by Lindsey Duga
I looked up. “Amias? What are you doing here?”
His expression was as serious as I’d ever seen it. “I have to talk to you.”
“I’m talking to the Commander.”
“No, we’re done,” Weldan said gruffly, his gaze on Zach, who was astride his horse and staring at the three of us.
“Commander—” I started, but he quickly headed out of the stables, following Zach and Brom. Feeling as if I’d been abandoned, I turned back to Amias, trying to keep my annoyance at bay.
“What is it, Amias?”
“Don’t go with him.” His hand on my arm tightened.
I blinked. “I have to.”
“You’re Ivy Myriana—you can do whatever you like.”
If only that were true. I raised my hand, showing Zach’s mark etched onto my skin. “He’s my partner.”
“But he doesn’t have to be. You can appeal to the Council. It could be us going off together on a”—his face twisted into a scowl—“secret mission.”
So his uncle didn’t tell him where Zach and I were going. Good.
“We’ve been through this.” I peeled his fingers off my arm. “And you’ve stepped aside as I’ve gotten other partners before. Why are you so adamant now?”
“I don’t trust him.”
I sighed. “Of course you don’t.”
“I’m serious. There’s something about him.”
“Don’t play the Romantica card again. It didn’t help you last time. It won’t help you this time, either. I have to go.”
“Ivy—” Amias’s fingers brushed my cheek.
“Let’s get going,” Zach’s voice broke in. “It’s almost dawn.”
I looked to the entrance of the stables to see Zach astride his horse, expression blank.
“Good-bye, Amias,” I said.
He dropped his hand as I turned and swung myself up onto Lorena.
We left Amias inside the stables as our horses clip-clopped over the stone, passing in front of the main steps to Myria Castle. A small crowd stood on the steps, watching us go. There were no trumpets or waving hands, just a solemn salute and farewell, as was customary on most mission departures.
Colette and Robin were standing with Minnow and Tulia, sporting brave smiles. I had told my younger sisters last night that I was leaving with Zach, but not about my true mission. I hadn’t wanted them to worry. Nor did I tell them that our mother had been here and had not even wanted to see them.
We made our way through the gates onto the cobbled stone of the town’s streets, with the sweet scent of willa blossom trees carried on the early morning breeze.
Chapter
Eleven
The Forbidden Topic
We had reached the outer gates of the Crown City at first light and now, almost to the end of the first day, we’d already been through two of the larger villages of Myria.
“Your kingdom is quite vast, princess,” Zach remarked as we passed yet another farm.
“Is Saevall much smaller?”
“In populace? About the same I guess. But in land we fall short. I have to hand it to you Myrians. You may need reinforcements, but it’s no wonder, with all this land you protect.”
“Well, we can’t ask our subjects to uproot their homes or livelihoods.”
“Your Legion has my respect,” he said, lifting his face skyward to watch a hawk circle above us.
I raised an eyebrow. “We didn’t have it before?”
“The idiot who interrupted my dinner left a bad taste in my mouth.”
Remembering Amias’s rude words, I said, “I am sorry about that. He shouldn’t have acted the way he did and…said what he said.”
Zach shrugged. “I’m used to that kind of talk.”
“It doesn’t irritate you?”
Zach patted his horse’s neck. “Once upon a time it did. But not anymore. Besides, he seemed more jealous than anything.”
That was true. “Amias has always wanted to be my partner. He craves the power that my Kiss brings him.”
Zach leaned closer to me from astride his horse. He smelled of fresh hay and shassa root tea. “You sure that’s the only thing he craves?”
My muscles locked up, remembering that night on the training grounds, with the torches and the change in Amias’s breathing when he kissed me. “What are you saying?”
Zach smirked. “You two were awfully close in the stables, that’s all.”
Anger coursed through me, anger at Amias for making Zach think we’d been engaging in any Lustful actions, and anger at Zach for thinking that I’d be distracted on the morning of my most important mission yet. I tightened my grip on Lorena’s reins and gave her a kick that sent her careening in front of Zach’s horse.
“Whoa, Vel,” Zach commanded, his horse sidestepping then coming to a halt. Brom stopped ahead of us.
“I don’t appreciate your tone or your insinuation.”
“And what insinuation is that?”
“That Amias seeks a different kind of partnership. That he and I are—” Heat crept up my neck. I cleared my throat. “Sexual partners.”
Zach simply stared at me, perhaps watching the redness crawl up my neck onto my face. “My apologies. That’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s not. And you’d be wrong anyway,” I snapped. “I don’t have time for petty desires.”
“Petty? My dear princess, it’s only human nature. But even if you two were only…‘sexual partners,’ why was he so possessive of you? The man was ready to run me through.”
“How should I know? Men are territorial about women they…” I trailed off. Zach’s intense gaze made the heat in my cheeks worsen.
“Men aren’t territorial about every woman they bed. Only some,” Zach pushed.
“I have never bedded Amias,” I hissed, almost lifting myself off Lorena’s back. “His jealousy doesn’t have anything to do with Lust. I told you, he—”
“Wanted your magic, yes.” Zach maneuvered his horse around Lorena. “Agree to disagree, I guess.”
