The Heart Between Kingdoms

by Mary Dublin

  "How did this happen?" Edmund's scathing demand sounded far away.

  The guards scrambled for an answer, insisting they had been their posts since sundown. More voices pooled in the landing behind him. Servants appearing to help, and others to ward off the needless bodies crowding the halls. Guards and handmaidens and a voice that might have been Esmae's from an upper stairwell.

  None of it mattered.

  With the help of the guards, Daniel continued battering the door. Every one of Avie's screams ate at him like acid.

  "Daddy!"

  Someone got a sword into the hinges and gave a tug. A shuddering crack ran through the door, and then another. Whatever darkness had sealed the door shut was weakening, he could feel it.

  "I'm here, Avie," Daniel bellowed through the gap. "I'm here!"

  Fresh chills came when he realized her next words were meant for someone else. "N-no, please! Please don't… I d-don't…"

  Daniel reared back. Angling his throbbing, bruised shoulder towards the weakest point on the door, he rammed it once more. His shout rang into the darkness as the door finally swung inward with a sharp crack of splintering wood.

  "Avie!"

  No sooner than he had staggered inside, the door slammed shut behind him. The guards' voices rang out, even more enraged. The door's latch and hinges had torn through the frame. All that held it in place now was sheer force of magic, but Daniel spared it no more than a glance.

  Aveline's bed was empty, sheets rumpled.

  A dozen small figures hovered in the room. Hands shaking, Daniel looked amongst the intruders wildly, wavering on who to target first. His daughter was nowhere to be seen. She had been screaming for him. He didn't care who they were. He would rip them all apart.

  An ax struck the other side of the door. Esmae screamed for him and Avie, but Daniel's world was reduced to one room.

  "The king joins us!" the fairy nearest to the bed declared.

  Daniel's gaze locked on Aeron Bogdan, and it no longer became a question of who to target. He lunged, only managing one long stride before familiar pain lanced through his limbs like fire and brought him to his knees. Hissing through his teeth, he refused to scream.

  "Where—is—she?" He fought to look up, vision going spotty.

  The ax struck the door again. Aeron clenched his jaw as if to hide a wince, but the madly triumphant gleam in his eyes remained. "It didn't have to be this way. You've been shortsighted, all of you. So content to believe that humans have any more right to the world than we do. You, Esmae, Maison. I've given you ample opportunity for more pleasant circumstances. Now I'm left with no choice."

  "Where is she?" Daniel bellowed with what little breath he could draw in.

  A wickedly amused smile perked on Aeron's lips. "Perhaps you didn't look hard enough." He flew lower, and Daniel wanted nothing more than to make him regret having courage in that. But Aeron wasn't looking to taunt him that way. He instead descended to the sheets, vanishing as he pushed aside waves of fabric.

  He came back up with an impossibly tiny figure in his arms. Her dark curls fell in and out of her face as she shifted blearily, half-lidded eyes landing on Daniel.

  "Daddy?" she breathed.

  Daniel's heart stopped. He should have made a grab for the both of them immediately, but he was too dumbstruck to move a muscle. He looked for any excuse to deny what he was looking at. This tiny creature couldn't be his daughter. It couldn't be.

  "A-Avie?" There was infinite rage boiling in his blood but his voice came out in a soft, shuddering whisper.

  Aeron gazed down at the five-year-old, not bothering this time to conceal the greediness of his cold green eyes. He looked at her like a cook looked at a fat, suckling calf on the eve of a great feast.

  "This isn't possible," Daniel breathed. "Y-you can't. It's not possible."

  "Maybe not before. But with her, nothing is off-limits to me. You see… I need Aveline with me now," Aeron said, calm despite the deafening panic beyond the wall. "And this is the only way. The right way. A new dawn is coming, Daniel. Every creature that breathes air in this land will see a new world in a matter of days. All thanks to this sweetling."

  Trapped, Daniel could only watch as Avie's grogginess changed to confusion as she looked around her. With every piece of furniture seen as unimaginably massive, every familiar picture on the wall a dozen times larger than life, Avie's face crumpled further and further. With agonizing slowness, it sank in what had become of her.

