The Captive Twin

by R. J. Francis

  Nastasha fell onto him with all her weight. Her ear and cheek were pressed against his chest. Time seemed to slow for Jaimin. His sword hand trembled. He could see the bloody tip of his sword protruding from Nastasha’s back, and he knew the blade’s top edge was slowly cutting into more of her body as gravity pulled her downward. Mortified, he grasped her by the hair with his free hand, and with the other he withdrew his sword from her as straight as he could.

  Nastasha’s sword, Ivinar, clanked to the floor. She slid down his body and collapsed into a fetal position at his feet. Blood gushed from the tear in her uniform with each pump of her heart. Jaimin saw the change in her open eyes as Lazlo released her from his command. She lay dying.

  “Well done, boy,” Lazlo said. “She would never have made you happy anyway.”

  Jaimin, furious, stepped over Nastasha and faced Lazlo. An enormous pressure overtook Jaimin’s head as Lazlo lashed out with all his psychic effort, trying to lock Jaimin in his gaze and to seize his mind. Jaimin saw Lazlo’s dark soul, in the form of a ghostly reddish mask pulled from his human face.

  Jaimin resisted Lazlo’s mind attack with all he had. Jaimin’s defenses were bolstered by his righteous anger, his instinct to survive, and a powerful hormone still in his blood from a recent transfusion.

  And then Jaimin struck. From a distance, he focused his will on forcing the blood downward from Lazlo’s head.

  And it worked.

  The psychic pressure instantly subsided, the ghostly mask faded, and Lazlo started to lose consciousness.

  “Leave nothing left of me, boy,” groaned the enemy general, sinking to the floor.

  Jaimin, wracked with pain from his wound, stumbled over to Lazlo and stabbed him through the heart. Lazlo’s body twitched a few times and then fell still. Just as Prince Jaimin had foreseen, he had brought down the leader of the invading army.

  Meanwhile, Elaina had bolted from her wooded work area with such speed that her royal guards almost missed her departure again. “Your Highness!” the guards shouted after her.

  The castle’s moat was bathed in a smoky haze when Elaina got there. She saw from afar the huge hole the allies had blasted in the wall to enter the castle. There seemed to be heavy fighting just inside, and whatever bridge they had used to cross the moat was no longer in place.

  She would need to get into the castle some other way. Jaimin just couldn’t wait.

  She came up with a wild idea. Peering into the moat, with her mind she drew from it a rope made of water. It stretched toward her, and she wrapped it firmly around her right arm.

  “Panuse!” she heard a young woman say. “Can I help you somehow?”

  Elaina whirled around, with her rope still intact. Cora had noticed Elaina running and had arrived to help.

  “Prince Jaimin is in trouble!” Elaina said.

  “What do you need me to do?” asked Cora.

  “Just keep an eye on me. I may need a boost.” With her mind, Elaina raised the distant end of the watery cord four stories high above the moat, and looped it around one of the merlons atop the castle wall. Next, she compressed the rope with great force, which yanked her by the arm high up into the air. As her bodyguards caught up and watched with trepidation, Elaina sailed over the moat toward the top of the wall. Unfortunately, she hadn’t created enough force to clear it. With a resounding clank! she hit the castle wall, and she just managed to grab the top of the merlon and hold on.

  Dangling high above the moat, with her bare fingers whitening from the strain, Elaina tried to work out her next move. Her arms were strong from many years of farm labor, but her plate armor was heavy, and the stone she clung to was coated with a film of ice. She was about to give up and drop back into the moat, when, from the moat below, a huge plume of water, guided by Cora, shot up and flipped her the rest of the way over the wall.

  Elaina landed hard on her back and lay stunned for a moment. The bright moon and thousands of stars looked down upon her. She took a deep breath, got to her feet, and peered back over the wall.

  “I don’t think I can get up there myself,” Cora shouted. “I’m sorry!”