“Don’t insult me.” I gritted my teeth. “I know what you’re implying. If Amias possesses Lustful intentions toward me—which I’m not saying he does—that’s all it is. What you’re saying Amias might feel for me is…”
Zach looked back at me, silently daring me to say the word hanging in the air.
So I did. “Blasphemous.”
“That’s really what you think?” There was something in the way his eyes held mine, unwavering, and his jaw so tight, that drew chills. It was accepting Amias’s challenge all over again.
I didn’t let the look intimidate me. This was the talk of a Romantica. I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering what his mother had been, but he wasn’t a Romantica. He’d joined the Legion, committed to our beliefs and our laws. He was a Royal.
“I know it.”
Zach stared at me for a moment longer then grinned. “Yes, of course. Blasphemy. It was worth it to see your face, princess. You could fry an egg on those cheeks.”
He’d been teasing me again. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or even angrier.
“Of course, if all that were true,” he added, “then I feel sorry for Amias.”
...
When we came to a forest, a miniature one by most Northern standards, we made camp. It was sundown, and Zach and I both agreed it was best not to travel at night. In fact, it was practically the only thing we’d agreed on all day.
Once our fire was strong and we had eaten for the evening, I offered to take the first watch, which Zach and Brom gratefully accepted. They fell asleep easily. As the fire came close to dying, I fed it more wood but struggled to keep my eyes open, so I moved closer to Zach to wake him.
I studied his sleeping face for a moment. He was very different from Kellian. His features were sharper, less rounded from youth, and gruffer, like he had seen and experienced things that aged him. Still, though, he did look a bit like a child. Then again, most people looked younger as th
ey slept.
I placed my hand on his arm and was about to shake him, when his eyes snapped open. He moved in reflex, and before I could stop him, his hand was at my throat. He didn’t squeeze, just held it. I swallowed and didn’t dare move.
When his eyes focused on mine and recognition flitted across them, he retracted his hand. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” I instinctively touched my throat, even though I knew there’d be no bruise.
Zach sat next to the fire and dropped another log into the flames. “Nothing you need to apologize for—it’s just a trained reaction.”
I moved to my spot next to Bromley and lay down in my bedroll, using my arm as a pillow. “Where did you do your training? I heard it wasn’t at the Legion in Saevall.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Fine. I’d figure it out later—one way or another. We’d be spending a lot of time traveling together. I turned away from the fire to face the darkness of the woods and closed my eyes.
“You Royals think you’re the only fighters in the land. The only ones willing to lay down their lives,” he said softly.
I wanted to reply that since civilians didn’t have magic, they had no business throwing away their lives when we could protect them, but sleep pulled me under, and I had no strength left to fight it.
…
The second day of our journey was not that much different than our first. Without incident, we traveled along the path, heading north toward the great Wu-Hyll Mountains. Though the farther we ventured from the walls of Myria, the less likely our luck would last. With the Forces’ creatures able to smell our magical Royal blood, it was a good thing we had kept our party so small—even with just one more Royal we would’ve already been attacked by now.
Worse yet, the darkening sky made it easier for monsters to venture out in the day.
The thought kept me on edge. Zach, however, seemed perfectly at ease. He would ride next to Bromley, giving him tips on riding, on swordplay, even on hunting. But his conversations with me didn’t progress much. They always ended in some kind of disagreement. As the day wore on, eventually we reached a point where no more than one or two lines at a time were said between us. I wasn’t sure which was worse, a heated conversation like we had yesterday, or none at all.
That night he offered to take the first watch, and Bromley and I played a game to see who would take the second.
It was an old children’s game Brom had taught me after he became my page. I’d never known many games growing up—even Gelloren had to show me how to play cards—so I cherished the few that Brom had brought into my life.
The game, called Bac-Chat, started with the two of us holding each other’s hands as tightly as we could, then we would count to five. On five, we would release each other and make symbols with our hands that represented one of the five structures in the game: a blacksmith forge, an apothecary, a castle, a chapel, and a tavern. The person who finished their structure and grabbed the other’s hands first, won.
I’d attempted a castle—index, pinky, and thumbs pressed together, with the knuckles of the two middle fingers touching—but Brom grabbed my fingertips after pulling off a brilliant blacksmith forge.
“Ha! Bac-Chat!” Brom said, squeezing my hands.
I groaned.
Zach watched us, and his pointed gaze felt almost too familiar to me now, but he stayed silent, content to observe. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought about Brom and me, since we did not have a normal Royal-servant relationship.
“Best two out of three?” I suggested.
“Not a chance. Give it up. You lost.” Brom grinned, settling down in his bedroll.
I hated having second watch, as it meant two two-hour naps instead of a nice, long four-hour doze. But I fell asleep quickly, and before I knew it, a hand was on my arm, shaking me.
“Ivy,” Zach’s voice whispered in the darkness. “Ivy.”
I opened one eye, and his face swam into view. “Time already?” I asked blearily.
“No, it’s… You were talking in your sleep.”
I sat up, my braid dropping over my shoulder. “What did I say?”
