by Jaymin Eve
They killed his family.
I’d never expected him to talk about that. He never did when we were young. I swallow a retort, looking past what he said to his intentions. His expression is earnest, his lips pressed together, his forehead crinkled with worry.
He doesn’t care that I’m wearing a dress, the same way he never cared when we were younger that I came from one of the poorest, lowest elven Houses. Even though he was a Rath—one of the oldest, most powerful Houses. What he cares about is exactly what he’s saying—I’m not wearing body armor, I don’t carry a weapon, and without the storm’s power I’m unprepared for an attack.
My Storm Command looks to me for a response. I’m proud that none of them has risen to anger because of what he said. I’m glad they’ll wait for my command before acting. But in a moment of clarity, I realize that Baelen Rath has just given me exactly what I need.
I take a deep breath and choose my words carefully. “You’re right,” I say, startling Elise and Jordan.
The other elves shoot glances at me too, their eyebrows raised.
“My training stopped when I became the Princess. I don’t think about war, only about the storm. I spend my days either in the Storm Vault or recovering from it. I value my Storm Command as a precious gift. I trust them with my life. But I can’t do what they do.”
Jordan crosses the distance to the table, standing directly opposite me on the other side. “Princess, you have only to ask and I’ll share what I know.”
“Thank you, Jordan. I would appreciate that.”
I spin to Baelen. “Commander Rath, I trust you will support me when I seek permission from the Elven Command for my Storm Command to train me?”
He frowns. “Why do you need their permission?”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Training me involves touching me. That’s forbidden. I need their permission—”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I need their permission to…” I shake my head, exasperation billowing in my chest. “Everyone knows the rules. Nobody’s allowed to touch me. Where have you been all this time?”
His response is so quiet I almost don’t hear it.
“Staying as far away from you as possible.”
As his words register, my voice chokes in my throat. I feel like the floor just dropped out from under me. There’s no anger in his voice. Nothing cruel in his face. He’s answering me as he always used to—with truth. But his honesty stings like sharp barbs, sharper than the burn of lightning or the needles of rain I endure each day. To my horror, tears burn at the back of my eyes.
I guess this is why he’d turned away from me at his father’s funeral. I don’t blame him for putting as much distance between us as possible. He might have offered me his family’s heartstone but I now realize that’s because he has no choice. If I refuse it, I will dishonor his House, but if his House fails to offer a champion, then it is a higher dishonor—it would be better for him to fail at the trials than not offer himself as a champion.
I look away—to the floor, to the map, staring at it, clenching my fists and willing the burn behind my eyes to stop. I need to get the conversation back on track, to make sure I can get the training I need, but first I have to regain control of my emotions.
For the first time, I wish I’d just come from the Storm Vault, because in those moments I’m untouchable and indestructible. Not like right now, when eight words from Baelen Rath can cut through my heart like a blade.
I hate that I feel this way. But worse, I hate that I don’t know whether he stayed away from me because he blames me, is scared of me, or hates me. Fear doesn’t normally enter the equation for a Rath, so I’m assuming blame or hate. Both would fit, especially given that, as the only member of the House of Rath, he has no choice but to fight for my hand.
Confusion builds inside me, but it’s better than the sadness I’d felt a moment ago.
He steps up to me. Close. Closer than before. If he lifted his arms, he could wrap them around me. He’s suddenly too close and I don’t understand why. Not when he just told me he deliberately stayed away from me.
I don’t need to look up to know that the Storm Command have bristled like thorns. Baelen Rath may be the Commander of the elven army, but their duty to protect me comes first. The soft clang of metal tells me they’ve reached for their weapons.
I stand perfectly still, the breath freezing in my lungs, afraid I might lean just a little too far to the left and make contact with his chest. I want to. May the ancients forgive me, I need to make contact.
His head tilts down to mine, his voice soft, a bare whisper, his breath a caress against my neck.
“I never needed anyone’s permission to touch you but your own.”
The breath stops in my throat.
You may as well see it before my father burns it.
I’m burning right now.
The Storm Command presses inward and Jordan withdraws her sword, steel ringing in the quiet room, but they can’t have heard what he said. If they had, all hell would have broken loose already.
He steps away in the nick of time. I can breathe again.
He speaks to the room as much as to me as he says, “You shouldn’t need anyone’s permission to defend yourself.”
I don’t know how to answer. I have no choice. The rules are there so I don’t accidentally hurt anyone. The rules are there so I don’t bond with the wrong elf and give him access to the power of the storm before the Elven Command allows it. Although, after what Mai told me today, that isn’t true after all.
The weight of Baelen’s gaze lifts as he turns to Jordan. “The only reason you let me into the Storm Vault today is because I have the power to command you, isn’t it?”
She gives him a stiff nod, her lips compressed into an unhappy line. She seems to remember her sword and slides it back into its scabbard.
He continues to Jordan. “Even the Elven Command can’t give you orders—is that also correct?”
“Yes, Commander Rath. Only you and the Princess can command me.”
“And what’s the punishment for disobeying me?”
