by A. Kingsley
“We got the call that we had to go back to war after years of living comfortably and training new recruits. It was a sad goodbye, but we departed. That was the war that took your father’s life and caused the problems in my leg. I'm not going into the details of that with you, but just know we did everything we could to save your father's life after his eye injury, but the weapon had hit his brain, there was nothing we could do.” Jesse placed his hands on his ears as if the bullets were firing at him and he was trying to block out the noise. “Ask your mother if you want more details than that. I had to deliver the news of his death, she pushed me away after that. She couldn’t bear to look at me. Instead of asking for my help in raising you two, or keeping me as a memory, she forbade me from entering the castle. So I ran off. Eventually I ended up here and met barmy Natalia. But, I cut her off too, I’m a curse.”
Clare took a deep breath as she processed the information. She had learned some new things and had heard some things she already knew. She looked to the boys who were silent with nothing to say and then spoke. “I doubt you’re a curse Jesse. But his parents, do you know anything else about them, anything unusual?” Her fingers began to twitch thinking about her magic and his leg, but both boys reached out to hold her hand and both looked crossly at one another. Ultimately, Cassius won and his hand held onto hers tightly.
“Yes. His mother was always an odd woman. She moved with an ease that was graceful and kind. I remember that she always had herbs in her house, but I’m sure that is useless information. There was one night that I saw a glow of blue erupt from their windows. I never knew what that was, but it looked like an explosion,” he said.
Clare leaned forward, letting go of Cassius’s hand, her eyes shimmering, “I know what that was. His mother had healing magic!” Clare was in pure delight. She finally had a lead and though her grandmother was gone, her home might have more clues. This was something her mother didn’t know, something that Clare’s grandmother had kept hidden for her own safety, Clare was dying to know why.
Jesse squinted and scratched the scruff on his face, “I don’t believe in the whole magic thing,” he said bluntly. “They say people die from it, but I don’t know, I’ve never seen it.”
Clare stood from the sofa. “If you let me come closer, I can show you. Please let me heal your leg, I promise I can do it and it won’t even hurt that much.” She extended her hand to him, hoping he’d allow her to come closer. Jesse eyed her skeptically and then looked over to the two boys who were nodding eagerly. If more people trusted her than just herself, then he didn’t see why he shouldn’t trust her as well.
‘What would Wade think if he turned his daughter away? And surely he’d like to be mobile again if there was a painless solution.’ “Fine,” he told her, motioning her forward with his own hand and patting the open space next to him.
She crossed the space between them. Her eyes flickered over to Cassius and Antoine, she could see that they both believed in her. The lessons with Natalia would help her as well. She sat herself down on the sofa, sitting rather closely to him. She showed him her hands, a sign of trust that she wasn’t pulling any tricks on him. When he nodded the signal to begin, her hands flew to his leg and she had to draw in a breath to steady herself, she wanted to look in control. She thought of the magic bubbling inside of her, but she held it in. She counted to ten to test herself and when she succeeded, she let the magic pour out from her fingers in an excess of green mist. The inside of his leg shook as the magic poured into every cell. The feeling in his leg began to slowly come back. Her hands stopped moving, but the magic kept working until a pop sound echoed and everything was back in its place. He had only felt the tiniest bit of pain when everything slid back into place.
Clare instinctively removed her hands from his leg and looked up into his eyes with hope, there was no way that he didn’t believe her now. The proof was there.
Jesse parted his lips to speak, but no words came out. They sat there in a minute of silence before he strung together the right words. “So it was magic that night at the house. Wade had no magic, I mean he was as un magical as they come. I’m not sure exactly how it got passed down to you. The Goddesses must have chosen you to be next in the family, that's the myth hmm? Or maybe it’s not, I’m not very good with this whole magic thing.” He scratched the back of his head and then shook it back and forth. “What do you want me to do about this? I don’t know much, all I can do is give you the address to that house, but I don’t work for free. I want an invite back to the castle. Gracielle has surely pissed me off, but I need to see Sage now that I’ve seen you.”
“Done!” Clare beamed, “I’ll write my mum a letter as soon as possible.”
“Right.” Jesse stood up from the sofa and when he went towards the kitchen counter, he was surprised to see that his leg wasn’t dragging behind him. He was walking with both feet, one step at a time. It was incredible and beyond anything he had ever seen, but he would never admit such a thing aloud. At the counter, he wrote down the address and slapped the piece of parchment to signal that he was finished. “Well if that will be all, please be on your way.”
Cassius frowned. “You aren’t going to offer us shelter for the night? I don’t want to pull the royal card, but that is one good reason to let us stay and another good reason is because you shouldn’t want your niece to be roaming the forest at night.”
“Okay, she can stay and head out in the morning, you two can leave.”
“I’m royalty and Antoine is with us.”
“I don’t care.”
Clare frowned, “Please Jesse?”
