by Megg Jensen
No one in the kitchen seemed to care we were there, until a woman spied Chase. Her eyes widened. She wiped her hands on the towel strung around her waist, then smiled.
“Well, look who’s back. Thought you said you’d never set foot in this place again.”
She held out her arms. Chase ran to her, picked her up, and swung her around. She pecked him on the cheek. My stomach turned flips. I wasn’t jealous, just hungry. Ravenous. I wrapped my arms around my stomach.
Chase set her down carefully. Small in the waist, delicate features, and flowing long blond hair, she didn’t look like the usual scullery maid, at least not like one I’d ever seen before.
“I had a package to pick up.” Chase gestured over his shoulder. His thumb pointed directly at me. The woman’s eyes followed it to me. She looked me up and down, as if every inch of me was being appraised. Bryden noticed it too and grabbed my hand. I didn’t argue.
“Ah, yes, Lianne. You finally found her, huh?” Then she stood up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, all while her eyes remained firmly on me. Chase nodded as she continued to tell him things obviously not meant for my ears.
She rested back on her feet. “Well, I guess I should welcome you.” She walked toward me with her hand extended. “I’m Elessia. It’s nice to meet you.”
I shook her hand with my free hand. “Lianne.”
“I know exactly who you are. Everyone here does.” The other kitchen maids studiously ignored us. “Chase never shut up about you when he was here.”
Chase smiled, but then he looked at Bryden and the smile fell from his face. Bryden stood still, his face like stone. I wanted him to react, or at least I wanted to understand what was going on between them.
And everything had been confirmed. Chase had lived here. No one had lied about that, it appeared. Yet he didn’t seem like he wanted to hide it from me. I was thoroughly confused. It must have shown on my face because Elessia laughed.
“She’s wondering why we’re so cavalier about the fact that you used to live here. She thinks perhaps you’re one of us, doesn’t she?”
The expression on Chase’s face switched from amusement to wonderment to disbelief all in just a few seconds. “You thought I was in collusion with the Malborn?” he asked me pointedly.
“This morning, Mayvis said you’d lived here and that they knew all about me.” I defended myself. What else could I do?
“That’s because they held me prisoner for four years. They’ve seen most of my early drawings, Lianne. That’s how they know about you. But they don’t know everything, I can promise you that. Once I realized that they were interested in you, I started drawing false pictures to throw them off the track.” He hung his head, looking every inch like a mournful puppy. “But it was too late. They were already convinced you were what they needed to strengthen their depleted army. My mother and father had defeated them and raided one of their largest breeding camps. They essentially were starting over, but they wanted you.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Lianne. It’s completely my fault that they are after you. Everything they know, they learned from my visions.”
Bryden squeezed my hand tighter. My heart thrummed. “So you found me and brought me back here? You’re turning me in?”
Elessia threw her head back and laughed. “Are you really so dense? He’s trying to fix the huge catastrophe his visions caused.”
A warm redness crept up my neck onto my face, spreading like wildfire. It was too easy for me to distrust him, to assume he was out to destroy me like everyone else I’d encountered. No one had ever done anything to help me without some gain to themselves. Even Bryden – he’d admitted to pushing me away on purpose, manipulating me into thinking he hated me when really he was ashamed of himself and his disability. It wasn’t until I was close to achieving my magic that he’d decided I could be trusted.
Chase was the only one who’d told me the truth.
My heart ached. It ripped in half. I looked at the two men before me, one I loved so much and had given my heart and body to, the other, asked for nothing, took nothing, and expected nothing in return. I was the biggest idiot ever born.
I wanted to run away to a place I could be alone and sort through things. Everything happened so fast, too fast, and I was beginning to question myself, my judgments, and my choices. I’d been with Kellan after pining away for him for years. My heart and my allegiance turned too quickly toward Bryden. When another man stood in front of me, offering me the world, I pushed him away so hard to the point that I couldn’t believe a word out of his mouth, only to discover he’d been truthful.
I hated my emotions. I hated my world for thrusting me into situations I couldn’t cope with so quickly. I hated my people for manipulating me since birth and never giving me the chance to discover myself. My entire life was a lie. If they’d just raised me to understand my gift, instead of using me as a means to an end, maybe I’d be a more trusting person. Maybe I’d be able to trust myself more. Maybe the flames inside me wouldn’t hurt so much when they threatened to rip my entire being to shreds.
In a flash, Chase was at my side. He broke my iron grip on Bryden’s hand and pulled me aside. “She’s getting fired up,” he said. “I need to get her outside.”
He scooped me up into his arms and took off in a sprint, as if I were only a light feather in his arms. He zigzagged through the kitchen. A pot clattered to the floor, knocked over by my dangling feet. The clang reverberated in my head, drowned out by the frustration that was threatening to overwhelm me. The fire burned and licked at my belly, but I was too confused to use the techniques Chase taught me. My body shut down and the fires I’d tried so hard to control were threatening to overwhelm me.
Someone was running after us. The footfalls echoed in my head, like the drumming of a stampede. “What’s going on? Where are you taking her?”
Bryden. Probably followed by that woman.
