Lane’s voice was triumphant as she called out to the people, “Do not be afraid of your own voice, Avalon! See the good you can do, if you only work together. Remember who you are, and don’t let Morgan take that treasure from you! It’s because of you that the Lost Princess lives! Master Kerdik gave me a Jewel of Good Fortune, but you are the thing that shines brightest!”
I shuddered against Draper like a cornered animal as the cries grew to deafening heights around us. Lane was born to rule a nation. I was only just beginning to understand how much she’d been holding herself back.
“I’m here,” Draper promised again as we continued forward.
“Look on your daughter and see how black Morgan le Fae’s heart is! This is what she does to her own daughter, her own flesh, her own blood. What more would she do to you, if it served her purpose?”
The crowd cheered and jeered, and then commotion started to splinter as a horse galloped toward us. I heard Damond, Draper’s younger brother, calling out to Lane. “Wait! Wait, Aunt Elaine. I’m coming with you! I’ve brought many from Province 2 who want their freedom from Duke Henri and from Morgan. Can we come with you?” It always made me sad that Uncle Henri had the kind of relationship with his kids that warranted them using his formal title, instead of simply calling him “Dad”.
Draper gripped me so tight, I was certain I would have finger-sized bruises on my thigh. I could tell he didn’t want Damond making such a public separation from their father and risking his wrath, but he said nothing, letting Damond make his own choice.
I didn’t need to see to be able to feel the smile in Lane’s voice. “Anyone who wants freedom from Morgan la Fae can make their new home in Province 9. Province 4 has already merged with us, making us all a stronger front against the enemy. Welcome to your new life, Prince Damond.”
Clean Start
The procession to Province 9 stretched on through the night, while the ceaseless rain beat down on our heads. Hundreds of thousands of people packed up their meager belongings and marched with us out of Province 1 and into the quickly healing Province 9. I was offered bread, nuts and apples from fellow travelers, and tried not to chew like a wild animal as I choked down the few bites I was allowed. Remy was strict in only permitting me small amounts, so my delicate stomach didn’t revolt. When Draper’s arms started to shake, he handed me to Madigan, who shot Bastien a look of brotherly determination that he would get the job done, no matter what. People were so kind as to offer us their wagons for the journey, but Lane wanted my devastation visible, since it clearly showed Morgan’s shriveled heart.
My eyes were given grace by the nighttime sky, and when the sun rose in the east, my vision was starting to adjust to the intrusion of light. Madigan hadn’t said a word to me the entire time, but kept his eyes on the path until his arms began to spasm. “I need a break.”
Remy, Link and Draper all volunteered, but Bastien had had enough. He smacked Demi’s skull into Link’s hands, wiped his palms off on his pants and arrested me from Madigan. “I’ve got you,” he promised.
“P-people are watching,” I warned him.
“I don’t care. No one carries my girl over the threshold but me. We’re not far from Lane’s mansion now. Don’t worry. I won’t kiss you in public. They’ll just think I’m your Guardien. It’s my job to keep you alive and safe.” His voice wavered. “I failed you, Daisy. I was so turned around. I thought the jewels mattered. You matter. I never should’ve left you alone with Morgan.”
“I’m alive,” I assured him. “You saved us.”
“You’re too thin. I’m afraid I’ll trip on a rock and break all your bones.” He closed his eyes for a brief handful of seconds, and I watched the rain drip through his lashes. “She starved you?”
I nodded slowly, the movement achy, but worth it to not have to stretch my raspy vocal chords with words.
He leaned his head down and whispered, “I love you. From this moment on, it’s you and me. I’ll take better care of us.”
I snuggled closer to him in response, feeling right in his arms. I hadn’t felt safe in so very long, but something told me that with Bastien nearby, the solace I craved wouldn’t be completely out of my reach. He carried me without anyone else’s help straight into the Ninth Province.