“That would be treason, Commander. Punishable by death.”
He pauses. “Then… I command you to train the Princess. Each day. In this room.”
He turns in a circle, speaking to the entire Storm Command. “Each one of you will train the Princess in the skills she needs. But not one of you will speak a word of it.”
Elise’s jaw hits the floor so hard I’m sure I hear it crack. “But…”
“You too, spellcaster. Not one word.”
Jordan’s sword is suddenly nowhere to be seen. A grin breaks across her face. She appraises Baelen with a rare expression of admiration. “It will be my pleasure, Commander Rath.”
I’m suddenly not sure what I’ve got myself into.
4
When we return to my quarters, Elise is more agitated than I’ve ever seen her. She draws me to the meeting room at the end of the living rooms on the second floor and seals the room tight against listening ears.
“Princess, forgive me, but I need to know what I don’t know.”
Every bone in my body wants to pace the floor, but I draw a chair across the floor to face the glass paneling looking out over the forest and the river beyond it.
I sit. “I knew Baelen Rath when we were teenagers.”
She nods. “I know the story. You used to climb the cliffs together behind Rath land. Your mother was a servant in their House. Apparently there was a dare about who could climb highest.”
That was the story I told everyone. A child’s account that they would accept. Close enough to the truth to be believed.
I push away the images in my memory as I say, “The Storm found me there. It knocked Baelen down and he hit his head on the rocks. It was my fault because I dared him to climb in the first place.”
The beautiful green forest slips from view as I drop my head into my hands, scrubbing at my eyes. “I don’t w
ant him to be a champion.”
“Because you don’t like him?”
“Because I don’t want him to get hurt again because of me.”
There’s silence beside me. When I look up, a ghost of a smile plays around Elise’s mouth. “That sounds a bit like the opposite of not liking him.”
I swallow my embarrassment and try to cover what I just said. “Actually, it’s more like not wanting him to get killed. He’s the last Rath. I can’t have that on my head.”
“I see.” She peers at me and, for a moment, I’m afraid she’ll see through me to what lies beneath: a feeling that I’ve never forgotten, snatched moments that I’ve kept wrapped up inside my heart.
She says, “I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
“I know. But… he doesn’t seem to know the rules. I don’t know what he’ll do next.”
Given the fact that he wasn’t aware of the rule about touching me, I wonder if he knows any of the rules. Even if he deliberately avoided me all these years, he had to have heard other elves gossiping about the marriage protocols at some stage. Even the order of events on my wedding night is public knowledge.
Elise leans forward. This is the moment when, in another life, she would have taken my hands in hers—an act of comfort I can’t experience.
“I’ve been doing some research on the potential champions. The identity of the final males is kept under strict secrecy so it’s guesswork. Some I believe are obvious: Simon from the House of Splendor and Eli from the House of Elder. The others are hard to guess, but it was easy with Commander Rath because he’s the only possible champion from his House.”
“What did you find out?”
“After the storm, it took him a year to recover. He didn’t just suffer a head wound. His spine was damaged too.”
I gasp. I knew about the wound to his head because it was visible, but nobody ever told me about his spine. I clench my hands in my lap as sadness washes over me.
She continues, “The spellcasters did what they could but they were worried he might not walk again. He proved them all wrong.”
I blink away the tears in my eyes but they keep coming.
Elise reaches for me but drops her hand. She keeps speaking as if she knows that what I really need right now is for her to distract me from my thoughts.
“He spent three years at military training. For the first year, the males in the other Houses saw him as a target: an injured Rath, vulnerable for the first time. It was their chance to assert dominance. But Baelen Rath had a surprising ally.”
She’s smiling at me and I don’t know why. “Who?”
“Your brother.”
“My brother made it into military training?” For as long as I could remember, my brother, Macsen, had wanted to join military training but males from minor Houses had to work twice as hard to make it in.
“Apparently they became quite a formidable team and over time, they gathered other males from minor Houses to join them. Baelen Rath is said to have created his own loyal army there, many of whom now serve under him in the elven army.”
“I know that my marriage protocols aren’t exactly taught at military training, but still… there would have been talk wouldn’t there?”
She shook her head. “Well, apparently not. It’s said that there was an incident when another male mentioned that he thought you would…” She coughs. “Make a good wife. Well, that’s a nice way to put it. Commander Rath apparently took him to task. After that, nobody dared mention you or anything to do with you, including the protocols.”
“But after that, after military training…?”
“After he completed his training, Commander Rath disappeared. For three whole years.”
“What? Where did he go?”
“Nobody can tell me. But what I know from the brief discussion I had with his advisor is that he’s doing his best to catch Commander Rath up on what he needs to know about the protocols.”
“Then he doesn’t know any of the rules.”
“That sums it up, yes.”
I sigh. “This is dangerous.”
“That is also true. I agree that you should refresh your defensive skills, but you need to be very careful. Which brings me to the next thing.”
She stares at me pointedly. “What happened in the Storm Vault this afternoon? I’ve never seen you repel the storm like that. In fact…” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve never heard of any Princess doing that.”
