Chapter Twenty-Three. In Which the Trio Learns a ThingTwo About Balance
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
In Which the Trio Learns a Thing or Two About Balance
“Look at you!”
The Regent was halfway across the room before Javi took a tentative step forward. He still watched Risa, perhaps transfixed by the world’s first ever display of human combustion.
It wasn’t until the Regent wrapped her arms around him that Javi closed his eyes with relief and sank into the embrace.
Exhaustion weighed heavy on his shoulders, the fire casting dark shadows beneath his tired eyes.
The Regent nestled him close to her chest as she patted the back of his head, then pulled away to grip his face and plant a kiss on each of his cheeks.
Risa had never seen such a show of affection; Barrow was a cold place, and she always figured the rest of the world had to be the same.
“Tia” was the only word Javi managed to get out before being squeezed once more. When his aunt released him, he gripped her arms to ward off further embraces.
The Regent was stronger than the prince, and at least a head taller. She pulled away from the hug and began to turn him this way and that, scanning for injuries. “You’re all skin and bones. Does your father not feed you? What happened to you?”
“Everything. Been nearly killed at least sixteen times.”
“Only four times,” Risa corrected.
The Regent ignored her. “Why are you traveling with a witch and a child?”
“I’m sixteen,” Amina mumbled, stuffing her daggers in their sheaths.
Javi glanced at Risa for the briefest moment before looking away. Oh, so they were back to avoiding each other.
“The witch is supposed to be my good luck charm, I think? I don’t know, our royal witch told me she was lucky.”
“Now.” The Regent threaded an arm through Javi’s, directing him toward an armchair by the fire, where she forced him to sit. He fixed his attention on the shelves of books behind Risa, though occasionally his gaze slipped onto her face before he realized she was staring back.
The Regent arranged herself beside him, reaching over briefly to rub at a dark smudge on his cheek, the royal signet ring on her pinky catching the light. “This witch said she had information for me. I suppose now that she sees you are here, whole and hale, she will be more inclined to speak?”
“Risa was worried about me?”
“Actually, I told her to keep you two locked up.” Risa slid down the arm of the tufted couch to settle into the corner of the furniture, arms crossed defiantly now that it seemed Brunhilda’s spell no longer intended to kill her.
Which was rather disappointing, since she wanted to disappear straight through the floor if it meant avoiding Javi’s smug face.
“She looked positively sick with concern,” the Regent noted.
“That might be the nicest thing she’s never said about me.”
“Gods, I need a drink,” Amina said, working the rest of the way into the room to sprawl beside Brunie on the rug.
Javi turned to his great-aunt, seemingly finished teasing Risa. “We’re here because the Sanguines are on San Cirilo attempting to steal something. We thought it was your blueprints, but perhaps they were trying to kidnap you.”
“Or,” Risa interrupted, snapping her wrist at the Regent, “she’s the witch who put the curse on Madros and Kheadon.”
Amina sat up in a blur. Javi’s mouth dropped open. Brunie purred loudly and rolled onto his back, all four paws in the air.
The Regent stared at Risa, lips pursed in a thin, straight line.
“Tia?”
Amina began to reach for the daggers strapped to her belt.
The Regent dismissed the action with a wave of her bejeweled hand. “Don’t bother. Unlike the general, I’m not in the habit of offing royalty.” She paused and considered Amina. “Shouldn’t you be dead?”
Risa held her breath and waited for the telltale chill that meant magic was at work and was how the Regent had divined the truth, but nothing happened. She was racked instead with a rush of adrenaline as she waited for the Regent to reveal herself as the villain.
“Tia,” Javi warned, beseeching. “Please tell me you’re not secretly colluding with the general.”
The Regent rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”
“Are you openly colluding?” Amina asked.
The Regent glared at the princess. “I am not doing that, either.”
“But you’re a witch?” Javi asked with a trembling voice.
“Yes, I’m a witch,” the Regent confirmed. She ignored Javi’s answering splutter. “How do you think I made all of this?” She waved her hands around her. “Magic? Oh, wait. Ha!”
Yes, Risa saw the family resemblance very much.
“So you didn’t place a super-powerful spell on Madros and its neighboring kingdoms?” Risa couldn’t help but want explicit confirmation.
“No. My specialty is air magic. Hence the airship.” She looked back at Amina.
