Claiming the Prince: Book One

by Cora Avery

  She held up her hand. “Wait. You’re saying what? That if he dies . . . since he died, I’m going to die too?”

  “Not necessarily, but it’s possible. The reason a Prince doesn’t make another person his heart-place is because when one dies, if the other doesn’t, it usually leads to some form of madness and, eventually, death—”

  “You’re saying I’m going to go crazy, and then, what? Kill myself?”

  “Or many others. I don’t know what will happen. Since he gave it to you so shortly before he died, it’s possible it never took root and you’ll be fine. But it’s also possible it is slowly eating away at you. Inside.”

  Like a hollow gnawing.

  “Is it?” he asked.

  “What if it were?” she asked.

  He edged closer. “I can help you, magpie.”

  “How?”

  “By giving you an . . . a piece of my heart to replace the loss of his.”

  She shifted back. At that same moment, Kaelan stepped past the semargl, in Damion’s skin.

  Endreas turned on his heel to face Damion. “You should’ve said your cousin was with us.”

  She moved between them, drawing back her daggers, facing Endreas.

  “I think it’s time you leave now,” she said.

  “Magpie, if you’re—”

  “I don’t need your help. And I don’t want a piece of your heart.”

  “You’d rather go mad?” he asked.

  “It must be like you said. It never took root. I’m fine.”

  His eyes narrowed, searching her face. “I’m not willing to take that chance—”

  “It’s not your choice,” she cut in.

  His fists curled.

  Kaelan pressed closer to Magda without actually touching her. Remote as his emotions had grown, she could still feel the burning hatred radiating off of him. It caused a fine sweat to break out across her back.

  Endreas’s gaze flicked past her to Kaelan, who he thought was Damion, and then returned to her.

  “This is serious, magpie—”

  “The only thing driving me crazy right now,” she said through her teeth, “is the fact that you’re still here.”

  “You’re far from the Spire. Lavana has the family hard at work, trying to convince the Crown to name her Radiant.”

  “Well, I can fly,” she said, cocking her head back towards Gur. “Unless you’re planning on taking him back.”

  Gur let out a creaky growl.

  “He clearly prefers you to me,” Endreas said. “I don’t blame him. I like you more than I like myself too.”

  “I doubt that,” she said.

  “You won’t,” he said.

  Kaelan stepped forward, aggressively, edging up beside her and bumping her shoulder. Magda pressed her hand to his chest.

  “My cousin doesn’t approve of you,” she said to him. “No one will. You know that, don’t you? The Pixies will never accept an Elf as their ruler, even as co-ruler with the Crown.”

  “You might be surprised.” He regarded Kaelan/Damion for a long moment.

  Magda’s pulse revved into high gear. But if Endreas sensed Eris’s magic at work, he gave no sign.

  Finally, he said, “Lavana has claimed Riker. So you will have a greater challenge now that you have no Prince. It is all the more likely you will have to fight.” His gaze raked over her. “I’m glad to see you’ve found some armor . . . even such as that.”

  She cursed under her breath. Poor Riker. Then again, he was probably content enough. Lavana had the wealth to pamper him.

  Chewing her lip, she debated whether or not to tip Endreas off that she had a line on another Prince. If so, it might buy her some time by preventing the Crown from closing the selection window early at Lavana’s behest. Clearly, he was in contact with Lavana, and possibly others at court as well. Were Elf spies embedded at the Spire? Or even worse, were there Pixies working for the Throne? She hated to think it, but had to acknowledge it was possible.

  Cae had always told her she needed to be more of a risk taker. Of course, he’d been killed for his bravado.

  “I might have a Prince after all,” she ventured.

  Kaelan’s chest tensed under her palm.

  Endreas’s eyebrow rose. “Is that so? Who?”

  “None of your damned business, Elf,” she said.

  He touched his chest as if wounded. “Well, I look forward to meeting him. Just remember, if you want him to live, don’t claim him.” He took a step closer, but Kaelan seized her arm and drew her alongside him.

  Endreas froze. “You may feel fine now, magpie, but if anything changes, if you have any thoughts . . . of harming yourself. Find me, please.”

  “So you can give me a piece of your heart? Wouldn’t that put me right back in the same position I’m already in? You just want me to go mad when you die instead?”

  “Once you take the Crown and we are joined, our fates will be tied. We will die together anyway, you see?”

  Kaelan’s fingers dug painfully into the underside of her arms. His rage strafed over her in broad burning swaths.

  “Yes, I see that you are one cocky son of a bitch. Now get the hell out of here.”

  Endreas bowed. “Until we meet again, magpie, I’ll miss you.” He winked and was swallowed by the shadows.

  Kaelan’s hand dropped from her as though he’d been holding onto her for her own sake.

  He stalked through the place where Endreas had stood.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, not sure what to say.

  When he turned, his face was his own again, his eyes blazed. “He’s in love with you.”

  She frowned. Of all the things he could’ve said, that wasn’t what she’d expected.

  “I—”

  “I knew you had feelings for him, but—” His gaze swept the cave as if he were afraid Endreas lingered still.