“She’s not even trying to control herself. If she doesn’t, her magic could explode again. Remember when she accidentally killed Albree? I don’t want that to happen to anyone else, do you?”
His words bounced around my head. Images of Albree’s long dark hair, floating out to the side as she fell off the dais to her death plagued my vision. My adoptive sister, dead. My fault. Because I’d never been taught how to control my magic. Even though our relationship was terrible, combative at best, I’d never meant to kill her.
Arms tightened around me. Chase. Wind whipped me on the face as he ran farther away from the castle. Trees dotted my view, racing toward me. No, we raced toward them.
“I still need you hidden,” Chase whispered in my ear. “Try to hold it in until I get you into the forest where no one can see you. I can’t block you right now. Your gift is too strong when you use it. You can do it, Lianne. I know you can. I believe in you.”
My eyes closed. The world became a buzzing beehive surrounding my head. I focused on the fire, trying to remember the lessons Chase so patiently taught me. I imagined a waterfall, rushing over a cliff onto a forest alive with flame. Water traveling downhill, pulled by gravity toward the fire. They both needed each other, wanted each other. The fire took respite in the water and the water was given purpose by the fire. Symbiotic. Alive together.
My eyes blinked open. We were no longer moving, instead we were crouched on the ground. Chase hadn’t released me from his arms, a fact Bryden clearly didn’t like by the look on his face. Elessia stood next to Chase, her hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry. I think I’m okay now,” I said. “It all kind of came rushing at me at once. I’m still trying to process everything that’s happened over the last few months. Still attempting to control whatever this magic is in me. It’s not as natural as it should be.”
“It would have been if your people would have allowed you to learn how to control yourself since birth instead of shielding you until your sixteenth birthday. Idiots. They deserve to be conquered by my people.” The contempt
in her voice was unmistakable.
“Elessia, now isn’t the time for politics,” Chase warned. “Give Lianne a few minutes to breathe.”
“What I don’t understand,” I said, “is if the Malborn are so evil and held you captive for years, why are you even friends with her?” I raised a shaky finger toward Elessia.
“Chase was here as a little boy. I was forced to be his nursemaid. I cared for him day in and day out. I was an orphan and given a purpose in the castle.”
“A baby jailor,” Chase said with a snicker.
“You weren’t a baby. You were nine or ten, if I remember.”
“And you were sixteen. You should have been out enjoying life instead of being cooped up all day with a snot-faced boy who thought he knew everything.”
Elessia slapped Chase on the shoulder. “It was better than being on the street. The Malborn aren’t all evil.”
“They just want to dominate the world and control all the magic,” Chase said with reproach and a roll of his eyes.
“Someone has to.” She shrugged.
I was fascinated by their debate. She believed in her people’s ambitions, unapologetically. Yet here she was, helping us hide in the forest.
“Why don’t you turn us in?” I croaked, still not fully recovered.
“Because I owe Chase my life,” she said, her eyes softened. “But that’s a story for another day. What matters is that Chase is a hero. He’s the kind of man every girl wants and if I wasn’t so much older than him, I might take an interest. Frankly, I don’t see how any woman could resist him.”
Bryden coughed. We all looked at him. I still loved him, there was no denying that. But my judgment stunk. It was possible I had misjudged everything – including my feelings for Bryden.
“Can we have a few minutes alone?” I asked, looking at Bryden.
Chapter Sixteen
“Here it comes,” Bryden mumbled under his breath as Chase and Elessia crept away. At least no one had argued with my request. I needed some time alone with Bryden. I needed to make him understand.
“It’s not you —” I started.
“Yeah, it’s Chase. You were with Kellan until I came along and now you’re dumping me for Chase. Makes sense.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Bryden had never been bitter or angry like that. It was like I was dealing with a completely different man. I looked into his eyes and saw the truth. He wasn’t a different man, he was one who knew he was about to lose what he loved most. Combative. Protective. Completely normal behavior.
I wanted to tear at my insides for what I was doing to him. The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt anyone. But if I couldn’t trust myself, or my own judgments, then how could I give myself over to him?
“It’s not about Chase,” I said. I meant it too. I hoped he could sense that. “It’s about me. It’s about the fact I’ve never had one moment of peace. Instead of figuring out who I am and what I want, I just jumped from Kellan’s arms into yours. It wasn’t fair to you.”
A bitter laugh escaped his mouth. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. They focused solidly on the blade of grass he twirled between his fingers. “It wasn’t fair to let me finally hold you in my arms? You’re the only girl I’d ever been interested in. I never wanted anyone but you, Lianne. If that’s unfair, then there’s a lot I don’t understand about the world.”
“Bryden, please.” I wanted to cry, to release the flood of emotion crashing inside me. I held it back. I needed to make him understand. “I’m not necessarily leaving you for good. I just need a break. I need to get through this crap first. Then, when things settle down, we can have another chance.”
He dropped the grass. His eyes bored into mine so hard my eyes watered. “We may not have another chance, Lianne. It may be now or never. We don’t exactly live in a simple world. Battles are being waged. Wars fought. People die. What if this is our only chance?”
