Fallen Flame

by J. M. Miller

  The prince nodded his approval for the princess to touch the petals. “They must be rarer than even we believed then. They just began to grow around the time of my birth. I like to believe that’s why my mother favors them,” he noted, shifting his eyes to Queen Havilah who flashed a meek smile before cutting her eyes to me, catching me looking again. This time it was her who looked away first, leaving me to blink away my confusion until I finally shifted my eyes and caught Queen Meirin staring at me, her eyes wide with curiosity. Not wanting to offend, I leveled my gaze again, this time at the well, hoping to avoid meeting any more eyes.

  “I didn’t see any from the road when we arrived the other day. Where do they grow?” the princess whispered as she pinched a single red and orange petal between two fingers.

  “Only in one place actually. At Sacred Lake on the eastern cliffs,” Caulden replied.

  “Is it possible to—”

  “The lake is off-limits, I’m afraid,” the queen interjected. A warning. “The paths there have claimed enough lives already, and the quakes we had the other night made the trek even more dangerous. So I’ve had to enforce my rule against travel there.”

  “Oh,” the princess replied, her lips turning down a bit. Maybe she wasn’t accustomed to being told “No.”

  “Better safe than sorry, dear,” Queen Meirin tutted in response.

  The prince grabbed Anja’s hand, turning her to face the mourning flower again. “The Sacred Lake was once where lots of people went to mourn family deaths. That’s why it got its name.”

  “Fascinating,” she replied. “It is a shame, though, such a pretty thing being tied to death that way, being named for it.”

  “I’m afraid I must go,” Queen Havilah interrupted. “I will see you all at dinner.” Everyone nodded their understanding as she turned and left, one of the sentinels falling in step behind her.

  “Forgive my mother,” Caulden said. “She is very close to these flowers. I think they also remind her of my father’s passing. It happened around that time as well.”

  “I’m so sorry of that.” The princess turned to him, closer still, trailing her hand down his arm.

  Queen Meirin had been watching their exchange from the side, then turned and left quietly without disturbing them.

  “It’s fine. Thank you. I didn’t have a chance to know him.” Caulden looked into her eyes for a few silent moments then cleared his throat and looked back at the mourning flower. “I used to not like these so much. I’m sure it had to do with how protective my mother was of them, of this conservatory. Perhaps I was a bit jealous.” A faint laugh as he reached his own hand to the flower and stroked the petals. “But it’s become my favorite, too.”

  “Why the change?” she asked.

  “Let’s just say my eyes were opened recently, making me see how beautiful some things really are despite what may surround them.”

  My breath caught, and I dared a direct look in time to see Caulden’s head tilted to the side, casting a quick glance over his shoulder before his focus returned to her.

  TWELVE

  “They’re going to the vineyards today,” Haidee called through my bedroom door after having let herself into the house well before dawn. “They are enamored with the wine and want to study everything. I think they are very jealous of our soils. Maybe if they learn something they won’t be as inclined to seize our island.”

  I groaned. It had been three days since the captain had restricted everyone to the chateau grounds. But the Guards he’d assigned to search for The Shadow—Xavyn—hadn’t found him, and the visiting royals had slowly morphed into wild beasts trapped inside a cage of stone and glass. There was no chance for even the captain to tame their need for freedom … or more information.

  “Maybe if that happens, you won’t have to worry as much about the Trials, about you leaving,” Haidee said, hitting the door again. “About him leaving … you.”

  My eyes snapped open. After I had disclosed the truth to her about Xavyn and all he had said, Haidee and I had become … closer. It had only been a few days since our brief talk in the garden and yet it felt as if we’d bonded more during that time than all the years we’d known each other. When I was off duty, she listened intently to catch any hints of treachery from Princess Anja or Queen Meirin. On the little time she had off—from now being the prince’s lead Guard—she’d report anything to me. She also helped search Saireen’s house for clues that my life could be something else as Xavyn had suggested, anything to show that Saireen could have known. We’d found nothing except that new closeness, something we’d never thought possible. And now, with a comment like her last one, she was getting even more personal.

  I threw my clothing on, secured my leathers, then pulled the bedroom door open. “Was anything said last night worthy of note?”

  “I haven’t heard anything of note.” Before I could continue on that topic, she said, “I’d have to have been blind for years not to see, but especially over the last few days, since Prince’s Night. It’s even more obvious now, the way he looks at you. His comments.” I gritted my teeth at her decision to press me on the matter, my jaw taking the brunt of my frustration. “Something happened between you two that night. It’s not good, Vala. How can you even think that this … that you …”

  “That he’d ever love someone like me?” I snapped, crossing the room and ripping the loaf of bread she’d brought in half. “I haven’t been thinking about it. I know it’s not possible.” I took a bite, the soft dough as bitter on my tongue as the thoughts in my head.

  “But?”

  “Nothing. That’s all.”

  Those eyes, Saireen’s eyes, looked up at me from the table where she sat with her leather arm guards resting upon it.

  “He kissed me that night,” I admitted. “After I saved his life … or maybe didn’t save his life.” Xavyn had said he’d pulled Caulden to get him away from the others.

