Brine and Bone

by Kate Stradling

  Darkness, and flashes of light from the roiling ocean surface above. Slender limbs encircled the sinking body, while a face buried itself against the neck and—

  Magdalena disconnected from the vision with a sharp inhale. Bulbous eyes and pointed teeth flashed before her.

  “It was a sea creature.” The words left her lips on a whisper. She didn’t know what else to say, so chaotic was the imagery. Something had caught hold of the prince and given him those marks upon his neck. Whether it was the same chittering something that had lurked in the misty waters at the cove or whether her paranoid mind linked those two creatures together, she could not determine.

  She met the prince’s stare, his gray eyes intent upon her. He said nothing, but his expression spoke of vindication and—even more fiercely—of a desperate need for an ally. Magdalena ceased striving to free her hand. The schoolmaster’s assistant completed the last few strokes of the shave as an awkward silence blanketed the room.

  Simon glanced toward the clasped hands as he wiped the razor clean on a towel. He moved away to pack up the shaving kit.

  Magdalena leaned close and whispered, not as waspishly as she might have intended, “You’re turning me into a spectacle.”

  The prince maintained his steady gaze. “You’re the only person here I know.” The waver in his quiet voice betrayed the fear that lurked beneath his cocksure façade. Two nights ago a storm had ripped him into the briny ocean. He had passed more than a day in its clutches and washed ashore on the brink of death.

  Her heart tightened in her chest. Instinctively she pressed his hand between both of hers.

  Finnian looked up at the bed curtains. The small, satisfied smile on his lips left her to wonder if that moment of vulnerability had been sincere or manipulative—or a combination of both. She settled cynically back in her chair, but she maintained her hold upon his hand until his eyelids drooped and his grip went lax.

  He dozed off and on throughout the afternoon. Toward dusk he woke with a gasp, sweat beading upon his forehead. Magdalena, who sat next to him with a book she only read when he was conscious, examined him.

  “Are you in pain?” she asked. “Should I call Master Demsley?”

  The prince peered at her face. His breath left his lungs in a sigh of relief. He reclaimed her hand from atop her book, his gaze unfocused. “My body keeps rocking up and down, as though the waves still churn around me, as though their clammy grip still cradles me close and chatters in my ears.”

  “Chatters?” she echoed with a shiver.

  He only squeezed her hand again. “I’m glad you’re flesh and blood, Malena.”

  Her defenses renewed under his familiar address. Quietly she asked, “Where did you hear that name, and why do you keep using it?”

  The prince stilled. “Do you not like it?”

  “Everyone calls me Magdalena.”

  “Your parents don’t.” She frowned, and he favored her with a wry smile. “You must know they visit court at least once a year—much better at paying homage to their allied king than you are. I’ve always asked them about you, and your father always slips and calls you Malena half a dozen times. I guess that’s how I think of you now.”

  Her heart quickened in her chest despite her efforts to keep it at bay. “You ask my parents about me?”

  “It’s only polite,” he said modestly. The disappointment that shot through her shifted to chagrin when he added, “If you’d visit, I wouldn’t have to ask them.”

  She pulled her hand from his and opened her book.

  “Retreating into her own mind as usual,” the prince murmured, seemingly careless.

  A commotion in the hall drew their attention. The door flung open, and the gardener announced in quavering tones, “His Majesty King Ronan to see you, your Highness.”

  Magdalena scooted from her chair as quick as she could stand, her eyes huge upon the king of Corenden as he swept into the room. He took one look at the occupant of the bed and flung himself upon the young man in a crushing embrace.

  “Father,” Prince Finnian wheezed, patting his sire’s back. As the hug persisted, he frowned over the king’s shoulder to Magdalena. She edged toward the open doorway and the crowds that clustered beyond.

  The king drew back, pawed at his son’s face is disbelief, and hugged him again. “Finnian, Finnian—we thought you were dead.”

  “And I might have been if Magdalena hadn’t found me.”

