She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to remember Peng’s face, but she couldn’t. The harder she tried, the dimmer he became in her mind. The prince, on the other hand, appeared all too clearly.
She had mentioned Peng to him when she was chosen. Had he been listening when she raised Peng’s name with her father? Was it a strange revenge for her not wanting to be the hidden princess? Was he making sure there would be nothing for her to return to?
The idea of what might happen to her father if she were discovered and killed was only momentary as she stretched out her senses to the soldier by the front door. He didn’t move. She stretched out further, feeling the heavy wood of the gate and the two men beyond it. The world remained too quiet around her.
She felt the hum of magic and knew with certainty that she would have known if Peng had carried magic as well. She would have sensed it as the hunters did. Only no one appeared to sense her magic now.
She stood slowly and turned on the spot. Her dress shimmered in the sunlight, the thick grey material shifting into a flowing pink, the colour of the blossoms in her garden. The material changed from heavy linen to a fine silk.
Lis smiled and breathed as though for the first time. She would at least look like herself when the prince burst through the door and ran her through.
But no one came. No one hurried towards her. She could feel the distant hum of magic, but she remained as she was. Then there was a gentle knock at the door.
Lis froze, her heart hammering in her chest. She put her hands together in a quiet clap as the door slid open. U’shi stood smiling in the doorway, and then the smile slipped as she looked around the room.
‘The tutor did not dismiss you,’ she called into the room, looking through Lis, who held her breath. ‘Your Highness?’ she asked more uncertainly.
She turned her back and raced out into the garden. Lis followed behind her, trying not to get too close in case she gave herself away. She followed U’shi back into the classroom, where the tutor sat back at the desk, tapping the end of a brush on the blank page before him. Lis scowled at the man, who looked up lazily at U’shi and then sat straighter.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
U’shi shook her head.
‘Has she…?’
‘Worse. She has disappeared.’
‘She must be hiding.’
‘Where would she hide? She is not in her room and not in the garden. The guard has not seen her. What will the empress say?’
‘You should have…’ He was interrupted by a knock at the door.
They both turned as the prince entered. A servant behind him carried her mother’s shrine, and another had a small fire pot for her to make offerings to her mother’s memory. She gulped down the threatening tears, wondering if there would be such a shrine for Peng.
‘I thought the rear courtyard the best place for this, although I am happy to set it up in the princess’s room if she would rather it close.’
Lis breathed out very slowly, worried she would alert the prince to her presence if he wasn’t already aware. He didn’t even look in her direction, but he did look concerned.
‘What has happened?’
U’shi shook her head. ‘The hidden princess is resting,’ she said softly, bowing to the prince. ‘It has been a trying time.’
‘I can wait for her,’ he murmured, indicating the servant take the fire pot out into the courtyard before following.
U’shi was quick to chase after him, the tutor glancing at her before he too followed the small procession out into the garden. Lis walked slowly behind, wondering what they would tell him. Part of her wondered how long she could keep this up. And why using her magic hadn’t alerted the prince to her presence.
He sat the plaque for her mother gently on the table, and the manservant sat the urn beside it. Then they bowed and stood silently before it. The prince smiled at it sadly, and Lis wondered if he thought about his brother. She waved her hand before him, suddenly rash. He didn’t flinch, and she wondered if he was the great hunter she had assumed him to be. But then, he had felt something at the baths that day.
Lis looked at her own hands and then back to the prince. She had played this trick on her sister before. And only the once on her father. It was a skill she had never told anyone about. The day Peng had come to talk to her father of their connection, she had stood nervously in the corner of the room, biting her lip. She had known what he wanted to ask of her father, but she hadn’t told Peng she would listen.
She had been so worried that her father would not allow the match. He had spent so long trying to protect her from the world, she had worried that he wouldn’t let her go to Fourth with Peng.
She had desperately wanted to go with him. Her heart ached with the idea of him, and she clenched her fists at the thought that it was the man standing before her who had taken him away. She could feel the buzz of the magic around her, and she wondered what other skills she had that she had not tested.
The prince turned slowly and looked around the garden. Lis took a deep breath and tried to calm the pain that burned darker in her chest. She had to keep it hidden. She had a moment of fright as he looked directly at her and she held her breath, fearful she had succeeded too well to hide her magic away and it had disappeared, causing her to reappear.
He turned to the tutor. ‘Where is the guard?’
Tutor Nizen shrugged. ‘He is your man, not mine.’
The prince scowled, and Lis realised that she wouldn’t want to be on the bad side of this man. Although she was about to be, for he had attacked her family and would soon discover her gone.
‘I ordered him here.’
‘Perhaps he is with the others,’ U’shi whispered, and Lis noticed another glance between the maid and the tutor. Did they dislike her so much?
‘There is a taint of magic here. I wonder if someone has visited who should not.’
This time the tutor looked directly at U’shi, and the prince followed his gaze.
‘There has been no one,’ she said hurriedly.
‘Where is the hidden princess?’
‘Resting,’ she said.