The housing here was mostly long stretches of two-story apartment buildings, broken up by a smattering of single-family huts. While one might see a roof over their heads and leave well enough alone, that wasn’t my Lane. She had flare, and there wasn’t any point in trying to hide it. The apartments were multicolored, the outside brick walls going for teal in stretches, then lavender, and then red. Each color had its own set of balconies on each door: the teal had curly wrought iron gates on the balconies and porches, the lavenders were more straight and straight, while the red part of the building went for a minimalist look, with lower railings painted blue to add a pleasant accent. “Amazing,” I rasped.
“See that there?” Draper pointed to a plaque that seemed engraved onto the outer walls where each new color began. “That’s where the artist marked their portion, along with the year it was painted and designed.”
My mouth fell open, confounded that architects were given the freedom and nobility to sign their works of art. “It’s gorgeous.”
“It is. Lane wants the people to make this land their own, which is exactly how it used to be when she ruled decades ago. It’s part of why they love her so much; it’s not her province, it’s ours.”
Morgan’s stone castle was far larger than Lane’s. Hers was more the size of a roomy mansion, and far less hostile. The interior stone walls had been painted white and beige to make the place feel more chipper and less like an enormous dungeon, as Morgan’s had been. There were even flowers etched in red, green and yellow along the crown moldings, making the whole place seem whimsical with its loveliness. The ceilings were tall and vaulted down each hallway, showing off the majesty of the building without seeming pretentious.
Bastien didn’t part from me when we reached what was apparently supposed to be my new bedroom. He showed me the mahogany bed with four tall posts that had emerald curtains hanging between them. There were matching swirls painted along the baseboards of the walls, glittering up at us as if to announce that magic lived here, and this place would give me pleasant dreams.
Even after Remy ordered the servants to fill the ivory bath tub with warm water to scrub the filth and dried brains off me, Bastien still didn’t let go. He shot Lane a look of warning when she argued that she could help me bathe. “I’m done assuming she’ll be there whenever I turn my back. I’m through taking chances with her life. I’m not leaving.”
The two went back and forth until I gave Lane a small nod to let her know I was okay being naked in front of Bastien. “Okay” might be a stretch, but it was more like I couldn’t let go of him if my life depended on it. The insane part of me worried that the second he was out of my sight, I’d find myself back in the well, hoping anyone would come and rescue me.
The two were careful with my fragile body as they lowered my emaciated form into the warm water. Lane had a steady, reassuring voice, but tears in her eyes as she scrubbed my back. “This is your new bedroom, baby. You like it?”
I looked at her, my eyes haunted and vacant. I wanted to put on a brave front for her, but the well had stolen my stellar acting abilities. “Kerdik hurt me,” I said, as if this was an appropriate response to what she’d asked.
Lane moved to my right arm with the soap, going over the skin four times before the filth was removed. “I know, sweetheart. Bastien told me everything. Kerdik’s a very powerful warlock, but he doesn’t know how to be a friend. He spends his too-long life alone, which isn’t good for anybody. He doesn’t have those normal filters most people have. We learn to take turns, to share, to listen, to be understanding. He doesn’t have much practice with that. Plus, he’s got too much power for a person with so little self-control to be able to handle. He’s a two-year-old driving a Ma
ck truck.” She lowered her voice. “Kerdik is not your great adventure. You are your greatest adventure. Never forget that.”
I went back to staring vacantly, my brain taking its time to chew on the information. I kept losing my focus, my mind skipping all over, and landing on a fog of nothing. Lane passed the soap to Bastien, who washed my left arm with great care, as if he expected the bone to break if he scrubbed too hard. “I can’t believe Morgan didn’t even feed you. I thought I got how awful she was, but starving her own daughter? What did she expect would happen?”
“She wanted my ring. One of her guards tried to yank it off me, and somehow the ring killed him.” My eyes flitted over to Bastien. “I didn’t kill him. I’m a vegetarian. I don’t kill people. It wasn’t me.”
“I know, honey.” He kissed my filthy forehead, and something about that simple act made it dawn on me that I wasn’t too much of a mess for Bastien. That revelation sunk deep inside my heart, to be digested later.
I blinked twice. “Dead quails.”
“Huh?” Lane asked.
