Reid grimaces, his features twisted with apology. “I know. I know. I said I was sorry.”
With a hand on her lower back and another on her arm, Hadeon helps Ariana straighten. “Best to stand upright after you’re winded.”
She nods, trying to breathe steadily. “I’m fine. Really.”
“I think that’s enough for today,” he says to Reid, nodding toward the palace. “You’ve been out here all day.”
Reid offers another apologetic frown and strides away.
“I need all the practice I can get,” she says.
Hadeon sighs. He backs away until he is standing three feet from her. “Look here. When you took that kick, you hopped first, letting Reid know exactly what you were about to do. He’s watching you, every single inch of you, ready for the slightest movement. So you need to be quick and discreet. Take the stance,” he says.
She stands with her left leg forward, her right behind.
“Good, distribute your weight evenly.”
She does so.
“Now, when you go to kick me, you need to shift that weight onto your front leg and then strike out with your right. But don’t let me see you do it. Fast and discreet.”
Breathing evenly, she transfers most of her weight onto the left leg and thrusts the other at him, striking him in the stomach.
“Good,” he says. “Again, but this time conjure energy and blast it at me.”
As she focuses on him, she transfers her weight again and holds it there. She breathes in dragging all the outer energy she can muster. A burst of power, she kicks out and strikes him again, this time sending him staggering backward. He rubs at his stomach while throwing his head back in laughter.
“That a girl.” He strides to her, a grin on his face, and tackles her gently to the ground, pinning her down with her wrists above her head. He lowers his mouth over hers and kisses her hard. “It turns me on when you get all rough and tough.”
Ariana giggles and kicks up at him, but he lowers his body onto hers, stopping her with his sheer weight.
“I could fling you away with a spell,” she says, smiling.
He cocks his head to the side. “You could do that. Or you could kiss me instead.”
“You know my weakness,” she says and presses her lips to his mouth, her tongue finding his tongue, so warm and silky. She groans against his mouth and melts under his unrelenting body.
An apologetic cough sounds from above.
Hadeon releases her lips and lifts his head, while Ariana peers around him for the source. A young lady with blonde hair and violet eyes smiles down at them, her cheeks flushing red.
“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Gideon said that you want an Enchantress to help you with some training this afternoon.”
Hadeon smiles at Ariana, kisses her once on the lips, and climbs off. They both lift to their feet, wiping the stray grass from their clothes. “I’ll see you for dinner,” he says before strolling away.
“Um, yes. Thank you for coming to help me.”
The girl smiles. “My pleasure, Your Highness. My name is Phenella. I’m one of the highest ranked Enchantresses, but I’m not sure I could be of assistance to someone of your power—”
Ariana lifts a hand to stop her. “I really would just like to talk about some things with you, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
“Come, let’s go for a walk through the forest.”
Side by side, they stroll across the white fields down to the edge of the forest. The sun is descending and is casting red shadows across the landscape, shading the vibrant blue trees a brilliant purple hue.
“How do you all learn your craft?” Ariana asks. “From your mothers? Or training from a young age?”
Phenella looks at her as she treads through the thick forest. “I guess we learn by watching our mother and siblings. But mostly the magic develops intuitively.”
Ariana arches a brow and stops. “Intuitively?”
Phenella comes to a standstill as well. She smiles as she nods. “We’ve gone millennia without the spell book and the spells just kind of became lost throughout the years. We rely on our own innate ability for magic.”
“When you say that the spells were lost, what do you mean? Like the words of the spells?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“So you cast spells wordlessly?”
Phenella nods and smiles.
Ariana walks again, brushing a hand against the silky trunk of a tree. “What spells can you do?”
Phenella rattles off an impressive number of spells, all of which were outlined in the spell book while Ariana was still a princess.
“Over the years, do you learn more? Intuit more?”
Phenella shakes her head. “Once an Enchantress hits her late teens, she knows all she’ll ever know. Only you have that gift to grow.”
“How so?”
“We, the Enchantresses, do not have…enough power within us to perform the spells a queen is capable of. A Spring Blossom is the closest link to Mother Nature, who is the source of all of life and all that is. You are the direct link to all of that. You are her heart and her body and her strength. The sky is the limit with what you can do.” Phenella lowers her gaze and smiles bashfully. “I mean, that’s what I was told anyway.”
“And what about the Sun Queen?”
Phenella glances around the forest and lowers her voice. “I’m skeptical about her power. I’ve yet to see anything that I couldn’t do myself.”
“What do you know of her?”
“That she rose from a single ray of sunshine—that’s why she’s so fiery.”
Ariana laughs. “Yes, well that may explain it.”
“But she is still only a sunray.”
Ariana arches a brow. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Mother Nature dictates the rising and the setting of the sun every day. Not to mention the moons and the stars. She blooms the flowers, oversees the tides. A single ray of light should be nothing to fear.”
Ariana nods. “One more question?”
Phenella smiles. “Sure.”
“How do you cast a spell without words?”
Phenella’s forehead crumples and her eyes narrow.
Ariana forces a smile. “I simply want to know your process.”