Lis was tempted to cough and throw them all into turmoil. When her father had given his blessing to Peng, she had squealed with delight, almost giving herself away.
‘Why are you here?’ the prince asked the tutor.
‘It is my position to be here to help train the hidden princess. It is you who should not be here.’
The prince raised his eyebrows at the open nature of the tutor. ‘And yet she is not well enough for classes today.’
‘She was in the classroom earlier. We discussed the magic war and the part her father played.’
The prince looked back to the shrine on the table. ‘Light the pot,’ he murmured to the manservant with him. Then he strode back into the house.
Lis followed him, wondering if he would leave so soon. But he hesitated at her door before he knocked. She wondered whether he would tell the truth if she asked him about Peng. Would he claim he was looking out for his future empress? Or would there be another, simpler reason?
When there was no response, he slid the door back and entered her room uninvited. The room itself felt cold to Lis. He turned slowly, taking in the empty space. He moved towards the table and picked up the cup she had drunk from not so long ago. He put it to his lips, and Lis found her hands moving to her hips. Who did he think he was? Moving around her palace as though it were his own. Touching her things, drinking from her cup.
‘Warm,’ he murmured.
He walked more quickly towards the bed, then peered behind a screen.
Lis raised her eyebrows.
He turned around the room slowly, looking up towards the ceiling and the windows. He licked his lips as though tasting something, and Lis worried that he might have sensed her magic in the cup of water she had left on the table.
‘Your Highness,’ a soldier called, tapping on the door as he entered the room.
&nb
sp; ‘Where is she?’ the prince asked.
‘There is no sign in the garden, and the maid ran out there not long before you arrived.’
‘She is missing, then, and the maid was not going to tell me.’ His voice carried a dangerous edge, and Lis was reminded that this man could kill her at any moment.
‘Did she run away?’
The prince shook his head and then looked around the room one more time, glancing through Lis. She had hidden herself well.
‘There is no sign of a disturbance,’ the guard continued.
‘But there is something,’ the prince said. He walked over to the cup one more time and then turned on his heel. ‘There is something about the tutor.’
‘He taught the previous hidden princess for many years.’
‘Hmmm,’ was all he said as he moved more slowly back through the palace. He arrived again in the rear courtyard, Lis only a step behind. The tutor and U’shi were talking in hushed tones a little way from the servant who still stood by her mother’s shrine.
‘What did my mother say?’ the prince asked.
‘Your Highness?’ U’shi said, bowing a little as she spoke.
‘About the missing princess.’
‘She is not missing; she is resting.’
‘Where did you send her to rest? Her little island home?’
They looked at each other again, and Lis had a moment of understanding. They had worked together to upset her. Whether it was by sharing the news or for some other reason, she couldn’t be sure.
‘She’s…’
‘Don’t lie to me, or it could mean your head.’
U’shi gulped loudly and tears spilled over, running unchecked down her cheeks. ‘I have done nothing,’ she wailed. ‘She is resting in her room.’
‘No,’ he said, too calm, and Lis could feel the hum of magic around him. She took a step back, wondering if this was connected to his being a hunter or if it was something else.
‘She is,’ U’shi insisted, stepping forward, and he swung around and took her arm as she tried to pass him.
He shook his head once, and Lis tried to scuttle out of the way.
‘I promise you, Your Highness, she must be here.’
He let her go and turned back to the tutor, who looked far too relaxed. The prince moved quickly through the rooms and out into the front garden, where he stopped before the guard. ‘Where is the other guard?’ he asked.
The man shook his head, and the prince continued down the path and out the gate. It was all Lis could do to keep up, and then she nearly ran into the back of him as he stopped in the gateway to talk with the two guards there. As he took a single step to the side, she sucked in a breath and squeezed past him, hoping her silk didn’t brush against his skin. But he turned as she passed, and she wondered if she had given herself away.
‘Lis is missing,’ he murmured urgently to the second guard as she stepped back and into the middle of the road. ‘I think she has been taken by those with magic. There is a taint in the palace.’
The man drew himself up taller. ‘I promise you that we have watched every moment. No one has been near.’
‘Perhaps they have a way of not being seen,’ the prince continued.
‘But they would have been sensed—if not by you then by the…’ The man stopped and chewed nervously on his lip.
‘You knew there was a hunter amongst you?’
The man nodded. ‘It is what I would have done after the incident at the bath house. And your brother,’ he added softly.
The prince nodded once. ‘I want the palace watched,’ he said to the guard, and then he turned to the other man. ‘And I want the entire island searched until my princess is found.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He bowed low to the prince before disappearing down the street.
Lis looked from one to the other and then headed in a different direction. There was nowhere for her to go, but she didn’t want to be here or around her prince any longer. How dare he think of me as his princess? she thought, remembering Peng, the pain in her chest sharp and real. And why does he think he can call me Lis?
