by J. M. Kearl
“Enden, please,” Saveena says, tears streaming down her cheeks onto his arm.
His grip growing soft, he releases her, and she coughs wildly putting a hand to her neck. With luck they won’t have had time to locate her. He doesn’t know what kind of magic is on her, but he’s about to find out. Enden grabs her by the front of her dress and jerks her up.
She wraps her hands around his forearm. “Enden, I’m sorry. I just wanted them to know I’m alive. That is all.”
“Don’t lie to me, you want them to know where you are so they can come for you. You want to see my kingdom burn.”
Saveena’s bottom lip trembles and her blue eyes swim with tears. “I’m sorry.”
Enden pulls her closer to him so that his nose is almost touching hers. “Were they able to track you?”
She stares into his eyes in silence.
“Answer me!” Enden screams.
“I think so,” she says. “My father has a tracking spell on all of us. It will have shown my location on the map when I removed the kirune from my arm. If someone was looking at the map when my beacon appeared then they will know.”
Enden throws her to the floor and turns his back before he loses control and beats her. He runs his trembling hands over his face. “Damn it, Saveena!” He turns. “Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you. If he’s going to come it will be for war and it won’t matter to me if you’re dead.”
Saveena scoots backward until she bumps into his desk. She pulls her legs into her chest and says in a voice so low it almost can’t be heard; “I’m—I’m with child.”
Enden stills and his heart begins to thump harder. This isn’t just any child, it’s his child. The heir to the throne of Hesstia. “You’re lying.” Enden tries to sound angry but suddenly he isn’t mad anymore. He has an overwhelming desire to protect her at any cost because he knows deep down she’s telling the truth.
Placing her hand on her belly, her eyes fall. “I haven’t had my monthly bleed and-- I can feel it somehow.”
Enden thinks back to when he’d first been with her at Madam Della’s. It had been over a month now. Almost two and he hasn’t ever seen her have her monthly cycle. He feels sick and excited all at the same time.
“Leave us,” Enden commands to Peter.
Peter bows and exits.
Enden sinks to his knees in front of Saveena his heart warming. She recoils when he moves his hands toward her but gently he takes her tear soaked face into his palms. “I apologize for my behavior, but Saveena, you may have condemned thousands more men to death because of what you did. You’re people may not know war but they will, and many of those that will die are going to be your people. I don’t think you realize what you’ve done.”
“I can stop my father from coming. If I can go and speak with him--”
Enden stops her right there, “You know you carry my heir. You’re not leaving.”
“I don’t want thousands dying because of me.”
Enden knows she didn’t realize the implications of her actions. She’s young and has probably had an easy life up until the day she was taken. “You didn’t seem to care moments ago.”
“I told you I only want them to know I’m alive. Let me send a letter. Let me see if I can stop them from coming with an army. We could invite them here for diplomacy. I’ll tell my father the truth. That you saved me and that we’re having a child together.”
Enden stands. “I don’t know. He’ll be angry that you’re having my child and you’re not my wife. What if he doesn’t believe the story?”
Saveena stands. “It’s worth a try if it will stop Hesstia from falling. What if…” she grabs his shoulders so he looks at her. “What if he stands with you as an ally? If I tell him I love you and--”
“I make you my wife, my queen,” Enden muses.
“With us, and our dragons, you’ll win your fight against Delhoon easily. They’ll be sorry they ever started this war.”
Enden gazes into her piercing blue eyes. He hadn’t given it much thought up until now so he asks, “Do you really love me?”
Saveena purses her lips and her face grows stern. “Love is a strong word but if I agree to this, you can’t hit me or treat me like I’m your prisoner. I won’t stand for it if I’m your wife. Treat me with respect.”
“Saveena I won’t hurt you anymore, but I don’t completely trust you to not run away. You’ll still be guarded, as I’m always guarded. It’s for your own safety as much as it is to keep an eye on you.”
