by Megg Jensen
“Looking for Kellan?” a voice asked behind me.
I spun around. Bryden, the third adoptee sat on the bench behind me. My heart sank. Bryden and I had a history, although one cooled by time and distance. Kellan and I didn’t hang out with him. He’d never fit in with us because he spent more time staring at the ground than anything else around him. We hadn’t interacted much since we were children. Even when he was around us, he didn’t speak. It was almost like he was observing us, and we didn’t know why.
“Actually, I am,” I said, pleased this was one of the times he chose to speak to me. “Do you know where he’s at?”
“Maybe.” He sharpened one of his quills with a knife, but didn’t seem too interested in me. Maybe that was good. I didn’t want to raise any red flags. The less he knew, or suspected, the better.
“Can you tell me?” I asked in my sweetest voice. I tried to channel Albree’s honey laden tone without coming off too fake. I hoped it was working.
“Why? What’s going on?” he asked. Now his eyes were on mine, staring so deeply I found myself taking a step back. The boy knew how to unnerve me with only the slightest movements.
“Um, nothing.”
Bryden continued to stare at me. I stared back. I couldn’t tell him what was happening. I didn’t really know myself and I didn’t know what he would do. Just because we were both adoptees it didn’t mean he felt any loyalty toward me. I didn’t know if he would turn me in. Right now, Kellan was the only person I trusted.
“Don’t lie, Lianne. I’m not stupid. I know you and Kellan think I am, but I’m not. I know as much as he does. Maybe more.”
Bryden cocked his head to the side, still studying my blue eyes — eyes just like him and Kellan. I refused to look away.
“But you don’t know yet, do you?”
I didn’t have time for his mysterious babbling. I needed to find Kellan.
“You should be waiting on the queen, but you’re not. You’re out here, looking for Kellan. Something happened and you’re seeking his help. Maybe I can help you Lianne. Did that ever occur to you?”
It hadn’t, but now wasn’t the time for guilt over not including Bryden.
“I’m sorry, Bryden, but I’m on an errand for the queen and I thought perhaps Kellan could help me. It involves some heavy lifting and, I hate to say this, but I really don’t think you’re equipped to lift the load.”
Bryden’s eyes drooped and my heart sank. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings by bringing attention to his leg. He’d been injured in an accident as a small boy, almost killed by a horse and carriage. His parents died in the accident; so did our friendship. Afterward he refused to see me. We’d played together every day before that.
He looked up at me again and for a moment, I thought I saw my old friend again.
Guilt flooded my body. I hadn’t meant to hurt him and it was the first time I’d ever purposely said anything like that to him. When he turned away from me after the accident I had no one. I cried myself to sleep every night for a year because of Bryden.
“I don’t believe you, Lianne, but I do forgive your ignorance. You will need me. You and Kellan. Hopefully I’ll be in a mood to help you when the time comes.”
I breathed deeply, attempting to calm myself. As if I’d accept his help after he’d pushed me away all these years. Up until a few years ago, I would have forgiven him in a heartbeat. I’d tried to regain his friendship repeatedly, but he’d always put me off. Nothing I did was good enough for him and I was tired of trying to make him like me.
Bryden limped toward the castle and the fear resurfaced. The king was looking for me and I didn’t know what would happen if he found me.
“Lianne?” Kellan asked from behind me. I spun around and ran to him. He dropped the load of swords he carried in his arms as I jumped into his waiting embrace.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Tears burst from my eyes.
“The king,” I whispered, though I knew deep down half of the tears were because of Bryden. I could never admit that to Kellan. “He’s coming for me. He told Mags if she didn’t dismiss me then he would deal with me himself. He thinks I’m too close to the princes, that I might kill them. He said she has to send me away.”
The words tumbled out of my mouth, my voice rising in pitch with each word. I sounded hysterical, but I didn’t care anymore. I needed someone to take care of me.
Kellan’s eyes darted, but no one was around. Peasants hated us and seeing one of us upset would only fuel their belief that we were privileged brats. We were brought into wealthy families and given positions they could never aspire to reach. It wasn’t fair to them, but it wasn’t our fault either. We were only babies when we were brought here. We had no say in our lives any more than they did.
“I can’t lose you,” Kellan said. “You’re too important for him to just do away with. Sending you away would ruin everything. You need to be here. You need to be with me.”
The caring words he’d used for the last month were there, but something wasn’t right in the tone of his voice. What was going on?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Ruin what?”
Kellan sighed, shaking his head. His hair flopped across his forehead, sticking to the sweat that accumulated while he’d been at the forge. I reached up with the tips of my fingers to move it out of the way, but he pushed my hand away from his head.
I stumbled backward, out of his embrace.
“What’s going on Kellan? You have to tell me. I don’t understand.”
“It’s too soon,” he said, but I didn’t feel like he was talking to me. It was more like he was talking to himself.
“Too soon for what? Damn it, Kellan. Tell me!”
