Seeing me, he grappled with the knife at his side, but his hands were shaking and slick with his own blood, and the weapon fell uselessly to the ground.
“Kill me, go ahead!” he cried out, his voice raspy with pain.
He was fading. Too late for Fairy dust. I’d seen death enough to know what it looked like. The pale face. The rigid body. The glazed eyes. I kicked the knife away from him and pressed the tip of my sword into the man’s neck. Disgusted with myself, with him, with this entire realm. By the god’s I was tired of war.
“We were only trying to get home. You brought this on yourself.”
He grinned through bloodied teeth. “And where might home be? The world is in turmoil, my friend. No one has a home anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Shay asked, suddenly beside me.
“Haven’t you heard?” He smirked up at us. “Acadia and Cashel have been at war for a year now.”
“A year?” Shay whispered.
“You’re lying,” I snapped.
Yet, I couldn’t deny the wavering uncertainty that whispered down my spine. The cold sense of dread that chilled my body. A year. Could it be? Had a year gone by since we’d entered Iduna’s land?
He coughed, blood dribbling down his chin, splattering across his shirt. “A year ago, the Prince of Cashel and Princess of Acadia disappeared.” He took in a deep, rattling breath. “Each kingdom blamed the other. They’ve been warring ever since. You don’t have homes to go back to. There. Now you owe me. Do it.”
I knew what he wanted.
“My god,” Shay whispered. “Do you think it’s true?”
“There’s only one way to find out. Turn around.” Confused, she hesitated only a moment, then finally turned. The man met my gaze in acknowledgement. Despite what he said, I didn’t owe him anything. Still, I wasn’t one to let a person suffer. I lifted the sword high. With all my strength, I swung it down. The blade sliced through his neck with a sickening crunch.
Shay gasped, but didn’t dare turn around to face us. She knew what had happened. Pale, she stared wide-eyed at the woods across from her.
I swiped the blade clean on his shirt, and then started across camp. “Come on. It’s time to leave and uncover the truth.”
Chapter Sixteen
Shay
I didn’t want to admit it, and I certainly didn’t want to show it, but I felt differently toward Mak after he’d killed the man. The shock and horror of it all had hit me like a sledgehammer, taking me down, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get back up.
“Did you have to kill him?” I whispered.
I still felt connected to him like I’d never felt connected to anyone before. But it opened my eyes; made me realize there was much more to him than even I realized. To know that he was capable of taking a life…
But then I had known that already, at least in theory.
He brushed aside a branch as we followed the path through the trees. “No, I didn’t. But he was suffering, and he was dying. It was merciful.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Could I be so merciful? I doubted it. I slid him a glance. Did it bother him in the least? He’d been so cold since last night and the wolf attack. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was thinking. It was as if he’d built a wall between us, wanting to keep his distance.
Mak was capable of taking a life.
How naïve I was. He’d been to war, he’d led armies. Of course he’d killed people. As much as I’d gone through, I was innocent in the ways of death. The charming rake, was actually a charming murderer. I pushed the disturbing thought aside.
Seventeen.
Was I truly seventeen now?
“She kept us there on purpose,” I added, trying to change the subject, and the way of my thoughts.
Mak’s gaze didn’t even flicker in my direction as we made our way through the trees. I swore he was as anxious as I, just better at hiding it. How could he not be worried? A year. A whole damn year. Was it true? Had an entire year gone by?
Yes, the word whispered through my mind.
I believed it.
I couldn’t say exactly when it had happened, but I swore the farther we traveled down the mountain, the more the air shifted. Heavy, stale, suffocating…with desperation? Death? Is this what war felt like? The lightness and freedom I’d experienced with Queen Iduna was long gone. Hell, maybe I’d imagined the peace.
Or maybe the heaviness I felt was just the change in atmosphere, the lower in elevation we hiked. I glanced through the dark forest, searching the shadows for life. Despite the greenness of summer, everything seemed gray.