  “Thanks, you’ve done plenty,” Elaina yelled down. “Which way down to the west wing?” Her guards pointed east, which was wonderful to know, for Elaina would have hit some maddening dead ends had she tried to head off in the obvious direction. The guards were shouting more instructions, but she had to get downstairs. She drew her custom sword and gave herself permission to use it.

  Not far to the east, a narrow set of stairs led Elaina down to an even narrower spiral staircase just wide enough for one warrior. She heard the footfalls of soldiers from below–but were they coming up or heading down? More importantly: were they friendly?

  The twisting stairs were one continuous blind curve, lit by small torches high on the outer wall. Elaina descended, holding her sword out in front of her, trying not to run down too fast lest she skewer an innocent.

  Before her, a shadow appeared from around the curve, and then a shield. As soon as Elaina recognized the shield as Destaurian, she thrust her sword straight through it. It passed through the shield, the man holding it, and the neck of another enemy soldier just behind him. She lifted the blade straight up, and it split the first man’s head and the second man’s face. These were messy kills.

  As the two bodies fell backward, Elaina saw a third foe behind them. She clambered over the bodies and jabbed the last soldier through his shield.

  She had killed all three men, but now she had no footing, and she faced another foe, this one familiar: gravity. Losing her grip on her sword, she tumbled over the man she had just stabbed, and she rolled down the steep stairs.

  Elaina, three bleeding, dying Destaurians, and a sword with an undiscriminating blade tumbled down step after step. She tucked in her body as she bounced again and again, striking her head hard on the steps.

  Elaina was the first to reach the landing below, followed by her bloody sword, whose glowing edge came to rest a mere finger’s width from her nose. The bodies of the Destaurians juddered down behind her. Following the edge of her teetering blade with her eyes, Elaina found the ornate leather hilt and grasped it.

  She got to her feet. A doorway led out into one of the main corridors of the residential wing. West! Which way was west? Left or right? The spiral stairs had completely thrown off her sense of direction. She would head left.

  As soon as Elaina entered the wide corridor, a pack of Destaurians spilled out into the hall from a stairwell opposite her. They noticed her at once. Thinking quickly, she reached into her pack and tossed one of Nastasha’s egg-shaped grenades toward them, without even bothering to activate it. It spun their way. Panicking, they turned and piled back into their stairwell.

  “Follow them down,” came a voice in Elaina’s head. It sounded like Nastasha’s voice.

  Elaina took off down the stairs after them.

  The dining hall below was filled with allied soldiers, who tackled the Destaurians as they emerged from the stairwell. Elaina sheathed her sword and threw up her hands, and the Arrans recognized her at once.

  “Your Highness,” said an officer, “are you hurt?” Elaina realized that her armor was coated with her enemies’ blood.

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “Where are your guards?” said another officer.

  “Not with me. But, listen. I must get to Julian’s study immediately.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  And Elaina had an escort of six heavily armed soldiers.

  Jaimin ran to Nastasha’s side. His guards had cut through the door and were entering the study. “Elaina’s on the way,” he told them. “Do what you can to help her find us.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jaimin said to Nastasha, who was barely conscious.

  “No,” she replied, weakly. “You did what you had to. Thanks for keeping me in one piece.”

  “Stay with me,” Jaimin said. H
e immediately laid his hands on her—one in front, and one on her back.

  “You don’t need me anymore, Jaimin,” she whispered, as he closed his eyes to mend her. “You’ll do fine,” she said.

  Wrong! I will always need you, he said directly to her mind. He wasn’t sure if she heard. Unfold your body just a touch…there! She was bleeding heavily from her wounds. Shifting her position helped reduce the flow. He saw with his inner eye that his blade had sliced part of the lower chamber of her heart, and most of her left lung.

  Jaimin tried first to seal the breach in her heart muscle.

  And then, as he was in the midst of his repairs, he noticed something happening around her heart. Sparks of white light were shooting across the surface of the organ. Blood began flooding into the wound. When Jaimin probed deeper to see the sparks, he felt—he knew—that they were busy with a complex microsurgery, pulling the wound closed. He couldn’t control the sparks, but as he focused on them this encouraged them, and they multiplied. Soon, the breach in Nastasha’s heart had sealed up.