I balled up my fists and punched him in the chest. He’d never beaten me in a fight, despite the height and weight he had over me, and I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I only wanted his attention. His blue eyes lowered to mine and he stared at me.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow on your birthday you’ll understand everything. But I can’t be the one to tell you. It’s dangerous to find out too soon. Something could go wrong.”
“My birthday?” I asked. “That stupid surprise you keep teasing me about? What does that have to do with any of this?”
“It has everything to do with it.” Kellan put his hands on my shoulders, but I shrugged them off. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want my insides to melt into puddles or for my body to ache to be held in his arms. The last month, since he turned sixteen and decided he wanted me for a girlfriend as much as I’d wanted him for as long as I could remember, we’d spent more time kissing than sparring.
“Does this have anything to do with those three men from our homeland who were hung this morning? The king thinks they are planning something, trying to destroy the kingdom. This is why he doesn’t want me around his sons.”
“Are you sure?” Kellan whispered. “Is that the only reason he gave for wanting you dismissed? Because he doesn’t trust our people or did he say something else?”
“What am I? Your spy? I’ve been threatened and all you want is to get information out of me? I need your help, not be grilled by you.”
My stomach twisted, my heart dropped. Maybe I had come to the wrong person. Why hadn’t he lifted me into his arms and carried me to safety? My fantasies were obviously reaching far beyond reality.
Now he had expectations of me, secrets concerning me he’d been withholding. I hadn’t seen it before. I assumed he’d finally realized how much he’d loved me. Obviously there was more to it. More to us.
“I’m sorry, Lianne. I can’t tell you anything, but I can help you hide. Until tomorrow, until you know more, that’s all I can do.”
I stood my ground, legs firm. My fighting body took over when my heart broke. Maybe Kellan didn’t love me. Or maybe it was something else. Was he only trying to stay close to me for whatever would happen on my birthday?
But I did need a plac
e to hide and I had no one else I trusted. I knew my mother would turn me over to the king if he so much as looked at me. She cared nothing for my well-being, my sister even less. The man who my mother had been married to died when I was two. I remember nothing of him, other than that his heroic service to the crown kept us in the castle for the remainder of my mother’s life. I had no one now that I questioned Mags’ loyalty. If it were a choice between her sons and me, I knew I didn’t stand a chance.
Kellan bent over and picked up the swords he’d dropped on the dirt path. His muscles rippled when he added each sword carefully to the bundle. I wanted nothing more than to be in his arms, but I wanted him to want me there. For me, not for this mysterious thing that now stood between us.
“Please, Lianne. Please let me protect you. Tomorrow you can make whatever decision you want. But for today, please trust me.”
I nodded, my hair falling lightly against my cheeks. I had nowhere else to turn.
“Go to my cottage and hide in my room,” he said. “Aric’s at practice and he won’t see you go in. You’ll be safe there and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He ran off to the practice hall, kicking up dirt with his powerful strides. Glad the cloud of dust surrounded me, I allowed the tears to fall. Unbound, they streamed down my face.
I ran in the opposite direction to Kellan’s cottage, slipped in the front door and walked back to his room. It was so different from the palace, small, dark and a little dirty. He and Aric had no servants and no wife to clean up after them. Aric had remained a bachelor after his first wife’s death, when their daughter was stillborn. He’d volunteered to become an adoptive father only if he was given a boy to help him with his tasks as weapons master.
I ran my fingers over the rough sheets on Kellan’s bed. I’d often wondered what it would feel like to fall asleep in them, wrapped in Kellan’s arms. I never expected this to be the first time I’d find out.
I snuggled into his bed, unable to keep my eyes open. I was exhausted from work, from stress, from fear. All I wanted was to be free. To find out why those three Dalagan men came here. To find out why Mags had remained silent instead of fighting for me. To know what Kellan was keeping from me.
I fell asleep afraid.
I woke up with hatred in my heart.
CHAPTER FIVE
Harsh sunlight spilled through the windows, prying my eyes open. I woke up, in a cold sweat. My heart pounded as images from the nightmares I’d had all night replayed in my mind. Ships rocked in the rough waters, their masts unfurled and lurched us forward up the river, toward Dalagan, my homeland. I knew something important had happened in the dream, but it was just beyond my grasp. All I knew was that my apathy toward Fithia had evolved into a deep hatred.
I forgot for a moment where I was until I saw Kellan sleeping slumped over in a chair across the room. He hadn’t crawled in bed with me, like I’d half-expected him to do when I fell asleep last night. Maybe it was better that way; I wasn’t sure how he felt about me anymore.
He stirred and his sleepy eyes opened. A smile grew from his slack mouth and his eyes brightened.
“How do you feel?” he asked, leaning forward in the chair.
I wondered the same thing myself. Last night I’d crashed into bed scared and confused about my life, my past, my future. This morning I felt different, but I didn’t know how to explain it.
Anger, definitely. I felt an uncontrollable urge to tear the king apart with my bare hands. I was capable of it. Unlike kings of the past, he wasn’t a leader in battle, but a soft man who sat back while other men would fight for their lives. He issued orders but never executed anything himself, other than getting Mags pregnant. With my skills I could probably take him down in two moves, maybe three if he fought back.