But the change in elevation didn’t explain the stillness. It didn’t explain the lack of energy I’d felt in those mountains. It was quiet. Way quieter than a forest had a right to be. No furry mammals, no chirping insects, no singing birds. What were those trees waiting for? What were they trying to tell us? What had happened here, within these shadows?
Mak, too, must have felt the shift for he was watching, constantly watching as if looking for clues. There was a stealthy eagerness to his pace that told me he was desperate to get home, to prove Crimp had been lying and we were not at war. But then what? What would happen when we reached the fields I could peek through the trees below? Would we go our separate ways? Pretend as if there was nothing between us?
Or, would he hand me over to his uncle? Was this all part of his master plan to trap me? I frowned, hating the way of my thoughts. I didn’t want to mistrust him.
“Who kept us where on purpose?” he finally asked.
“Her.” The scenery didn’t look that different. The trees were there, the sky still blue, the grass green. But I could sense an imbalance that hadn’t been here on the way up these mountains. Or maybe, just maybe, it was my powers that made everything seem odd. “Queen Iduna. She kept us in her kingdom on purpose. I know it.”
Powers.
Just the word made me want to laugh. As if I was some superhero sans cape. Yet, I couldn’t deny the strange energy I’d felt when those wolves had attacked. An energy that had flared to life the moment I’d stepped back into this world.
He brushed aside a branch. “Perhaps.”
His wound hurt, I could tell, although he didn’t show it. I pressed my lips tightly together, frustrated. Did he not see the importance in my statement? Queen Iduna was either trying to protect us, or screw us over. “To protect us?”
“Maybe.”
His curt, one-word answers were getting annoying. The old me would have been happy with the silence. But I wanted to talk about something, anything. I wanted to forget what had happened in Queen Iduna’s land. To forget what had happened last night with the wolves. And to forget that it was all my fault. If I couldn’t get him to talk by being polite, I’d try another way.
“What’s she like?” I asked boldly, as we followed a deer trail down a hill.
“You met Iduna. You know as well as I.”
I didn’t know why I pushed it. His upcoming marriage was none of my business. Yet, the words slipped out. “No, your fiancé.”
He finally looked at me, the surprise evident in his gaze, even as the shadows of the forest played across his handsome face. Surprise, and yes, he was as uncomfortable as me. Did he notice my heated face? Of course he did. I sounded like a jealous girlfriend.
He finally turned back around and continued down the path. “Don’t know. Never met her.”
I laughed. “You’re joking.”
He didn’t look like he was joking. With a grunt, he turned left. I scurried after him. Obviously, he didn’t want to speak about his love life, or lack of. Too bad. Because he’d kissed me in that field. Kissed me again in Queen Iduna’s land, unless that had been a dream.
He couldn’t kiss me, stir up all sorts of weird, unwelcome emotions, then go about his merry way as if nothing had happened. Breathless, I made it to his side. “You’ve never met your fiancé?”
His hair was longer, I realized, as he raked his fingers
through the strands. Longer and more disheveled, giving him the appearance of a sexy pirate. All he needed was a parrot, eye patch and peg-leg.
“Do you jest?” he asked. “We just found out we’ve been gone a year and you want to know about my fiancé?”
“So, you believe it? You do think we’ve been gone a year.” I tilted my chin high, refusing to be embarrassed. He wasn’t going to shame me. I wanted answers. Needed them. “As far as your fiancé is concerned, if we’re going to work together, I need to understand who your allies are.”
Yep, that seemed legit. I sounded quite casual. Not the jealous wannabe girlfriend at all.
He raised a brow as if he saw through my ruse. “It was an agreement between my people and hers.”
How cold he sounded. Feeling slightly uneasy, I slowed my pace. “So, you’re saying it’s not my issue to deal with? I don’t agree.” He started forward once more, as if to dismiss me, and I was forced to quicken my pace. Lord, would they expect me to marry someone I didn’t know, didn’t love, merely to gain an ally? “Do you want to marry her?”
