“Clara?”
She turned to see that his eyes were open, so she bent over and placed a kiss on his cheek since both hands were occupied. “You’ve never seen me fight with dual swords, have you?” she asked.
“Clara, I…”
“Hush,” she told him, as she stood back up. “I’m not leaving your side until help comes, so don’t play the hero and tell me to go on without you. Klarand needs both of us – I need both of us.”
She didn’t know if he said anything to that, for she sprang immediately to her feet and returned to the fight against those nasty little cat-creatures. She was glad for the extra blade since it meant that she could kill two of them at once. Sure, the Fire Prince’s sword was heavier than she was used to, and she would have much preferred a pair of matched blades, but she made do with what she had.
Pretty soon she had formed a buffer of sorts out of the dead cats, buying herself a bit more time. She knelt again at the Fire Prince’s side, her stomach rolling at the gashes that marred his back, a few crossing his legs and arms, and one on his face just centimeters from his eye. She didn’t have much time, she knew, and his eyes were closed again. She covered his back, which had the worst of the claw marks, with purple water, since it contained a sort of antiseptic and didn’t sting like green water would. In her haste, it came out indigo at first, staining what remained of his shirt, but she quickly had it switched over to purple. Then she tore off her petticoat and pressed it against the wounds, hoping it would be enough.
That taken care of, she placed another kiss on his cheek and returned to the fighting.
It was hopeless. With every little monster she killed, three replaced it. Her barrier of dead cats was effective, but she knew it wouldn’t hold forever. Besides, with the Fire Prince down, they couldn’t make any more progress, and that was the whole point of fighting. They were stuck here until the beasts took her down, too, or Amber showed up and put them back in their cage. Of course, Amber might then decide to do the killing personally. One never knew with a crazy lady who could turn herself into a dragon.
She sent up silent prayer after silent prayer, hoping that she could find a way out or that, as she had told the Fire Prince, help would come. It was a slim chance, but surely the people in the Kastle knew that they had been captured by now – the Fire Prince had indicated that he’d been in that cell for at least a few days by the time he unfroze her. The location of Amber’s camp was a well-known fact. Surely someone should be coming to rescue them.
But, on that note, they could have rescued them just as easily while they were still in that cage, in which case they would have avoided these terrible cats, and the Fire Prince would not be on the ground bleeding to death.
She wished she had something with which to stop the bleeding, but her powers were water, not healing.
Her hope and energy waned by the minute, and she feared that at any moment one of the creatures would break through her defense and she would join the Fire Prince on the ground. Then, just as she was wondering if it might be simpler and better if she just let the creatures have their way, if she laid down her sword and stopped fighting, a gray-fletched arrow sprouted from the neck of the cat she was just about to kill.
One of Rich’s arrows.
More arrows rained down, and she allowed herself to finally fall back and catch her breath. A moment later, three hinequas landed around her, Kath and Rich on one, Kiona and Stephan on another. The third, Goldenwing, was riderless.
“Ah, there you are, Water Princess,” said Rich, dismounting, and taking a few moments to examine the piles of kill and pull his and Kath’s arrows out of a few carcasses. “We were starting to get worried about you.”
Clara was not in the mood for humor and probably would have attacked him if she wasn’t so tired. “Well, while you took your own sweet time coming to rescue us, the Fire Prince is injured.”
“Come now, Water Princess, we haven’t time for this,” said Stephan, dismounting. “Up on Goldenwing’s back, there’s a good girl.”
Thanks to her exhaustion and the young king’s commanding speech, Clara didn’t protest as he helped her onto the hinequa’s back. Then he and Rich hefted the Fire Prince onto Goldenwing’s shoulders in front of her, and the next moment they were in the air, leaving the horrid little cats behind.
“We would have come sooner,” said Kiona, “but the Doorkeeper said that only today could the rescue be effective.”
“Really?” asked the Water Princess. “Well, thanks for that, Laura.” She really wasn’t in the mood.
Andrew became aware of a strange pressure on his chest and opened his eyes to see that he was suspended hundreds of feet off of the ground, the golden leg of a hinequa in front of his face. Every inch of his body hurt, especially his back. That was understandable, considering the fact that he’d been attacked by that pack of etrinas turned rabid by Amber’s magic.
The Kastle came into sight below them, and they rapidly descended. Talking broke out around him, he heard the Wind Prince order a stretcher, and he was off of the hinequa’s back. The Water Princess came into his line of sight, her hand slipping into his.
“What – what happened?” he asked.
“Help came,” she said, simply.
He closed his eyes as he was carried into the Kastle and through the twisting passages, the touch of the Water Princess his only lifeline to consciousness. At last, they reached his rooms, where he was lifted onto his own bed.
The Water Princess remained at his side. Pain stretched every moment into an eternity.
“There’s only so much that healing touch can do, and mine isn’t strong,” he heard Tnika say, and he opened his eyes long enough to see that she stood next to the Water Princess. “But I’ll do what I can. I should be able to close up the wounds, at least, and stop the bleeding. I do hope he hasn’t lost too much blood. He is looking rather pale.”
“Is there anything you can do about that?” This was the Water Princess.