Phenella sighs, her shoulders relaxing, then laughs. “I’m sorry, I thought you meant that you couldn’t… Never mind.” She presses a hand to her head. “Gee, I’ve never really thought about the process before. I guess I just clear all the thoughts and words from my mind and manifest the result.”
“So if you want to animate a rock, you’d think about the rock being alive.”
Phenella nods. “I guess so. I mean, I think that’s all I do. Is that what you do?”
Ariana nods. “Exactly,” she lies. “Thank you so much for your help this afternoon, Phenella. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Anytime you need me.”
“And thanks for your help with the barrier breach last week.”
Phenella’s lips part on a rushed inhale. “The barrier was breached?”
“No one told you?”
“No.” She pushes her hands into the pockets of her colorful dress and looks away. “But then again, I’m not the Head Enchantress and she chooses what information we know. Though, I thought she would’ve told me about—”
“Your Highness?”
Tuti is standing behind Ariana with her wings flapping vibrant rainbows through the darkening forest.
“Hi, Tuti,” she says. “Have you met Phenella?”
Tuti smiles. “Yes, many times over the years.”
“I might head back up to the palace unless you need me for something else?” Phenella says.
Ariana shakes her head. “All done here. Go ahead. I’ll see you later.”
Phenella waves and walks away.
Tuti takes Ariana’s hands and smiles excitedly. “Come for a fly with me. Please, please, please,
please?”
The excitement emanating from Tuti rolls off and splatters over Ariana’s skin. It seeps into her veins and lightens her spirits. “That sounds like a great way to clear my mind.”
Within moments of collecting the bees from the stable, Ariana and Tuti are soaring through the sundrenched sky.
“I’ll show you something amazing,” says Tuti, grinning wide. “Follow me.”
She soars left toward tall, vertical, red-stoned cliffs that line the western side of Pursia. They land on a small plateau on the tallest peak. Ariana climbs off the back of her bee and sits near the edge on the dusty rock. Tuti sits close beside her, head resting on Ariana’s shoulder.
The warm breeze blows across her flesh and through her hair. It smells so familiar now, the hints of vanilla and spice. Facing forward, the view doesn’t end—it extends all the way across Fiore until it disappears into a haze of vibrant lava red as the setting sun spills onto the land, staining it with color. Ariana’s heart warms.
“Thank you,” she whispers to Tuti, tears wetting her cheeks.
Tuti smiles. “I used to come here with your mother. This was her favorite place to forget about all her responsibilities.”
“I can see why she liked it.”
They didn’t say anything else until the remaining light sank further into darkness. Under the gauzy halo of the moons, they flew home.
Home. Now that’s something new.
Chapter 40
A little bruised from her hours training in the fields with Reid, Ariana groans as she crawls into bed beside Hadeon. She rolls to face him, bodies so close his heat permeates her.
She smooths a hand over his chest and down his toned abs to that sexy V at his hip. It’s as though she doesn’t have a say—controlled by this tugging desire to touch him.
Why did she start touching him? She knows once she starts, it’s so damn hard to stop. And so damn hard not to lean in and dart her tongue along the salty skin at his neck. Then lower. And lower.
Ariana shakes her head. She wants a serious conversation with him first. She closes her eyes and swallows down her lust. When she looks back into his face, Hadeon’s grinning with half his mouth, cheeky.
“You okay?”
She nods. “Just…controlling the urges.”
His grin grows wider. “Mmm. Urges.”
“Oh, you know about those?”
He brushes her bottom lip with his thumb. “I want to make love with you every moment I’m awake. I know all about urges.”
“But I want to talk first.”
He breathes out noisily through his nose. “I can do that. What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to know about your mother. You never speak of her.”
He leans closer and presses his warm, velvety lips to hers. “My mother. She was amazing. And I don’t say that because she’s my mom, but because she truly was. Beautiful and strong. Ethics as solid as stone.” He laughs at a memory. “She would not take any shit from anyone. Even Father.”
“Obviously a Healer like Marseon?”
He nods. “An incredible Healer. Compassionate. Selfless. She taught me so much. Could’ve been a Warrior herself, the way she thought about things.” Again that smile and the distant glaze to his eyes. He focuses back on Ariana. “I was sent to her clinic when I was eight or nine. I had my torso sliced open during training.” He motions over the side of his belly in demonstration. “There was so much blood, and I was shaking and pale as she sat me up on the treatment table. She sewed it up without a word, rubbed on some healing ointment, covered it with a patch, and told me to go back out and continue with my training.”
Hadeon smiles bashfully. “But I was terrified. All the boys were so much bigger than me, and I’d received a firsthand lesson on how much they could hurt me. So I started crying and shaking and giving all the reasons I couldn’t do it. She just smiled at me, hugged me tightly, and said, ‘Life is scary, Hadeon, especially for a Warrior. But fear chases fear. So if you let that into your heart, you’ll have it stalking you forever. And you don’t want to be scared your whole life. The only way to get rid of fear is to turn your back to it. It doesn’t like to be ignored for long and will eventually slink away. Then all that will be left is self-belief. And self-belief is what you need to reach the stars. So remember, when your self-belief falters, when you have the thought that you can’t do something, you’ve let fear creep back in. But as soon as you recognize that, and ignore fear again, your self-belief will return even stronger than before.’
