by Cara Coe
A piercing pain ripped through Amelie’s chest and her breath was stripped from her before her vision grayed. She looked down and saw the steel blade of a sword protruding from her chest. Glancing back at her attacker, she saw one of the guards she’d downed towering over them with his great height.
“No!”
The single outburst came from Rankor. He clumsily pushed the guard back and withdrew the sword from her body. Amelie slumped to the ground. Rankor cursed the angels and pressed a hand against the bleeding wound.
“Tell me how to heal it,” he yelled at her in frustration. She did not respond. She lay, staring blankly towards the White Forest. It called to her on the wind. Or perhaps that was her faculties sweeping from her body. She did not know. Everything moved thickly, like there was weight on the air. Her body felt lighter. She could still make out the rough pads of Rankor’s fingertips on her neck. They were gentle and worried.
“Not yet! Wait! I took part of your healing power. I can try,” he said, his voice faraway. “Amelie…”
His presence left her suddenly and she felt open air on her back.
And then she felt nothing.
Chapter 49
Amelie
It was a world of brilliant white. Almost scorching in its brightness, burning her eyes. The young man sat on a bench, his legs crossed watching her. His shirt and pants were a simple russet color belted at the waist. His hair was a vibrant red, skin like milk, his eyes were muted brown but kind and within them it looked like he experienced life a thousand times over despite his youthful appearance. He motioned to her to come closer and when she did, he took her hand. Her skin stood out like coffee against cow’s milk.
“Who are you?” she asked him.
“I am no one you know yet. And it’s not time for you to know me. Even as we speak she’s pulling you back.”
“Who is pulling me? I feel nothing.” And indeed that was true. She looked down at her chest. Her shirt was blood soaked, but there was no wound. No pain.
“Have I passed on beyond mortal life?” It was a frightened whisper that asked this. Is this how it ended? She felt ill prepared and anxious.
“I am not of that realm. You will take another breath, of that I’m sure.”
“What is your name?”
“I shall tell you when I see you again in the earthly world. You have a decision to make and that decision will set you on a path towards me. I will know you when our eyes meet and not before.”
“You speak in riddles. How I despise that,” Amelie retorted crossly.
His laugh was low and throaty. “Go,” he said. “Go and be free of my riddles.”
And slowly he faded so that all Amelie could see was the blinding white, even when she shut her eyes against it. And all she could hear was the laugh turning into a distant echo.
Chapter 50
Amelie
The return to her senses came as a crushing wave on her mind. She opened her eyes. Her blurred vision receded and she could take in the forest air, the rugged cliff, and sticks and rocks scattered about. Millie clutched the front of Amelie’s riding shirt with her shoulders shaking violently with sobs.
Millie?
“You were gone,” she gasped through tears. “You were gone and your mother touched your arm.”
Amelie pushed herself into a sitting position. Her mother’s hand still gripped her wrist in a tight hold though there was little evidence otherwise that she was still alive.
“Mother?” Amelie asked cautiously.
Queen Gala’s eyes fluttered and looked around until she found her daughter’s face. “Amelie.” She smiled weakly. “He is gone. You are safe.”
“Mother, what’s happened? Are you hurt?”
“Not hurt, child. Spent. My power is that of a soulguard. You were losing your soul. I gave it back to you.”
Amelie’s mind frantically recalled Sir Duncan’s explanation of her mother’s power. Her heart tore inside of her chest. “No!” Her voice squeaked with tears that remained inside. Her fist pounded the dirt in frustration.
Queen Gala’s eyes closed and her features slackened. She was deathly still and Amelie knew the life had left her. Just like that.
Simply.
Her mind blackened with sorrow and she clung to Millie and wailed while her friend stroked her hair and rocked her.
“Is she hurt?” Captain Lucas’ voice fell on Amelie from above. She felt Millie shake her head.
“No, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Talon shot Rankor and the guard down but not before she was stabbed. The queen…” A sob from Millie this time. “I don’t know.”
Amelie’s wails tapered off and left the pain she felt without a voice. She ask her friend, “Who is here?”
“Captain Lucas, Talon, and I traveled with your mother when she received Rankor’s message. She told us to hide outside the camp while she presented herself to Rankor. I snuck in to poison the wine. Captain Lucas had been picking off anyone from the group that strayed off. And Talon kept eyes on your mother since we didn’t know where they were holding you.”
Amelie slackened in Millie’s arms. She was weary. “She knew she came to her death. She knew all along, it doesn’t matter how it manifested. She should have just come alone.”
“She brought us to make sure we got you out,” Talon suddenly said and Amelie turned and realized he was there. He was crouched over the queen but now rose to his feet. “I was jumped from behind from where I was perched, watching the exchange. By the time I was able to draw my arrow, you had been slain. It took six arrows sunk into that monster before he went over the cliff’s edge. I failed you.” His eyes flicked to the queen. “She did not.”
“Well, we will finish the task set to us,” Captain Lucas declared. “Come, Amelie, we will take you back to Candor.”
Amelie shook her head. “Not yet. I need some space, please. If you will.”
