Brine and Bone

by Kate Stradling

  “I’m glad to carry you, my little foundling. You don’t mind, do you?”

  In her periphery Magdalena saw the girl wrap slender arms around the prince’s neck and nestle against his shoulder. A hush fell across the banquet hall as they exited the room. The king and queen shifted their dismayed gazes from their son to the woman they had charged to engage him.

  Magdalena, too grateful that Finnian had somehow guessed the source of her pain and spared her from it, patted her napkin against her lips and laid it on the table. “I should get back to the infirmary, if you please.”

  She took her leave from the pair of royals and practically fled the room, careless of the many gazes that followed her. The sight of Lili in the prince’s arms burned upon her mind. Would she prefer the stabbing pain to that intimate image?

  She honestly didn’t know. Both options tore her up inside.

  Chapter 10

  “And here you are again,” said Finnian at supper. He dropped into his chair with an open smile.

  “Your parents are very persuasive,” Magdalena murmured as she sat.

  He leaned close, his expression turning conspiratorial. “Is that so? You must tell me their secrets.”

  The king and queen, overhearing this remark, twittered about how there were no secrets whatsoever. King Ronan shot Magdalena a warning glance behind his son’s back. Discomfited, she fixed her attention on the soup that a servant was ladling into her bowl.

  The prince had carried his foundling into the room, proof that he anticipated Magdalena’s presence. As at lunch, he paid her little heed beyond the occasional comment. His parents, disgruntled, settled into their meal. As the second course appeared, a violinist struck a note from the far side of the room.

  The sea-fay bounded from her cushion, and agony shot up Magdalena’s legs.

  “Lili, sit next to me,” said the prince. “You don’t have to dance every night.”

  The foundling left her place by the wall to kneel at Finnian’s side, her worshipful gaze upon him. Magdalena fought against raw, writhing magic until the girl settled. Her napkin suffered the consequences, wrinkled and twisted in her hands.

  Across the room, a string quartet played and dancers swirled, providing entertainment for the dining nobles. Far from enjoying the spectacle, Magdalena kept her eyes in her lap. She ate only a few bites of each course, and everything tasted like ash in her mouth. When the last course arrived, she shook her head to the servant who offered it to her. The dancers twirled across the marble tiles. On the prince’s other side, Lili swayed longingly, with both her hands clasped around one of Finnian’s. He maintained that hold throughout the remainder of the meal.

  When he finished, he swept Lili from the floor and danced with her in his arms, swinging her in circles as he edged toward the doorway. Joy radiated from her beautiful, delicate face. The king and queen followed their son, perturbed. Several of the nobles left their places to dance or to vacate the room.

  “You’ll get used to the disappointment.”

  Magdalena looked up at a trio of ladies, all of them dressed in lovely, frilly pastels. “I beg your pardon?”

  The one in the center tipped up her nose, a hint of satisfaction in her voice. “He’s made his preferences clear. You’ll only embarrass yourself and your family if you keep pursuing him.”

  She stood and regarded them each in turn. A sliver of aloofness marked her words. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The ladies bristled. “We only meant it as a gentle warning,” said their spokesperson. “If his Highness throws himself away on a mute girl of dubious origins, there’s nothing any one of us can do about it. There’s no sense in you being so jealous of her, or of getting your feelings hurt every time you see them together.”

  “I’m not—” The words broke off in her throat. She could protest until she was blue in the face and they would never believe her, because their eyes told them otherwise. She fought tears whenever the prince and Lili appeared. Her manner, fueled by the fear of impending pain, exactly matched the way a jilted lover would act: sullen, sorrowful, tearful, shy.

  Of course everyone would assume she was jealous.

  “Thank you for the gentle warning,” Magdalena said. Her voice hardened with aristocratic ice. “But you really don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tipped her head to the trio and left. Unless the king and queen abandoned their schemes, she would need to cultivate a more open façade, one that could smile through pain—as Lili smiled through it.

  In the safety of her room, she pored over the volume of fairy lore, searching for any information that might be of use. The flame that danced upon her candlewick ate away at the wax. A clock chimed the midnight hour from beyond her window.

  And someone tapped a staccato rhythm against her door.

  Magdalena scooted off her bed quilt, her heart quickly beating. Who would visit her so late? Surely not the prince two nights in a row.

  But when she cracked open the door, Finnian pushed his way in and shut it tight behind him. He listened at the wood as her blood pressure spiked.

  “What did I tell you? You can’t be in here.”

  He waved aside her concern, his ear still pressed to the door. “It’s only for a minute, Malena. There’s a patrol due down this hall, and then we can escape.”

  “We? What makes you think I’m going with you?”

  He spared her a reproachful glance. “You would make me pass my precious hour of freedom alone?”

  She folded her arms and favored him with a stern glare.

  Finnian grinned. “How are your legs?”

  The inquiry caught her off-guard. Her heart skipped a beat, but she reined it back in. “Fine. How did you know?”

  “I thought back to the times you were in pain and made an educated guess for what might trigger it. Why does it happen?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the words won’t come out. I’m not keeping it to myself out of any sense of noble martyrdom, if that’s what you thought.”