It was a bad habit I had, talking in my sleep, but I usually didn’t do it unless I was under a lot of stress. Not that traveling to prevent a fearsome dragon from hatching and scorching the world wasn’t stressful.
Zach looked away. “It…uh…I couldn’t quite understand you. You were muttering.”
I frowned at his discomfort. Once, Brom told me I had called for Mother. Another time I had called for Clover. It seemed as if I was always calling for someone.
It was then I remembered my dream. The goblin with the gash across its eye. Green lightning shaking Kellian’s body like a puppet. My lips on cold ones…
“Was I calling for Kellian?” I asked, tossing my cloak aside that I had somehow wrapped myself in.
Zach ran a hand over his hair. “I believe so, yes. And…someone else named Telek.”
Telek, too? Must’ve been because my mother had mentioned him. His death would never relinquish its hold on me. “They were both my partners.”
“Yes, I’d heard, when your mother…” He trailed off, his gaze drifting to the fire. His voice was low, solemn. But he didn’t need to pity me—they were only dreams, nightmares I didn’t often remember.
He studied my mark on his hand, at the holly and ivy intertwined together and wrapping around him. “It must’ve been hard…to lose those partners. You must’ve cared for them a great deal.”
I frowned. Based on our previous conversation with him suggesting Amias harbored feelings for me, I wondered if he was implying the same thing about the others.
“No more than I would a friend or comrade,” I said.
He shook his head. “You talk to me as if I don’t know the laws against Love.”
“There are no laws.”
“Aren’t there?” He stood, the firelight at his back making his face shadowed and unreadable.
Perhaps to a Romantica it seemed that way. Especially when the Legion sometimes persecuted them for such primitive practices like courtship and marriage.
“There cannot be laws against something that doesn’t exist,” I replied evenly.
“Never mind, Ivy, go back to sleep.”
I stood, too. “No, you’re not going to brush it off this time. What are you trying to say—or not say?”
“Fine, I’ll go to sleep.”
“Zach—” I reached for his arm but tripped over something and pitched forward. Zach caught me, wrapping an arm around my waist, and held me up as I leaned forward over his arm. I glanced down at what had tripped me—his cloak. Not mine. I hadn’t noticed it before, but he must have strewn it across me as an extra blanket when I slept.
“All right there?” His voice came from above, and I detangled myself from the cloak at my feet and turned in his arms. We froze for a few seconds before we hurriedly detached ourselves from each other. It was such an awkward moment that neither one of us said anything.
As the silence stretched on, a nervous giggle escaped my lips. Catching his eye, the snicker escalated into laughter. Soon both of us were smothering laughter so as not to wake Brom.
“By the wind wisps,” I breathed, straightening and running a hand through my now wayward curls, “I’ve never felt so clumsy. Is this how you feel all the time?”
Zach grinned. “I knew you’d throw that whole suit of armor mess in my face eventually. Would you believe me if I said I was pushed?”
Just as Weldan had said. I was beginning to pick out certain truths from all the mysteries of Zach, and he was definitely not the clumsy sort. “Absolutely not,” I teased. “Especially knowing you have an extra-long cloak to trip over.” I picked it up and held it out to him. “Thank you for…letting me borrow it. And for catching me.”
Zach took his cloak and met my eyes. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Thank me. That’s what partners do, right?”
Something strange moved inside me. Almost like my magic was stirring, not rising up as it did, but moving downward, building an uncomfortable pressure.
“I’ll take the watch now,” I said. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.
Chapter
Twelve
The Slight Problem
I awoke to Bromley shaking me, because there was no morning light to alert my mind that night had passed. The clouds above were dark and heavy, completely blocking the sun.
The fire had already been extinguished, and Zach was by the horses, adjusting their bridles and attaching our packs to their saddles. Our conversation last night hadn’t necessarily brought us any closer. If anything, it had confused me even more. The way he was talking, it was as if he really was a Romantica, and not just the son of one. But he was a Royal of the Legion. He had joined the Saevallans willingly. He had come to Myria to help us fight.
Perhaps I was just paranoid.
He handed me a piece of bread and cheese folded into a napkin. “Can you eat your breakfast on the road? We should get going.”
I stuck the parcel between my teeth and hauled myself up onto my horse. “How far do you think we can make it today? The next village?”
“If the weather permits, I hope so.” Zach frowned. “We’re moving too slowly for my taste,” he muttered under his breath.
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
He avoided my gaze. “Nothing.”
“Are you implying we’re slowing you down?” I snapped.
“What’s wrong with you? Why do you take everything as a personal attack?”
“I wouldn’t have to if it didn’t so obviously sound like one.”
“For the love of—I wasn’t attacking you. I just meant I’d be going a lot faster on my own.”
“Uh, excuse me…” Brom tried to cut in.
“And there it is again,” I said, ignoring Brom. “I’m so tired of your arrogance.”
Zach swung up onto his horse. “I’m arrogant? Look in a magic mirror lately?”
I squeezed my breakfast so hard the bread crumbled. “There’s also something called respect that we try to practice. Maybe you should learn some of that.”