He must have seen a bit of Wade in her because he softened. Rolling his eyes, he agreed to their pleading. “Fine, but you better be gone in the morning, it doesn’t seem like you have time to waste anyways. I’ll see you at the castle. There’s only one guest bedroom in the place, so have it, someone can sleep on the sofa if they’d like, or both of you can. I don’t know what’s really going on in this trio even though it might have been explained to me,” he scratched his head in confusion. “Help yourselves to whatever is in that pantry, I’m done for the night.” He waved his hand to the three of them and headed back towards his bedroom. At the end of the short hall, he turned back to Clare. “Good to see you kid.”
Then he was gone, that was all they would see of Jesse for a while.
Antoine patted the sofa. “I’ll sleep on the sofa, you two can take the bed in the guest bedroom.” He stood up from the sofa and the three of them went into the kitchen.
They all pulled up a chair and took out the rest of the food that Natalia had packed them. It would have to be enough until they reached the market because Clare didn’t want to eat Jesse’s food, she seemed to annoy him enough.
Her fingers ran over the letter Natalia had written her, she hadn’t read it yet and she didn’t plan to until she was far away or she’d have the urge to go running back to her and ask more questions.
Clare ripped off a chunk of bread and bit into it with little expression. “I suppose that was successful. Magic does run in my family and we have the address to this home, but there will be no one to talk to there and Jesse didn’t seem too thrilled about my presence.”
“He was just in shock Clare, I’m sure he was delighted to see you,” Antoine reassured as he took a gulp of water.
“I’m not so sure, maybe the memories were too bad.” She looked over to Cassius who was staring at Antoine with an odd look in his eyes. She was going to kick him under the table, but Antoine had already asked him what was the matter.
“Hey you okay?” His voice was soft and had the same amount of concern that he held for any human being that he met.
“Yeah I’m okay, but you’re not,” he said before he could stop himself. Clare’s mouth dropped open and before she could recover their secret, Cassius let the words slip. “My father is sending men to execute you and I tried to stop it, but I’m so sorry Antoine I doubt he will back off.”
&nbs
p; Antoine sat back in shock, once the initial hurt flew over his head, he stood up and walked out of the door.
“Antoine!” Clare called out. She stood up from her seat, glaring at Cassius, she was back to yelling at him. “Crikey! Can you not keep your damn word? You were literally the one who said that we weren’t going to tell him. What happened to that? Now you have the poor bloke living in fear, this panic could have been avoided!” Her voice was harsh and tense, if she could have screamed at the top of her lungs she would have, but she held it in.
He held out a hand to her and she spun away from him, storming out of the door to find Antoine.
Antoine was stalking away from the cabin, his arms crossed against his chest. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he needed time to process the information that Cassius had thrown at him. When he heard Clare call out his name, his brain spun, wondering if he should keep going and he did. But when she called for him a second time, he stopped in his tracks to let her catch up to him. She was running, her feet barefoot, they were covered in dirt, her hair was falling out of the bun that she had put it in. “You won’t die, I will do my best to keep you alive,” she panted out when she was finally by his side. She stepped in front of him, scanning him up and down, as if the executioner had already killed him. “I promised didn’t I?”
“You did, but I’m not holding you to it anymore, forget your promise, forget it all. Because you are going to feel really horrible if we acknowledge that you made this promise. There is no escaping a king's wrath, believe me on that.”
“Please don’t say that Antoine, if you say that then you are creating a scenario where you died because of me. Because I was foolish and couldn’t stay away from you because part of me loves you and I don’t know how I fell that fast for you. You were just my fairytale prince on a white horse, ready to give me the romantic love story that I deserve like in the romance novels where they run through the fields and watch the sunsets together. That was you. That is you.”
It was his turn to scan her over. She was beautiful and gorgeous in his eyes. He was a fairly short man standing at around 5’6 and she was three inches shorter than him. Her hair was the color of fire and messy, pieces of her loose curls blew in the night breeze. Her face was round and soft, her cheeks rosy, her nose small and bulbish. If the Goddesses existed, he bet they all emanated Clare’s beauty, she should have been one of them. No girl or guy had ever liked him in this way. If anyone had, they had never expressed this to him. He was starting to believe that he would die before acquiring a grand love story, but now he had one of his own.
“This is going to sound silly. I don’t want to die and I have faith that we can prevent this, but if at the end of the day, if my life has to end, I would be glad that the reason was for love. I feel a strange connection to you. Is it love that I feel? If it is, I don’t want to say,” he glanced towards the cabin. “It would be disrespectful of me to do so. But if this is something I could possibly die for, would you allow me one kiss? Please?”
Clare moved closer to him and placed her soft hand on his cheek. “Of course,” she whispered. It was wrong to kiss him when the person she was engaged to was sitting inside. They were far enough in the wood’s darkness that Cassius wouldn’t be able to see them, but she knew morally that she probably shouldn’t go through with this, but she wanted to. If there was any risk that his life might be taken because of her foolishness, then her let be the biggest fool of them all. She didn’t have to go on her tiptoes when she kissed him, she leaned her head up and he bent his down. Their lips barely brushed against one another, debating, waiting. But the hunger soon took over and Clare pressed her lips firmly to his. For two people who had never kissed anyone before, they were making do. Both pulling each other deeper into the kiss, their hands trailing against one another’s skin.