“I shall do what I can,” Tnika repeated. She gave some orders that Andrew couldn’t make sense out of, and he felt her fingers brush against his back. Immediately, the pain lessened. It wasn’t gone, by any stretch of the imagination, but it lessened.
“There, all closed and scabbed over,” Tnika announced. “But to be sure, we shall, of course, bandage him as well. Ah, there we go. Thank you. Fire Prince, I can’t tell if you’re listening, but can you sit up?”
Andrew found that he could, though it made him dizzy. Tnika removed his shirt and put a thick bandage in its place. Then he was given something to drink and told to lie back down and sleep. He was only all too willing to do that. They were back in the Kastle. They were safe. That was all that mattered.
One by one, people left the room until only Clara and Rich remained at the Fire Prince’s bedside.
“Well,” said Rich. “It seems the two of you had quite the adventure.”
“Yes,” said the Water Princess, fetching a sofa and pulling it up against the bed, reluctant to leave the Fire Prince, but knowing that she needed rest herself. Her muscles ached as they hadn’t ached in years, and she was about to drop. “It would seem so.”
She almost crawled in bed with him, but she didn’t want to risk injuring him further.
“But it also seems that it was good for the two of you,” Rich continued. “You are not merely playing the part of a devoted lover, and even now I see that your eye strays from him only reluctantly. Something has changed between the two of you, that’s for certain.”
“I suppose so,” she admitted. “I nearly lost him today.”
“And I guess that spending two weeks with him in a dangerous situation had nothing to do with it?” Rich prompted.
She shot up straight. “Two weeks?” she repeated. “You waited that long to come and rescue us?”
“You waited that long to escape, I noticed,” Rich answered. “Was your time so wonderful that you lo
st track of it?”
She sagged back into her chair, laying a hand over her eyes. “Oh, no, it isn’t that,” she answered. “I don’t remember any of it, until today. I – Amber, I mean, she…” Clara rubbed her arm and shuddered at the memory of the cold.
“She turned you to ice?” Rich guessed.
Clara nodded. “Andrew only freed me today. I don’t know why he waited so long.”
“Perhaps he wanted to spare you the experience of prison until he had come up with a plan for escape,” Rich suggested. “You are a lucky girl, you do know that? No one has been freed from the Dragon’s ice magic in five hundred years, and never in summer.”
“Well, I had a Fire Prince on hand,” Clara pointed out. She sighed. “It was terrible, though, being ice.”
“I can imagine so,” said Rich. “Now, I suppose I shall leave you to your nursing. He’s a lucky young man to have such a devoted Water Princess who will stand by his side, even against a pack of etrinas made crazy by the Dragon’s magic.”
Clara perked up a moment. “Those were etrinas? Abraham compared me to one the other night. At the ball.”
“It’s a fitting comparison,” said Rich with a smile. “Well, good night, Etrina Princess. Sleep well.”
Chapter 3
Andrew wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke up. He did know, however, that he still hurt – and he had the Water Princess’s hand inside his.
Shifting positions, he saw that she was curled up on a sofa, all tucked into herself save the hand that lay on the bed under his. She looked comfortable, but the frown on her face marred her normally peaceful expression. Considering the fact that she’d just come from her first real sort of fight, with her first real kill … kills, her dreams probably weren’t pleasant.
He felt her tense, and she sat straight up.
“Andrew? Are you all right?”
Andrew swallowed around a dry throat. “My back hurts.” He withdrew his hand from hers and pushed himself up and then into a sitting position. He turned to face her, closing his eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over him.
“Do you … need anything?”
“Water.”
He opened his eyes, and she was gone. A moment later, she reappeared, a wooden mug in her hand, into which she poured some water before she put it into his hand. He closed his eyes as he drank, thankful for the cool lubrication on his dry throat.
“Do you need anything else? Food, perhaps? Or, I think Tnika left some more of that tea for when you awoke, if the pain is too bad…”
He opened his eyes again and saw her standing there, hands behind her back, watching him carefully. “Sit down,” he said. “I really am fine.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but then it snapped shut and she sat down as though he’d shoved her. They sat in silence for a few moments, each staring at the other. Something was bothering her. She sat so rigidly, and her expression was that of a hunted animal.
“You fought well,” he told her, “for your first time. We didn’t have a choice. Don’t feel sorry for them, unless it’s for the fact that Amber’s magic corrupted them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t feel sorry for them. Not after … what they did to you.” Her face relaxed slightly, and she glanced down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. “But thank you.”
Okay, so that wasn’t what was bothering her.
“Clara, it’s not your fault that Amber caught us,” Andrew tried again. “I mean, at least you were suspicious of her. Just because she froze you first, it doesn’t mean it’s your fault.”
She sighed. “I know. I mean, if I had been paying attention, she might not have gotten me – but then, maybe she still would’ve. She’s just so tricky. I’d been talking to Laura just before it happened, and she surely must have known that Amber was about to capture me. I mean, she knows everything else about us, it seems. I guess it was inevitable, or else she would have warned us. It’s just that … I almost lost you.”
