by Cara Coe
“Faster, boy,” she urged her horse. Black and lean, it mixed with the night. She leaned further forward into the saddle, willing the beast to fly. Her eyelids hooded. Inside, warmth stirred and her lips parted. “Soo yah roun tah yah.” The whispers glided from her throat in a low and humming sound. Golden dust wisped. She repeated the words. She didn’t think. They flowed from her. The night air streaked around her. The moon disappeared. Again she whispered. Again.
As she came out of the trance a few moments later, she was startled to see the oaks that lined the path towards the convent. She shook her head to clear the fog. Gold dust evaporated from the air. She had magicked.
Her beaming smile lit up the night. Just as quickly as it came, it slid from her face. She glanced around as her heart sped up. She didn’t see him.
Dismounting her horse, she ran down the pathway towards the quiet structure. In this hour of the night, nothing moved. The nuns were all asleep, tucked into their small rooms and waiting for the early rise of the sun before anything here stirred to life. Her secretive nature warred with her urgency. Finally, his name burst from her chest.
“Seth!” she called, scattering the stillness. Her voice was lost into the night and the stillness immediately settled around her again. She tried again, less urgent. “Seth!”
Quietness answered her. She resisted sagging against a fence post. She could not give in to the ache in her chest. She needed to think. Where would he have ridden from here?
An idea bloomed inside her and chased away the emptiness that tried to pry its way in. She would circle convent. Perhaps disturb his sleeping camp if he had decided to rest for the night. If she didn’t see him, she would regroup with Talon and Derrick in the morning. He wouldn’t be gone forever.
So why did every minute feel like another year?
A light flickered in a window as a flame was struck on a candlewick.
The window was her old room.
Amelie’s breath caught. Before she could think, she ran towards it. She slowed as she reached it, crouching to stay below the pane. The glass swung outwards and his voice shot from inside.
“Amelie?”
Sweet air filled Amelie’s lungs. She stood and approached the window. Surprised etched his face but he stepped back as she climbed into the opening. Straightening before him she could see hesitation take over his expression. He stepped several paces from the window and crossed his arms.
They stared at each other from across the room. Again, several feet of empty space divided them and Amelie clenched her fists frustrated. He was closed. His face was hardening in front of her. He was still out of reach.
“I needed to leave the castle,” he began in way of explanation. “I couldn’t stand being there, in front of you and your mage lover. But I also couldn’t leave you. This was the first place I thought of.”
Amelie reeled back on her heels. “My mage lover?”
“The man you came back with. The one you became involved with during your time getting in touch with your mage side.” He sighed. “I know you want that life now but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll come to terms with it from afar.”
Amelie almost laughed at the absurdity. How wrong they both were. How easily their assumptions kept them an arm’s length apart.
“Seth, I love you.”
She relished in those words as they broke free from her. Her eyes closed briefly in the joy of speaking them and when she opened them again, she found Seth staring at her, his mouth agape. She smiled. “I love you still. I am not with the mage I came with. He is a friend who saved my and Talon’s life. I have been keeping my distance because I thought you were married to my sister. I received news she’d married a Draeden prince. I’d assumed it was you.”
Seth finally found his voice. “It was not me. She fell in love with my brother.”
“Yes. I learned this only tonight. Upon hearing the news I took the second fastest horse to find you since you’d stolen the fastest.”
Seth spoke slowly. “But…I saw the two of you. In the garden. As soon as you were released from the dungeon, you went running to him.”
Amelie’s mind puzzled over this fact until understanding lit her features. “Oh. Yes. His power. It allows him to travel into the limbo where souls dwell before they die. I needed to touch him to travel with him. He was helping me to release King Byron from his endless sleep. So he could let go in peace.”
“King Byron?”
“Yes. Simon has been a very helpful friend.”
“So you are not lovers?”
“Not in the least.”
“You are not taken?”
“I am taken,” Amelie corrected. “By you. Only you.”
Seth could have been using his own mage spells with the speed in which he crossed the room. His hands found her waist, her arms circled his neck, their mouths crushed together with months of desperation exploding in their embrace.
Their kisses increased in intensity, quickly escalating. Amelie finally took notice that he wore nothing more than a loose linen shirt that barely skirted his bottom and undershorts. The thin material did nothing to conceal his body and the effect their urgent reunion was having on him.
Amelie tried to pull away. He needed to know everything first. Her body screamed at her for the rush of cold air from the separation but she couldn’t go on without telling him. She remembered Sir Duncan’s revelations to her. How lost she felt as thoughts she’d held about her life snapped and left her dangling with questions. Her mother had been magically bound to secrecy.
Amelie was not. Amelie fled the White Forest before such a restriction could be magicked on her. Seth could learn the truth by someone who loved him dearly. Who would take care in revealing to him his origins. She could hold him and help tame his reaction if he’d let her. If he didn’t spear the messenger or harbor anger toward her for withholding this information from him until now.
Seth felt her distance and squeezed harder, bringing her body back to his.