I shudder. She’s right. As far as I know, Princesses don’t fight back; they simply absorb and control. I don’t know how it happened so I focus on the thing I can control—telling Elise about the storm speaking to me. Mai doesn’t want anyone else to know about it, but I can’t shoulder this secret on my own.
I say, “The rain spoke to me.”
Elise’s eyebrows shoot up. We’ve both had a lot of surprises today and I’m hoping this isn’t the one that finally destroys her calm demeanor. “What?”
“It spoke to me, Elise. But what’s worse is what it told me. It said that my husband is going to be cursed. He’s going to kill me.”
Her eyes are huge saucers and all the color has left her face. “But… that’s… no… If you die, the storm will be released!”
“I got so angry at what it told me that I fought back—and the fact that I could fight the storm shook me up too—but I need you to look into this for me. Is a curse even possible? Aren’t there protective spells cast over the protocols? If a curse is possible, could it be the gargoyles? Could it be someone in the elven Houses? Who would gain from my death?”
“Not an elf! Surely not. No, this can’t be true.”
I stare at her. “Okay, if there’s anything I need from you right now is that you have to believe me.”
She lifts her hands. “I do. I believe you. But the only ones who could gain from unleashing the storm would be the gargoyles.”
I say, “Then maybe that’s why they’re nesting close to the border. They’re preparing for an attack without raising too much suspicion.”
“That’s the most likely scenario. We have to tell Commander Rath. Oh wait…”
I shake my head. “We can’t. You’ve taught me enough about spellcasting that I know the curse could be lying dormant in all the champions and will only ignite once my husband’s chosen.”
She nods. “As a champion, he could already carry the curse and if there’s a failsafe built in, it could kill him if he finds out about it.”
“I need your help.”
“I’ll do as much research as I can, as much digging as I can. We will stop this. We have to.”
She leaves me then, racing away to her spell books. I sink into the chair. The distant forest blurs in my field of view. I didn’t tell her my own plan of attack—to fight for myself.
Nobody can know until the Heartstone Ceremony.
That way nobody can stop me.
My training begins at the break of dawn. I don’t have to go to the Storm Vault until early that afternoon so I have all morning to train. I hadn’t expected to be woken before the sparrows though.
“Good morning, Princess. Rise and shine.” Jordan pushes the lever that covers the skylight above my bed, her tall form a silhouette against the dim light beyond.
I crack open one eye. “The sun isn’t up.”
“No, but the city’s awake. The first of the major Houses arrived last night and we’re expecting three more today.”
During the week leading up to the Heartstone Ceremony, the major Houses have the right to arrive first, while the minor Houses have to wait—to the last day or even the last moment if the majors take their time. It’s all a game of strategy—get here first or wait to make an impression.
I scrub at the grin threatening my face. Baelen Rath beat all of them. I’m not sure why that makes me happy but it does. Although… there’s one rule that he did follow and that is that the House of Rath has the right of first nomination as the highest House. But approach
ing me in the Storm Vault was definitely a first.
“Which house arrived last night?” I ask.
“The House of Splendor.”
I sit up. “Splendor!” A larger grin breaks across my face. “Is Sebastian with them?”
Jordan’s serious facade disappears for a moment as a smile replaces it. The glow in her eyes lights up her face. She tugs at the end of her long ponytail, her dark brown hair a smooth cascade over her shoulder. “He’s with them.”
I bounce out of bed. “That’s the first good news we’ve had all week. It’s been too long since you saw him.” I frown at what she’s wearing. “You can’t see him dressed like that.”
She stands tall in her gray body suit. It’s lightweight and flexible—standard issue. But boring as anybody’s business. Not that Jordan doesn’t look good in even the most unflattering clothing. Constant training has honed her body to a lithe grace. She glides everywhere she goes without even realizing it.
She says, “Sebastian Splendor knows that I’m the Storm Commander. He respects my position.”
“True. But you’re a female first and he needs to see you as one.”
Her shoulders sink a little. “Until the Heartstone Ceremony, I’m not allowed to speak to any male elf. Just like you can’t.”
I grin. “That doesn’t mean he can’t see you… My training starts now, right?”
“Yes, and don’t think I haven’t guessed you’re stalling.”
I throw my hands up as I stride to the bathroom. “Does Sebastian still like to start his day with a run?”
She tilts her head. “As far as I know, yes.”
“Then I think we should too.”
“Princess?”
“Trust me. Call the Storm Command. I’ll be out in two minutes.”
I splash water over my face as soon as she leaves and pull my hair into a ponytail similar to the ones my Storm Command wear. Then I choose a simple suit of light material that matches Jordan’s: gray in color, strong but supple. I grab an apple from the fruit bowl beside the door and devour it in a few, big bites.
Jordan gave up everything when her House, Splendor, nominated her to be a member of my Storm Command, including her budding relationship with Sebastian. I’ve set myself on a course to avoid marriage, but I’ll do what I can for her to have a normal relationship. Well, as normal as it can be.