  Her mouth opened. “But, I thought … how is that possible with … your skin?”

  I took a deep breath and released a long sigh. “I’m not exactly sure about that myself. And I haven’t thought about it much since that night or the next morning after I’d been lashed.” Haidee flinched, but I continued on. “Water usually hurts me. I know you probably knew—”

  “I knew enough. Knew of your cleansings. Mother had told me you needed it done once a week, that it helped to relieve pressure from your skin. I’d heard your screams when I had visited the house a couple of times, years after moving out, when you were no longer a baby who had an excuse to cry at a bath. I thought she was hurting you. She reassured me but never let me enter. So I didn’t know about the color—”

  “Right,” I said, recalling Prince’s Night when she’d seen me in the bathhouse. “Well, the lake’s water is different for some reason. My skin broke and sloughed off but the water didn’t pain me. It only hurt again when I’d gotten out—the normal response to my skin reforming. And while I was in the water, my skin emitted a glow.” I shook my head, disbelieving my own words as if I were remembering incorrectly. “It seems like a dream now, like it didn’t happen. My skin always burns anything alive—plants, people—but that night …”

  “You didn’t burn him?” she asked, filling in the information. “He kissed you and your skin didn’t burn him.”

  “No, it didn’t. Until the water had been off my face long enough and my skin began to reform. Then it burned him. Not badly enough to mark him, though.”

  “So he saw you?”

  “He had seen me once before, walking in on me accidentally during a cleansing. He never touched me because he knew he couldn’t.”

  “But he did that night when you saved him.”

  “His head was still clouded with drink,” I said, shrugging off what had happened again. “The next day, I tried to make sense of everything with him. We acknowledged what had happened between us, enough to dismiss it at least, knowing nothing would ever progress between us. But we never talked mo
re about the water.” I stared at the rest of the bread in my hand and let it fall onto the table, my appetite gone.

  She tore some of her own from the loaf and took a bite, staring down at the table in concentration. After chewing, she whispered, “He was there that night. Xavyn.”

  “Yes,” I confirmed, confused by the reason she would restate the obvious.

  She looked up at me. “He was there too. Was his skin the same in the water? Did he look as though he noticed a difference?”

  “His skin gave off a glow too. But when he got out, he was screaming. That was why I thought he was injured.”

  “Do you still believe he may have been?”

  “I can’t be sure. He seemed to be injured the night on Trader’s Row also. The longer we fought and talked, though, the less it appeared to bother him. It was like he was growing comfortable with the injury. I couldn’t really make sense of it. What he asked, what he said—it’s confusing. He said he was sent for information, possibly the same as what the queen is after, but finding me may have changed things.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to treat his word as gold. You don’t know him, even if you share the same skin. We have no idea where he comes from or who sent him.”

  “You’re right. I just can’t get it all out of my head. I’ve been over and over it.”

  “Well, we’re leaving the confines of the chateau today. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll decide to take his next shot at the prince, or seek more information as he told you, then we can put all of this to rest.”

  I nodded. “I’m just hoping we see him first.” Because if someone else did … Secretly, I was relieved every time Captain Baun updated us, having no success in finding him. “I wouldn’t mind hearing more of what he has to say.”

  “This is a dangerous game, Vala. Not being honest about the way he looks is bad enough, but hiding all the other information from the captain and the queen is grounds for a lot worse than lashings.”

  “I expect my actions would be deemed as traitorous, which would earn my lifeless body a dive from Crypt Cliffs.”

  Haidee’s eyes didn’t meet mine, but I watched her lips turn down. “I don’t see how you can sound so cavalier.”

  I laughed once, the sound harsh and ragged in my throat. “Perhaps you’d see differently when your dedication to the throne, to the prince’s life, is rewarded so graciously by a strip of position and a crack of a whip.” When she didn’t respond, I added softly, “I was doing my duty, Haidee. You know I was trying to protect him. The queen’s punishments have only made me question my value to them. Have I been viewed so poorly this entire time without knowing? Were they just waiting for me to fail? Or did it take one simple mistake, one poor choice to make them view me as others have for years? Ever since I was a child, the queen’s eyes have assessed me strangely. But I thought there was some understanding inside them since she had allowed me on the Guard. Her judgments felt extreme, and not allowing me to partake in the Trials is the worst of it all. I never felt my physical appearance was weighted against … until I was told I was not permitted to go with the prince. What other reason would she have to keep me here? One mistake over years at his side? It pains me.” I let my shoulders fall, along with a single tear that was gone in an instant. “And now, hearing that there might be more … The questions inside won’t die. I cannot simply forget or even pretend to be happy at the possibility of the prince staying here. Because even though I still would give my life for him, still honor my promise … I no longer know who I am.”

  THIRTEEN

  The day lagged as if the covered sun had been tethered to my emotions. While the captain was not able to keep everyone inside the chateau for another day, he was able to convince them all that it was best to split the vineyard trip into two. Regardless of how many Guards could accompany them, having everyone travel at the same time was a risk he was not willing to take. The queens visited first, returning well after midday. The prince used that extra time—as he had on the previous confined days—training beside us in the courtyard. The princess watched for a while, content to keep her eyes pinned on the sweat dripping down his bare chest as he engaged in all forms of battle—wielding his hands, a sword, a staff, a bow—with his main sparring partner Leint. I was content to ignore the prince and princess both, working my frustrations blow after blow on Haidee and a few other willing Guards.