* * *
The tears trickled down her cheeks, moistening the dried and cracked remnants of the stream of tears before. On and off they did this. Ran silently down her face until her eyes were empty and then the sun baked them into her skin. And it itched. The dryness. But her hands didn’t move to scratch at it. They were occupied, one padding the space between her head and the rocky ground, the other clutching her mother’s wrist. She lay there, staring into nothing at the sky. Crying. Not crying. Crying.
Day passed to night and she still lay there next to the queen. Millie sat quietly several yards away for a time. Talon switched with Millie, Captain Lucas switched with Talon. The moon switched with the sun. The calling bird’s tweets switched with the night owl’s hoots.
Amelie and her mother were the constant, side by side. Closer than they’d ever been in the last ten years but more far apart than two souls could ever be.
* * *
Amelie sat numbly. She sat in the tattered ruins of Rankor’s camp. Without their leader, and many of them sickened with Millie’s poison, Talon and Captain Lucas were able to dispatch of many of the band of rogues and those that escaped their weapons scattered into the forest.
Amelie’s mother was wrapped in a makeshift shroud and loaded onto a cart on the back of Captain Lucas’s horse for their return trip to the palace in the morning. Late into the night, Millie finally prodded Amelie up and led her back to the circle of abandoned tents.
She warmed some milk for her friend and made Amelie drink.
“You denied most of their food. You are weak. Drink,” she ordered bringing the cup to Amelie’s lips. Amelie woodenly obeyed.
“I am destined to lose everyone.” It was said softly but Millie jerked as if she’d been slapped.
“We are all sad about the loss of your mother. It is not your fault and your destiny is your own. Keep drinking.”
But the thought wouldn’t dislodge from Amelie’s mind. She lay in her tent that night, stroking that pain and dreading the life she was to return to. Where people close to her betray her or die and happiness lives i
n plain view beyond her grasp. Life in Rankor’s company was no better and no worse. At the very least he’d been honest with her.
Millie insisted that her destiny was her own, but Amelie was just shuffled from one cage to another. Over and over again. She had no more control than that of a stabled horse. A part of her wished her mother kept her soul and not wasted it on the slave Amelie was. Perhaps in death she would have been free.
Amelie sat up with a jolt as a thought came to her. She paused and listened, but heard no commotion from the other tents everyone had chosen to bed down in for the night. Amelie crept out of her own and positioned herself next to the dying fire and watched it dance. She wasn’t alone. Talon was perched on a boulder a few paces away, staring into the dense greenery.
“Captain Lucas and I are taking shifts for watch,” he said, not looking in her direction. Amelie scooted closer to the fire.
“A wise decision,” she agreed. “I can help.”
Talon shook his head. “Let us take care of you, Amelie,” he said. He finally glanced at her. “We failed before. More than once. We’d like a little redemption.”
The smile on Amelie’s lips was thin. “Then I will not deny you that.” She looked through the trees in the opposite direction where the white forest began across the cliffs. Her mind calmed with the decision she had made in her tent before crawling out to the fire. “I have few people on whom I rely,” she spoke aloud. “I have a kingdom’s worth I care about. A convent’s worth I thank. But few whom I trust with my life. You are one of them.”
When she tore her gaze away from the white forest, she found Talon’s boring into her.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“You, Derrick, Millie…even my sister will understand. But he will not.”
Talon stood, looking poised to draw his weapon but frustrated that it would not aid him in this predicament.
“Amelie.”
“Talon, I can’t be an instrument for the king anymore. I can’t know love and watch it serve another purpose day after day. That is too much for anyone to bear, I think.”
Talon knelt beside her. “Where will you go?”
“I will go to the white forest. Find my people. Learn who I am.” She drew in a shaky breath before continuing. “Tell the king what happened here. Return my mother for burial. And tell him that my body could not be recovered. It went over the cliffs. Like Rankor.”
“And Seth?”
“Seth will never have peace if he thinks I’m exiling myself.”
“Seth will not find peace in your death,” Talon argued vehemently.
“No, but he will be free to move on.”
On this, Talon did not argue.
“This decision is meant to free him as well as me. You are his Millie. Take care of him.”
Talon’s head drooped in defeat. “I cannot shield him from the pain no matter which way it is thrown at him. I can tell you that whatever suffering has resulted from the two of you meeting has no match for the change I’ve seen in his eyes. But this? I’ll lose him. I’ll lose the man I know.”
Amelie rested a hand on her friend’s cheek and could already feel the grief that she knew was to come. “You would’ve lost him anyway, piece by slow piece. Let this be one quick blow. When he staggers, support him. If I stay we will spend years in agonizing pain an arm’s length from each other. With me gone, you can help him find happiness in my sister. In this new alliance. In a family.” Amelie’s voice tapered off, wrought with an ache for all the things she wished for Seth but could not see in her own future. “Please,” she whispered.
Talon drew her to him and held her. “When did you become so important to me?” he mused into her hair.
Amelie laughed into the fabric of his tunic, glad to ebb some of the hurt away. “When you found out I knew as much as you did about herbs.”
