by Cora Avery
He frowned. “What happened?”
The ghost of hollow agony rose up within her. “I can’t let that happen again,” she said, then meeting his gaze, hard with cold conviction. “If he hurts you . . . I will kill him.”
His eyes tracked down to where her fingers rested. He started to reach for her, but she turned her shoulder to him.
“Because of what I did to you,” he said darkly.
“What does it matter why?” she said to her knees. “Whatever the reason, it’s true.” She gave him a hard look. “Isn’t that enough? You wanted to know if you could trust me, if you were helping him through me, but that could never be, because I could never put you at risk. If I joined with him, he would know the truth, he would find you, and that would destroy me and then I would have to destroy him.” She pushed to her feet. “Have you thought about that?”
“About what?” he asked softly.
“About what it will do to me if you follow through with your plan. If you lose?”
His jaw hardened and he stood. “But you forget, my heart, if I die, he can heal you. Tell me you would still turn him away then.”
“Would you believe me if I said I would?”
“That you would turn your back on love”—a taut pained expression rolled over his face—“for a friend?”
Before she could respond, he moved around her, heading towards the door.
“Where are you going?” she said after him.
He opened the door.
“You can’t—”
The door closed.
“Magda.”
She rolled over, her silken robe falling open over her bare legs.
Through the mist of sleep still thick upon her, she squinted at him.
He sat on the edge of the bed, near her shins.
“Kaelan?” She propped up on her elbows. “Where have you been? What time is it?”
She glanced towards the curtained doors, no light shone around the cracks. She had dimmed most of the lamps after taking off her clothes.
“Early,” he murmured, rubbing his face roughly. “I went to see Honey.”
“And?”
“And nothing,” he said. “If she knows anything, she’s a very good liar.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, she fell back. Hero remained curled in a ball at the foot of the bed, next to her face. She had fallen asleep watching him.
“And what about our small friend?” she asked of Kirk. “Have you seen him?”
“No. Damion and I questioned everyone who was still out in the field, but turned up nothing useful.”
Her hand flopped to her chest, only then did she realize that the robe had fallen completely open and she was naked. She sat up, body burning, clutching at her robe. Kaelan’s gaze slid sheepishly to the floor.
“Have you slept?” she asked.
“A bit, in a chair in my mother’s sitting room,” he said, eyes tracking from her exposed legs to her hand holding the robe closed at her chest and then to her face. “My mother and Damion both wanted me to return here sooner.”
“You shouldn’t have gone out without me,” she said, arranging her robe over her thighs. “You shouldn’t have gone out at all.”
“They want me to convince you to claim me,” he said.
She froze. “Damion knows I would never . . . he knows I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Things have changed now,” he said. “Won’t it be considered a strike against you that you haven’t?”
“It’s a minor detail,” she said. “You’ll be with me. That’s more important.”
“They didn’t think it was minor,” he said.
“Of course not,” she said. “Damion doesn’t pretend to understand why I would make such a promise in the first place.”
He put his hand down on the other side of her knees, caging her. “You’ll have to fight now, won’t you?”
She chewed on the word before spitting it out. “Yes. And claiming you won’t make any difference when it comes to that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes . . .” She frowned. “You weren’t actually considering it, were you?”
“What if I was?”
“What about—?”
“Things have changed,” he said. “We’ve changed.”
“If I claimed you and I won, then he would kill you, even without knowing the truth about you,” she said.
His eyes darkened. “You sound very certain that he would succeed if he tried.”
She leaned closer. “You cannot fight him. You must know that.”
“I cannot fight him yet,” he said. “But give me time.”
Sliding her legs out from under his arm, she started to turn from him, but he caught her face in his hand and brought her gaze back to his.
“I’m not going to let him win.” His thumb ran up her cheekbone, eliciting a humming buzz under her skin. “And . . . I’m afraid you won’t be able to win this fight either.”
Her eyes burned, as if tears wanted to form, but couldn’t. She held up her left pinky. “All I need is one good shot.”
“What—?”
She edged away from his hand, though a part of her wanted to lean into it. The Rae part, she was sure.
“We should try to sleep some more,” she said. “Today will be very long.”
“Do you mind if I move Hero?” he asked, rising from the bed. “It might be easier to sleep if I could lie down.”
“Be careful,” she said as he slid his hands under the nesting coat and lifted Hero over to a nearby chair.
She perched on the edge of the bed, gazing at Hero, wondering if he’d ever wake up again, wishing that she could do something more to help him.
“Are you certain you can’t heal him?” she asked as Kaelan pulled off his vest.
“I tried,” he said. “It didn’t work.”
She frowned. “That’s strange.”
“Not really,” he said, sitting to remove his boots. “The book I read said that as a Prince ages, his powers grow in strength, but also become more limited in application.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means a Prince is made to heal his Rae,” he said, letting the curtain of Caden’s black hair fall over his face.
She had the sudden overpowering desire to see Kaelan as himself again.
“Even a Prince such as yourself?” she asked.
