‘She may have,’ Lis said carefully. ‘But can the Empire afford another death by magic at this point? The people will fear it has returned. They will believe that you cannot protect them, that the gods cannot protect them.’
The priestess narrowed her eyes and pointed towards the empress. ‘You will be blamed for this.’
The man leapt forward, fire buzzing in his hands, and Lis knew that with his magic in the open, it was only a matter of time until the prince or another hunter arrived. She moved between the empress and the fire bearer.
‘I will not let this happen.’
‘Then you shall both die,’ the priestess said.
He threw the fire, and Lis squeezed her eyes closed, wishing she could stop this. At the intake of breath from the high priestess, she opened her eyes. The fire burned around them, but both Lis and the empress were protected behind an invisible barrier.
‘Who are you?’ the high priestess growled.
‘Just a hidden princess,’ she said, trying to push the flames back as the heat that licked over the barrier burned her.
‘No,’ the priestess said.
The prince and the guards burst into the room. Hui Te-Sze pushed his sword straight through the fire bearer, who fizzled. The empress clutched at Lis as the high priestess turned on the crown prince. She threw her hand out and he ducked down, pushing his sword through her stomach as he slid forward.
Lis dropped onto the bed. She felt dry and drained and hot and sticky. The empress threw her arms around her and pulled her close.
‘What were you doing?’ the crown prince asked, coming over to the bed.
‘Visiting,’ she tried weakly, and the empress held her tight.
‘You had your hand out,’ Te-Sze said.
‘She sensed them,’ the empress said. ‘She saved me. She told the priestess that she felt her magic, and then the man appeared and tried to kill us both.’
‘But he didn’t,’ the hunter said.
The prince turned from Te-Sze back to his mother and Lis. ‘You are a hunter?’
Lis shook her head and then nodded. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I could feel the magic buzzing around her.’
‘A hunter,’ he said slowly.
The empress’s grip loosened, and Lis helped her lie down. ‘Send for a healer,’ she commanded, and the other guard disappeared. ‘There was no one here, no guard, no maids.’
‘How could your father not tell us this?’ the crown prince mumbled behind her.
‘We didn’t know,’ she said. ‘I have lived on an island far from the world for so long. It was only when I was here that I could sense something. I didn’t know that it meant I was a hunter.’
‘Hush now, child,’ the empress said, calling her back to the bed. ‘It is well.’
‘I’m not sure how,’ Te-Sze said. He looked at Lis with wary eyes, and she realised he had looked at her like this before. He didn’t trust her, and he sensed something in her as well.
‘Maybe they were trying to threaten us,’ Lis said
‘The other man wanted you dead,’ Te-Sze said, his sword still hanging in his hand. The blood dripped onto the body, making a larger pool of it across the floor.
‘Is there only fire?’ Lis asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘I have only seen fire,’ she said, turning from the man to the priestess. ‘What skill did she have?’
‘We will sort it out.’
‘Can I only sense the fire?’
‘You recognised something in the priestess,’ the prince said slowly, but he was looking over her much in the same way as the other hunter. She gulped under the pressure of his gaze. ‘She threatened you before,’ he said. It wasn’t a question. ‘Perhaps it was her you feared, and the man used her.’
‘You heard the sound,’ Lis said, watching him.
He nodded once.
‘Your mother needs a healer,’ she said, taking her hand.
‘As do you,’ the empress whispered.
Lis shook her head.
‘Your hands,’ she whispered.
Lis looked down at her hands. They weren’t just red from the heat of the flames; they had blistered. The empress put her hand to Lis’s cheek as she had before. ‘You are my daughter,’ she whispered.
A tear slipped from Lis as she put her own hand over the empress again, and the pain burned through her. ‘What else is out there?’ she asked.
The empress looked to her son. ‘You need to tell her,’ she said and then winced, putting her hand to her chest.
The healer entered the room, and Lis moved back so the old man could sit with his patient. He fussed for a while before Lis looked up at the young healer standing by the door. He motioned her out, but she shook her head.
‘Let her rest,’ the old man said, looking at Lis rather than anyone else in the room.
Lis bowed low, and the empress gave her a weak smile. Without looking at anyone else, she followed the young healer out and back to her own rooms. He indicated the bed and she sat on the edge, holding out her hands to him. He sighed before taking her pulse.
‘Will she be ok?’ she asked him.
‘Thanks to you, it seems.’
‘I worry that there is more to it than this attack,’ Lis said without thinking. ‘She has not been herself.’
‘The healer will do all he can.’
Lis nodded silently.
‘You will need ointment for your hands. I would prefer that you rest them—no writing—but I wonder if you would listen to me.’ He sounded frustrated, and Lis nodded again.
‘Is there something else I should know?’
She shook her head, still focused on her blistered hands.