  She froze, mere inches from her escape. The king turned watery eyes upon her, and Magdalena dropped into an awkward curtsey.

  “You have my thanks, young lady,” King Ronan said.

  Relief flooded through her: nowhere in his face was a hint of recognition. She ducked her head again, ignoring Finnian’s suddenly critical glance upon her.

  “Where’s Mother?” the prince asked.

  “At the palace. She took ill when news of your ship arrived, and I didn’t want to get her hopes up until I’d seen you with my own eyes. Is he safe to travel, Master Demsley?”

  “Yes, sire, he should be. He’s in remarkable condition, all things considered.”

  “Then I will remove him to his home, where he belongs.”

  Finnian sat up on his elbows. “What, tonight? It’s getting dark out.”

  “We’ll travel quickly, my son,” said his father. “I would not have your mother in grief any longer than necessary.”

  Across the room, Magdalena met the prince’s gaze. She tipped her head in acknowledgement and slipped through the crush of bodies at the door as a scowl descended upon his face.

  The rule was still very much in place. He would not favor her in front of his father, and that spoke volumes more than the hundred little flirtations he had made throughout the day. The prince was charming, but it was the same façade it had always been.

  Her fellow students spared her sidelong glowers as she pressed through the throng, but so intent were they upon glimpsing the royals that they let her go. She broke free of the crowd and jogged through deserted halls to her own small bedroom, where she shut the door and leaned her back against it. Misery and relief clawed up her throat. She sank to the floor and buried her head in her arms.

  The prince was alive. He would return to his world, and she would remain in hers, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.

  The tangled, knotted emotions within her burst in a torrent of tears. She was glad, and despairing, and exhausted all rolled into one. The onslaught lasted only a short while before she reined it in, but for the second night in a row, she skipped dinner and went straight to bed.

  Chapter 3

  When classes resumed the following morning, Magdalena stiffly took her place among her peers. She ignored the whispers behind her back and shut off her senses to any magical empathy. Injured feelings abounded among the schoolgirls, many of whom begrudged that the man they actively fantasized about had paid special favor to such a cold fish.

  “I don’t care if she knew him as a child. Why was she allowed to stay with him all day when none of us could get within ten yards of his door?”

  When lunchtime came, she wisely skirted past the dining hall, intending to spend the hour in the solitude of her own room. She rounded the last corner and stopped short. Two soldiers guarded her door while another pair marched from within, carrying a trunk between them—her trunk, to be precise.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, hurrying to intercept them.

  One of the guards stepped in her path. “Hello, lovely.” He drew the words out as though relishing every consonant. Magdalena, intent upon following her stolen goods, tried to sidestep, only for him to block her way.

  “You are Magdalena of Ondile, I presume?”

  Mention of her father’s duchy snapped her attention from the fast retreating trunk. She looked up, stricken, into a handsome face. Blue eyes twinkled, and a smile curved up one side of his mouth. Taking her lack of response as an affirmative to his question, he raised one of her hands to his lips.
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br />   Magdalena snatched it away before he could complete the flirtatious gesture. “Who are you? Why are you taking my things?”

  “Captain Gilroy Byrne at your service, milady. I come with orders from the royal court to retrieve you and your belongings.”

  Dread plunged through her. “If his Highness thinks this is—”

  “Not his Highness. His Majesty.”

  She recoiled. “What?”

  “I come on the king’s orders,” said the captain. “Between you and me, I rather suspect his Highness the crown prince would prefer that the likes of me never came within three leagues of you, if you catch my meaning.”

  He winked, and she scowled. “No, I don’t catch your meaning at all.”

  His brows shot upward, but she was saved his rebuttal when her schoolmaster stepped from her door carrying her cloak and her healer’s satchel.

  “Ah, Magdalena,” Master Demsley said, and he gestured vaguely to the pair of soldiers who yet remained. “You are to go to the palace, a great honor indeed.”