Amelie and Talon sat together as night made way for dawn. He told her stories of Seth when they were boys together. Amelie drank it in, smiling and wishing she had time for more. With the morning came loud protests. Millie took the news much more vocally than Talon. She yelled, then pleaded, then cried, and finally gripped Amelie’s hand.
“You must serve Claudia now. She has been robbed of a sister all these years and I’ve been so lucky to have another,” Amelie said.
Millie wiped at her eyes. “How do I say good bye to you?”
“We will see each other again, I’m sure.”
Millie looked over Amelie’s shoulder towards the white forest. “I can’t even see it. How will I find you?”
Amelie squeezed Millie’s hand. “I shall find you.”
Amelie sat still for some time after they left with her eyes closed. The wind cooled around her and gentled into a rustle. The animals quieted seemingly in reverence for her grave decision. She searched inside her as Rankor taught her, let her magic fill her and push out around her. She didn’t try to manipulate it. Suppress it or pulse it. When she opened her eyes, it was like a lighted path curved her way into the forest. Without a sound, she stood and began to follow it.
Chapter 51
Claudia
Her heart hammered. She knew it would end poorly, this goose chase after the rogue mage Rankor. Even with all the information held from her, of being constantly kept in the dark, she knew all these missions after all these years would mean trouble. Knowing this did nothing to assuage the gripping attack on her heart as she looked into the solemn faces of Millie and the Draedens.
Her mother.
Her sister.
It was too much. Claudia’s knees gave out. She crumpled to the stone floor. Captain Lucas came to her aid, placing a cautious hand on her back. The king still slept, not yet recovered from the attack. He would wake to grave news indeed. She allowed herself her moment of grief, but she knew better. She needed to pull herself together. Her mind ran through the scenarios. The royal family was in shambles. The queen and princess have perished. The king’s mind was trapped in slumber. She was the one ruler left. She must save her grief for her own private time.
With Captain Lucas’s help, she struggled to stand. Millie stood before the throne, crying silently. Talon never looked at Claudia. As Captain Lucas spoke the news, Claudia had searched each face before her in disbelief but Talon never even glanced at her. His gaze was locked elsewhere. Claudia followed it.
Seth stood there, stricken. His face was paler than before, if it were possible to be. His eyes were sharp with pain. His breathing was quick and uneven. Talon stared at him as if it was the only thing tethering the prince to his sanity. Her fiancé did not move to help her when she learned of the death of her family. The man she was set to marry did not glance her way when her world shattered around her with the news.
Instead, he was frozen to the spot.
Instead, he was visibly shaking.
Sorrow cracked in his deep blue eyes, sorrow that mirrored her own but with a fiercer depth underneath it.
He was in love with Amelie.
Claudia was surprised at the new pain that ripped through her.
She slowly sat back down on the throne and began giving orders.
Orders.
One order at a time. That was how she would push through this until she had a moment to herself. One order at a time. Prepare her mother for her funeral. Convene the royal cabinet. Orders. Orders would balm her sorrow for the time being. One last order.
“Mr. Talon, Mr. Derrick, please see your prince to his room. Give him some time to collect himself.” A pause. “It appears from his grief he has grown quite fond our kingdom. A breath of good news in this terrible tragedy since he’ll be joining me in ruling it sooner than planned.”
Epilogue
Amelie
The same strange sounds that Rankor had whispered on their journey into Draeden filled Amelie's ears. A voice on the air speaking in that same foreign tongue flew around her. Without a horse, she ran the lighted path. It did not seem to matter what her choice of travel. It felt as th
ough she whipped over the land. She didn't feel her feet.
The bay never came even though the cliffs were where she ran to. Instead she kept passing trees. They grew taller, less green. White towering beasts that sprinkled frosty leaves in her wake as she flew by.
More and more speed. Faster. Faster.
Then stillness.
At a cave opening, she stopped.
Her breath was crystal on the air in front of her but she felt no chill. Leaves tinkled around her in ice. Her feet came to rest in powder. She bent down to scoop some of it, letting the fluff of it drop through her fingers. The pull she felt from the mountain range yanked ferociously at her now. She smiled. She was close to satiating it.
She approached the cave. The light stopped at its opening.
"Hello?"
Her call was uncertain. The cave was so dark, she couldn't see two feet past the opening.
"You are new," a male voice called back.
She was so startled by the response, she took a step back.
The voice continued. "You magick quickly. Your run here is one of the fastest I've seen. I haven't had to speak The Light in a long time. You almost tripped my memory, I had to recall it so fast before you smacked your head on one of the white oaks. Most mages speak it themselves."
The voice was growing louder as the speaker made his way to the mouth of the cave.
Amelie tried to peer into the dark. "Who are you?"
A man, no taller than she with bright red hair and russet clothing emerged from the envelope of black. His brown eyes met her emerald ones and instantly sparked to life.
"You," she whispered, recognizing the man from her time in limbo before her mother restored her soul.
"So we meet at last," he said, smiling. "This explains so much."