“Once a day, Morgan would throw down a dead, defeathered, raw quail on me to eat.”
Lane hung her head. “Oh, baby. You could’ve eaten it. No one would’ve thought anything bad about you breaking your diet in those circumstances.”
Slowly, my head craned to face Lane, and I saw the hurt there. “‘Know who you are.’ I wasn’t about to change myself for Morgan.”
Lane hung her head in self-loathing. “I instilled that in you to make you stronger, not to push you closer to death. Rosie, you should’ve eaten the quail.”
I shook my head, firm in my conviction. “‘Know who you are.’ Now I’m sure she can’t break me.”
“Yes, but she broke me! If you’re hurting, it destroys me, baby.”
“I’m not hurting.” I stared vacantly ahead, not caring that I was filthy, naked, and that my body was protesting my very existence. “I don’t feel anything.”
Lane’s arms were gentle as they wrapped around me, scared and protective. “I need you to be alive.”
“Know who you are,” I told her. “We always have that, and we have each other now. Morgan can’t touch what’s inside of us.”
Lane gulped, scrubbing the dried brains from my knees. She turned to retch a few times, so Bastien took over. His firm hands didn’t tease or play around; he washed me from head to toe like a pro. Then a fresh steel tub was brought in, and I was scrubbed all over again with non-brain water.
When I was finally clean, Remy was brought in to treat my fungus and pus-riddled cuts. He gave the pronouncement that yes, I was dehydrated and nursing too many well-borne infections, and that duh, I needed food, water and rest.
Lane wrapped me in a pink velvet robe, tying the belt around my thinned waist. Then Bastien carried me to the enormous bed that had to have been bigger than a king-sized. I was used to sharing a bunk bed with Judah, so the luxury felt like sleeping on my own personal island. The mattress was somehow both firm and fluffy, and the sheets were soft and buttery, cradling my skin as if it hadn’t been in the bottom of a well for over two weeks.
“I’m haven’t been sleeping,” I informed them, my grammar taking a vacation. As the days had stretched on in the well, I wasn’t even granted the mercy of sleep to pass the unending hours, since there were no animals to wear my magic out.
“I can fix that.” Lane wiped her tears away and poked her head outside. “Can you go get the animals?”
Draper came in with a tray of food and a face I hadn’t seen in too many months. Reyn was thinner, his cheeks sunken in and his smile pinched. “Reyn?”
He cleared the distance between us and leaned over the bed to hold my hand. “Rosie, I’m so sorry I couldn’t go with them on the search party to find you.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my tone making it clear I wouldn’t tolerate skating around the elephant in the room anymore. I’d known something was wrong with Reyn when Bastien had offered to give him a magic transfusion back at Draper’s whorehouse.
“That’s a story for another day. It’s quite harrowing, and I’ll want you fed and rested so I get the loudest gasps and most thrilled reactions from you.” Even in his weakened state, Reyn was still charming. You couldn’t not love a guy who tried to lighten the mood when the topic of his own mortality was brought up.
Bastien shifted me to lean against the headboard. It was rich, deep-colored wood, and had angel wings carved in it. Not angels themselves, just the wings. I couldn’t decide if it was artsy and dark, or whimsical and beautiful. Either way, I was grateful not to be in the well anymore. Reyn and Lane pulled the sheet and comforter over my lap, the two of them working in perfect synchronicity to tuck me in. For the briefest of moments, I had the surreal feeling of being their child – not just Lane’s, but Reyn’s as well. Their eyes met over my body, and they shared a sweet smile of togetherness that warmed my fragile insides.
Draper shifted the tray on my nightstand, and made himself comfortable on the edge of the bed. He gave me a reassuring smile as he popped something that looked like a green grape into my mouth. It tasted like oranges and strawberries, but had the grainy bite of a pear. “Whoa. What is that?”
The corner of Lane’s mouth drew up. “It’s a frai. They haven’t grown here in decades, but a month of the gem being where it should, and the bushes are already sprouting again.”