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. “All right. Then how did my parents coerce you into joining everyone for meals?”

  “I can’t tell you that either.”

  He grunted. “Ordered you to secrecy, did they?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I suppose they’ve botched everything for me.”

  She studiously picked up the fairy book from her bed, a blush crawling up her neck. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Come on, Malena. You’re honest to a fault. Lying doesn’t sit well on you. Why is your hair still up? Were you expecting me?”

  “No!” Embarrassment flooded through her. She instinctively felt for the low, braided knot. “I was reading and hadn’t gotten around to letting it down.”

  His eyes danced as he considered the reserved hairstyle. “You can let it down now.”

  She scoffed. “Hardly. You didn’t climb out your balcony again, did you?”

  Finnian shook his head. “Didn’t have to. I think Lili must go to the ocean steps every night when she thinks I’m fast asleep. That means you and I have to go somewhere else. The garden, maybe?”

  “Again you assume I’m coming with you.”

  “It’s either that or I stay here with you. I’m fine either way, so you can take your pick.”

  If she blushed any deeper, she might burst a capillary. She dropped the book on the bed and crossed to the door. The empty hall beyond beckoned them. The prince, triumphant, kept close to her as they tiptoed down its shadowed lengths. Like the night before, he knew the timing of every patrol in the area.

  “You sneak around a lot while everyone else is asleep?” Magdalena asked.

  A wry smile curve up his mouth. “It’s the only time I can pretend to be my own person. Come on.”

  They darted across an open corridor to a pair of doors that led outside. A silent breeze wafted through the nighttime garden, carr
ying upon it the scent of roses. Overhead the moon gleamed and stars twinkled against the inky black sky. Magdalena drank deep the scenery with a contented exhale.

  “There it is,” said Finnian as he ambled next to her. “Don’t pretend you’re not happy to be here.”

  She motioned to the flowering shrubs. “Who could be unhappy surrounded by all of this?”

  “Does that mean you forgive me?”

  She stopped short and stared. “Forgive you for what?”

  “For lunch and for supper, and for meddling parents who ruin everything.”

  Though his bitterness was justified on that last item, she could not let it stand. “They’re worried about you, your Highness.”

  “Can we drop the title for tonight?”

  She sighed and looked the other way. “I don’t see why. It doesn’t change anything.”

  The charming smile that leapt to his face might have left her dizzy, if she were of a mind to accept it as genuine. It was easier to assume he was up to mischief, though.

  “If that’s true, then it shouldn’t matter if we drop it,” he said.

  So what if he was up to mischief? The chance to stand as equals with him, if even for a sequestered hour, proved too much. She conceded the point. “Your parents are worried about you, Finnian.”

  “Because they don’t trust me. No one trusts me. Right now you’re the closest ally that I have.”

  She twisted her fingers together, uncertain how to respond. He saw the motion and caught her hand, drawing her attention back to him.

  “I wish they’d left you out of it, Malena. For your sake. They don’t understand, and you’re powerless to explain. But they wouldn’t understand even if you could. Do you remember when that gardener fell on his rake?”

  She shuddered at the recollection. It marked the first flare of the magic that now governed her life.

  Finnian pointed to a willow tree. “I sat with you over there, up against the trunk.”

  “You stayed with me until I stopped crying,” she said. The memory, so sweet at the time, had quickly turned sour.

  “And the next day, when you and the other girls squabbled over who could sit next to me at lunch, I said that we all had to be friends and that everyone had to take turns. And you never tried to sit next to me again.”

  Displeasure welled in her throat. She tamped it down and affected carelessness, withdrawing her hand and stepping lightly away. “Of course not. Other girls wanted it more than I did.”

  “No. You just have never liked to share.”

  Her attention snapped to his face, her heart twisting in knots.

  Finnian smiled wanly. “We’re cut from the same cloth, you and I. The difference is that you have the luxury of being honest, whereas I have a duty to keep the peace.”

  He shifted his gaze elsewhere, to the shadow-swathed trees and sleeping flowers. She studied his profile, the man that, for years, she had hated to love. “Is that your way of saying I’m ill-tempered?”

  A laugh escaped his throat. “I just said we’re the same, so I’d be calling myself ill-tempered too. It seemed, all those years ago, that I could always depend on you to speak aloud whatever I was thinking.”

  Memories assaulted her, of all the times he had drawn her into conversations and games. “Magdalena hasn’t said anything yet. We have to give her a chance to speak.” “Is Magdalena participating? We can’t do anything that would leave someone out.”

  “I always thought you were trying to annoy me.”

  “I was. You kept retreating into your books and ignoring me. I don’t like to share any more than you do.” He plucked at a leaf on a tree, as though the casual action might buffer the words he spoke. Magdalena’s nerves fluttered. Before she could respond, Finnian turned his full attention upon her.

  “Malena, I know what my parents think and what everyone at court says about me. I know what it looks like. I was hoping for a quick resolution with Lili, but I don’t know what she wants or why she came here.”