“I understand but know that I won’t run away. Not now that I’m having our baby but there is one thing. We use magic in Collweya and that won’t ever stop.”
Enden sighs, of course magic is going to an issue. It always seems to be. Why does magic seem to be everywhere? “Your people can do what they want within their own kingdom.”
“But if I’m queen then…”
“Then you won’t be using magic unless it’s necessary.” Enden releases her hand and steps away. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about this feud but this entire war with Delhoon is over magic. I can’t change the laws here. The people are afraid of it. The gods of my people forbade it a thousand years ago, and they believe it is evil. They give their own children over to the kingdom willingly because they believe it’s a curse. If I, the new king, who almost married a Delhoon magic user by mistake, suddenly made magic legal, my people would turn on me and I don’t want to set my armies on my own kingdom.”
“What do you believe?” Saveena asks before he can go on.
“I don’t think it's evil, and maybe with time we can change things but not now. Not when they killed my brother who was our king. Delhoon did what they wanted within their own borders. They rightfully won their freedom when my father invaded them twenty two years ago but they brought the fight to us this time. I never planned on starting a war with them and neither did my brother.”
“What is the punishment for using magic here?” Saveena asks.
Enden knows she won’t like the answer. “Death. Although if they come willingly, young children are enslaved but taken care of. Like Jershon.”
Saveena says nothing about it though he can see in her face that she will fight it sooner or later. “So we take the manacle off, send a letter to my father and we wait for a response and hope for the best. They know I’m here either way.”
Enden sits her down at the desk and Saveena writes the story of how she came to Hesstia. How Enden saved her from prostitution and that he’s to marry her. She invites them to come in peace to the castle to negotiate a treaty and meet her future husband: the King of Hesstia.
Jershon whispers the spell and tosses the letter into the fire. Enden watches it burn, the flames slowly dying to embers and soon all that is left is ash.
Saveena takes his hand in hers. “He won’t be able to send a letter back, he doesn’t know the spell. How will we know what he decides?”
Enden glances down at her. “He’ll either come with his army and his dragons or he won’t.”
29. Daelyn
Arm shaking, Daelyn pulls the arrow back against the bow string. She lets it go before she’s supposed to and the arrow thuds in the dirt short of the target. Boaden stands beside her trying to hold back a smile.
Daelyn lets the bow in her hand drop to her side. “Why am I so weak? I can’t even pull an arrow back.” She speaks in full Delian and Boaden lets loose that smile.
“At least you’re becoming fluent in Delian even if you’re terrible at shooting arrows.”
She wants to be ready for this war. She wants to be able to fight if she must and not stand back useless like she had at the battle near Nordia. She takes another arrow and draws it back. “Hold it,” she whispers to herself. She gets it where it needs to be, lets it go and the arrow flies high over top of the target.
“I am terrible.” Daelyn had been at this for an hour now and hadn’t come close to hitting the target at this distance.
“You should be pr
acticing controlling your magic,” Madison says, interrupting their training session. She strolls up and crosses her arms. “That is what’s most important.”
“I—I don’t want to hurt either of you.”
“Stop being so weak,” Madison says with a huff. “I don’t understand why you can’t get it under control.”
“It’s harder than you think, mother. Maybe if you hadn’t bound it for so long I wouldn’t be having this problem.” The audacity of her mother to even be angry about this is astonishing.
“I saw you hold a wall of sand for several minutes in the desert. Try something simple, like bringing fire to your palm.”
Boaden opens his hand and fire ignites. “Like this,” he says. He closes his fingers around the flame, snuffing it out just as quickly as it came. “Can you do that?”
Daelyn looks at her hand. The magic has been whirring inside of her like an angry monster trapped in a cage for weeks, fighting it’s way to the surface but she’s kept it quelled; too afraid to find out what will happen. “No.” Daelyn looks away from Boaden’s questioning eyes.
“Why are you afraid of it?” he asks. “If you don’t get control of it, it will control you.”