  He focused next on Nastasha’s lung, and soon began to see the same white energy flitting through the tissue and maneuvering even the tiniest capillaries back into place. More, more, more! Jaimin needed more of this type of help!

  Just as there looked to be promise for Nastasha, her heart stopped.

  Jaimin, he heard Nastasha think, I have to go.

  No! The prince was not about to surrender his best friend. Their life together began to flash through his mind: the games of tag in the woods that always ended up in wrestling matches, the sand castles, the time she helped deliver a foal when he was afraid to touch the slippery thing, the endless hours of make believe in the attic, the long talks that kept their friendship going as their bodies and minds began to change, the sweet smell of her neck and the glaze of her dark brown eyes as they danced close, her letters, her prayers, the dreams she had yet to realize… All at once these images returned.

  He focused on her brain. Nastasha’s strength had always been there, so that’s where Jaimin looked for more of the healing white energy. Perhaps he could encourage the white sparks to keep her brain cells alive, enticing her spirit to stay around for a few minutes more. Help me, he pleaded with the divine spirit, I need her alive.

  And then, as he watched, the white sparks blossomed from hundreds of spots throughout her body at once, until they overwhelmed Jaimin’s acute perception. He heard Nastasha’s heart start up again, and continue beating firmly and confidently. He felt warm and disoriented—bathed in the divine white energy.

  She’s going to make it! he thought. Even the burning pain of his own wound dissipated.

  As the supernatural infusion faded, Jaimin opened his eyes.

  Kneeling beside him was the answer to his prayer, and the prayers so many others had uttered that night. Elaina had arrived.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  N astasha looked up lovingly at Jaimin and Elaina, her skin still radiant even though the light had gone. Her eyes shone with gratitude and with the innocence of a much younger girl.

  When she became fully aware of herself, she turned her head to see the slashed bodies of the men she had slain. Tears welled up and rolled down her face. The residual effect of the white light made it hard for her to feel guilt or fear, but true compassion was allowed. “Can you help them?” she begged Elaina.

  Elaina left Nastasha’s side and started to fuse the bodies of the fallen Arrans. Pools of blood on the floor ignited in white light, and the whole room lit up as bright as day. However, after the glow dissipated and all the parts of the men were back in place, Elaina shook her head. The three soldiers would not live. Neither would Xander.

  Nastasha saw all this. “Don’t tell their families how they died,” she said.

  “Do you remember what happened?” Jaimin asked her.

  “Yes. I remember everything.”

  “Can you stand?” Jaimin asked.

  “I think so. Which one of you healed me?”

  “I’m sure it was Elaina,” said Jaimin.

  “It wasn’t all me,” Elaina said to him. “It was you who convinced her spirit to stay.”

  “I thank you both,” Nastasha said. “Words cannot express my love for you.”

  Or ours for you, Jaimin said in his mind, and Nastasha heard him this time for sure. Don’t trouble yourself over words, Jaimin told her. Not with us.

  Elaina and Jaimin helped Nastasha to her feet. “There you go,” Elaina said to her. “Dizzy?”

  “No,” Nastasha said, “I feel fine. Amazing, actually. Back to it, then. I need to get an update to see where I’m needed.”

  “Shouldn’t you rest?” Jaimin asked.

  “I feel fine,” she insisted, “and we still have a war to win.”

  Jaimin lifted Ivinar from the floor and offered it to Nastasha. She recoiled from it. She didn’t want to touch the weapon.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She was torn. The blade could still save lives, but now it had a terrible history. She undid her belt and slid off Ivinar’s scabbard, handing it to Jaimin. “I can’t… Not that one.”

  “I understand,” Jaimin said, securing the sword. “What about…” he picked up Xander’s sword from the ground.

  “Not that one either,” she said. “Look, let’s just go.”

  Jaimin set down the blade, and he and Elaina followed Nastasha out of the study. On their way out, Nastasha asked a soldier: “Where’s your commander?”

  “In the Hall of the Fathers,” he replied.