  When her tiny face focused on Daniel once again, her terror was complete. Any torture in the world would have been easier to bear than the way she looked at him then.

  But there was no time. Not for comfort, not for questions, not for ripping Aeron Bogdan's wings clean off his back. The final blow of the ax seemed to shake the entire bedroom. Splinters flew past Daniel's head as the door exploded from its frame and armed guards flooded inside.

  "Daniel!" Esmae was at his side first, falling beside him and cupping his face. She followed his horrified gaze and froze, questions jamming in her throat.

  Around them, the clamor of the guards halted at once. Several dropped unconscious immediately, but Daniel had no time to assess what was happening. The pressure of the magic keeping him rooted to the ground vanished. He pushed Esmae behind him and charged for the bed, only to be thwarted once more.

  Guards and knights grasped his arms and held him back. Esmae cried out, struggling against her own assailants.

  "What are you doing?" Daniel twisted around in rage at the familiar faces—familiar, expressionless faces. Everything in him threatened to give up when he saw Sir Logan, eyes distant and knowing, dragging Esmae away from him.

  The fire in him burned wilder than ever when he faced Aeron. Aveline's face was buried in his shoulder and she held him tight, as though seeking protection and comfort from him amidst the gargantuan chaos erupting around her. Aeron had his hand on the back of her head, and Daniel had the sick feeling that he was using her at that very moment to power his attack.

  "No, please!" Esmae cried, shaking as though she would fall apart while tears streaked down her cheeks. "Not my baby! Please, please!"

  "Bring her to the forest," Aeron called in a voice that was thundering for his size. "We'll be needing the source as well as the fruit."

  Daniel gave a start when he realized he was giving orders to Sir Logan. The ginger knight looked straight at Aeron and the other fairies, his face awash with the blues and golds and violets of their glows. But there was no shock. Only an unwavering obedience that moments ago had belonged to him.

  "Logan, don't!" he roared, bucking against the guards that restrained him. "Release her! You can fight this lunatic!"

  The moment Daniel managed to free an arm, Aeron was flying for the window, preventing him from making another wild grab for him and Aveline. The glass was in pieces on the carpet, leaving a gaping hole for the fairies to fly through.

  He was going to get away.

  A few of the fairies, having finished rendering the last of Daniel's staff unconscious, now flew boldly in his path with spells glowing on their fingertips. Daniel threw an elbow into the throat of the guard on his right. The man choked, gagged, and crumpled backward. The other, he used as a shield for the spells that came blazing through the air. The guard shuddered as they battered his front. His unforgiving grip on Daniel's arm went slack. Daniel shoved his body aside, ducking under the treacherous fairies to barrel ahead.

  It was only a few paces away. But by the time he reached the window, Aeron was gone, and Aveline along with him.

  "AVIE!" he roared after them. She had to know he was still here. That he was coming for her.

  He whirled away from the window and found Logan pulling Esmae to the broken door, stepping over the unconscious bodies clustered near the threshold.

  "Logan!"

  "Daniel, don't!" Esmae twisted to look past Logan's arm, her tear-filled eyes wide and beseeching. "Don't fight him. I… I have to."

&n
bsp; Daniel shook his head, striding furiously across the room. "Have to what?"

  "I'll offer myself instead—convince him to let Avie go." The determination in her voice was rivaled by terror, but the latter was in no way tempting her to back down. "Sh-she's just a baby, Daniel. I can handle myself there. She can't."

  For a moment, he couldn't breathe. Everything he loved was being torn from him, and he was helpless to stop any of it.

  No.

  "Like hell," he growled, charging for Logan. Daniel tried to get his arms around Esmae's waist, to pull her away and talk some sense into her, but the towering knight was upon him before he could get his hands on her.

  Logan shoved Daniel back fiercely, sending a fresh shot of pain through his shoulder. He ignored it and lunged again, this time aiming to attack the knight directly in a blind fury.

  "Daniel, stop!" Esmae pleaded.