  “But—”

  “The king has offered you an apprenticeship with his own healer, my dear,” he said.

  Her mouth opened and shut with nary a sound. No one could decline an apprenticeship at the palace, however unsought or unwanted it might be. Her thoughts roiled. As loath as she felt to reenter that glittering sphere, she would be little more than a servant—and thus somewhat sheltered from association with the royal family and court.

  Still, “Must I leave today?” she asked in a small voice.

  “This very hour,” said the captain with a suave grin. “His Majesty was most specific. We’ll have you home and installed in your new room by dinnertime.”

  Master Demsley pressed her cloak and bag into her hands. “It’s for the best. Truly I wish you every happiness.”

  She couldn’t stop the confusion that twisted up her face at this strange farewell. Nor did she get a chance to respond. Captain Byrne whisked her in the same direction that her trunk had disappeared, one casual arm draped upon her shoulders.

  “I beg your pardon, but I can walk very well on my own,” she said, a sliver of ice in her voice. She skirted out from beneath his touch.

  He tutted. “No need to be so frigid. We have a long ride ahead together.”

  Magdalena halted in her tracks. Her expression hardened into something so obstinate that even this seeming ladies’ man appeared momentarily fearful.

  “I can walk very well on my own,” she said again, enunciating every syllable to deadly effect.

  He backed away, hands raised in surrender, and allowed her to proceed. She swept past him with all the dignity she could muster, her ears alert as his footsteps tapped along the hall behind her. Out in the seminary’s courtyard, an open carriage awaited. Two of the guards had mounted their horses already. The third climbed onto the box to drive. Magdalena flung her cloak around her shoulders and ascended on her own power.

  To her consternation, Captain Byrne climbed up as well and sat directly across from her. The carriage lurched forward. He regarded her with shrewd eyes. “You don’t have time for the small fish now that you’ve set your sights on the prince, is that it?”

  Still in the throes of her quiet wrath, she managed not to blush. “I beg your pardon?”

  “No, nothing,” he said, and he sat back.

  She wasn’t going to let him drop the subject so easily, though. “What’s that supposed to mean, that I’ve set my sights on the prince? How does being forced from the sage’s seminary into an apprenticeship portend that I’ve set my sights on anyone?”

  His brows arched, but he couldn’t maintain eye contact. He looked away with a puff-cheeked sigh. “Whooh. He has his work cut out for him with you,” he muttered under his breath, the words barely discernible over the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.

  “Who has?”

  “The palace healer, of course,” Captain Byrne replied, though the answer came too quick. Magdalena settled into her seat and drew a book from one of her deep pockets. She pretended to read for the whole drive, turning pages even though her eyes only glided over the words without seeing them. From her periphery she kept watch for any odd moves from the overly familiar captain, but he only tipped his hat over his face and slept. When he started to snore, she turned her thoughts to more troublesome men.

  If Finnian had put his father up to this stunt, she was going to wring his neck, prince or no prince.

  The further they traveled along the coastal highway, the tighter her windpipe constricted. All too soon, the palace of Corenden glittered against the shimmering ocean, perched where the land met the water. She fought against an onslaught of carefully suppressed memories—playtime in the garden, expeditions along the shore, gossiping and backbiting among the girls vying for the young prince’s attention. Beneath the sparkling façade, a toxic atmosphere had flourished.

  And now she returned as a glorified servant to the crown. Would that someone else had wandered to that sheltered cove instead of her.

  (Except that a smothered part of her was glad that she had found him instead of anyone else. There was no real harm in worshipping the prince as long as she knew such worship would lead to nothing.)

  The carriage clattered onto cobblestone streets, past docks lined with broad, tall-masted boats, until the palace loomed above, its towers bathed in the orange light of the setting sun. Captain Byrne roused and straightened as they passed onto the smooth pavers of the palace drive. He spared Magdalena a sidelong glance. She kept her nose in her book.