He glanced up at her, but his eyes were silver. “It would seem so.” Barefoot, he pushed out of the chair and strode into the bathroom. Raes didn’t normally sleep with clothes on, or at least, she never had. Not until she’d been in the human world had it occurred to her that there were some benefits to pajamas. So after cinching the belt of her robe tight, she drew the silken blankets close around her.
She kept her eyes fixed on Hero as Kaelan emerged from the bathroom, not looking to see what he’d decided to sleep in, or not sleep in. The bed sank as he sat.
“You’re actually going to let me sleep in the bed next to you?” he asked.
“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep,” she said. “I feel very much awake. Dawn can’t be far off.”
The bed clothes shifted and pulled around her, but she held them tight to her chest. Though she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel him facing her, the warmth of his body radiating under their shared sheet. She slammed her eyes shut, trying not to imagine whether or not he was naked, and what that might look like, or feel like.
She didn’t realize just how close he was until he spoke and his voice sounded as though it were just behind her ear.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tie me up?” he asked.
“You’re very funny.”
His hand touched her shoulder and she tensed.
“Sleep,” he said.
Before she could curse him for it, she was drifting off.
ROLLING OVER, SHE SNAGGED THE pillow out from under her head and smashed it against his face.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she said, tossing asi
de the blankets.
He pushed the pillow away. “You’re welcome.”
She went to the curtains, peering through. The first lances of light cut across the rooftops.
“Dawn, isn’t it?” he said in a smug tone.
She knelt beside Hero. His little chest continued to rise and fall, slowly, shallowly. He looked so small and fragile, more tears seared her eyes.
“Wake up, friend,” she whispered. “Please.”
But he didn’t.
Heart heavy, she pushed to her feet.
“Call Meer. Have her bring food and my clothes.”
“Magda,” he said, sitting up, the sheet slipping down his bare chest.
She paused at the bathroom door, meeting his eyes—green.
“One good shot,” she said to the fear she saw shining in them. “That’s all.”
“That’s not it,” he said.
She turned, crossing her arms. “What then?”
He held her gaze for a long moment, as though he had a thousand things he wanted to say, but all that came out was, “Never mind. Now’s not the time. We’ll talk later. After…”
She nodded and went to prepare a bath, so that she could be clean when she faced death.
Although she hated to do it, she had to leave Hero in Meer’s care, with the instructions that if he were to wake, Meer should notify Magda immediately. Honey, too, was left behind. And Damion. He argued, but she insisted, for her own reasons. If she lost today, she didn’t want him to do anything that might get him killed too.
As for the Enneahedron, she could only hope against hope that Kirk would work a miracle and return with it. She couldn’t go tearing through every house and every Pixie’s pockets searching. And it did her no good to reveal she no longer had it. Soon though, she wouldn’t have a choice. Everyone would know once she stood before the Crown.
A few hours later, she stepped out of Southterrace house, clad in her mother’s armor, which Meer had transformed from aged-but-serviceable to gleaming-forge-fresh.
At the edges of the field, the family waited. Some three hundred in all. Elders, children, a couple of younger Raes, sharp, calculating eyes studying her every move.
At the far side of the field, Lavana, also in her armor, silver-etched bronze. Across the expanse of green, the sun caught the metal of their breastplates and they were like two beacons igniting.
Once before, Magda had made this walk, from the damp field through the gate into Stonerise proper, entering the open courtyard, misty in the cool morning.
Warriors lined the rooftops above and guards stood before the stone doors, regarding her with expressionless faces. Never had it occurred to her that she might stand before the Spire’s East Gate a second time. Such a thing was unheard of. Raes who vied and failed rarely lived, let alone attempted to vie again.
From the inside, the stone doors, fifteen feet high and just as wide, were pushed open. Their groans and scrapes the only sounds. A cold breath of mountain air huffed out, chafing against the freshness of morning. A squad of warriors marched out from the shadows of the tunnel.
They moved aside in tight formation. Behind them, Zuriel.
“As the highest ranking minister from our family to the Crown,” he said, regarding her with icy green eyes, “I have been asked to escort you to Her Presence.”
Magda inclined her head, though she really wanted to seize him by the throat and find out if he had taken the Enneahedron. But even if he had, he would have never given it to her and it would gain her nothing to attack one of the Crown’s ministers.
He led the way into the upward sloping tunnel.
The dwarf kings of old had given the utmost attention to even this inner, rarely traveled pathway. Wide enough to allow three carriages to pass easily side-by-side, the grade was subtle so as not to tax too much. The stone underfoot was engraved with images of the great battles of the Godwars. The edges provided traction. In the grooves, water channeled, trickling down the blades of swords, over outstretched arms, along the backs of the fallen, and off to narrow slits of drains. Upon the curved tunnel walls, gods sprang forth, etched in relief, looming high overhead. Flame, fueled by natural gas funneled from deep within the mountain, leapt in blazing arcs from the god’s arms, filling their eyes with flickering life, pooling at their feet and in their hands, designed as much to intimidate as to illuminate.