“No,” he said firmly. “No more thinking.” His hands gripped her back and his mouth lowered to her neck. “I need you,” he murmured and Amelie felt her resolve melting away with her body.
“Seth, I must tell you something first. You may not want me once you know.”
“You could be the Underlord’s temptress and I would love you all the same. There is no deed or piece of information you could reveal that would tarnish the heart that beats inside you. I know you. I love you. Everything else is secondary.”
Her chest constricted. She could read well into his eyes, see in their depths that he meant every word he said.
“Seth.” His name left her mouth in a moan and carried away all the revelations she had intended to tell him. He responded by carrying her to the small cot she used to sleep on each night and stripping her of her riding gear. His eyes took a moment to drink her in, roving over her exposed body.
She felt the heat on her skin from his look alone.
“Be with me,” she whispered.
He obliged, gathering her solidly into his arms. His embrace was urgent and warm and strong. Every thrust carried months of longing. She gripped him, holding onto this moment, willing it to last forever. She shivered with pleasure under his hands as they kneaded her side, her breast, massaged her neck. His mouth covered hers.
Rolling pleasure began to murmur inside her below and she tightened her legs around him. The buildup of heartache and loss evaporated in an explosion of bliss and her joyful cry was muffled in his kiss. He breathed heavily, resting his forehead on hers and he squeezed her when he tensed. As his body relaxed, so did his grip but he did not release her.
He drew her closer as his breathing evened out.
They laid together like that for long moments until Amelie finally spoke.
“The nuns will have our heads for that.”
Chapter 35
Seth
The morning could have not been more welcome. Seth stretched the limbs he could, th
e ones he had free, but was careful not to move the arm Amelie claimed. She had her back curled to him with her head resting on the crook of this elbow.
The cot scarcely had room for the two of them so Seth’s back was pushed up against the stone wall. It could have been a wall of feathers for all the pain and cramps such tight quarters should have caused that he didn’t feel. His body paid attention to none of it as it thrummed with the memories of making love to Amelie last night, of the feel of her now against it.
It was the first time he’d slept soundly in months. It was the first time his eyes were free of hesitation as they greeted the early sunlight. He wanted every morning to be just like this.
“What are you thinking?”
Amelie’s voice was a surprise to him. Her body remained still. He thought she’d been asleep.
He smiled and his lips found her ear. He kissed it before whispering, “I’ve never seen you sleep so peacefully before. Have the nightmares stopped?”
She traced the back of his hand with her fingers. “I have not had them since I went to the White Forest.”
He sighed into her hair. “I’m glad for it. That you didn’t have to wake up alone after suffering through them.” He paused. “I want to wake up like this every day for the rest of our lives.”
Amelie turned her head to look up at him. He hated that look in her eye. The one that thought too much. The one that calculated what being with him would cost everyone else. The one that talked her out of deserving happiness. He could think of no further barrier between them and for the love of angels, he didn’t want to know if she’d constructed a new one.
“Seth, I-”
He shut her up with a long kiss, cutting off her words. It wasn’t her feelings she was conflicted about. He could feel her melting under him, her hips instinctively pushing against him for more.
He gave her more. Every time she began to speak, he’d find a new area to explore until her words degraded into moans of pleasure. She clutched him as he moved, fiercely needing him. A need he returned whole heartedly. She had missed him in their time apart as much as he’d mourned for her. He could see it as her eyes found relief when he caressed her and it made him that much more determined to chase away whatever demon she thought still plagued them.
When they were once again spent, her form stretched out over his torso in tired bliss, Seth finally spoke.
“Tell me.”
She raised a cautious head to look him in the eye.
He nodded. “Whatever it is you think you will say that will drive me away, say it now. And when I’m still here afterwards, know that you can tell me anything and it will not change how I feel about you.”
She sat up slowly, unsure. She looked around the cot and he suddenly knew what she needed. With regret, he sat up as well, pulling her shirt out from underneath him and handing it to her. He pulled on his trousers and slipped his linen shirt back over his head.
Once dressed, she smoothed her dark hair back behind her ears. Her green eyes flashed at him.
“Seth,” she began. She drew in a deep breath then said in a clear voice, “You are a mage.”
Chapter 36
Amelie
Amelie wasn’t exactly sure how Seth would react to her news. She filled him in with small pieces. Explaining how mage inheritance worked. Telling him that King Armiss was human but Queen Elmeda had been a mage. Revealing that the queen was not only magical but had been the princess of the mythical White Forest. The mage’s civil war, the regression from the human world, the queen’s three hundred year tyranny over the magical realm.
After each revelation, she paused to gauge his reaction. He remained pensive as she spoke, briefly raising his eyes to meet hers and nodding slightly to continue.
When she had spoken on everything she knew, she sat cross legged facing him while he sat on the edge of the cot, his elbows resting on his knees and his head pressed into his open palms.
“Kernan?” he finally asked.
“I do not know,” Amelie answered. “He doesn’t appear to have inherited any mage blood. Perhaps he is like Claudia.”
“So my power is resistance.”
Amelie nodded. “Yes. It is why I do not affect you.”