He carefully wiped ointment over her palm and then wrapped a silk bandage around it. ‘Rest,’ he said, frustration clear in his voice, as though she were a naughty child who would not do as she was told. Had she been so difficult for this man? It wasn’t her fault that she had been attacked. Although, she wondered, they were determined that she would not be Empress herself one day, so they would continue to fight her, to try to kill her. She didn’t want others to be hurt in the process. Especially the empress.
Another tear ran down Lis’s face as she imagined what the empress must have gone through to save her child. How she had told the world she had killed her own daughter, yet she lived. Lis imagined all that her parents had gone through to save her. Giving up their lives of comfort to live isolated on their island home. And for what? She was back in the middle of the capital, in the middle of a world they had tried to protect her from, and she was causing more trouble for the Empire.
‘Your Highness, I…’ the healer said as he stepped closer.
‘What have you done?’ the prince cried as he threw the doors open, interrupting the healer, who froze mid-step.
‘I am sorry,’ Lis said, climbing to her feet, unable to look the prince in the eye. She loved the empress like a mother, and she would not wish her harm.
In the silence that followed, Lis looked up to find both men staring at her. Fear caught the breath in her throat, and she stepped back, stumbling on the step and tripping. The prince reached forward, catching her by the hand, and she cried out.
He sat her down carefully on the edge of the bed and waved the healer forward. But she pulled her hands into her lap and shook her head.
‘What is it?’ the prince asked, looking at the healer. Then he stood quickly. ‘Do you sense something on him?’
She shook her head as the healer stepped back before dropping to his knees.
The prince turned to her, and she looked down.
‘You appear to sense some that I cannot,’ he said, pacing around and then suddenly siting at her desk. ‘What has happened here?’ he asked, his voice too loud.
‘I worry that the princess puts herself in danger,’ the healer said.
‘No,’ Lis said. ‘I was visiting. She has been unwell; I was worried.’
‘For the empress?’ the prince prom
pted, and she nodded.
‘What did you see when you looked at me?’ she asked.
He looked up, confused, and she turned to the healer. ‘You both looked like you saw something,’ she said, the fear straining her voice. ‘What did you see?’
‘You,’ the healer whispered.
The prince growled as he jumped to his feet.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘You are not what I expected,’ the prince said.
‘Another disappointment. Perhaps these fire bearers are correct and I should not be here.’
‘You are more than you think you are,’ the healer said.
Now it was her turn to stare at him. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what I am. No one does.’
‘Someone does,’ Hui Te-Sze said, entering the room. ‘It is why they want you dead.’
‘As you do,’ she said, turning angry eyes on him.
The crown prince stepped forward.
‘I sensed something about you,’ the man admitted, ‘but I couldn’t at the same time.’
‘There is too much magic around.’ She sighed. ‘It blurs the senses.’
‘How long have you sensed this?’ the prince asked.
‘Since that first time you reached out near me. I could sense something around you, a hum. Then it seemed to be everywhere,’ Lis said.
‘I have had that feeling at times, as though it is all around me and yet I can’t sense anything,’ the prince agreed.
Lis nodded.
‘You felt Prince Remi reaching out?’ Hui Te-Sze asked.
Lis nodded again. ‘As I can feel you do now.’
The feeling stopped. ‘How can you feel a hunter?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand any of it.’
‘There is something else,’ the healer said, his voice soft and coaxing.
‘I wonder if hunters have a kind of magic,’ Lis blurted, and the man charged forward. The prince put himself between them.
‘I am not one of them!’ he shouted from around the prince.
‘They used to be the same as us. People of this Empire.’
‘You are taking the words of a mad man to heart now. You think this prophecy he talks of, where you will bring the world back to what it was, is true?’ Te-Sze asked.
She shook her head, wanting desperately to disappear and run away.
‘You would think your father would have explained things more clearly to you,’ Te-Sze continued.
‘My father didn’t talk of the war or what he did.’
‘I would be only too happy to enlighten you.’
‘No one talks of magic,’ Lis said. ‘No one will voice what it is or was in case speaking of it will bring it back, and the fighting with it.’
The crown prince sighed.
‘Tell me what is out there. Tell me what they have that they are so determined to use against me.’
Hui Te-Sze huffed.
‘You don’t think they want to harm me? Why do you stand outside my door so often?’
‘Because the prince demands it.’
The prince looked to him. ‘You don’t think the future empress worth protecting.’
‘I think she is one of them,’ he said. ‘I get a sense of something.’
‘So you said. Perhaps it is because I am a hunter too,’ she said, a confidence in her voice she didn’t feel. ‘Like the sense I get from the prince?’ Lis stepped forward and looked between the two men. ‘Unless you think the prince has magic?’
The anger was clear on the prince’s face, but she was serious.
The hunter glanced sideways at the prince.
‘When did you learn that you were a hunter?’ she asked.
‘As a child I could sense something in others, but it wasn’t until later, when I was a soldier, that I realised the value of what I had.’