  She crossed her arms. “But what? You didn’t think they were mutual?”

  He scowled. “Have you kissed him?”

  “You’re not at all interested in anything else he said? You want to know if I kissed him? Do you want to know if I fucked him too?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “I think you do. But I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. It’s none of your damned business.”

  “It is my business!” he erupted, causing Gur to lift his head and open his eyes wide. Kaelan moved closer, lowering his voice to a growl. “If you’re in love with him, then I can’t trust you. He wants me dead, Magda. Or would you like it better if I called you magpie?”

  She shoved him hard. He stumbled back, but the stony set of his face never wavered. The fire in his eyes only grew hotter.

  “I already told you I had feelings for him. And I told you that those feelings didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to join with him, ever. Because I don’t trust him.”

  “How did he find you?”

  Her righteous anger faltered.

  “Have you been communicating with him? Or maybe that thing is his spy.” Kaelan pointed behind her at the semargl.

  Gur bared his teeth, tail lashing.

  “I don’t know how he found us,” she said, measuring her tone. “How do you find where you’re going in the Shadow Realms?”

  He frowned, righteousness stalling out.

  “I know you hate him,” she said, holding up her hands, placating, “and with good reason. Don’t you think that’s part of the reason I hate him too? That he can be so easily dismissive of his own brother’s life?”

  “I find places in the Shadow Realms, not people,” he grumbled.

  “Well, maybe he can find people and not places,” she shot back. “You two aren’t identical if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “No, he’s manipulative and cavalier and domineering, just like Cae was, right?”

  Her hands balled into fists. “He is nothing like Cae.”

  He shook his head as if dismissing her and it was all she could do n
ot to break his nose.

  “You knew,” he said softly, “didn’t you? About the heart-place? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I didn’t know anything. Other than what Ilene said while you were dying,”—she lofted a brow—“but I wasn’t paying much attention to her at the time.”

  He blew out a heavy breath. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who did it.”

  “I was panicking. I was dying,” he said, kneading his fist into his palm. “I was looking for anything to hold onto—”

  “And foolish me, I was there to be held. So now I have to worry that if you die, I’ll go mad.” Which was exactly what had started to happen when he had died, she saw that now.

  “And what happens to me if you die?” he asked.

  “You think twice about being such an imp-hole?”

  He prowled to the back of the cave. “Is this why . . .?” He half-turned towards her. “I need to know more about what a heart-place is. How it works.”

  “You and me both, but we have bigger issues to deal with at the moment.”

  “Do we?” he asked. “Ever since I came back from the dead, I’ve been struggling.”

  “We’ve all been struggling.”

  “I know,” he snapped and then more calmly, “I know. But everything keeps getting worse, and there’s never time to think. I feel like . . . I need to get away from you.”

  She hadn’t expected anything he said to hurt her, yet it did. Maybe it had something to do with the bit of his heart he’d stowed away inside of her.

  Keeping her tone cool, she said, “I told you that you don’t have to—”

  “Not forever,” he said. “I just wish there was time to breathe. We’re always running or flying or fighting. When I start to think I’ve got a grasp on the situation something like this happens, and then I’m right back where I started.”

  “Nothing’s changed. You knew I had feelings for Endreas. So what? I have feelings for lots of things, but that doesn’t change what I’m going to do. And as far as I can see, I’m the one who’s bound to suffer because you gave me a piece of your heart. I was already worried you would die—again. But now I understand why it affected me the way it did. Endreas was right. If you die, I’ll go mad. The last time, I was ready to hunt down the King and kill him myself. And I would’ve tried. That is madness. You did something to me that I didn’t ask for. And now it’s inside of me, like a bomb waiting to—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything. I wish I could change things for you. I wish I could send you back in time, back to your forest with your nymph, when life was simple and happy. I wish I could go back to California and be content on the beach, reading trashy novels and painting my nails. But we can’t—”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What?”

  He moved closer to her. “We could go. To the human world, both of us.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, speechless.

  “I know you think you have a duty to the Lands,” he said, “to the small folk and Ouda, to me and Honey, to Damion and your family, but you don’t. Not really. It’s not fair, Magda. It’s not right for all of them to demand you to sacrifice yourself for what they want.”

  “I thought you agreed with the Resistance, with Python and—”

  “I do,” he said. “But—” He ran his hand over his face, shaking his head as if he didn’t even understand what he was saying or why.

  “And what about Honey? You know nymphs can’t leave the Lands. They’ve tried. They’ve died.”

  “She would be safer if she stopped following us. If she went home.”

  She found it hard to breathe. The air grew too thick and warm. His words—the same words she’d spoken to Endreas only a week before—left her dumbfounded.

  To go back to California, away from all of this . . . But why was he suggesting this to her now? Did he feel guilty about giving her a piece of his heart? As if he owed it to her to protect their lives so that she wouldn’t go mad if he died? Was he afraid? Had he finally realized how difficult it would be to defend himself, let alone start a war against the King?

