by Kaylin Lee
I stopped in the middle of the footpath and tilted my face toward the sky. The setting sun painted a soft mixture of pink, orange, and gray on the clouds over Asylia. The gorgeous sky seemed to reach for me, and I wanted to lift my hands and dance in a circle like a carefree little girl. I kept my body still, but I couldn’t hide the smile that spread across my face as the joyful thought repeated in my head. I’m free. This was my home now—it was truly my home.
Someone bumped against me in the street, and I apologized reflexively. The woman was bone-thin and clad in dusty rags, and she sped past me without acknowledging my apology. Curiosity nudged me to follow her, and I increased my pace. Why was she so thin? Was she from the River Quarter? They had victus there too, didn’t they? An acrid smell tickled my nose. Wood smoke? I hadn’t smelled the distinct scent of wood smoke since my time in Draicia and the Badlands.
Then the woman paused and looked over her shoulder at me, her lips curved up in a smug smile.
I stopped in my tracks. “Helis?” I whispered.
She nodded and ducked into a narrow side street.
I rushed forward. Had she escaped the Wasp? What was she doing in Asylia? Did she need help? She must have just come from the Badlands.
When I rounded the corner into the alley, I skidded to a halt. My stomach twisted. Helis wasn’t alone.
“Hello, Rapunzel.” The Wasp Queen—no, Lady Drusilla—stepped forward. Her narrow face was painfully thin, her cheekbones jutting out, her lips thin and dry. Her formerly glossy, dark hair hung in ragged, gray-black clumps around her heavily lined face, but her eyes were unmistakably familiar—sharp, mocking, and all-seeing. “I told you I’d always find you, didn’t I?”
I inhaled sharply as the alley seemed to spin around me. “Where have you been?”
Drusilla only smirked. “Rapunzel, follow me and speak to no one,” she said smugly. “And Rapunzel—do no harm.”
Her will settled over me, but I flexed my True Name and shattered her commands before I took my next breath. “No.” I stretched my hand toward her. She flinched, and Helis took several nervous steps backward. “That won’t work anymore, Drusilla. And I’m not your slave.”
Her nostrils flared. “Fine. I don’t need your True Name anymore. My masters are too powerful for such child’s play.” She put her hand in her ragged cloak and drew out a small crystal vial, a glassy look coming over her eyes.
Her masters? What was she talking about? She opened the vial and flung the contents at me. I shot backward to get out of reach, but it was too late. A wave of tingling magic rushed at me, stinging my skin like sand whipped up by heavy winds. The magic faded, and a strange, crushing weight settled over me.
“You’ll come with me now, Rapunzel.” Her voice was distant and difficult to hear. “They want to meet you.”
~
We were nearly to the city’s south gate when I realized I’d been following her without protest. What had she done to me?
I opened my mouth to speak, but that painful, tingling magic sizzled around me again, forcing my mouth shut. I tried to slow my footsteps, but the sharp tingles increased their pressure and shoved me forward.
My head spun. The Wasp was controlling me, not with my True Name or her own will, but with some new, strange magic that had nothing to do with either. I’d sworn I’d never be controlled again, yet here I was, helpless and desperate.
We approached the gate too quickly. Would the guards recognize me and stop us from leaving the city? What if the same controlling power forced me to kill them too? Terror washed through me, setting my nerves on end.
A familiar man stepped out of the guardhouse by the gate, and I didn’t know whether to be thrilled or horrified. Darien was here. He must have been working with the gate guards as part of the Sentinels’ efforts to round up the last of the Blight.
He strode toward us, his crossbow raised, a look of utter fury on his face. “Get back, Wasp.” His voice was hard as steel.
But she kept walking, and my body forced me forward, the painful tingles growing more biting the more I fought it.
“I said get back!” He fired on her, but she sent a blast of magic to knock the arrow out of its path. Then she sent a gust of magic toward Darien. It shoved him violently backward, and he crashed on the ground by the gate.