  His brief glance at her was a mistake. A massive fist collided with the side of his head and made stars explode behind his eyes. He crumpled to the ground with the rest of the bodies.

  Esmae's screams of horror were the last he heard before the world vanished in black.

  The shouting in the castle was alarming enough to rouse Brennan from his restless sleep, but it was the silence that followed that was truly disturbing.

  He and Tessa were halfway up the corridor to Aveline's floor when Esmae passed beneath them, racing down the stairs two at a time with Sir Logan hot on her tail. Brennan stopped short. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called to her but she was in too much of a hurry to hear him. A lifelong instinct to keep her out of trouble tingled in his core. He was sorely tempted to follow her, but there was still the unanswered question of what she was running from.

  Sir Logan was with her. She would be safe with him.

  Tessa flinched in his arms when they caught sight of the first body lying like a fallen monument outside Aveline's bedroom. The armor of the fallen guards shimmered in the dying torchlight, casting strange glimmers and shadows on the stone walls that made him constantly think someone was moving in the corner of his eye.

  Brennan's stomach churned uneasily, flying so close over the dozen guards of the castle. There were so many. None of them stirred. He didn't need to see Aeron's face to know he was behind the attack. The air was alive with residual magic, and he could see welts rising on thick necks and arms where stun spells had been brutally received.

  Spying a head of tousled black curls and expensive evening clothes facedown in the mess, Brennan's heart plummeted to his shoes.

  Daniel.

  The sight of him sprawled out on the floor was too much to bear. Brennan sank out of the air as if gravity was swallowing him whole. He landed on the floor in front of the king's face and stared at him in utter silence. From where he stood, his friend's body seemed to stretch on for miles; enormous and powerful and dizzying to behold. Yet, he had never looked more defeated to Brennan. He was battered, badly. Blood trickled in a uniform line across Daniel's cheek, sourced from a painful looking gash on his forehead.

  "No," Brennan whispered. "No, please, he can't be…"

  Tessa untangled herself from him. Her gossamer skirts danced around her heels as she hastened over to Daniel's chin and set a hand ever so lightly underneath his nose to feel for breath.

  "He's alright!" she announced, triumphant. "He's still alive, Brennan. Only unconscious."

  Relief rushed through him, but the urgency at hand kept him moving. "So, you can put people to sleep, but can you wake him up?"

  She nodded, hurrying over to stand in front of Daniel's shut eyes. "I can try."

  "And I'll see what I can do about his wound."

  Without another word, they both set to work. Brennan hovered before Daniel's forehead, trying not to let the stomach-churning scene around him distract from his spellwork. But it was difficult to focus knowing the room was filled with humans, and even more were unconscious outside the door.

  He managed to slow the bleeding, and Tessa must have been successful too, for Daniel's deep breaths halted as he drew in a choked gasp. Brennan moved back in time to see Daniel's eyes fly open.

  Tessa wasn't as fast to get out of the way as Brennan. One of Daniel's hands dragged heavily across the carpet and seized her in an unforgiving fist. Her scream was like a cold dagger to Brennan's heart and sent him flying down to pry at Daniel's fingers.

  "Let her go! Wake up, Daniel!"

  Blinking heavily, Daniel pushed himself up halfway with his other arm, the groggy anger in his eyes becoming more alert with recognition.

  "I'm sorry," he rasped, releasing Tessa.

  She skittered back, trembling from head to toe when Brennan went to steady her. Words failed her, and she gave a shaky nod.

  Brennan squeezed her shoulder and looked up as Daniel drank in Aveline's bedroom. The floor shook severely as he made to stand. "He took her," he said, his weak voice morphing into a growl. "We... we have to go now!"

  While Tessa stumbled away from the rattling impact of each step, Brennan sped higher to block Daniel's path—what little he could, anyway. He knew very well that Daniel could swat him right out of his way if he wanted. To his relief, however, the king only tried to sidestep him twice before rocking back on his heels and grinding to a reluctant halt.