Live hard, die hard. Our lives didn’t allow for much more. But what was love in chaos? Was it really love or was it some form of passion and fear of death driving us toward each other? Bryden’s eyes told me it was love. Chase’s reluctance to push me into a relationship I didn’t want was love.
The only problem was that I didn’t know what I was feeling anymore. As my world changed and expanded, my viewpoint changed. My feelings for Bryden were just as strong, but I’d come to realize that my instincts weren’t a good indicator of reality.
“I don’t know if I’m enough,” I said, finally. It wasn’t a perfect answer.
“I know you’re enough for me. You’re everything to me,” Bryden said. “Obviously I’m not enough for you.” He kicked a rock, sending it sailing into the copse of trees. “We made love last night, Lianne. Just last night! I thought that meant as much to you as it did to me.”
I reached out to him, but he stalked away before I could formulate a good reply. I knew I loved him. That was obvious to me, but I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t understand my feelings. Everything was so messed up inside.
“Are you okay?” The tentative voice broke the silence. Chase. Of course.
“I don’t want to deal with you now,” I said.
“Whether or not you want to deal with me, we have to keep moving. I need to get you back to safety.”
I stood up, brushing the grass and dirt from my dress. I’d forgotten, just for the moment, that there was a greater danger out there other than the erratic beating of my heart. “How exactly do we end this? They’re working on creating an army of magical warriors. They won’t stop just because they can’t have me.”
“Keeping you from them is a start. Every little thing we deny them chips away at their war machine,” Chase said.
“Oh, come on. Even Elessia admitted she agrees with what her people are doing. She’s right. Someone always has to be on top. Why is it up to us to decide who wins and who loses? Why even get involved?”
“Why not? What else would you do with your life?”
“Maybe relax and enjoy living. Just for once?”
“You sound like my parents.” He spit out the words as if they were filled with venom.
“What’s so wrong with that?” I asked. “Don’t you get tired of the hiding, the fighting?”
Chase grabbed my shoulders. “What I get tired of is other people being hurt because no one wants to stand up against the evil in this world. My parents took down the Malborn army in our land. It didn’t stop them. It only set them back. Look at how we’re paying for that! I was imprisoned here for four years. You were captured and they wanted Kellan to get you pregnant. Unless I’m misreading the situation, that would be rape. Is that really something you’d sentence another girl to? How many of them up there are willing? Do you know?”
The castle towered above the forest. The highest rooms were where I’d been held, doomed to years of men forcing themselves on me to grow their demented, magical army. I looked back at Chase. Anger spewed from his eyes. His shoulders hunched, carrying the weight of the world. People he’d never met could be hoping for a savior. Maybe Chase was it. Maybe it was time to rise up and stop the Malborn.
“What can we do?” I squared my shoulders, determined to help end the war. I couldn’t be the only lost girl out there. Maybe if we could do something about it, a lot of us could find our happy endings.
“First we need to head back to your people. I want you to convince them to fight back. Their ranks are filled with scores of gifted people. If they agree to fight with us, perhaps some of the people in my homeland will rise up too.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Chase held out his hand, presumably for me to shake on our deal, but I held back. Just because I was confused about my feelings for Bryden didn’t mean I would come close to touching Chase anytime soon.
“Bryden’s out there,” I pointed over my shoulder. “Can you get him so we can get going?”
“Are you two okay?” Chase asked.
“It’s really not your business.” The
last thing I wanted to do was give him any hope for us. I couldn’t even consider returning another man’s affection until I knew how I felt about my relationship with Bryden. “Just go get him, please.”
Chase nodded and jogged into the forest the direction Bryden had wandered off.
A few minutes later, they stalked back through the trees. They weren’t looking at each other, or at me. Part of me wanted to know what, if anything, had been said between them. Another part of me knew it was best to stay out of it. If their expressions told me anything, it was that they’d had words but also come to some kind of understanding.
“Everyone ready?” Chase asked. “I think I can safely open a portal here where no one will find a trace of it. I want to open it into the Fithian castle, directly into Bryden’s room. Lianne, do you think you can get an audience with their leader, Marek?”
“I can try. My biological mother knows him.”
“You’re the Queen Slayer,” Bryden said quietly, his eyes downcast. “He’ll see you.”
Chase flicked his fingers in the air and a portal opened, sparkling in the dark wood. “I’ll go first,” Chase said. “Make sure everything’s safe.” He walked into the portal.
I looked at Bryden. My heart lurched at his demeanor. I’d never seen him so sad. “Why don’t you go next?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You go first, Lianne.”
I nodded and took a step toward the portal.
“Wait!” He grabbed my arm, pulling me back. “I have to tell you something first.”
“What is it?” I needed time, yes, but I’d never turn him away. I loved him too much for that.
“No matter what you decide, I want you to know that my time with you was the happiest of my life. I don’t regret one moment of it. I would do anything for you.”
I tried to say ‘I know,’ but it only came out in a strangled croak. I sniffled, holding back the tears that threatened to explode. I’d spent most of my life training to be tough, to defeat anyone who looked at me wrong. But I couldn’t fight Bryden – not physically, not emotionally. I also knew that before I could commit to him, I had to end this war. I leaned over, kissed him on the cheek, then turned and ran through the portal.