Soldiers came running as he scrambled to his feet. He waved them back and ran at Drusilla again. What was he doing? Fear for him twisted my stomach into knots.
This time, when she blasted him with her magic, he dodged it by diving to the side. He corrected course and tackled her to the ground before she could gather another blast. She shrieked and pummeled him with a third blast of magic, but he held on, his arms in a vice-like grip around her neck.
A horrible screeching echoed in the street. A driverless fomewagon barreled toward Drusilla and Darien. Drusilla ignored Darien’s grip on her neck and watched the fomewagon with a wild, excited look in her eyes. Was she using her power to force it to hit them? She would be willing to die just to kill Darien?
I opened my mouth to warn Darien, but the magic forced it closed. No! Not when I had just found him!
Darien released the Wasp at the last moment and dove out of its path, but the Wasp kept her glassy gaze fixed on the fomewagon as it sped toward her. Helis shrieked and lurched into the path of the fomewagon, the same dazed look in her eyes. Two, wet thumps followed.
The fomewagon stopped, a bloody mess on the ground beneath it. My stomach churned.
Darien dragged himself off the ground and raced toward me, but when he came close enough to embrace me, he hesitated. “Zel? Are you well?”
I couldn’t answer him. The tingles had sealed my mouth shut. I sent him a panicked look and hoped he could tell from my expression that I was absolutely not well. My feet resumed shuffling toward the gate. Why hadn’t the control ended when Drusilla was killed?
Darien’s face mirrored my horror. What kind of new magic was this? And if he tried to stop me, what would the magic force me to do?
Darien looked from me to Drusilla’s corpse on the ground, indecision and worry twisting his face. “Zel …”
I shambled forward, holding my hands at my sides and hoping he would be fast enough to get away if the magic pushed me to touch him.
“Purifier!” he shouted, “Get over here!”
A young woman in a gate guard’s uniform rushed to him. “Sir?”
“I need you to remove whatever magic is controlling her.”
The purifier’s eyes widened. “But doesn’t she have the—”
“She has the Touch. I know.” Darien shook his head helplessly. “But if you don’t do it, what will the magic force her to do?”
The young purifier’s face blanched, but she squared her shoulders and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
I held my breath as she walked bravely toward me, my tottering gait closing the gap between us all too quickly. Was she walking to her own death?
“Get it out as quickly as you can, then let go,” Darien said, his voice tortured.
“I will.” She grabbed my hand and shut her eyes. The tingles urged my power to come to life and stop her, but in the next instant, the heaviness and tingles left me. The purifier mage dropped her hand and stepped back, but she kept her eyes shut. After a long, quiet pause, she looked at me. “I did it. Dismantled it. The magic is gone.”
I collapsed into Darien’s arms, drained and exhausted. “What was that?”
He held me tight. “I don’t know. But we’ll find out.”
Chapter 25
Sunlight streamed through the villa’s generous windows, filling the kitchen with warmth despite the early hour. I rinsed a bowl of brambleberries, set it on the table, and sliced the fresh honeybread Ella had brought that morning.
Ella nudged me. “Coffee?”
I nudged her back. “Do you even have to ask?”
She giggled and spun to the other side of the kitchen, her blue skirt twirling around her. Grabbing the coffee pot
with graceful fingers, she poured me a cup. “Then it’s yours.”
A knock sounded at the front door.
“Oh! That must be Wes.” Pink flooded Ella’s tan cheeks. She straightened her shoulders and smoothed her long, wavy hair until it flowed smoothly down either side of her face. She caught me watching and winked.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Go get him, then!”
“I’m going. I’m going.” She practically skipped to the front door.
The twins and I had moved into a vacant professor’s villa in the Mage Division two weeks earlier. After the chaos around the Blight’s takedown had settled and the guards around our villa had worked out a routine for visitors, Ella had finally been allowed to see us, bringing a freshly sparkling smile, blushing cheeks, and a story about Weslan—Wes—that had her and Alba squealing and giggling the whole morning.