  She was deeply tempted to accept and leave all of this behind for good. But she just . . . couldn’t. Even when she’d asked Endreas before, she’d known she wouldn’t really be able to go through with it. The Rae part of her was still too strong. Besides, others were counting on her . . . Ouda, Tamia, Hero.

  “I don’t really believe you want to go into exile,” she said finally. “I think you want to stay.”

  “We’re not talking about what I want,” he said.

  “I thought you wanted to get away from me,” she said in a challenging tone, disturbed by how enticed she was by his offer—even though she knew she couldn’t accept. Some distant voice, that woman she’d been in exile, was still begging to leave the Lands and all its troubles behind. “Why would you want to go into exile with me?”

  “I don’t really want to get away from you, Magda. I think . . . I should want to. Sometimes I feel like I need to, but that’s not what I want.”

  “Then—”

  “If we’re staying,” he cut in strongly, “then we’re staying. And we’re doing this together, right?”

  “Right,” she said.

  “Then you have to be honest.”

  “I have been—” She bit her cheek, catching the lie. “All right. But honesty isn’t exactly in our nature, and it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s better to lie than to start a war.”

  “But our lives are in too much danger right now. I need to know I can depend on you. That I can trust you.”

  “You mean you need something to hold onto.”

  He hung his head. “Magda—”

  “And I’m here,” she said. “Just like I was before, right?”

  He nodded, grim-faced.

  She folded her arms as the pressure continued to build. “So ask.”

  “I don’t need to—”

  “I didn’t sleep with him. Do I want to? Yes. Will I? Not if I can help it.”

  His voice was low. “Can you help it?”

  “I’ve managed to resist more than one Elf lately,” she said archly. “I think I can handle myself.”

  His face darkened as he blushed. “Magda, that wasn’t me—” He grimaced. “I mean, that’s not how I wanted . . .” He pulled in his lips.

  “You don’t need to explain. Eris’s magic gave you the power to change form at will. Getting you to put your hands down my pants probably took as much effort on Eris’s part as it does for Gur to take a nap.”

  Gur grumbled, but didn’t stir.

  Kaelan eyes widened as though he’d been slapped.

  She laughed. “You know what you are? A romantic. You think every time you touch a girl it’s Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Romeo and—?”

  “Never mind, it’s not important. The point is you don’t have to gut yourself every time you feel a little pleasure or a little guilt. Eris pulled a dirty trick. It felt good, but it wasn’t really us. We both know that. You don’t have to worry that I’m going to make more of it than that. And just because I’m attracted to Endreas doesn’t mean that I’m going to do something stupid. Not unless there’s a conniving witch around. We have more important things to worry about. Our lives. The lives of our friends. The Lands themselves. Let’s just stay focused on those things and put the rest aside for now. We have too many distractions as it is.”

  He gazed down at her for a long moment.

  And it seemed, for the first time in a long time, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. Her chest ached slightly as if the hollowness, which she’d thought gone, had returned briefly.

  “All right,” he said, taking a step back. “You’re right . . . I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

&
nbsp; He retreated to the other side of the cave without another word.

  She frowned after him, attempting to articulate a question that hadn’t yet formed in her mind. As she laid down, she tried to put the unsettled feeling aside, but it lodged in her head like a seed between her teeth, irritating and unmoving, no matter how much she picked and prodded at it.

  She drifted off to sleep watching Kaelan’s chest rise and fall, wondering if she had made a mistake. Maybe it would have been better to go back to California, with him. And maybe she was lying to herself. Maybe the reason she wasn’t leaving had less to do with her duty and more to do with a Prince named Endreas.

  THEY LEFT BEFORE SUNRISE, saying little.

  As much as she’d hoped the tension would be relieved, it wasn’t. Making matters worse, Kaelan seemed to have acquired a mastery of stoicism overnight. He emoted nothing, and once he changed back into Damion’s form, even his face was impossible to read.

  The journey to Flor’s home didn’t take long. The forests and glens, hills and streams were all familiar to Magda. This was her land. The places she’d tromped a thousand times growing up. Yet, looking down upon it, she struggled to revive the proprietary pride she’d once possessed. As a child, her love for these places had been fierce. Now, it was just a place, like any other.

  When they landed in the meadow, flush with flowers—tiny purple puffs of fairy drops; long, red imps’ tongue; broad white lace-crowns—Flor strode towards them ahead of Honey and Damion.

  Kaelan, still looking like Damion, dismounted first, and held out his hand for Magda. She took it and slid down. Hero dropped from her shoulder at once and scampered off into the meadow, out of sight.

  In the years since Magda had last seen Flor, her black hair had gone gray, left wild and loose around her shoulders. Her skin and her lips had taken on a cool violet hue. Yet her gait remained strong, her figure statuesque. Her clothes, though a bit ragged, were the fitted garb of a warrior.

  Flor stalked right up to Kaelan and looked him up and down. “Yes. You do look like Damion. But let’s see your true face now.”

  Gur slunk away as if not wanting to be noticed.

  “Flor, it’s good to—” Magda started.

  Flor waved Magda off as if they’d seen each other just yesterday.