by Cora Avery
She stared up at the clouds, now turning indigo as the last of the sunlight melted away. “Why?” she asked the heavens, but as always, received no response.
Then Honeysuckle screamed again, a full, real scream. Magda pushed up on her elbows in time to receive a face full of mud as Honeysuckle splashed by into Kaelan’s arms.
In the gap above, Damion appeared, glaring down at the scene, sword in hand.
“Damion,” she said, extracting herself from the goop. “Are you all right? I was afraid you’d been killed. Riker was taken.”
Damion leapt down, sneering at Honeysuckle. The nymph squeaked and buried herself deeper into Kaelan’s arms.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I sent him ahead while I fended off the ogre. I managed to escape, but I couldn’t find him. I went back and tracked him down into the portal, back here. I lost his trail. I was headed home when I picked up your scent.”
“I would hug you, but I’m covered in mud.”
A small smile pulled at his lips. “I see that.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive. Now we can get out of here.”
“Who are they?” Damion asked, demeanor hardening again as he turned to Kaelan and Honeysuckle.
“We were just leaving,” Kaelan said.
“You fought an ogre?” Honeysuckle said, gazing at Damion over her slight shoulder as if he were the ogre.
“Why is that Prince hanging onto a nymph?” Damion asked Magda like Honeysuckle hadn’t spoken. “Who is he?”
“I’m no one,” Kaelan said before Magda could respond. “Honey, we must go.” He started to draw her away, but she didn’t move, staring down at the ground with tears in her overlarge eyes.
“It’s no use,” she said. “You’ve been found, Kaelan. Just as Ouda said.”
“You can’t listen to Ouda,” Kaelan said.
But the nymph had her face buried in her hands, sobbing now. Damion leaned away as if she had a disease. Kaelan looked to Magda. She didn’t know what he expected her to do. She didn’t have any experience dealing with weepy nymphs.
“Go with them, Kaelan, just go. They’re your kind. You belong with them,” Honey said through choked, snotty sobs.
“He’s not invited,” Magda said.
“Where are we going?” Damion asked her in a soft voice. “My father’s people will assist us if we—”
“We’re going to the Spire,” she said. “I sent Kirk ahead with the Enneahedron.”
“Python’s brownie?”
“He serves me now.”
Damion didn’t look reassured. “And then?”
“And then . . .”—she heaved a deep breath—“I will vie for Radiant.”
Damion smiled. “I knew—”
“You said you didn’t want to be Radiant,” Kaelan interjected.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave?” Magda said to him. “Take your twig and go.”
Damion drew his sword. “What’s that?” He pointed the blade down. Two gleaming black eyes peered up at the curved length of gild-silver.
“It’s Hero,” she said, scooping him up. “Sorry about all the falling, friend.”
“Is that the rat from Lavana’s dungeon?” Kaelan asked.
“Yes. Would you like to give him a kiss to thank him for saving us?” She held Hero out, but he squirmed free and clamored up her arm.
“No, thanks,” Kaelan said. “Let’s go, Hon.”
“You have to listen,” the nymph said, peering up at Kaelan. “Ouda told me—”
“You can’t listen to—”
The nymph pressed her dainty fingers to Kaelan’s lips, silencing him. “I know what some say about Ouda. But she spreads those frightening rumors herself to keep people away from the Elder Tree. She is the Hylde-Moer.”
Kaelan shook his head as if in disbelief, but Honey pressed on.
“When she saw that you were pursuing me, she called me to her tree and told me the truth. Why you were hidden among us. Why you were made to appear an imp until you were of age—”
“Ha!” Magda barked. “That was you!”
He scowled over Honey’s head at her.
Damion leaned in to Magda. “Let’s go,” he whispered.
“I know why,” Kaelan said. “My mother was killed. My father didn’t want me to suffer life with a Rae.” His gaze fixed on Magda as he spoke.
