice,” he told her flatly.
“There is always a choice.”
“Do not stand there and lecture me on what I should be doing with you, Cyrene. Be glad you are not dead.”
“And why did you not just kill me? Why poison me and abandon me to this fate?” She flung her hand at the Byern sailors, who shifted uncomfortably at the display.
His eyes found hers across the short distance, and she saw nothing there. Not a glimmer of the man she loved.
Was he so grieved that he couldn’t think clearly? Was he so mad that he had no remorse for handing me over to the very people I had been escaping all along?
Byern refused magic. Magic did not exist in her home. And, worse yet, King Edric’s very ancestor, Viktor Dremylon himself, had extinguished it and set to wipe it out from the rest of Emporia. If she set foot on Byern soil once more, she would be hunted down and forced to fight for her life.
What Dean was doing was as good as killing her.
“If you keep asking me why I did not kill you, you will make me regret not doing so,” Dean said harshly.
Cyrene took a step back in shock. Her heart was already broken and shattered into a million pieces. A darkness settled back into her heart and reminded her why she should not care or hope. Maelia was gone. And, now, Dean was gone just the same.
She refused to cry for him. She just yanked on the ring on her finger, the ring he had given her, and pulled it off. She took a step toward him and thrust her hand out. “Fine. If I mean nothing to you, then you will want this back.”
Dean stared down at the glinting ring reflecting the moonlight in her open palm. Then, he reached out and covered her hand. She thought he was going to take the ring and be done with her for good, but he closed her hand around the ring and shook his head.
“Keep it,” he said hollowly.
She was about to argue when a commotion drew her away from Dean. The sailors all snapped to attention, and Cyrene’s heart stuttered. She was about to come face-to-face with Edric for the first time in nine months. The last time she had seen him, she had agreed to come to his bedchambers …and then she had abandoned Byern to go to Eleysia and discover her magic. She’d never even gotten to say good-bye.
She steeled herself for what was about to happen and felt Dean stiffen next to her.
The figure appeared at the top of the stairs, clothed in all black from head to toe. A deep velvet cloak billowed behind him with a cowl that rose up and obscured his face from view. He looked impenetrable and foreboding. The darkness actually seemed to lick at the sleeves of his black tunic, as if the night were accepting him as its own.
Cyrene wasn’t breathing by the time he came into full view and tugged back the cowl to reveal his all-too gorgeous face, that mussed dark hair, and the piercing blue-gray eyes.
She gasped. “You!” she cried, her hand going to her mouth.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” Crown Prince Kael Dremylon said with a sharp, knowing grin.
Cyrene whirled on Dean. “How could you do this?”
She noticed he didn’t look exactly comfortable. And how could he? Kael Dremylon was their mortal enemy. And Dean was handing her over to Kael, despite all the reasons not to. Foremost being that Kael had some kind of powerful dark magic and had tried to kill Dean the last time they were within a few feet of each other.
“Cyrene,” Dean whispered.
“Enough of that,” Kael said with a truly dangerous smile. He fixed his eyes on Dean. “I have what I came for, and you have what you came for. It’s best that you leave.”
“You’d better hold to your word,” Dean said.
“Of course he’s not going to hold to his word!” Cyrene shrieked. “Do you know who you’re dealing with? Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I promised to let you leave,” Kael said easily to Cyrene. “And I held to that until it seemed time to bring you home.”
Cyrene sneered at him. “Bring me home? Like a prize?”
The last words Kael had said to her slithered into her conscious, unbidden.
“You’ll remember and know…it’s all your fault. Everything that happens. You’ll remember, and you’ll come back to me.”
She shook her head, not wanting to think about what that meant. She remembered all-too clearly that night on the docks when he had compelled her mind. The black tendrils that had seemed to pull her toward him, the fogginess that had clouded her senses when he touched her, and the desperate need he’d induced.
Black magic.
Dark magic.
Blood magic.
It was the only thing that made sense.
Yet, as much as it
terrified her, the spark was still strong between them. And the longer she stood there, the more she felt her defenses weakening.
“Ah, but you decide if you are a prize to be won. Or has that changed?” Kael asked. His eyes went to the ring she was still clutching in her hand.
She wanted to hide it behind her back, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She slid it back into place. If it infuriated Kael, then all the better. It didn’t mean anything. She and Dean were over. They had been over as soon as he ordered her to be knocked out.
Dean ground his teeth. “Just remember our deal. I have the terms in writing. Stick to them.”
Kael stuck out his hand. Dean looked down on it with apprehension before taking it in his own. Kael’s smile grew, and a shiver ran down Cyrene’s back.
“You have my word,” Kael said.
Dean wrenched back his hand, and it looked like it took considerable force not to shake it. “For all that’s worth.”
His eyes cut to Cyrene’s, and he opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something, but she turned her back on him. Betrayal was the name of the game. She didn’t have to sit back and listen to what he had to say.
“Cyrene, I…” Dean said softly. Boot steps sounded against the wood planks, and she thought that was all, but then he said loud enough for her to hear, “I am sorry.”
She closed her eyes against the sting. He was sorry. He was sorry? Creator. What good did that do me? She was still trapped aboard a Byern vessel with Kael Dremylon, bound to return to a place she had sworn off.
Sorry wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close to enough.
She waited until she heard the signs of him and Darmian descending down the rope ladder and into their little boat before facing the facts. She was heading home with Kael Dremylon as her escort. She could see no plausible way to escape it.
Finally, Cyrene dragged her eyes up to Kael’s. The blue-gray orbs were dancing brightly in the moonlight. He seemed amused. But, as much as her magic had changed her in the time they were apart, it was clear he had changed as well. He might be her sarcastic, flirtatious prince, but there was a darkness around him now. And with the increase in his powers came the stronger call to hers.