  “Don’t you?” Magdalena asked.

  A telltale panic chased across his face, proof that he had better instincts than he admitted.

  Tidbits of fairy lore flittered through her mind, coupled with the foundling’s behavior. Magdalena chose to be blunt. “I think she wants you to marry her.”

  Finnian recoiled. “Why—?”

  “Master Asturias says that the fay have no immortal soul, but one of his books says they can gain one by marrying a human. She clearly adores you—worships you—and if she once saved your life, perhaps she hopes—”

  “I’m not a trophy, thank you very much.” His voice, hard as stone, cut through her explanation. Her brows arched, but he continued. “Does saving someone’s life bind them to you? You saved my life when you found me on that beach. Am I bound to you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why should I bind myself to her?”

  “I didn’t say you should.”

  But he quickly closed the space between them and grasped her by the shoulders, as though she required further convincing. “I’m grateful—grateful—that she spared my life. More grateful than I could possibly express, and I have tried to repay that service with kindness. But I would sooner die than be yoked to someone out of duty.”

  Her memory flashed to that agonized night she had passed believing him consigned to a watery grave. She shrugged out of his grip and stepped back. “Don’t say that. Life is always better than death. Your people love you and they need you. You don’t know what it was like when everyone thought you were dead.”

  The prince’s head tipped. His expression turned uncomfortably perceptive. “Did you cry for me, Malena?”

  Tears prickled at the memory, and so did resentment. “Everyone cried for you.”

  “I didn’t ask about everyone. Did you?”

  He wanted a confession, and she wasn’t ready to give it even though the answer was as plain as the sun in the daytime sky. Insufferable man.

  She swatted him with the back of her hand, her eyes bleary. “Why do you think I was moping by myself in the cove that morning?” Wonder crossed his face. She babbled. “I hadn’t even seen you in six years, and I felt like someone had gutted me. I can’t imagine what anguish your parents and your friends here at court must have suffered. Don’t talk about death being preferable. It’s not, and it never will be.”

  She would have walked away from him, struggling to hold her tattered dignity intact, but he snatched at her elbow and dragged her into his arms. Magdalena squawked an incoherent protest, her eyes huge and her spine as stiff as a board. The embrace flooded a dozen conflicting emotions through her.

  Finnian laughed into her hair. “How can you be so nice and so thorny at the same time?”

  “How can you be so shameless?” she replied, her hackles raised. “Or do you go around hugging all the ladies of the court? Is that why your parents require a chaperone?”

  He pushed her back to arm’s length, all the more amused. “The chaperone is for my protection, not anyone else’s. They won’t give any lady opportunity to declare a closer relationship than actually exists.”

  “And yet here we are,” said Magdalena, her pulse thundering in her ears. “What’s to stop me from making some outrageous claim to everyone?”

  But the prince shook his head. “We both know you never would. Besides, I wouldn’t mind if you did, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Her heart stuttered and her breath caught in her throat. She covered it with an instinctive scowl, but before she could rebuke him for flirting, he spoke.

  “My parents told you, didn’t they? Of my intent to court you? It can’t be what induced you to torture yourself with these royal banquets, but if I know my father, that was the first lure he tried.”

  She stepped back a pace. “It was your mother, actually. I assumed that she misspoke.”

  “That hurts my feelings,” he remarked to the air.

  “It’s—” She caught herse
lf before anything more hurtful might emerge. Now was not the time to let her emotions reign. She took refuge in objectivity. “What was I supposed to think? You never show favor to anyone.”

  “Not true. Also not smart to assume I’m exactly as I was six years ago or that circumstances are the same. But don’t fret about it, Malena. If the idea is so repulsive to you—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He stared, his expression blank.

  Her emotions, in the intimacy of the moment, refused to be suppressed. She clutched a protective hand to her heart. “What’s repulsive is this inborn fear that you’re making fun of me. Courtship because I found you washed up on a beach? That makes no more sense than you marrying a glamoured sea-fay out of duty.”

  Finnian blinked. “It’s not because you found me on a beach. I’ve been biding my time for ages.”

  “What?” she croaked.

  He swept a hand behind him in a grand gesture. “Ages, Magdalena. You weren’t supposed to be at that blasted seminary forever.”

  She opened her mouth but shut it again without saying a word, her thoughts too jumbled to form a coherent sentence.

  “In my defense, I would have gone about it the proper way, with enough opportunity for both of us to decide whether the match was a good fit. I mean, I always knew you might reject me, but after looking death in the face, I had to at least try. And considering that it was your face I saw when I first opened my eyes, I thought it was the fates giving me their permission. But it’s all useless now, because my parents have meddled, and there’s Lili to deal with, and you seem completely appalled at the whole idea.”

  She cobbled together her wits. “I’m—I’m not appalled. I’m flustered.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s more encouraging. So it’s all right if I proceed?”

  A sudden helplessness washed over her. She glanced around the nighttime garden, as if it might present a refuge to her. What did he mean by “proceed”? What kind of attention would he draw? Was this real, or had she fallen asleep in her tiny room?