Chapter 16 Wen #2
A chicken coop. Chickens scattered in every direction, squawking like I’d personally insulted their ancestors. Feathers exploded everywhere. One chicken attempted to fly through the portal before I snapped it shut.
“Again.”
Someone’s bedroom. An elderly man in a nightshirt screamed and threw a pillow at the portal. “DEMONS! DEMONS IN MY CHAMBER!”
“I’m so sorry!” I called out before closing it. “Not a demon! Just terrible at magic!”
“Again.”
What appeared to be a very fancy bathroom. Two people were in a tub. Together. Having sex. They screamed when they saw me. I screamed. We all screamed.
I slammed it shut so fast I nearly pulled a muscle.
“That was the worst one yet,” I announced to no one in particular.
“Again,” Tyreen said, unmoved.
“I know I sound repetitive, but you need to stop thinking,” she instructed after my next failure, a portal that opened into what looked like a pig pen. “FEEL. You are in your head too much.”
“I AM feeling!” I snapped, my frustration boiling over. “I’m feeling stressed! I’m feeling terrified! I’m feeling like I’m going to get Mal killed because I can’t open a portal to the right place!”
From across the room where he’d been watching this entire disaster unfold, Mal’s shoulders shook with barely suppressed laughter.
“You think this is funny?” I called out, glaring at him with everything I had.
“You are very cute when you are angry,” he said, not even trying to hide his amusement.
“I will portal you into a lake.”
“You would have to succeed at opening a portal to a specific location first,” he pointed out with devastating logic.
Even Tyreen laughed at that. Actually laughed, her head thrown back.
“I hate everyone,” I declared. “Every single person in this room can go to hell.”
But I kept trying. Portal after portal after portal.
Wrong location. A forest, but the wrong forest. Then the right forest but three miles off.
Someone’s vegetable garden, where an old woman threatened me with a rake.
A very surprised fisherman on a boat who fell overboard in shock.
What appeared to be a royal dining room in some kingdom I didn’t recognize, where several very important-looking people stared at me in horror before I slammed it shut.
“That one was particularly impressive,” Mal offered helpfully. “I think you interrupted a diplomatic dinner.”
“I hate you specifically,” I informed him.
“That was definitely Moonhaven’s royal family,” Casimya added thoughtfully. “We should probably send an apology.”
“Add it to the list of things I’ve ruined today,” I muttered.
Slowly, painfully, I started to get better. Each portal more accurate than the last. Five miles off. Three miles. One mile. Half a mile. A quarter mile.
“Better!” Tyreen called out. “Much better! Again!”
By the time Tyreen called a halt for dinner, I could consistently open portals to within a few feet of my target location. My arms ached. My head pounded, but I could do it.
Not perfect, but good enough. Good enough to get Mal there. Hopefully good enough to bring him back.
Dinner was subdued. The usual chaos was muted, everyone picking up on the tension that hung in the air like smoke. Even Killian was quieter than normal, sitting between Mal and me with his little face serious. He kept glancing between us like he was trying to figure out what was wrong.
“Are you going somewhere, Papa?” he asked, poking at his vegetables with deep suspicion.
Mal pulled him close. “Just for a few hours, pup. I will be back before you notice. I promise.”
Killian considered this, his expression calculating in a way that reminded me eerily of his father. “Can I have extra cookies when you come back?”
“How many extra cookies?”
“Three.”
“One and a half.”
Killian’s face scrunched up in confusion. “How do you have half a cookie?”
“You break it in half,” Mal explained seriously.
“But then I have two halves. That’s two cookies.”
Mal paused, clearly outmaneuvered by four-year-old logic. I watched him struggle with this mathematical conundrum presented by our son. The King of Ravenor, brought low by cookie fractions.
“Fine. Two cookies.”
Killian, having secured his cookies through sheer persistence and questionable math, returned to his dinner with the satisfaction of a successful negotiator. He even ate some of his vegetables, which I suspected was a strategic goodwill gesture.
After dinner, we tucked him into bed together. He clung to both of us longer than usual, his small arms tight around our necks.
“Be safe, Papa,” he whispered.
“Always, pup.”
“Come back.”
“I will.”
We pressed kisses to his forehead, both of us, and stood in the doorway for a long moment after he fell asleep. His little chest rising and falling. His stuffed dragon clutched in his arms. So innocent.
Our son. Our reason for all of this.
Back in our chambers, we climbed into bed. The silence was heavy with everything we weren’t saying.
“Stop thinking so loud,” Mal murmured against my hair, his arms tightening around me.
“I’m not thinking loud.”
“I can feel your worry through the bond. It is keeping me awake.”
“I can’t stop feeling things,” I muttered, knowing it was impossible.
He pulled me closer still, holding me against him completely. “I will come back to you.”
“You’d better. Killian’s already negotiated three extra cookies for when you return.”
“Two,” Mal corrected. “We agreed on two.”
“He told me three while you were getting his plushies for him. Said you agreed.”
Mal was quiet for a moment. “That little con artist.”
“Wonder where he gets it from.”
“You. Definitely you.”
“The cookies,” I continued, trying to keep my voice light. “That’s why you have to survive. Don’t make me explain to a four-year-old why his father broke a promise about cookies.”
“The cookies,” Mal said seriously. “Yes. That is why I will survive. Not because I love you and Killian more than life itself. Not because I have a kingdom to rule. The cookies.”
“Exactly. Finally you understand priorities.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I promise.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it is true.”
“You can’t know that. Not really. You don’t know what the secret weapon is.”
“Watch me,” he said, and the arrogant confidence in his voice was so typically Mal that I almost smiled. “I have survived battles that should have killed me. I am not dying in some forest to protect a mad man’s pride. I refuse.”
“You refuse to die?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not really how death works.”
“It is how I work.”
I laughed despite myself, the sound wet and shaky. “You’re ridiculous.”
His arms wrapped more securely around me, his hand stroking my hair. “Tomorrow will be fine. The portals will be accurate. The mission will succeed. And I will come home to you and Killian and apparently three cookies that I did not agree to.”
“He’s going to run this kingdom someday.”
“Gods help us all.” He chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Sleep. Tomorrow we save the kingdom, but for that, we need to rest.”
I fell asleep like that, wrapped in his arms, his warmth surrounding me. Neither of us wanting to let go.