She made a face at him and gestured for Damion to lead the way out of the gully.
“That’s what your imp parents told you, but that’s not what happened,” Honey said. “You were brought to Ouda by a sylph, a spirit of wind. You were not hidden by your parents. You were hidden from your parents.”
Damion leapt up to the top of the gully.
“Why didn’t Ouda tell me this—?”
“She planned to—”
“But why did she tell you?”
Magda set Hero next to Damion’s foot. He reached down for her.
“She warned me not to fall in love with you, because one day you’d have to return to your rightful place as a Prince. That was why she took you in, because the sylph told her that the Elf King was hunting for you. He was afraid of you. That’s why you were stolen away.”
Magda pulled her hand away from Damion’s before he could help her up. “What did you say?”
Honey glanced back at Magda, her face like a marble sculpture, hard yet glorious. “I said that my Prince has a greater destiny than he realized.”
Magda gazed down at the bottom of the gully, where the shadows thickened as night rose. “Get out of the way. Move.” She herded Honey and Kaelan back from the trickle. “Tamia. Please, return. I must speak to you.”
“Who is she talking to?” the nymph said. “Is there a water spirit here?”
“I can’t believe this,” Kaelan was muttering. “I have to speak to Ouda myself.”
“You don’t believe me?” Honey pouted. “Why would I lie?”
“You wouldn’t,” Kaelan said. “But . . . so I was stolen from whom? And why? Why would the Elf King want me dead?”
Magda gazed down at the tranquil trickle. Tamia would not return, she knew. Not before strangers.
“Because you’re the one who will signal the end of the Crown and the Throne,” Magda breathed. “The child whose birth portends the unification of Alfheim.”
“How do you know that?” Honey asked.
“That’s why the Elf King of old began to wipe out the oracles,” she said. “Because they foretold this.” She chewed her lip as she thought. “But I don’t understand why the Elf King would want to kill you if Endreas intends to be the one to take over and bring Alfheim under Elven rule.” She scowled. “I hate prophecies.”
“Endreas?” Damion jumped down again. “Who is that?”
“We have to go with you,” Honey announced.
They all stared at the nymph. All three began to protest at once.
“No—” Kaelan said.
“Travel with a nymph?” Damion sneered.
“That’s a really bad idea,” Magda said.
“No. It’s the only solution, I see that now,” Honey said. She clasped Kaelan’s face in her hands. “I thought I could keep you for myself, but I have to think of you and the other small folk. You will only be safe with your own kind. You are a Prince. The Raes will be drawn to you”—she threw a cold look over her shoulder at Magda—“like this one was.”
“No, no, no,” Magda said, holding up her hands. “I have enough problems—”
“The nymph might be right,” Damion said grudgingly.
“Please,” Magda said to him, putting her hands together. “I beg you. Don’t say that.”
“If Lavana has Riker, then you are without a Prince. Even if you have the Enneahedron, so long as she has a Prince, she has a chance to challenge. But if you have both the Enneahedron and a Prince, the family will have no grounds to support her. A challenge will not be accepted. You will not have to fight her for it.”
“I’m not being claimed,” Kae
lan said.
Honey’s eyes began to leak again.
“I don’t want to claim you,” Magda said. “Remember? I promised. And I keep my word.”
“You don’t have to claim him. You promised your mother wouldn’t claim one until you became Radiant anyway. The family knows this,” Damion said. “But so long as you have a Prince by your side, the family will have no choice but to support you.”
“There are ways, Damion, you know that,” she said. “If they really don’t want me—”
“Do you think anyone really supports Lavana?”
“I don’t know. God, I hate this. I’ve been back home less than a week and I’ve already been tortured and starved and stalked . . . and nymph-slapped.”
“I’m not agreeing to this,” Kaelan said.
“You must,” Honey said. “She can protect you. And if she becomes Radiant, then she will have a chance at the Crown. The Elf King wants you dead. The only way you’ll be safe now is with your own kind.”