“Again, I have nothing to do with General Sur. I did not assist him in murdering your family”—she turned to Risa—“and I have not cursed anyone. My concern was getting my sweet, perfect angel nephew”—and at this, she gave Javi’s cheek a squeeze with her thumb and forefinger—“out of that sham of a political marriage, which is why I put out a bounty on his living head. But now you’re here and safe! ”
“You know this is Amina—?”
“The princess of Madros?” The Regent scoffed at Javi. “I’m a hermit, not an idiot. She looks exactly like her father.”
Javi fluttered his eyelashes at his great-aunt, giving her a proper pout that was so embarrassing, Risa was sure there was no way it would work. “Then you know I can’t stay here. I’ve given Amina my word that I’ll help her get to Madros and reclaim her throne.”
The Regent shook her head, a well of tears gathering in her eyes. “You are being ridiculous. You’ll stay here, where it’s safe.”
“I can’t,” Javi said. “We’ve been hounded by bad luck. I think I’ve only managed to survive this long because of Risa. She even breaks curses.”
He flashed Risa a glance again. The look in his eyes was the same as when he’d given her the witchtrap back in Monpira.
Gentle, trusting, real. It was Javi—not the prince, not the charmer, not the flirt—holding her gaze.
Telling her that he was grateful she was keeping him alive, when really she was the reason he was in this mess in the first place.
Then Javi turned back to his great-aunt.
Guilt moved in and threatened to close over her, the tightness returning to her chest.
“I see,” the Regent said before heaving a great sigh. “You believe some teenage girl’s good luck is the reason you’re still breathing.”
“Amina helped,” Javi said, petulant as he crossed his arms. “She can fight. But we could use your assistance, too. There is a very large desert to cross…”
“Great. Two teenage girls. I suppose I should help get you to Madros if I want you to return mostly intact. Though I don’t know what you expect me to do. Airships are prohibited from entering.”
“What does that matter?” No longer considering the Regent a threat, Amina sat back on the floor, legs crossed beneath her. “You’re a witch. The general started the Anti-Airship Federation to bring you down. Why not invade?”
The Regent did not answer right away. She returned to her cherrywood desk, arranging herself in her throne-like chair. Fingers steepled, she regarded them coolly, green-gold eyes settling briefly on each of them before she finally spoke again.
“I will not run the risk of losing an airship to the general.” She leveled the princess with an intense, unblinking stare.
“Your nation was always first in science, technology, engineering. It would be easy for him to find a way to reverse engineer my airship, and with a witch working with him…” She trailed off, letting the underlying threat resonate in the silence.
Amina gulped. It seemed she was running through her own mental deductions. “Does he mean to start a war?”
The Regent nodded. “He does not need any further ammunition from my airships.”
“He already has Madros,” Amina spat. “What need does he have for more violence?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” The Regent gave a humorless laugh.
In this light, with the sky ablaze in orange, she looked more like a witch than ever before.
For the first time, Risa sensed her power, a simmering fire below the surface of the mask she wore.
“He is driven by greed. The insatiable need for domination, more money, more land. Men like him just want more for the sake of having it. Javi will be a jewel in his crown. He would use airships to help him get everything he wants.”
General Sur had killed a king for power. Murdered a family to keep that power secure. Placed a curse on his kingdom and the king-doms surrounding it to continue the lie. Coveted a thing he could not have so terribly that he wanted it destroyed. All that remained was …
“He wants to rule the world,” Risa realized aloud.
“And airships would get him the world,” Amina finished.
“You must understand,” the Regent said, her voice edged with razor-sharp blades, “that the world requires balance. It finds a way to keep it. Five years ago, the general decided to tip the scales when he murdered the king and stole the throne, and I will do what I can to tip it back.”
“Then help us.” Risa gestured at Javi and Amina.
Both looked forlorn at the prospects of their futures.
“From what you say, it sounds like General Sur will find a way to start a war regardless. Whether it’s by forcing the Anti-Airship Federation to finally move against you, marrying Javi to his daughter, or forcing more nations to fall under the curse.
You know Amina taking her throne is the only solution, and she cannot do it alone.
Put us on an airship, drop us off, and fly away before they can find a way to bring it down.
Either we die in the attempt and you’ll be at war anyway, or we win and you can keep your airship secret until the next crazed despot. ”
Javi grinned at the Regent. “I didn’t know she cared so much she’d be willing to go to the ends of the earth for me.”