‘Have you ever been wrong?’ Lis asked.
‘I can sense something or I can’t. There is no wrong or right.’
‘You aren’t answering my question.’
‘Once,’ he murmured.
Lis waited.
‘He was one of our own, but there was a hum about him always, and in battle it was stronger and…’
‘You killed him,’ she finished for him.
He nodded once.
‘And there was no fizzle when he died.’
‘He may have been one of those that are harder to detect. I’ve heard whispers of the Hidden,’ Te-Sze said.
‘The Hidden?’
He nodded. ‘Nothing clear. It is thought this is the reason the war ended, not because the magic disappeared, but because we couldn’t sense it like we could before. Like they knew how to hide it away. The Order of Huans, they came be known.’
Lis sat slowly at the table. She glanced then towards Mu-Phi and shot up again when she saw the empty bed.
‘She has gone to her family.’ The crown prince stood, and Lis clenched her fist before wincing.
‘You need to rest,’ the healer said quietly by the door.
‘You may leave,’ she said, turning her back on the room. ‘You can all leave.’
‘I think…’ the prince started.
‘And you can find another to stand at the door,’ she said, looking at the guard. ‘I would rather not be run through in my sleep because he thinks me something I am not.’
The crown prince sighed again. He bowed low and took the guard by the arm as they moved out.
Chapter 31
Lis woke with a jolt, sitting bolt upright and throwing the covers off. Someone groaned, but she kept moving. She pressed her hands to her temples. Something wasn’t right. There was an angry buzz filling her head and the world around her. What could they be doing, and why had no one done anything to stop it?
She was sure it was the background magic. There weren’t just several—there were a lot of people with magic somewhere around the palace.
‘The priestess,’ she murmured.
She pushed open the door and found the healer sitting against the wall. When she pushed the door open completely, he fell against her legs.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked too loudly.
‘The hunter won’t watch you,’ he murmured, rubbing his shoulder.
‘And what good will you do?’
He opened his hand to reveal a small dagger, and she almost laughed at the size of it. ‘You do realise that you would have to get very close to someone to use that? If they are throwing fire at you, it isn’t going to do much good.’
‘How is your hand?’
She brushed him off. ‘How is the empress?’
‘Resting. As you should be.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, turning back into the room and stalling at the site of the prince. ‘Were you watching me sleep again?’
‘I keep thinking that you need protecting, but it may be that I need protection from you.’
‘You also see me as a threat?’ she asked. She was tempted to hide away then or show them what she was—do something spectacular that might force him to drive his sword into her. She wondered for a moment if she would hiss as the magic escaped, or if it was indeed different for the Hidden.
She opened her mouth to say something else, although she wasn’t sure what she could say, but the prince held his hand up. Then the hunter ran into the room.
‘What is that?’ he asked.
‘Why do you think I’m awake?’ she snapped. ‘It is burning through my mind.’
‘Like a swarm of bees,’ the healer said, and they all looked to him. ‘I have work to do,’ he mumbled.
Lis caught him by the sleeve, then groaned as the material pulled at her hand.
‘Why has it built?’ Lis asked as she relented and allowed the man to look over her hand.
‘Who else is a hunter and has not said?’ the guard murmured.
‘People don’t talk about such things in case we are thought to have magic. I like my innards on the inside.’
Another soldier appeared at the doorway. ‘I think with this level of noise, it is time to wake the emperor,’ the crown prince said, ‘and double the watch over the empress.’
‘You think they will come for her again?’ Lis asked.
‘It is hard to know what they will do and who they may be after. It was you they were trying to kill, and yet they didn’t mind if the empress died with you.’
‘You don’t mind if they take me, as long as she is not harmed,’ Lis said. Despite her understanding of just how little she mattered until the training was complete, it still hurt to be reminded.
She stepped behind the screen and then turned to find the prince standing behind her. ‘Are you to help me dress now that you have taken my maid?’
He blushed and backed out of the space.
‘I need to know what is out there and what threat it truly is. Whether the threat is to me alone or to the Empire.’ She changed quickly and reappeared before the small group.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ the hunter said.
‘Of course you don’t. I might find something you have overlooked in all this time. I will go out with the rest of the hidden princess’s guards. Or have you sent them all home to their families?’
The prince shook his head and then sent the hunter out of the room. She glanced at the healer, the small knife still clutched in his hands. ‘You can come with me,’ she said.
He nodded and then shook his head.
‘You are to go without me?’ the prince asked.
‘I thought you needed to talk with the emperor,’ Lis said, barely holding back the frustration she felt.
He nodded.
She shook her head and walked away from him. The soldiers in the hallway bowed and two moved along before her, the remaining two following behind. The healer looked between her and the armoured men behind them with some nervousness, but she carried on, thankful she didn’t have to direct them and that they appeared willing to support her in this.
The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set Page 25