This morning, I hated him more than I could express. His orders had ruined me. I couldn’t go home; someone might be waiting for me. Not that I wanted to go back there anyway. I hated my mother and sister, nothing tied me to them.
Thinking of them, my blood boiled and my fists shook. I’d always been irritated by them, but now, this morning, I was filled with hatred. They’d never been kind, and were frequently cruel, treating me like an outcast or a burden.
My skin crawled from all the times I’d been left alone as a child, expected to fend for myself while they worked for the old queen. Other children were brought along, but not me. No, I was left behind, cold, afraid, cowering in the corner when I heard voices I didn’t recognize.
Everything, small or huge, they’d ever done against me came flooding back. Tears spilled down my cheeks for the little girl I’d been. No one had ever done anything to help her, that poor skinny girl, desperate to be like her older sister, but knowing she’d never be as beautiful or as loved.
Kellan slid on the bed next to my prone body. I’d awakened, but I hadn’t sat up yet. He stroked my hair with his strong hand and dried my tears with the other. His palms were rough from years of carrying bundles of swords and cleaning up after the troops had gone home for the night. I didn’t care and snuggled into his embrace.
“You want to know how I feel?” I asked. “Today is my sixteenth birthday and I’ve never felt worse any single day in my life. I hate them, Kellan. I hate them all.”
An image of Mags’ face flashed in my mind, but I pushed it away. I couldn’t think about her yet or how I felt about her betrayal yesterday. Maybe if she’d stood up for me that one last time, I could have gone back to her last night.
“I’ve never felt anything this strong before,” I whispered. “It almost scares me.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” he whispered in my ear. “I felt the same way when I woke on my sixteenth birthday.”
My eyes met his. I knew. I would say I remembered, but I don’t know how I could remember something I’d never thought, seen or experienced before. No, I knew. This morning everything was crystal clear.
I hated the Fithians and wanted nothing more than to destroy them. My gut felt like it was on fire, but there was no pain, only the sensation of heat stoking the anger in my heart. I wanted everything around me to burn, to pay for all the years my people sat in exile in the desert. I’d always wondered about my people, but somehow, overnight an unerring loyalty took root in my heart and head. I knew now that avenging them was my first, and only priority.
“How?” I asked Kellan. “How did this happen?”
“Those men who crossed the border yesterday?” Kellan asked. “It wasn’t the first time. They came the morning of my birthday. I met with them and they explained these new feelings to me. Explained why we are special.”
I scooted backward, deeper into his embrace.
“After the war, our people’s magic was forbidden,” he continued. “But the Fithians never understood our magic. They thought they could subdue us. The Fithians forced us to stop using magic by imprisoning many of our men and killing one every time we used magic. The slaughter didn’t stop until they stopped using magic.”
“The magic?” I asked. “The Dalagans never stopped using it, did they?”
“No, they didn’t. But the Fithians don’t know. They can’t detect it. Our people just learned to hide it better.”
When I opened my eyes this morning it wasn’t the same as any other day. I knew more. I saw more. I understood more. It was magic.
“What’s our purpose then?” I asked. “There has to be a reason for the change.”
“We’re here to free our people.”
I would have burst into laughter, but Aric didn’t know I was here and I didn’t want to give myself away. It was ridiculous. New loyalty and anger was one thing, but liberation? It wasn’t possible.
“How are we going to free our people? The two of us can’t do much,” I added.
Then I realized, Bryden, the other adoptee. He was part of this too. Integral to the plan, our only ally.
“Bryden knows,” I said, remembering our weird conversation from the day before.
�
�Impossible,” Kellan said. “His birthday is two months away and the Awakening spell doesn’t activate until the morning of it. Each of us was chosen at birth and the spell was cast on us as newborns. It lasts for sixteen years. He can’t know yet.”
“He knows something,” I said. “He made that very clear to me yesterday. In fact, he seemed surprised that I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t need him. He’s crippled and probably stupid too. We can execute the plan by ourselves.”
For years I’d ignored him every time he ribbed Bryden. I’d wanted Bryden to feel bad for what he’d done to me, even though I was sure he didn’t care. But after yesterday, I had to wonder. Maybe he did still care about me, even if it was just a little bit.
“And that is?” I pushed my conversation with Bryden out of my head.
“To assassinate the king. To assassinate the princes. To assassinate the queen.”
The princes? The queen? My heart skipped a beat. The anger, the hatred, still coursed through my blood, but I couldn’t feel it toward Mags. No matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t there. It didn’t touch her.
“Then Fithia will be ours for the taking.” Kellan’s eyes glinted in the morning sun. “We’ll get back our freedom and destroy theirs.”
“Not everyone here is evil,” I said.
Kellan sat up, pulling his hands away from me.
“Has anyone here ever tried to help you go back home where you belong?” His eyes bored into mine. I shrank away from his glare. I’d never seen him this intense before. I shook my head no.
“Then you know why this has to be done,” he said. “We have to make them suffer like our people suffered.”
“Don’t our people live the same way as us?” I asked. “Aren’t they free? It’s just the magic that’s restricted.”