The street was quiet. Although several people walked beside Lis, none of them saw her. She hadn’t travelled this way before, she didn’t think. For the carriage had been covered so well and she couldn’t look out the windows. They had walked so far that first day, and she wondered just how big this island was. Much bigger than her own home. Or at least what had been her home. It would never be the same without her mother, and now without Peng.
She wiped at the tears that had started to flow and sucked in a sob. Unsure whether those around her could hear her or not, she bit hard on her lip. The street quickly became a quiet, narrow alleyway, and the tall grey walls surrounding other palaces and homes grew taller as the street between them narrowed. Broad, red-lacquered gates were intermittently dispersed along the walls. Lis didn’t even glance at the name plates to see what lay beyond each gate.
A sprinkle of rain started. Lis couldn’t be out in the rain. Invisible or not, it would give her away, and there was no way off the island from this side. Even though she had nowhere to go afterwards, she had to first go back through the centre of the Palace Isle and out to the docks.
She pressed herself into the nearest gateway. The gate creaked open and Lis stumbled back, hoping she wasn’t falling into whoever might have opened the gate. She looked around the silent garden, similar in style to her own, although overgrown. The rain was starting to soak into her dress, and she shivered. She skipped up the path and onto the veranda. When she turned back to look at the open gateway, there was no one there.
The palace was similar to hers, and she wondered if this had once been home to a hidden princess. It didn’t appear to be occupied as she carefully opened the heavy door. There was very little furniture, and a cool breeze blew in from somewhere beyond the room in which she stood.
There was no sign of anyone living there. A layer of dust covered the furniture and, although there was a pot over a burner and cups lined up on the table, it was cold. She sat heavily at the table and allowed herself to relax. She had no idea what she would do next or where she would go. She only knew that she had to be away from the hidden palace and the prince.
I would have known if Peng had magic, she told herself again. He couldn’t have hidden it from her, even if she had been able to hide herself from the prince. Although how she had managed it, she didn’t know. She wondered if something had changed with magic—if that was why there were thought to be few with magic, because those who had it could hide it. And if that was the case, why did her father worry so much that she would be discovered?
Perhaps he didn’t know. Perhaps he didn’t care to know. All those years he had kept to himself what had happened during the war, what he had done. But she understood it. It must have been so hard for him, and now it would be worse. Her mother was gone, and Lis would bring shame on them all. But she couldn’t go back. She wouldn’t.
Lis spent a comfortable night in the little palace, despite the lack of food and the dust that covered everything. She was free, but she was hidden away still, far from where she wanted to be. She breathed in the dust and looked at the cold pot. There was a pump in the rear courtyard, so she crept, now visible, out into the fresh morning air. She stood still for a long time listening for anyone else who might be about.
There was nothing other than bird song, and she drew water into the bucket. She swirled it about and threw it over the rough stones before sitting it back and pumping again. It smelled fresh, so she filled the pot and placed it over the base on the table.
She felt a moment’s hesitation, wondering if the prince had indeed laid a trap for her and would burst through the door at any moment to run her through with a fizzle. But he hadn’t found her yet, and she decided to take the risk. She blew softly onto the coals and they jumped to life.
Sitting at the table, sipping the warm water, Lis continued to wait. Her hunter prince didn’t come to kill her. She
peeked out at the front gate, still ajar, and wondered if she could summon a gust wind to blow it shut. But then it was pushed wide open as Tutor Nizen strode into the garden.
Lis clapped her hands and disappeared. Had he discovered her? Was he a hunter as well? She certainly hadn’t sensed anything around him as she had with the prince. If those with magic could hide it, she may not be the only one, and he may not be there to help her. She remained rooted to the spot, only just remembering to extinguish the flame for the water as he entered the front door.
He barely glanced around the space as he paced back and forth. Then he stopped, and Lis heard footsteps crunching along the path. He moved over to the door and waited behind it. Lis was surprised to see U’shi’s face appear.
‘Has the empress summoned you?’ he asked hurriedly, taking her in his arms. She flinched, and he let her go.
She nodded once, moving over to the table before turning back to him.
‘Did it hurt?’ he murmured, taking a slow step towards her.
‘It doesn’t matter. If they cannot find her, it will be worthwhile.’
‘But he marked you,’ he said, his voice louder, and she indicated with her hands that he lower his voice. ‘I worry,’ he continued quietly.
‘It was worth the punishment.’
He grinned then and, stepping up to her, he took her chin and kissed her.
Lis bit down on her lip to prevent the surprised noise from leaving her throat. This was not the way a tutor should behave. She wondered whether this was something new that had sparked once the crown prince died, or if it had been going on longer than that.
‘She threatened to have me removed,’ he said, releasing U’shi and smiling. ‘She thinks she has power over us.’
U’shi pulled away. ‘She will have once she is empress.’
‘There is no chance that she will be now. She has run away, bringing disgrace on her and her family. Even if she is found…’
‘The crown prince will take her back,’ U’shi interrupted. ‘He cares for her,’ she spat. Lis could feel the tension in her words, the hatred. She wondered anew if U’shi had been behind the magic man in the baths.
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 11