Antoine pulled away for a breath and whispered something inaudible before pressing his lips back to her blush pink lips. ‘I think I love you,’ he whispered, but in a language she didn’t know, so it didn’t feel so wrong. The words were so quiet and inaudible that he hoped it would make himself less of a horrible man.
Clare seemed to understand his hidden language, his words fueled the fire to keep her lips pressed tightly to his. She never wanted to let go of the boy who lit her flame.
The kiss had lasted longer than either of them had expected it to. What was supposed to have been a single peck had turned into fiery and passionate deep kisses. Finally Antoine broke the king string of kisses and the two of them were left to stare into one another’s eyes, completely speechless. ‘What was there to say?’ This was the exact reason Erebus wanted to execute him because for as long as he lived, Clare would always want to kiss him just like this. Antoine pressed his forehead against hers and gave her lips one last soft kiss to affirm that he did not regret this, that he was sure of his actions.
“I don’t understand how either of us fell so fast,” Clare finally whispered, her forehead pressed against his. Her hands were holding onto his.
“Sometimes, the soul just connects and there is no divide.” He pulled his forehead away and rubbed his thumbs over the back of her hand. “I need to go write a letter to my family, I won’t tell them of my situation, I just want to tell them that I love them, just in case, but I have faith that we can escape this.” He placed a gentle kiss on her hand and then let her go.
“You need to go inside first, make it seem like you calmed me down and that I’m coming inside soon. Well you did calm me down, I feel more hopeful and certainly more alive. Your existence has sparked life inside of me. I’ll be sleeping on the sofa tonight in case you need me. He can’t stay mad at you forever, he seems like a harsh man on the outside, but he is hurting on the inside.”
“What do you mean? Is it the things that he has gone through with his father that have made him this way? How would you know?” She was interrupted by the light outside the house flickering off. She reluctantly broke away from their conversation, not wanting to be caught and went back inside.
Cassius was waiting for her. They moved in silence to the bedroom. “How is he?” Cassius said awkwardly. Clare had a ball of green light in her hands, she froze it in place like an orb and set it on the table while she undressed. Cassius was looking the opposite direction as she traded her traveling clothes in for a strawberry colored nightgown. She told him when he could turn around. She shook her hair around to feel light and free.
“Not well, he doesn't want to die, but I promised him that we would find a way to stop it.”
“You promised? I … never mind. Please don’t be angry at me. He would have been angrier the longer we kept it from him and I am sure the last thing you would want is for Antoine to be angry at you.”
“You’re right, but I wish we could have come upon that decision together.” She picked up the orb of light and moved to the bed that was fairly well kept. She placed the orb on her nightstand and crawled into bed. “And Cassius, if something ever does happen to him, we are going to raise hell upon your kingdom.”
He gulped. “Though I hope it doesn’t come to that, I agree. No more innocent suffering.” He climbed into bed with her and turned the opposite way. “How did you conjure that light?”
“Natalia taught me while you were getting ready,” she told him, her body turned away from him. Clare continued to keep him guessing. His life got odder every day he was with her. He supposed odd was better than what he had before.
“Goodnight Clare.”
“Goodnight Cassius.”
The dead
Jesse had not lied, he wanted them out of his home. That morning he was nowhere to be seen. His coffee mug was left empty on the table and his shoes by the front door were gone.
“He must have gone to speak with Natalia,” Clare said as she finished up her breakfast. The tension was higher than it had been the previous mornings. Cassius and Antoine weren’t speaking to one another and both of them were rather quiet when addressing her. Antoine was quiet in hope
s to hide what they had done and Cassius was quiet because he felt bad for letting the news slip the night before. Clare on the other hand was in no mood to sulk. She had woken them up early that morning, right as the sun came up, despite the lack of sleep they had gotten. Jesse had a stack of parchment on the far side of the kitchen, she took two sheets from the pile and began to write out two letters. One to Jesse and one to her mum and Sage.
Dear Jesse,
Thank you for letting us into your home. I am glad that I got to meet the man who made my father so happy. I will write to Sage and let her know that I have met you. I bet you’ll have an invitation in the mail soon. I owe you more favors in the future. I trust you to keep my magic a secret. Thank you once again.
With love,
Clare
Dear Sage and mum,
Please read this letter in private. I met papa’s mate Jesse today and a kind woman named Natalia. Please allow her access to the palace anytime that she wishes, she has done so much for me. Thanks to Jesse and Natalia I have discovered the source of my magic. Papa’s mother had magic. I was given the address to her house that is now under your name. I hope to arrive there today if it is not too far. I am elated to go home after all of this, but I won’t be coming alone. We must hide Antoine within our palace walls. Cassius let the news slip to him last night. He seemed rather upset and he has every right to be, there is a chance that they may kill him. I love you both, I should hopefully be home soon. Jesse and Natalia should be writing to you soon, please respond to them as quickly as possible. Keep up the good work at home, I’ll see you shortly.