“But you have two powers.”
“I do not know why. It puzzled Rankor and Henna as well. As half human, I should only have one. Henna thinks her enhancements might have drawn out a second that otherwise would have been dormant.”
Seth grew quiet again. “This is what you learned in your time away?” he finally asked.
Amelie gulped. “I knew of this information before I left. Sir Duncan told me everything while I was in Draeden. I have waited this long to tell you.”
“Why?”
Amelie reached out a tentative hand to touch him. She needed to feel his skin on hers as she tried to explain. “When I learned of this, there was so much going on. I was a prisoner in your kingdom. A pawn in a treaty. Falling hopelessly in love with you with no happy ending in sight. I didn’t know myself before the news and I knew myself even less afterwards. I didn’t want to keep adding to the turmoil. Your mother wished for the secrecy. At the time, it seemed right to continue it.”
“But you are telling me now.”
“Because now everything is different. I have learned of terrible things in the White Forest and I no longer think secrecy is the answer. I now think it is best to know one’s history, no matter how ugly or twisted. To ignore it gives the ones who made it power.”
“So Henna…”
“Aye.” Amelie smiled, thinking of her friend in the forest. “The woman who looked out for you has many more sides that you could ever realize.”
Seth got up and strode over the window. The one Amelie crawled into the night before in a fevered passion. His palms rested on the sill and his forehead pressed on the glass pane. His eyes closed in thought. Amelie sat patiently, listening to his even breathing.
After several minutes, he sat back down on the bed. Seth met her gaze but said nothing. He watched her for some time, drawing his eyebrows together thoughtfully. Oh, how she hated how he carefully he thought before choosing his words. She fidgeted nervously.
“You have told me a great many things. Information which I’m sure I’ll be digesting again and again a long time from now.” He ran a knuckle lightly down her cheek. “You have spoken. And I am still here,” he said with a small smile.
Relief bloomed in her chest. He leaned in and kissed her softly. Oh, how she loved how carefully he thought before choosing his words.
The knock on the door caused them to break away quickly and rise from the bed. Sister Patrice did not wait for a response before bustling into the room. She stood in the middle of the small space without meeting their eyes. Amelie and Seth nervously smoothed imaginary wrinkles in their clothing.
“Well,” the sister finally said into the silence. “Glad to see you are all right after all this time, Miss Amelie. Prince Seth. You are once again welcome to the convent. If you are quite decent, a messenger awaits you in the parlor, Miss Amelie.”
Sister Patrice turned to leave but paused momentarily to level a warning gaze at Seth. “No more than one night,” she reminded him. “It won’t do to have you stay.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Seth replied in a guilty tone.
Sister Patrice looked between the two of them, a tiny smile, the first Amelie had ever witnessed, playing on her lips. It was gone as soon as it came and she looked to the heavens before motioning across her chest to encourage the Angels’ forgiveness for, as Amelie surely knew, the sins Sister Patrice was aware of that passed between them last night. And this morning.
Amelie and Seth quickly pulled on their boots and the remainder of their gear and headed towards the study to meet the messenger. The soldier bowed his respect as they entered and handed Amelie the missive. It was one of Captain Lucas’s men, Lieutenant Earl.
“I was heading for the palace with this note and I saw your mare from the
road,” he said. “The note was intended for you and you sister. I thought to stop here so you could see it straight away.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She dismissed him before summarizing it aloud to Seth.
“The rumors are confirmed,” she said, closing her eyes in a moment of defeat. “Grantham troops march on the northern border. We must send a response. And quickly.” Amelie strode to the front door and called out to the soldier. “Please, sir. Ready our horses!”
“What can I do?” Seth asked urgently.
Amelie whirled to face him. She knew exactly what he could do but she was loathe to say it. Not when they had finally had a proper reunion. “Go to Draeden. Gather any troops King Armiss will allow. I need you to convince him for more assistance. If this battle doesn’t quell Grantham’s thirst, we may have all out war on our hands and Draeden’s support will be needed. And soon.”
“Kernan can go.”
“Prince Kernan will not leave my sister’s side nor do I wish it. I want him next to her in the palace where she’s safe while I deal with this.”
“While you deal with this?” Seth asked angrily.
“Yes! Candor needs a leader and I’ll be damned if I don’t step up. They don’t know me. They don’t trust me. I’ve been hidden for years. I’m going to prove myself now. And I’m going to put this kingdom back together.”
Seth grabbed her shoulders and looked at her fiercely. “This doesn’t have to be your fight.”
Amelie’s tone was soft but determined. “Yes, Seth. It does.”
She broke away from him and headed out to the horses. Seth wasn’t finished. He followed her, taking the reins from her hands. “You can command a general. You don’t have to be in the battle.”
“I need to see this through. Will you help me? Will you go to your father?”
Seth pursed his lips, but he offered no other argument. His eyes were fire.
“Your Highness, I must also inform you that General Asher and his company of men are among the guests tonight at the banquet,” the soldier added meaningfully from where he still held onto Seth’s horse.