  "Take a breath, tell me what happened," Brennan said, holding his hands out pleadingly. "Did Aeron do this?"

  Daniel nodded, and the fury etched on his face twisted into grief. "It's Avie. He... h-he's done something to her."

  Brennan drifted closer. The dread simmering in his stomach grew into something ugly, the way Daniel stammered for the right words.

  "She could fit in his arms, Brennan. I didn't think it possible but he's managed it. He took her from me… And Esmae's going to bloody well hand herself over too. I have to stop her."

  Daniel's face hardened once more, and he resumed his hurried stride. Brennan tried to slow him down, if only to understand better, but this time Daniel did not stop. He brushed right past him, stepping nimbly over the last few bodies in the doorway.

  "Daniel!" Brennan called after him, but he didn't slow down. Cursing under his breath, Brennan pushed his fingers through his hair. "Find a place to hide, Tessa. I have to go after him. I—"

  He stopped short when humming wings came up to join him. Tessa winced, but there was a wild sort of exhilaration in her eyes to be in the air again. Brennan darted to grab her wrists, ready to stop her fall if her wings gave out.

  "Doesn't it hurt?" he asked.

  "A little," she admitted. "I was afraid to try, but... it's gotten better, thanks to your healing. I can feel it. I'm coming with you."

  He clutched her tighter. "Stay here. You don't have to do this."

  "What, now that it's real?" she rebuked him. "I'm going. You said yourself, you could use me."

  "Look, I'm sorry if I made you feel like you needed to take any responsibility in—"

  "If your kingdom survives," Tessa interrupted, her voice timid but determined. "do you think I could come with you for good? To live there. I-I mean, not necessarily with you. In Evrosea, I mean."

  Brennan stared and swallowed hard. "Of course."

  "Then it's my responsibility as much as yours to protect it. Besides, I won't be able to live with myself if anything happens to Avie if I stay here, cowering under her bed. I'm going."

  The corners of his mouth lifted. "To think you wouldn't have anything to do with humans just a few days ago."

  "You're right. I suppose you're rubbing off on me."

  Tessa's silvery eyes were looking up at him with a strange, glimmering warmth he'd never seen on her before. They were a sacred haven for him as both Mirrel and Evrosea seemed to be falling to pieces. What an idiot he must have looked to her, staring into them.

  Brennan snorted. "It's Esmae's fault, believe me."

  "No," Tessa murmured. "It's you."

  She took his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his. Brennan's arms betrayed
him at once, wrapping around under her wings and pulling her closer. He kissed back urgently. He'd never felt this way for a woman before; the urge to know every single inch of her, body and soul. Tessa tasted as sweet as he'd imagined. It was overwhelming, wonderful.

  And before he was ready, it was over.

  Tessa pulled away first. She rested her forehead near his and they shared a look of breathless delight.

  "More of that, if we make it back alive?" Brennan murmured.

  Tessa chuckled. "Yes. Much more."

  He took in a breath and pried her hands from his face. If he didn't get away from her now, he might lose the will to leave her at all.

  "We should go," he rasped. He looked about him, sobered by the barely-stirring giants that carpeted the cold ground. "You'll need to collect Rommen. He can show you the way to Evrosea. You're certain you can manage the flight?"

  "I've spent two years on the ground. I'm looking forward to it. And you? Where will you go?"

  Brennan hovered over the jagged edge of the window pane, watching as an inky black shape of horse and rider streaked out of the stables below.

  "Daniel," was all he said as he dove through the opening and spread his wings.

  Adrenaline pounded through Brennan's veins as the gap between him and Daniel grew smaller and smaller. There was no hope in getting him to slow down, not when he was so furious, so Brennan focused on keeping up rather than trying to deter him.

  "What do you mean she's going to hand herself over?" Brennan shouted over the wind once he was within earshot. He worried for a moment that Daniel hadn't heard over Amos' hoofbeats, but the king glanced his way as the trees began to thicken.

  "A trade," Daniel gasped. "She thinks she can convince him to take her instead of Avie—as if that madman won't take them both the moment she offers herself!"