He clasped her hands between his. Magda bit her cheek and turned away. If the Elf King really was hunting Kaelan, for whatever reason, then it was all the more dangerous for him to be with her. Combing the brambles as the sunlight gave over to starlight, she saw no movement except for ghostly fairy flashes. But she hadn’t seen Endreas before either. If he was eavesdropping now, it was too late. He would already know Kaelan was the one his father was searching for. That is, if Kaelan was the one prophesied, which she wasn’t entirely convinced was true.
“Where is this Ouda?” she asked.
“She wouldn’t see you,” Honey said, nose wrinkling.
“We don’t have time,” Damion said. “We have to find the Enneahedron.”
“I want to speak to Ouda too,” Kaelan said. “I refuse to believe that I am no longer safe. Lavana’s capturing me doesn’t mean anything. I was not being careful . . .”
Honey was shaking her head, but he grasped her arms.
“I love you. Nothing will change that.”
“You’re fooling yourself, Prince,” Damion said. “No offense, nymph.”
Magda resisted the urge to smack him. “Damion—”
“Stay out of this,” Kaelan snapped at Damion.
“You think that you love this bee-weed?” Damion flung his hand at Honey.
Honey’s lower lip trembled.
“Damion,” Magda said more strongly.
“Fine.” Damion said. “Let him find out the hard way.”
“Find out what?” Honey said.
Magda put her hand on Damion’s chest. “Don’t—”
“You are very pretty,” Damion said to the nymph. “But you are no Rae. And you never will be.”
“That’s enough.” Magda gave him a firm push.
Honey wrapped her arms around her slender waist, hanging her head.
“Where is this Ouda?” Magda asked.
“Not far from here,” Kaelan said, matching her tone. “To the west.”
“To the west, just the direction I was going,” Magda said. “Finally, some luck. We will travel together to speak to Ouda. If you are who this nymph claims you are, then we will discuss what must be done.”
Hero paced at the edge of the gully. She reached up and put her hand on his head.
“I’m sorry for all of this.”
“You’re apologizing to a rat?” Damion said behind her.
Hero burrowed his head under her hand. “That one used to throw rocks at me.”
She glanced back at Kaelan who was in tight conference with Honey, their voices soft, yet strained. He ran his hands down her bare arms and Magda looked quickly away.
“I’m doubly sorry,” she said, heaving herself up onto the soft ledge. She crouched next to him, lowering her voice. “You can bite him if you want.”
THEY MADE camp not far from the gully. Tamia had kindly provided plenty of dry wood for their fire. Exhausted as she was, Magda’s mind was restless. While Kaelan and Honey cuddled in their slumber on the far side of the fire and Damion patrolled, she sat and watched the firelight dance deep into the night.
“How did you become so muddy again?”
She shot up, the tips of her knives pressing under his chin, his back to a tree.
“Mistress?” Damion called in a hush from the distant darkness on the other side of the fire.
“I’m fine,” she said to Damion, glaring into Endreas’s sparkling black eyes. “I’m stepping away for a private moment.”
Damion was silent, but she knew he wouldn’t disturb her.
“Who’s that?” Endreas asked softly, his breath settling over her lips, tugging at them.
“My warrior, my cousin.”
“No, I mean that.” He gestured to Kaelan’s back.
“You know who that is,” she said. “Lavana’s lost Prince. We made a trade.”
The lights in his eyes darkened. “If he’s yours, why is he spooning a nymph?”
Keeping her knives at his throat, she hauled him away from the firelight, deeper into the shadows and pushed him up against another tree.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I told you to stay away from me.”
He seemed to think on it. “I missed you?”
“Are you telling me or asking me?”
“I can’t sleep,” he said, running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “I keep thinking about you. Is that why you’re awake too?”
Her face burned. “No.” Half-truth. She had been thinking about him, some. Mostly, she’d been trying to figure out how she’d gotten into this mess and brooding over how much she missed her quiet, pointless life back in California.