  So that’s where they headed, closely escorted now by what seemed like a dozen guards and troops. On the way, they encountered Commander Cavendish and Captain Rosner in the hall. Cavendish greeted them: “Your Royal Highness, Your Royal Highness, Your Excellency.”

  “Commander, may I have a report?” Nastasha asked.

  “The west wing is secure,” he said. “We are still clearing other sections of the castle. Her Majesty instructs you and the prince to remain in the west wing and rest. Princess Elaina, you are encouraged to rest as well.”

  “Rest? What good shall we be resting?” Nastasha asked.

  “People will die,” Elaina said, bluntly reminding the commander of her usefulness.

  “The Destaurian army is falling apart,” Cavendish explained. “Her Majesty is securing an unconditional surrender from Lazlo’s second-in-command. There will continue to be clashes, but most of the fighting is behind us.”

  “Very well,” Elaina said, “I’ll rest.”

  “What?” Nastasha said. “You just said yourself people will die.”

  “I…just understand why the queen wants us to rest,” Elaina said.

  “I don’t have this gift—this understanding,” Nastasha said. “But I shall trust your feelings.”

  From a rooftop café, Mascarin stole a glance at the still-smoldering ruins of the tavern his family had run for over a century.

  “Quit looking over there. It’s bad enough we’re this close,” said one of his tablemates.

  “Looks like our loyalty to that asshole’s really paid off this time,” said another.

  “Watch it,” snapped Mascarin. “This was all part of his plan. His Majesty’s heart is still with us. This is just his way of telling us we’re on our own from now on.”

  “I guess I didn’t quite understand the plan.”

  “It went exactly as we expected,” Mascarin said. “He made sure none of the commanders were in the palace so he could justify sending a messenger. And when he could have sent a dark runner he sent Yellen, who was much easier to capture.”

  “So what now?” asked the fourteen-year-old girl in the white cloak.

  “You must leave at once,” Mascarin told the girl. “Fill the Arrans in on everything. Cobie, I want you to set up a new headquarters in the abandoned steam works. Bring our prisoner there.”

  “And you?” asked the blonde teen called Cobie.

  “With the divine spirit’s help, tomorrow I’ll be lunc
hing with the enemy,” said Mascarin.

  “And I’ll be praying for your soul,” said the girl in white.

  “Your Highness,” Captain Rosner said to Elaina, “you and Princess Alessa will stay in this room here.” To Nastasha, he said: “Your Excellency, you’ve been assigned the next room, but it seems it is still being prepared. It should not be long.” The guest rooms were just down the corridor from Jaimin’s room.

  “Just stay with me for tonight,” Elaina said to Nastasha. “It will be a while before Alessa arrives. Jem, you should probably go get cleaned up and get some rest.” Jaimin gave Nastasha a firm hug, and then said goodnight to Elaina with a kiss on the lips before disappearing into his room for the night.

  An hour later, Elaina had bathed and was already half asleep in bed by the time Nastasha finished her bath and came out to join her. Nastasha, donning her nightdress, eyed the door nervously. “What’s going on out there? It’s so quiet now.”

  “Nobody I know is in danger,” Elaina said.

  “Well you don’t know that many people, I’m sorry to say. I still feel we should be out there until it’s all over.” Nastasha put out the lamp and slid into the sheets beside Elaina. “I have to say it,” Nastasha said, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Jaimin is wonderful. You must understand how lucky you are.”

  “I do,” Elaina replied. “And I know how much you love him.”

  “I know you know,” Nastasha said. “And that’s amazingly awkward. What can I do?”

  “Don’t pretend. Don’t fight love. You love Jaimin deeply and he loves you. How can anyone say that’s not beautiful?”

  “But how must that make you feel?” Nastasha asked.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Elaina said.

  Nastasha sighed. “I shall never be able to experience Jaimin’s love the way you will,” she said.

  “This is true,” Elaina replied. “Please don’t think I’m blind to your frustration. But your frustration won’t last.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There will soon be a man in your life, who will fill spaces in your heart you never knew were there.”