“She told me to hurry on outside before the fear grew any bigger because the stars are so much brighter and so much prettier.” He stops, takes a deep breath, and manages a tight smile. “Every time I look at the stars I think of her. Those words. And I remind myself that with self-belief is the only way to truly live.”
Ariana swallows the aching lump in her throat. “What a smart woman.”
He sighs. “She was. And a real threat to anyone who didn’t have a moral compass. The Sun Queen would’ve seen that. Obviously, she saw that.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Ten. It tipped my life upside down. But despite Marseon’s own grief, she was there for me, a vessel of love and all of Mother’s wisdom.”
“And what about Gideon?”
Hadeon shrugs. “Father has always been what he is—a professional.”
Ariana understands. She has sensed the polite, professional distance between them since their first encounter. “Speaking of professionals, how’s the battle plan coming along?”
“All set. Father will brief you in the morning.”
She rolls onto her back and looks up at the high ceilings. “The palace is too quiet. Don’t you think?”
“I agree.”
“It worries me.” She turns her head to face him. “We need to fast forward on our offense.”
He nods. “I think so too.”
“What does Gideon think?”
“He believes we should hang back.”
“So what do we do?”
“Whatever you decide.”
Chapter 41
The dining hall is empty at this time of the morning when the sun is barely touching the horizon, struggling to chase away the blackness of night.
Hadeon and Ariana sit together at the head of the table, Gideon and Domascus to her right, and Lela, the Head Enchantress, to Hadeon’s left. Lela is willowy with long blonde hair and possesses the trademark violet eyes.
Gideon bites on a purple stalk and chews it before he lifts his dark gaze to meet Ariana’s. “We can’t pinpoint the location of the Sun Queen. All we can do is clear the way until we find her. Once we have her location, that’s when we will send you through.”
Ariana nods, considering his proposal. “How long do we anticipate before I’m face-to-face with her?”
“There’s no way of knowing.”
“A week, two weeks, a month?”
Gideon shrugs, grimacing. “Could be any of those.”
Ariana sighs, yesterday’s frustration still coiling tightly in her veins. “Why do we not have any information to lock in?” Her voice is louder than she intends, and Hadeon squeezes her hand gently under the table. “We’ve no time frames. We don’t know where she is. Hell, I don’t even know who the fuck she is.”
Gideon breathes a noisy breath in through his nose and releases it. “You understand the problems we’re facing then.”
Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Ariana keeps her gaze downcast until she has controlled her emotions. Gideon isn’t at fault here. She must remember the true enemy, the Sun Queen. “We’re running into this blind and it…unsettles me.”
“You and I both, Your Highness, but we have no other options.”
She lifts her eyes to his when he says ‘Your Highness’ with sarcastic emphasis. Is he mocking me? Ariana glances sidelong at Hadeon who stiffens in the chair beside her and releases his grip. He stands, face snarling.
“Fathe
r or not, you speak to Ariana like that again, you won’t be heading this campaign. You’ll be working in the bee stables instead.”
Gideon snarls and the chandeliers overhead tinkle. His big grip clutches the armrests of his chair and he tenses to stand, but drops his gaze, a noisy sigh outward through his nose, and sits again.
“I apologize,” he says, voice filled with restrained violence.
Ariana lifts her arms in the air. “That’s enough.” In-house squabbling isn’t going to help conditions. “We need to get started on this. I won’t be waiting back here until the path is clear. I’ll be working alongside my Enchantresses, alongside Lela. That’s where I belong, and that’s where I’ll be the most help.”
Gideon leans forward. “I can’t condone that. You’re our greatest safety concern. You’re what we are doing all of this for. You are to stay here until we can guarantee your safety.”
Ariana shakes her head. “No. And I’ll tell you why—because you can’t guarantee my safety, and you are simply delaying the inevitable. How long until we are ready to leave?”
Gideon focuses on his hands, breathing deeply, before lifting his black gaze to meet hers again. “Ten days.”
“That’s too long. I want feelers out in the next hour locating the Sun Queen’s activity. I want to be briefed on what is found before dinner this afternoon. Tomorrow we send a covert cluster to follow any trails. We need all our troops ready to leave in the next three days.”
Gideon’s hand clenches as it rests on the tabletop. “Fine, but I insist you wait here. What if there’s a breach of the barrier and we need to evacuate the village?”
“If she does strike, there’ll be guards, Enchantresses, and Warriors left here to organize the evacuation.”
“What about the palace? She could destroy it.”
“A palace is not worth anything if there is no one alive to live in it.”
Gideon nods. “Fine. Then the plan is settled. We leave in three days. Domascus, brief the Warriors. Lela, brief the Enchantresses.”
Ariana nods. “Yes, it’s vitally important that we all have coordinated knowledge. The Enchantresses need to be kept up-to-date, all of them, so we are operating on the same information.”
The Book of Spells and Such Page 26