Andrew slid off the bed, and immediately regretted it, thanks to the wave of dizziness that washed over him. The Water Princess let out a gasp, and he felt her hand on his arm as she helped lower him onto the sofa she’d been sitting on.
“Are you all right?” she asked, panic edging into her voice.
“Just dizzy,” he answered, forcing his eyes open. She hovered over him. “I probably lost a lot of blood today. That’s why. But I do think that I’ll live.”
“Yes,” said she. “Tnika said something like that, I think.”
Again, awkward silence. Andrew closed his eyes, as her hovering was a bit … frustrating. “Sit down,” he told her.
He half-expected her to protest, but the next moment, she was seated next to him, one hand over his.
“I’m alive,” he repeated. “Clara, it really could have been a lot worse. You don’t have to worry. You fought brilliantly, I’m sure, and then … how exactly did we escape?”
Her voice relaxed with that question. “Kath, Rich, Kiona, and Stephan came with some hinequas and got us out of there. Apparently, Laura told them to come today. Were we really in Amber’s clutches for two weeks?”
“Yes,” Andrew admitted. “We were. I suppose I could have unfrozen you sooner … but I guess it’s just as well, since help didn’t come until today, and Amber was only just starting to get bored of us. I think she wanted us to escape. She left us all the tools to do so.”
“And it probably would have been a bit awkward for the two of us to be in that cell,” she added. “Oh, no offense to you, of course,” she hastily amended. “But…”
“I understand,” he answered, not looking at her. “I think that was half the reason I wasn’t trying to find a way to unfreeze you. As much as I hated seeing you frozen, I couldn’t stand the thought of you facing Amber’s taunts every day, and I knew that you probably didn’t want to be alone with me in that situation. So, I guess, it’s just as well.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she added, but didn’t venture to continue the topic.
“Clara, what’s bothering you?” Andrew finally stated, turning to look at her. “You haven’t really been acting like yourself since I unfroze you.”
“If by acting like myself, you mean belittling you every chance I get, bemoaning my fate, and all around not acting like the Water Princess I promised to be, I suppose not,” she answered, sharply. Then she added a gentler, “I – I should hope not.”
“What do you mean?” Andrew asked.
She took a deep breath, the topic clearly painful to her. “Ever since I met you, I’ve been resisting you and looking for every excuse to not like you. Thing was, the more I searched, the better I got to know you, the more I realized that you were the type of guy I could love and that I was starting to. And for that, I started to hate you. I had my plan for my life, and even though I’d agreed to let Klarand barge in on it, I was resisting having you there to help me. And I need you, desperately.”
“So, you…” Andrew wasn’t sure he quite understood.
“That was what Laura and I were talking about right before Amber froze me,” she continued. “She told me about the future – our future. Mostly in riddles, but she said that if we kept holding each other at a distance, we’d never win, since we could only win together. I still don’t know what she means by that, and I know you really don’t care for me yet, but…”
He didn’t let her get any further. He caught her by the shoulder and pulled her closer to him, his other hand digging into her hair as he pressed his lips against hers. She seemed surprised at first, but didn’t resist.
Clara had never dreamed of falling in love at a mere sixteen, but as the Fire Prince pulled away from the kiss, the warmth in her heart told her that she didn’t regret it. She also hadn’t planned on basically becoming a queen, so she was infinitely glad to have a Fire Prince at her side.
“So, you don’t mind?” she asked, smiling giddily, her arms still around his neck, though she was mindfu
l of his injured back.
“No,” he answered, and he was smiling, too. “I – I think I’ve loved you ever since you risked your life for all of us on those trapeze bars.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh. Well, I don’t remember when exactly I started to love you. To quote Mr. Darcy, I was too far in it before I realized that it had begun. I can say for certain that it wasn’t when I saw your beautiful grounds at Pemberley, though.”
He was laughing, pulling her closer to him. She thought she might kiss him again, but a thought cut through and, instead, she pulled away from him and perched herself on the arm of the sofa.
He blinked and stared up at her, the laughter dying. “Clara…”
“Oh, I love you, Fire Prince,” she assured him, her cheeks growing warm. “You’ve won my heart, and I’ve promised to love you until the day I die, but … we’re only sixteen.” She folded her hands awkwardly in her lap. “I just thought that we ought to take things slowly.”
“Oh,” he said, looking a bit disappointed.
She leaned forward and took his hand. “I’m not saying that I don’t love you,” she assured him. “I’m just saying we should probably hold off on the physical stuff, for a little while at least. We’re only sixteen. I know that it’s acceptable in Klarand, and girls married this young all the time in old days back in our world, but I still don’t feel quite ready.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. “I guess so,” he said. “I guess I don’t want to rush things, either. I just … got caught up with you in the moment. Which is all the more reason for us to not rush.”
“Besides,” she continued. “We have a war to focus on. How about this? We’ll save our next kiss until Amber is out of Klarand. It’ll give us something to look forward to.”
“Fair enough,” he said, nodding.
Silence hung heavily between them for several minutes after that, each absorbed by their thoughts. He stared ahead, half-smiling, and she wondered if he’d forgotten that she was still sitting there, watching him. He was just so … adorable. She truly was so very lucky to have him.
Water Princess, Fire Prince Page 38