Draper fed me dozens of frai, and I let him do it without protest, while Lane took her time brushing the knots from my hair. I drank water, ate a few pieces of bread and a handful of nuts before Remy returned and ruled that was all my stomach could handle for now. I wasn’t sure if I was still hungry or not; the shock was still rolling through me. “Am I in the well?” I asked my brother.
Draper blinked at me, looked at Remy, and then produced a brave smile. “Nope. You share a house with Mom and me now. How it should’ve been all along.”
I heard Link and Madigan shouting in surprise down the hallway, and stiffened against the headboard. “Don’t worry,” Draper assured me. “We’re safe here.”
When Damond came in, he brought a sight with him that was too wonderful to be real. My squirrel I’d snuck down here from life in Common was riding on my baby bear’s back like a cowboy. Only Abraham Lincoln wasn’t tiny anymore – he was a mid-sized bear. I didn’t hang out with many bears in my world, and didn’t realize how quickly they grew. Or maybe the growth spurt was an Avalon thing. “Hamish? Abraham Lincoln?”
“Mommy!” Abraham Lincoln cried, letting out a loud roar that brought Mad and Link into the room with their weapons drawn.
“Come here, guys. I missed you.” I didn’t have enough moisture to spare for tears, but my heart cried all the same. “You didn’t come with me,” I accused my bear, remembering back to when he’d decided to wait it out for Bastien in the Lost Village so many lifetimes ago. “I needed you guys. You’ve been here with Lane?”
Hamish jumped from his perch on Abraham Lincoln’s shoulders straight onto my lap. He scampered up my body and sat on my shoulder, giving my face a squeeze. He started in on his adventures, including a harrowing story of him standing up to one of the two-headed pit bulls. His recollection was far different than Abraham Lincoln’s, but I let Hamish paint himself as the hero he’d always pictured himself.
Mad and Link watched the exchange warily while Remy started his examination. The Éireland Untouchables reluctantly agreed to leave the room with Draper, Damond and Reyn when Remy needed to take off my robe so he could re-salve the cuts from Kerdik’s ice prison. Apparently, they had become infected in the well, and that required two different kinds of salve that had to be applied five minutes apart. There was also a fungus on my toes and fingertips that required a different kind of medicine, which actually worked quite quickly. I could feel the grayed areas fizzing the moment the cream was rubbed in. Remy wiped it away, and a good ninety percent of the fungal growth was gone.
I couldn’t follow Hamish’s lightning speed chatter, t
hough I tried my best while Remy worked. I caught the highlights, which was all my mind could latch onto with the holey net I had to work with. When he realized I wasn’t talking back much, he brushed my cheek with his tail. “You don’t look so good.”
I didn’t have the strength to bravely reassure him that I would be okay. Hamish seemed to understand, and took up residence on my shoulder, wrapping his tail around the nape of my neck to warm my skin. I couldn’t seem to hold onto my body heat. “Thanks, Hamish. You’re a good friend.”
I was startled to find Remy writing things down and handing the note to Lane. I hadn’t heard his thoughts until they broke through my foggy brain however long after the examination was already done. Then he turned my head so he could look into my eyes, testing their focus. “I can’t tell anymore. I’ve been talking to you this entire time, but you’re not answering. Can you hear me?”
I stared at him a few beats too long, but then gave him the relief he needed when I finally nodded. “I don’t feel so great.”
Bastien helped fashion my robe around me after Remy finished working his medicinal mojo. He tugged the comforter up over my lap and tried to rub a little friction into my spine to warm me.
Remy exhaled, as if he’d been worried we’d somehow lost our special connection. “I know, Princess. I’m shocked you’re upright at all, after everything. I think it’s time you got some rest.”
“Morgan’s not just going to let this go. She’s not going to leave me alone.”
Remy thumbed my chin sweetly. “That’s for us to worry about. You’ve restored enough kingdoms for now. It’s time the warriors rest, and you, my dear, are the bravest of warriors.”
I didn’t have a response, so I simply blinked at him. “Demi. See what you can do for him.”
Stupid Girl Page 3