“Exactly,” Madison says, sneering. “I’ve had about enough of this. I’ve given you time to figure it out but since you can’t seem to, I’ll have to step in.”
“Stop talking to me like that,” Daelyn says in a weaker voice than she would have liked.
A chortle escapes Madison’s mouth. “And what are you going to do about it?”
Face burning with wrath, Daelyn turns on her mother. “Don’t test me.” The magic inside her body flares up and is ready to lash out. She holds it in so as not to really hurt her mother.
“Perhaps it’s best if I give the lesson,” Boaden says eyebrow cocked.
“Perhaps it’s best if you stay out of this,” Madison snaps back. “You’ve had time to help her and it’s gotten nowhere.”
Jordane steps out of the house and makes his way over. Daelyn turns back to Madison, happy that her father will finally get to see this side of her mother. “Don’t speak to my husband like that,” Daelyn says.
“I talk to whomever I want however I want, Daelyn,” Madison says through nearly clenched teeth.
“Not to him or me. Not anymore,” Daelyn says. “You aren’t as tough as you think you are.”
Madison clenches her fists at her sides and Daelyn prepares for a blow. She wants her to do it, wants Jordane to see what he’d missed for the last ten years.
“You think you can take me on now, huh?” Madison swings at Daelyn and her fist crashes on Daelyn’s jaw.
Pain bursts in Daelyn’s face, and she stumbles into Boaden, who wraps his arms around her protectively. “Come at her again and you’ll be dealing with me,” Boaden says, heatedly.
“Madison!” Jordane shouts when he’s close and grabs her by the back of her shirt, jerking her to face him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“She needs to learn to respect her mother.”
“Don’t you dare lay another hand on her!” Jordane screams furiously and shoves her backward. “How can you be like this when your own parents were so brutal?”
“I would have never spoken to my mother the way Daelyn does. She thinks she’s tough now, let her prove it.”
“She’s not a soldier you need to put in place, she’s your child.” Jordane stands between them and for the first time ever, Daelyn watches her mother back down.
“Fine, Jordane, have it your way.” Madison walks back toward the house.
Jordane turns and places a gentle hand on Daelyn’s face. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Daelyn says. “It’s nothing I haven’t handled before.”
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t have been there to protect you all those years,” Jordane says. “I’ll speak with her about this.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever seen her listen to,” Daelyn says, holding her throbbing jaw.
“I don’t know why but she will. Sometimes.” Jordane peeks back at the house when the door slams. “Boaden, if she should ever try something like that again, stop her.”
“I’ll step in,” Boaden says. “I was about to.”
“I won’t let her if there is a next time,” Daelyn says quickly. “I wanted her to, so you could see it. I could have stopped her with my magic, it almost burst out on it’s own.”
“She and I need to talk. I’ll let you get back to your lesson,” Jordane says. “Thank you, Boaden, for being so good to Daelyn.”
∞∞∞
After Daelyn has calmed down and Jordane is gone, Boaden talks her into trying her magic again, with control. Daelyn’s arm begins to tremble when she thinks about the task of conjuring fire. She closes her hand and presses it against her belly. “I don’t think I can do it without losing control.”
“You’ve used your magic before. You were able to conjure ice when our cabin was on fire. What is different this time?”
Daelyn thinks back to the times the magic engulfed her and exploded out. She was always angry during those events and the one time she wasn’t mad, she was scared, when she pushed up the wall to hold back the villagers in Nordia, even then it was like someone else was controlling the magic. She didn't have a choice. Nothing is compelling her now. “My emotions were the reason that I could use the magic. When I nearly killed Verra, that wasn’t even me doing it. Not consciously anyway, it just happened.”
Boaden takes Daelyn’s hands and squeezes them gently. “Look at me.”
Daelyn meets his intense green eyes, the same eyes she’s looked into so many times for comfort. “I can’t--”
“Yes you can. I can help you,” he says. Fingers interlocked, Boaden’s magic joins with hers like during the wedding ceremony when she first felt the warmth and goodness of it.