“She’s known for her beauty.”
Ugh. I glared at his broad back. I wasn’t sure which annoyed me more: her supposed beauty or his shallowness. Maybe everything I’d originally thought about him was true. Maybe he’d been better, more caring in Iduna’s realm only because of the magic.
“But,” he shrugged, “I honestly never really thought much about it. It was an agreement made when we were still infants. Something I’ve always known would happen, whether I wanted it to or not.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I had to stop myself from stomping my foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Do you not see that?”
Was I angry because it was unjust, or because I was jealous?
“It’s done in many royal families, Shay. It’s how we live. If I marry into her kingdom, and she into mine, we…”
He paused, his gaze narrowed, troubled.
“What?” I knew I felt angrier than I should. Hell, maybe I was jealous. Or maybe I was angry that he hesitated to share his thoughts with me when I believed we were friends. Or maybe, probably, it was both of those and more. “So then, together you’ll be more powerful than Acadia?”
He blinked himself back into the present. “Something like that.”
A field lay before us, but we didn’t dare enter that clearing, to stand vulnerably out in the open. Not if there truly was a war going on. The weeds were overgrown, but they weren’t unmanageable. We were getting close to civilization, but all I could think about was what he’d said. His comment was more than troubling. “Guess you don’t need an agreement with my people then.”
He finally faced me, his gaze piercing. “It’s not like that. There’s no reason why we can’t still make a pact.”
“You think I’ll make an agreement with you and your fiancé’s kingdom? You think I’ll allow that unbalance of power? Two kingdoms against one?”
I was completely aware that I sounded like a child bordering on hysteria. What was wrong with me? Hell, I wasn’t even sure. I was spewing out words like I understood pacts and treaties and kingdoms. As if I knew anything at all about being a leader.
“This is something we can discuss later.” He frowned, annoyed. “We don’t need to decide anything—”
“What about the girl you supposedly loved? The Acadian?”
I didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched. “That was a mistake.”
My fury mounted. Being in love was a mistake, but making a pact with a woman you’ve never met was fine? “How can love be a mistake? Unless, she broke your heart?”
“No. I broke hers.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. There was no emotion on his face. No sense of guilt or despair or shame in his eyes. “How?”
He gave me an annoyed look. “You want to know the truth? She fell. I had to watch her die. I might have been able to save her, but I didn’t. Instead, I saved myself. So, there you have it. Every one of my secrets and misdeeds. Happy?”
I felt ill. Surely there was more to the story. “You didn’t…you wouldn’t…”
“Wouldn’t I?” He stepped closer. “You seem to think you know me, Shay. You don’t.”
His words were like a slap to the face. Meant to hurt. To put me in my place. I stepped back, placing the distance between us that he obviously desired. “Fine. If this is the way you want it.”
His gaze was so cold, his face so hard, I barely recognized him. “Want what, Shay? What is it that you think we have here?”
My heart squeezed painfully in my chest. He wasn’t just out to put distance between us, he was out to hurt me. “Nothing, Prince Makaiden. We’re nothing but enemies, trying to get home so we can destroy each other.”
I started around him, intending to follow the perimeter of the woods. No one had to tell me twice when they didn’t want me around. I had learned early on to never, ever let anyone hurt me. Damn it all, I’d let my guard down with him. Stupid mistake.
Firm fingers gripped my upper arm, drawing me to a stop. “Shay—”
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped. “Don’t—”
“I smell smoke.”
My attention went to the field beyond. A cold chill settled over me. “Campfire?”
“No. Look there.” He pointed to the sky. “Smoke. Too much to be a campfire.”
We started to run. Neither of us thought about the consequences of our actions, we merely bolted across the field. Despite my exhaustion, adrenaline sent me racing, my skirts hiked up around my thighs, weeds scratching the skin of my calves, clawing at my feet and making me stumble. I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t.