I still struggled with the desire to protect Ella from whatever heartbreak the future might hold for them. If Darien and I could still love each other after over thirteen years of grief and pain, couldn’t I believe in a future for Ella and Weslan?
I did my best, at any rate.
Today, Ella and Weslan had a break from the committee on mage regulations, and I had a break from meeting with the professor I’d be working with at the Mage Academy. We’d all be having breakfast together—a family, of sorts.
A rough beard nuzzled the skin on my bare neck and was followed by a sigh-inducing series of kisses. “Good morning,” Darien whispered.
I leaned back against him as his arms came around me. “Good morning. I missed you.” I peeked up at him over my shoulder. “I’m not sure how much longer I can take this.”
He laughed, but the humor in his eyes was quickly replaced by desire. “Soon.” He grinned and released me as Ella returned to the kitchen.
For the past two weeks, Darien had lived in the Sentinels’ barracks. We wanted Alba to have more time to get used to him before he moved into the villa. He came to visit frequently, slipping in via the back door to help us get settled in the villa, helping us learn our way around the Mage Division and the Royal Palace. Even so, the distance was taking its toll on both of us.
Ella cleared her throat from the entrance to the kitchen. “Zel … it wasn’t Weslan.”
“Who was it?” Darien angled his body slightly in front of me.
“She says she’s from the Herald.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach. Not yet. I’m not ready. “She can come in. I knew this was coming. Prince Estevan told me last week. I just—” I broke off as goosebumps stood up on my arms.
Darien frowned. “What is it?”
“She’s writing an article about me for the Herald. To tell the city my side of the story, I suppose. What it was like, to be enslaved in Draicia, to hide in Asylia for so long. To tell them what I plan to do now.”
Darien rested a comforting hand on my back. “That’s good, then. Isn’t it?”
It was. At least, I hoped it would be. Either that, or the Asylians would be horrified that a murderer was free to walk their streets. One or the other. We’d find out soon enough which it was.
The woman who entered the kitchen was young, not much older than Ella. She smiled as she entered. “Zel? I’m Ruby Contos, from the Herald.”
Her voice was quiet and unassuming, at odds with the wild, bright red-orange curls that flowed nearly to her waist. Her skin was pale and creamy, but studded with countless orange freckles. A Westerner, working for the Herald? Her voice held no trace of an accent, but her coloring was undeniable. No one else had such odd hair and skin. I’d never seen a Westerner in person, and from the looks on their faces, neither had Darien or Ella.
She twisted a strand of red-orange hair around her fingers when none of us spoke. “I’m here for your interview.”
I nodded slowly. “Please have a seat, then.”
Darien pulled a chair out for her at the kitchen table.
“We were just sitting down to breakfast. Would you like to join us before the interview?”
“That’s very generous. Thank you.” She smoothed down her faded green dress as she sat and folded her hands in her lap.
We’d just joined her at the table when the twins’ latest squabble over their fabulator crystals reached my ears.
“It’s my turn!”
“Um, liar! You had your turn last night.” Bri entered the kitchen scowling, then stopped short.
Alba followed and jabbed Bri in the side. She flushed bright red when she caught sight of our visitor.
I sighed. “Girls …”
Darien leaned back in his chair. “Breakfast first. And you can meet our visitor. Then we’ll go together to buy another set of crystals. How about that?”
I pressed my lips together to hide a smile. He’d been planning this treat for a week but hadn’t told them yet. Stepping in to save the day was a smart move.
Bri nodded eagerly. “Thanks, Dad.”
Even Alba smiled wide enough to show her dimples. “A second set? Yes please!”
Darien was no doubt shouting for joy in his head, but he managed to keep his answering smile relatively staid.
I waved them over. “Come have a seat, girls. This is Ruby, from the Herald. She’s doing an article on me. Ruby, these are my—our daughters, Alba and Bri, and you already met my other daughter, Ella.”
Alba and Bri murmured greetings as they sat. Alba chewed on her bottom lip and appraised Ruby. “Is she interviewing us too?”
I didn’t want any information about them spread through the city, but I couldn’t exactly control what Ruby wrote about us.