“I can feel your magic, can you mine?” he asks.
Daelyn nods, sensing his power and how foreign and yet comforting it feels compared to her own. His feels like a beacon of light in the cloud of darkness that is hers.
“I understand why you are scared,” Boaden says squeezing her hands tighter. “Your magic is—strong. Wildly so like an untamed creature that is clawing it’s way to life.” He pauses perhaps searching for the right words or trying to understand what he feels. “But it’s a gift that has been given to you. That means you can control it. Some spells need to be said aloud like a hex or binding spell, but the elemental magic that is conjured within like fire or ice can just come with a feeling.”
“Okay, I can do this.” She thinks of fire and her ragged breaths come faster as she feels the magic rising, rising up as if it’s a hot geyser ready to explode then it stalls, hitting a barrier. Daelyn looks down to her and Boaden’s hands together, both hosting a fire that doesn’t burn.
“You did it,” Boaden says.
“We did it.” Daelyn knows that hitch was his power pressing against her own. She wonders how because with the ability to feel the strength of each, she knows his is unmatched for hers. “How did you do that?”
Boaden pulls his hand away, and closes her fingers so the fire dies out. “With difficulty.”
With those words she noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead. He’s almost out of breath as if he’d gone for a run.
He wipes his sleeve against his face. “I’ve been controlling my magic my entire life so it comes naturally. Controlling yours is much the same, but yours fights me; it knows I’m not its master. I could feel you losing control of it so I pushed back but I think once you felt me helping, you took over. I only stopped it initially, if that makes sense. I was afraid if I didn’t, you’d burn me to a crisp.”
Daelyn laughs opening her hand, allowing fire to come back to her palm. She glances up at Boaden. “I’m doing it.” She closes her hand and this time thinks of ice. Frost forms and a miniature blizzard circles above her palm. She steps away from Boaden then throws the ball into the air; snow begins
to fall all around them.
Boaden looks up at the gray cloud, his eyes fluttering when snowflakes land on his eyelashes. “That’s impressive. I’ve never seen anyone do this.”
Daelyn turns in a circle laughing as the snow comes down. “This is amazing.”
Daelyn claps her hands together forcing the cloud to dissipate and the snow quickly melts in the warmth of the sun. “What should I do next?”
Boaden chuckles. “This is just the beginning. There are endless things you could do. Do you feel tired at all?”
Daelyn is more energized than ever. She doesn’t even understand what they mean when they say that magic wears on their energy. When she collapsed in Nordia it was because the magic overwhelmed her. “Not at all.”
Boaden gives her that look, that look that conveys his love for her. The one that could almost make her heart stop. But then he takes out his dagger and slices the top of his forearm. Blood oozes and Boaden winces.
Daelyn is instantly mad. “Why did you do that?” She grabs his arm peering into the deep gash.
“Heal me.”
Daelyn looks into his face. “You cut your arm to see if I could heal you?”
“You’re catching on,” Boaden says and smirks.
Daelyn places her hand over the deep wound and feels the buzz of the magic growing. She thinks of the wound closing, thinks of the skin setting itself back to the way it once was. A warm glow emanates and the wound closes.
Boaden wipes the blood away. “See, I knew you could do this. Now the real question is, can you take down a dragon.”
Daelyn’s eyes grow wide. She can’t even imagine how she’d even attempt it. Stories of their ferocity, their massive size, and fire breath, what could she do? Throw a snowball at one?
Boaden laughs and pulls her into a hug. “I’m joking, my love. I won’t let you near a dragon. Hopefully I won’t be near one either.”
“Do you think they’re really coming?” Daelyn asks pressing the side of her face against Boaden’s chest.
He kisses the top of her head. “Your mother’s visions haven’t always been correct. It depends on our actions right? She saw your father get executed but that didn’t happen.”