Fire. Smoke. War. Death.
The words whispered through my mind over and over.
We crested a hill and Mak paused, holding out his arm to stop me. “Careful, hold back.”
We lowered, hidden within the weeds as we searched the area below for movement. Remnants of cottages, charred and smoking. Stumps of beams. Burnt fields. Piles of ash…of what, I wasn’t sure. This was why the world seemed gray. It wasn’t foggy, it was smoke. Not a person could be seen. A shiver of unease raced down my spine. Where was everyone?
“Whose people lived here, mine or yours?”
He hesitated, his gaze flickering with unease. His reluctancy to answer told me everything I needed to know. “We’re on the outskirts, Princess. Between my land and yours.”
“Whose people?” I demanded.
“Yours.”
With a heavy sense of dread, I tore my gaze from him and focused on the destruction below. My people. While I’d been living it up with Queen Iduna, they’d been attacked. Their homes burned. Their livelihoods lost. How many had died? If they hadn’t hated me before, they would now.
“How? Can you tell? Was it war, or something natural, like fire from lightning?”
He stood, not answering. “Come on.”
I followed on trembling legs. Each step closer sent my heart racing faster. The area looked like a stage for a movie.
Fire. Smoke. War. Death.
But this was real. So real. The dirt we walked on was marred with dark stains that I feared to be blood. The air was so hazy and thick with smoke, it was hard to breathe. Whatever had happened, had happened recently. We walked down into the rubble, the charred remains of what was once a village. There were no fires.
“Do you think they killed them all?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
I stopped near a well, one of only a few things still standing. The water below was murky, dirty. Years ago, I’d read how warring civilizations would pollute each other’s water. Had that happened here? “Tell me the truth.”
He sighed, his shoulders drooping, and for a moment I felt his exhaustion. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, we were in this as one, tied together by a bond we could not escape. “Yes. Yes, I assume some died. Probably most, since they lived this close to the border. There are always casualties in war. And bei
ng this close to another kingdom is dangerous.”
But there didn’t have to be casualties. There didn’t have to be war.
Greed. Power. Selfishness. It was written in the ashes of the buildings that used to stand. I shook my head, looking around at the smoking rubble, what once was life, family, home. My eyes stung, watered. I told myself it was because of the smoke, but I wasn’t sure. “It makes it real. This war. It happened. Is happening. Those scavengers weren’t lying.”
“It seems so.”
That was it? All he had to say? I looked helplessly at Mak, wanting more from him. What, I wasn’t sure. Compassion. Anger. Guilt. Something. He didn’t say much. He gave away nothing in his stance or in his gaze. Slowly, he made his way through the remnants of the town. I followed, afraid of what we’d find.
Most of the cottages were completely gone, only stone fireplaces and cobbled roads remained. Something rancid and dirty filled the air. Burnt wood, grasses, and another scent. A smell that made my stomach clench, my eyes and nostrils burn.
A cold lump of dread weighed heavily in the pit of my belly. It was a scent I’d never smelled before, yet somehow knew. “What’s that smell?”
“Bodies.”
He said it with so little emotion, that it took a moment for his comment to register. Acid rose in my throat. I swallowed hard, trying to keep the vomit down. The piles of smoking rubble held a whole new meaning. “They burnt the dead?”
He picked up a red scarf, the edges frayed. A piece of clothing left behind. Perhaps all that remained of its owner. “It happens when a lot of people die at once.”
He released the scarf and the material fluttered away on the breeze. I felt oddly numb. “How many?”
He shrugged as we paused near a fireplace in the middle of the town. “A village this size? I’d say around two hundred.”
It was hard to breathe. So many people…gone. Were they awoken in the middle of the night? Terrified? Tortured? Women. Children. Babies. Tears stung my eyes. I curled my fingers, the nails biting into my palms, and focused on the pain.
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