“You’re lying,” he sing-songed, brushing his finger down her lips.
“Stop that.” She batted his hand away. “How is Riker?”
“Lavana’s Prince?” he asked with a smirk. “He’s quite docile, isn’t he? Lavana likes him. I think he’s starting to like her too.”
“Of course he is. Princes are fickle that way.”
“Perhaps Pixies are—”
“We’re not different,” she said, pushing closer. “Pixies and Elves are the same race, but you knew that, didn’t you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Once we were,” he said, “but we’ve grown quite different in all these years, wouldn’t you agree?” His hand slid around her waist and drew her near, even though this also pressed her knives closer to his throat. “Except in the most important respects.”
“Tell me about the prophecy,” she said.
“What prophecy?”
She pressed her pinky finger, the fairy knife, into his skin, small but sharp and precise. A drop of blood rolled down his neck, black in the darkness of the woods. “The unification of Alfheim under one rule.”
“Oh, that prophecy,” he said.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You don’t want to join with a Radiant. You want to join with the Crown. So you can rule all of Alfheim.”
“That would be rather . . . ambitious, wouldn’t it?”
“And you’re very ambitious, aren’t you?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “And the birth of the child. What does that have to do with it?”
His hand slipped along the curve of her hip, catching in her waistband. His tone cooled. “What child?”
“The oracles were wiped out because they prophesied the birth of a child who would be some kind of threat to the Throne.”
“Who told you that?”
She dragged the knife along his throat, a shallow wound, avoiding the major veins, leaving a thin trail of blood.
“Now who’s the one using torture to get what she wants?” he said without flinching.
“I should be killing you right now.”
“And yet, you’re not.”
“The prophecy.”
“It’s old,” he said with sigh. “Very, very old.”
“The Third King,” she said, remembering what Python had told her.
Endreas’s eyes poured
over her, dragging her down. His grip tightened on her hips. His fingers skimmed under the hem of her shirt, pressing into her flesh, flooding her with that swept-up, wave-swallowed breathlessness. She shoved back, unsheathing all of her knives. Her heart was both the hammer and the nail, pounding and battered, wanting to be near him, hurting because she wasn’t.
“Tell me,” she said, attempting to keep her breath even and steady.
“It’s not important, magpie.” He took a handkerchief from his vest and pressed it to the cut on his neck, wincing ever so slightly. “There are more prophecies that never manifest than grains of sand on the Wending Coast.”
But she refused to feel guilty. “Isn’t it important? Isn’t it why the Third King exterminated the oracles?”
Endreas’s brow fell, his dark eyes turning darker. “He killed the oracles because they refused to cease hunting the dragons. They ate the hearts of the dragons to prolong their own lives and sold the rest to the other small folk who used the pieces in their potions. Dragons were hunted nearly to extinction. We passed laws to protect them. The oracles knew the price for poaching, but they did it anyway. That is why they were arrested and punished, and many of them were executed for that crime, yes. But most were not killed. They died off, as they should have died, when they no longer had the hearts of dragons to keep them alive.”
Damn him. She shouldn’t have allowed him to talk so much. She should’ve known he would have an answer. Yet, when he continued, she didn’t stop him.
“But yes, they had prophecies, many, as I said. That’s how they justified their actions. They had been so busy hunting and murdering dragons they’d forgotten to procreate and then grew so unnaturally old they were no longer able to do so. But they thought since they could see the many futures they had more of a right to exist than the dragons. The Throne disagreed. So it was not surprising, when the oracles were being punished for their crimes, that they suddenly had new visions concerning the time of unification. They had always said a certain child would be born who would signal the beginning of that time. But in their new visions, they claimed that if said child survived to pick up a sword, then that child would assure war and great bloodshed and that, ultimately, the Throne would bow before the Crown. But not all of the oracles saw the same future.”