  Captain Baun had also thought it wise to forgo the carriages, opting for the backs of the fastest horses. No one objected. The princess had even donned her most basic outfit yet—a white tunic lined with intricate blue threading, leggings, and boots, with a small dagger strapped to her waist. Her hair had been smoothened and gathered into a single tail left to fall down her back. Upon seeing her after they had both changed from the morning, Caulden’s eyes roamed over her noticeably. I mounted my horse beside Haidee’s, directing my eyes elsewhere. But not before I caught a look from Haidee, her eyebrows drawn with understanding.

  “Princess, you look far too … clean for where we’re going,” Caulden stated. I could hear the smile on his lips that I no longer wanted to see, knowing he was helping her onto her horse.

  “Why? Are we to make the wine ourselves? I passed my mother in the hall and she mentioned no such thing.”

  Caulden laughed. “Not unless you want to. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, I’m excited.”

  “Good,” he replied, then addressed Haidee. “Leint and the princess’ guards can cover the front. I want you and Vala behind us.”

  Haidee and I fell back, allowing the others to pull ahead. Caulden and Anja rode closely together during the trip, and even though I was forced to watch them, I was grateful that Haidee kept enough distance that we were unable to hear their full conversation. However, judging by the bubbling laughs from the princess and the gleaming smiles from Caulden each time he turned his head toward her, I could guess it was going well enough.

  Enduring that for the hour long leisurely ride only made the day longer.

  “The grounds are empty,” Haidee noted as our horses walked along the perimeter fence of the vineyard’s entrance. Lush bundles of twisted grapevines were lined in rows that stretched far down the hillside, disappearing into the fog. “Captain Baun mentioned he’d demanded the property cleared of unessential workers for today’s visits. Though, Lord and Lady Wyntor are ready to receive us should the prince like a word.”

  “Good.” I surveyed the rest of the property as we turned onto the entrance road, wooden gates spread wide-open in an extended welcoming. The manor house and storage building had Revelation Wood guarding their back. The towering oaks had thick interlaced branches spreading as wide and as high as the face of the western cliffs that dropped into the sea at the opposite end of the vineyard, where the air was too smothered with fog to see. With all the people cleared from the grounds, the main threat outside was the cover of the tangled trees. “When we arrive at the house, I will take the edge of the wood. Unless you have another plan.”

  “I agree. I’ll have Leint and the others spread farther around to give the prince some space, but I’ll stay close by his side.”

  I nodded, actually happy that she had been assigned my place. No matter what had happened through the years between us or even in the recent days, we were of the same mind with the same goal.

  We drew the horses closer together and slowed their pace approaching the manor house. I was accustomed to the vineyard being busy each time we’d visited, full of voices and movement. While the day’s dull quiet aided our ability to protect the prince, I couldn’t shake the unnerving tingle it caused, a caress at my spine.

  “You know how I mentioned the stream during the ride? Vitae River, which moves underground in a few parts of the island?” Caulden asked Anja.

  “Yes,” she replied sweetly. “We didn’t seem to pass over it along the way.”

  “Precisely. It weaves its way through most of the island, starting as a mere stream at the peak of the eas
tern cliffs, feeding Sacred Lake, then flowing above and in pockets below, supplying all the crops. But see”—Caulden pointed at the tree line to the side of the manor house—“right there? It appears here too, splitting the rows of grapevines then it coils back around, downward to the north and to the other vineyards and farms.”

  The water rolled lazily down the sloping grounds in between the rows of vines as Caulden had said.

  “It’s lovely,” the princess commented, staring where the prince had pointed.

  “It is. It didn’t make much sense to have the water so close with the worry of root rot, but the grapes have flourished. The lord here believes it is why.”

  “And it’s the main source of water?”

  “For the most part. We use wells, of course, and there are other smaller rivers sourced from rain and the continuous fog. But Vitae is the main river of Garlin.”

  “I see,” she replied, looking around the grounds. “Your mother mentioned quakes the other day. Do they happen often?”

  “No. They aren’t frequent. Did it worry you?”

  “I was just thinking about this river, about your Sacred Lake and how much I’d love to look upon its beauty and the mourning flowers that grow there. How treacherous is the path?”

  “Very, for even the most skilled now. I got to see the damage from the last quake … Actually, I was there when it happened and struggled to get home because of it.”

  I wanted to laugh at that, knowing I’d been the one who actually struggled to get him home from the lake that night. Had his head been clear, it wouldn’t have been an issue. At least, not as big of one.

  “You were there? Do you go there often?”

  Caulden cleared his throat. “No, I don’t go there at all really because of my mother’s decree. But that night was … the night before you arrived and—”

  “Oh, I see.” The princess’ words were saccharine. “You were dared to go for Prince’s Night.”