Chapter 26 #2
Rune stopped beside me, our shoulders almost touching, and heat spilled all over me just like that.
Then the prince said, “You see that? The fox does not blink when watched.”
And he reached out a hand toward the grey animal.
My heart jumped and I almost screamed— no, don’t! Like he could die if he touched an illusion. Like the game would kill him or something.
It didn’t, of course. The moment Lyall touched the fox’s tail, its entire body shimmered, and it disappeared into thin air, leaving behind a coin underneath the root.
The prince took it and stood up, let the curtain of branches fall into place, and showed us the coin between his fingers. It was golden and with a sun engraved on both sides, but that was all I was able to see before Lyall threw it in the air and caught it in his fist again.
“I win.”
The second game was just beyond the willow tree where the silver fox had been, and once more, the moment we stepped away from it, everything in the forest changed.
No more animals. No more birds chirping or owls hooting. No more cats and hedgehogs and deer, but a clearing stretched before us, and something flew over the ground all right, but they weren’t birds.
They were orbs, and they were floating, some hovering and some spinning, and the closer we got, the more we heard the beats, like something inside them was hammering.
Lyall went first, right into the clearing, his head up as he watched the orbs, some gold, some white, though I couldn’t tell you what exactly they were made of. It wasn’t metal and it wasn’t plastic. It wasn’t wood, either.
Instinctively I raised my hand—they were close enough. I thought I could touch one if I rose on my tiptoes, but…
A hand wrapped round my wrist. Rune was right there next to me, slowly lowering down my arm without a word.
My heart all but beat out of my chest just at the small contact— Jeez, Nil, calm down!
“Now, this game is a bit different.”
By the time Lyall spoke and turned to us again, Rune had already stepped away from me, his eyes on the orbs.
“These orbs all contain heartbeats within them. I’m sure you can hear it.” Lyall brought a finger to his ear, and damn, those are heartbeats? Who in the world made orbs with heartbeats?
“Whoever finds the one whose heartbeat matches their own wins.” He flashed me one of those blinding grins. “All you have to do is listen carefully.”
“That sounds impossible,” I admitted because it was bad enough that the orbs were right over us now as we stepped deeper into the clearing, but they all sounded the same. Or not—they were loud, and it was impossible to pick which beat was coming from where.
“There’s no such thing as impossible, Nilah,” Lyall said. “The mere fact that you are here right now proves it, don’t you think?”
Well, when he put it that way… “I suppose you’re right. ”
“Come. Let’s begin,” he said, and he waited for Rune and me to reach him, then walked with us.
This time I was the one in the middle, and I was already getting overwhelmed by all those sounds over my head. Each beat made me want to put my arms up over my head.
“I suspect Rune might win this one. He’s not much of a talker, but he does hear everything,” Lyall said from my left, throwing a sneaky grin at Rune.
It reminded me so much of how Betty used to grin at me back home when we used to get into trouble.
Fuck, I missed her so much it hurt.
And it also made me feel like shit, all of a sudden, that we were lying to Lyall.
“Not as well as you do,” Rune said, and the sound of his voice slipped into my ears and soothed my chaotic thoughts like a lullaby.
The questions remained though— why lie? Why not just tell him? What’s Lyall going to do about it, anyway? Rune said that a life-bond does not mean a romantic relationship, and we weren’t cheating on anyone, were we?
But Rune.
He knew better. I had to believe that he did. He knew this man better than I ever would—because they were friends. It was easy to see in just the way they were looking at one another right now, and even Rune was half smiling like he did most of the time.
“I am better than everyone at everything, but you have a sneaky eye, bastard. I’m sure there’s a lot of things I still don’t know about you. Your very name spells secret .”
My blood turned to ice suddenly, but then Lyall laughed.
He laughed, and Rune shook his head, and he was still smiling. “Half the bad when you know. Makes you a bit more tolerable, you arrogant son of a king,” he said, and Lyall laughed more.
I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply and reminded myself that it was okay. They were just joking. This was how friends talked— they’re just joking.
They said something else, the both of them, but I didn’t hear it over the sound of my panic until my heartbeat calmed down.
“Let’s focus on the orbs, shall we?” Rune said.
“Of course. I’m sure you’re eager to lose,” Lyall said, and he moved forward. “Go on, spread out. Let’s see who has the better ears.”
A moment later, we were all spread out into the clearing, looking at orbs floating and spinning against the bright blue sky, offering very little shade from the scorching sun.
I was focused, though, and I didn’t let myself think about anything else right now.
I was trying so damn hard to count the heartbeats, but it really was impossible to separate which was common from which wasn’t.
Minutes passed and I moved from one orb to the other, growing more frustrated by the second, until…
I was under a bigger one, its shadow deeper, falling over me, giving me momentary release—and whispering words in my ear.
Close your eyes, Wildcat. Feel, don’t listen. Your heartbeat will know when it finds its match.
It was Rune.
It was his voice, but when I opened my eyes again, I found him with his back turned, staring at the orb over him, just like Lyall was doing a few feet away. Neither were smiling or humming or looking my way.
Maybe I just imagined it, but then again, I’d heard him on the balcony before I jumped, hadn’t I? I’d heard him then just as I heard him now.
So, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, and I tried to do exactly what he said. I focused on the beating of my own heart, which had accelerated again.
It took me a while to drown out the beating of the orbs, though.
To me, it felt like hours before I began to hear them less and less, and began to walk about the clearing again, only opening my eyes every now and again to make sure I wasn’t about to crash into a tree—or Lyall and Rune.
I counted the beats of my heart in my head, but I didn’t hear one on the outside as clearly until I had reached over two hundred.
Then it was there, somewhere to my right, in the distance—a beating that wasn’t coming from my body, but that matched me exactly right.
In my excitement, I opened my eyes—and almost instantly the beats of every orb over my head filled my ears again.
Cursing under my breath, I closed them again, breathed, began to count, never moving a single inch. And this time, I only had to count fifty beats before I heard the one outside.
With my hands out in front of me in case I was about to slam into something, I moved, my steps slow, my heartbeat becoming faster.
The strangest thing, though—the one outside followed the same rhythm.
I wasn’t sure whether it was in my head or not, but it was just a game, and so I went with it.
I walked and walked until I was right underneath that beat that was identical to the one of my heart, and finally, I opened my eyes.
A white orb spun silently in the air right over my head. I raised my index finger and touched the very edge of it.
My heartbeat took a pause when the one inside the orb did.
Then, it shrank right in front of my eyes, and fell onto the grass without a single sound.
The same second, every other orb that had been floating over us disappeared into thin air. I leaned down and grabbed a round piece of white rock engraved with a half-moon on either side.
Holy shit.
I turned around, lips stretching into a smile, to find both men looking at me from the middle of the clearing. I showed them the piece of rock and I felt so damn proud it was ridiculous.
“I won,” I said, though I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Rune.
Either way, they both started to clap their hands and smile at me—and Rune looked damn proud of me, too.