Ruby shook her head, answering my unspoken question. “Not unless you want me to, Zel. I plan to focus on your time in Draicia and your work at the Mage Academy right now. I want to show the cost of the True Name system and share your experience as someone who has been … well, affected by it, for lack of a better term.”
Affected? The old anger stirred within me, but I quieted it and focused on chewing a bite of honeybread. I swallowed, the normally delicious bread dry and tasteless in my mouth. “Then let’s leave everyone else out of the article, please.”
Bri sat back in her chair and sighed with obvious relief, but Alba pouted.
“That’s fine.” Ruby took a sip of her coffee before smiling at the twins. “You know, if you’re planning to get a new set of fabulator crystals, I’ve heard they’re releasing a new story tomorrow. If you bring your old crystals to the Falconus public studio, they might let you exchange them for the new ones and let you buy the new story early. Just tell them I sent you.”
“Really?” Alba’s pout morphed into wide-eyed excitement in the space of a heartbeat. “How do you know?”
Ruby’s lips twitched. “Let’s just say I have my sources.”
Weslan joined us for the rest of breakfast, and after breakfast, Ruby and I took our coffees to the small sitting room at the front of the house. She sat in one of the soft, blue-cushioned chairs that had come with the villa, and I took the other.
Ruby pulled a thick notebook from her satchel, set it on her lap, and flipped it open to a fresh page. She pulled out a pencil and tapped it on the page for a long, quiet moment.
The silence in the sitting room set my nerves on edge. What if I said the wrong thing? Or what if I was honest, as Prince Estevan had instructed me to be, and I only made everything worse? What if, when the public knew my real story, they hated and feared me all the more?
She finally spoke. “Let’s begin with your childhood in Draicia. Where did you grow up? What was it like?” Ruby’s voice was gentle and encouraging, her expression confident.
Would she be so gentle and confident once she knew what I was and what I had done?
I took a deep breath. “I was born in the Draician slums, in a shack at the edge of Wasp clan territory.”
I spoke until my mouth was dry and my coffee was lukewarm and sour. The sun shifted through the sky, warming the sitting room until sweat covered my
back despite the soft breeze from the open windows.
Ruby wrote and wrote, nodding occasionally. No matter what I said, she never even flinched. Who was this strange, calm Western girl, so fearless and unaffected by stories of evil?
Finally, we got to the end of my story—how I’d learned to resist my True Name, prevented a bloody mage rebellion, and stopped the Crimson Blight. I told her how I was working for the Mage Academy now, and how Prince Estevan wanted me to help other mages learn to resist their True Name so they couldn’t be used as weapons as I had been.
Finally, my words ran dry. I set my tepid coffee down with shaking hands. My fingers ached from gripping the cup so tightly. I stretched them out as subtly as I could.
Ruby wrote several more things in her notebook. When she stopped and looked up, her expression was sober. “Many in the city will fear the news that a mage with the Touch is living free and uncontrolled in Asylia—a mage who has used her power to kill in the past. Are they right to be afraid? What would you say to them?”
I bit my lip, suddenly terrified. What would I say? After a lifetime of being hidden away from the world, I finally had the chance to speak my piece. Was I too much of a coward to say it?
Ruby held my gaze unflinchingly. “What would you say, Zel?” She asked again.
“I-I would say that … I would say …” I folded my shaking hands in my lap and squeezed them together. For Bri and Alba and for every young mage like them, I had to force the words out.
“I would say that I never asked to be born with the Touch. I’ve never—not once—used my power of my volition to harm an innocent person. But because of my Touch, I’ve been imprisoned, controlled, and forced to hide since I was six years old.” My voice grew firmer. “If I intentionally use my power to hurt or kill an innocent, I should face the requirements of the law and be dealt justice like anyone else. But I haven’t ever used my power that way. So why have I been paying my whole life for something I’ve never done?”
A short while later, I saw Ruby to the door. “You should see the article in about a week,” she said as she stepped onto the front stoop.