But Magda only saw these wonders peripherally. Her focus remained on her breath and her pulse, both of which were trying to bolt out of her control.
In the back of her mind, she heard her mother telling her, all those years ago, “The difference between living and dying happens in one breath. The one you lose hold of is the one that will be stolen from you.”
Behind her, the shuffle of hundreds of feet, the echoing anxious whispers, but already she was losing her ability to hear them, her focus narrowing. She forced in a deeper breath and another, until the voices behind her grew in strength again. Not time yet to go into battle-mode.
The light ahead grew from a ghostly glow to blinding daylight as they exited the tunnel onto the lower concourse—a broad, heavily fortified, enclosed stone pathway.
Guards gazed down from both sides as the train was funneled towards one of the two entrances. The sheer, high wall ahead partially obscured the Spire Palace. Only the higher towers and the Spire itself were visible. Like in the tunnel, effigies of the gods had been chiseled from the mountain. They appeared to be stepping out from the rock face itself, shedding the stone from which they were born, twenty-foot tall giants with noble faces and watchful eyes.
Around the concourse, Zuriel led them to the Southern Sun Gate, which stood open. Though constructed after the Godwars had ended, every massive gate, every towering wall, every glowering god, spoke to the threat and the fear of attack.
The higher they climbed, the more their train was narrowed. Up through the High Sun Gate onto the middle concourse, which afforded a better view of the masterpieces of architecture above and below, but Magda did not stop to admire them.
The Palace’s outer buildings, carved from the mountainside, rose in twists like unicorn horns, with no visible windows. In fact, the windows faced towards the Palace proper like worshipful acolytes, their entrances hidden below ground.
Farther up and around the concourse, only wide enough for one carriage to pass, to the Low Morning Star Gate. Beyond, the steps grew steeper. Then through the next gate to the constricted belt of the upper concourse. Buildings here were bigger, conical in shape, flat on top, so that guards could be stationed above, shadow-shrouded faces hovering behind slits of windows.
Around again, through the dwarf gates, segmenting the upper concourse. The clouds thickened. The wind picked up, gusting in mournful groans.
Until at last, they stood before the Crown’s Reception Gate. Upon it, a giant disc, carved with the twisted likeness of the crown itself, and seven elongated prisms radiating out from the diadem.
With a clinking, rasping of metal against stone, the interlocking gate parted, like a shadow sliding away from the moon.
At the end of a short, close-in entry, the Crown’s Receiving Hall bloomed overhead in arcing petals of glass panels, joined together by veins of milky white stone. The ceiling’s diffuse light cast a misty glow over the grand hall. Supporting columns like knotted and intertwining branches ran in double rows on either side between which the family would assemble.
Magda’s pulse sprinted again. Reining it in and keeping stride with Zuriel took all of her concentration.
Numerous balconies protruded from the High Wall, like beads of water seeping from the stone. The largest hung fifteen feet above, with no balustrade, and bore only one occupant.
Clad in flowing blue and silver-edged robes, silk and sheer fabric dripping over the edge of her balcony, the Crown sat deep in her throne.
The last time Magda had looked upon Her Presence, the regal woman had stood upon her perch, fierce and imposing as the Spire itself.
Now, her purple eyes were violet and sunken, the copper hue of her complexion faded to ash, her cheeks gaunt and lips thin.
The rumors were true. The Crown was dying. And seeing it for herself slowed the racing of Magda’s pulse, setting her mind to work again.
Could the Crown truly be in negotiations with the Throne? Did the King really have the power to save the Crown’s life? And if so, what would the Crown be willing to give to save herself?
As Magda’s breath came back under control, she could feel the air emptying behind her, the family splitting off to crowd between the columns, until only the sliver of Kaelan’s warmth remained. Below the balconies, iron-faced warriors were arrayed, swords drawn at their sides.
When the doors rumbled and then shut with a resounding thud, the shuffling and whispers silenced.
As one, every person in the hall dropped a knee and bowed their heads before the Crown.
“Rise,” her voice, once robust lark song, was a whisper of brittle paper blowing by on the wind.
They rose just the same.
“Your Illustrious Radiance,” Zuriel said, “I present Magdalena, daughter of Vivanna and Joachim.”
Zuriel stepped aside and for the second time in her life, Magda stood before the Crown.
BEHIND BRUISED LIDS, the Crown’s eyes were no less sharp than they had been seven years before, and they gave away nothing.
“Display,” she said.
Magda unleashed her daggers at once, the hushed breath of metal slicing the air the only sound in the hall.
The Crown barely glanced at her knives.
“Present.”
“Caden, son of Flor and Aran.”
“Proffer.”
She sliced her own wolf blade across her cheek and then turned to meet Kaelan’s gaze. They had gone over this, but she could still see a glint of worry in his eye.
He placed his hand to her cheek. Soon the sting and heat of blood faded and then was gone. She turned her healed cheek for the Crown to see.
“Accepted,” the Crown said. “But he is not claimed.”
“No,” she said, doing her own searching of the Crown’s thin face.