  They stopped beside a shaded entrance—one of the doors designated for servants rather than the grand, sweeping staircase that dignitaries and guests ascended. Captain Byrne hopped to the ground and offered to help Magdalena. He showed no surprise when she declined. She filed in behind him to a dark hall as eerie nostalgia worked its way from her stomach to her nose. She knew the halls as well as she knew her own hands. Swallowing the lump of apprehension in her throat, she drew her cloak closer around her and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

  “The palace healer is tending to the crown prince tonight,” said Captain Byrne. “The king instructed that you be brought to your quarters this evening, and that you remain there until Master Asturias can orient you tomorrow. Someone will bring you your supper. Is that satisfactory?”

  She longed to say no, or to ask whether a contrary answer would make any difference. Instead of wasting her breath, she merely pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow.

  The captain averted his gaze and kept walking. When they arrived at the tiny chamber—little more than a closet, really—he stayed long enough to see his men wedge Magdalena’s trunk between the bed and the wall, and then he slinked down the hall out of sight. The other soldiers tipped their caps and made similar escapes.

  Magdalena shut the door and locked it. She flopped onto the bed with a heavy sigh. The tangled emotions exorcised the previous night had returned tenfold. The close room with its narrow window seemed a prison cell in the falling darkness.

  Chapter 4

  The cry of a seagull roused her half an hour before dawn. By the time a light knock tapped at her doorway, she was up, dressed, and resigned to her fate. She opened the portal not to a servant, but to a gaunt, olive-skinned elder, one whose face she recalled all too well. He peered down his hooked nose at her, haughty curiosity fixed upon him, with not a sliver of recognition.

  Which was, perhaps, for the best.

  “Master Asturias, I presume?” she said.

  He tipped his nose a fraction higher into the air. “I should have you know that I do not favor apprentices. I particularly do not favor female apprentices. On the king’s orders alone I have accepted you, but don’t expect any special treatment.”

  Having completed this officious speech, he spun on his heel and walked away. Magdalena, assuming she was meant to follow, pulled her bag over head and shut the door behind her. She dogged his footsteps, her confusion growing the furthe
r into the palace they progressed. Master Asturias rattled off place names and instructions with vague gestures and little heed for whether she heard him.

  “The kitchens are down that corridor. You eat with the other servants in the servants’ hall next to it. You have an hour at dawn for breakfast. My infirmary is here. You’re not to touch anything without my express permission. The passage up ahead leads to the state rooms, where the king meets with local and foreign dignitaries. You have no business there, so you’re never to intrude. This wing houses quarters for visiting nobility. Again, you have no business there. The royal quarters are that direction, and they are completely forbidden. Do you understand?”

  They had paused in a wide rotunda where three hallways intersected. The marble floors gleamed and sunlight filtered through colored windows above. Master Asturias glared down at her, waiting for her answer.

  “I understand,” Magdalena said. Perhaps the king should have thrown her in prison. Surely this was some sort of punishment.

  “If so, then—” His voice strangled in his throat as he focused over her shoulder. Magdalena instinctively turned. The healer rudely shoved past her. “Your Highness, you should not be out of bed.”

  Her gaze connected with that of Prince Finnian, who, apparently, had been sneaking from his quarters. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes huge upon her.

  Master Asturias, oblivious, approached the young royal as though to herd him back the way he had come. “Your father and mother both insist that you remain abed for another day, your Highness.”

  Finnian skirted around his outstretched hands. “What are you doing here?” he asked Magdalena, wonder and confusion warring upon his face.

  Her feet seemed rooted into the tiles and her tongue weighed like lead in her mouth. So he really hadn’t known anything of her coming.

  He approached like a skittish horse, stopping several feet from her to observe her in puzzled silence—as though she were a mirage that might vanish from his sight. She fought to control her quickening pulse. He looked good. The high, starched collar of his shirt hid the sea creature’s marks on his neck, and only his fading sunburn provided evidence of his recent ordeal.