Chapter Twelve
Dietan
I draw the blanket tighter around me. The Rings hum at the mention of my curse. “That’s why I’ve come to ask for your help,” I say. “I heard you might be able to…” I clear my throat and steal a quick glance toward Aren. “…fix me.”
“Fix you?” Veteria laughs, shaking her head.
I visibly pale, like a scolded child. Aren notices immediately. It’s bad enough that she knows I’m cursed now, but for her to know the rest? Gods, forbid.
Aren shifts uncomfortably back and forth on her feet. I clear my throat to break the awkward silence—a cue, I hope, for Aren to excuse herself. She looks to Veteria, then to me, and then back to Veteria. Veteria gives her a knowing nod.
Aren pulls her, now dry, cloak from the chair and throws it over her shoulders. “I’ll be outside while you talk,” she says as she opens the front door and beelines for a wooden rocking chair on the covered porch. Once the door shuts, the tension rachets.
“Why ever would you think that I could fix you?” Veteria accuses.
“Because you’re a healer, a fabled one,” I say, thinking that some brownnosing may help me.
“The curse is entwined with your soul. No one can remove it without killing you as well.”
That isn’t what I’ve come all this way to hear.
I get to my feet and approach her. “You used the Whisting on me,” I say.
It knocked me back through the air, the magic coming as easily as a flick of her wrist. “I’ve heard the stories about who you are and what you did—how you saved Beddlegert last winter during the floods.
If you know how to control it—if you truly are the last of the Vindar—you must know how to help me. ”
“Knowledge of the Whisting is not akin to breaking a curse,” she says. “Plus, I removed myself from the concerns of men a long time ago. Too many have used me and my kin for their own purposes. I saved a village once because it was my own, but I will bend to no king any longer.”
“But the two are linked, and I humbly ask for your help to save our people.”
The old woman turns her milky eyes toward me and scoffs. “How do you claim to have the power of the Whist—”
In answer, I call the power, manifesting a windstorm in the palm of my hand.
Veteria’s mouth falls open in surprise as the wind whips against her face. She reels back. “This can’t be,” she says.
I raise my hands, giving more of myself to the power, but it quickly runs away from me, and I can’t control it. The wind fills the tiny cabin, overturning jars, toppling a stool, and sending a table crashing to the ground.
I see Aren’s concerned face appear in the window, looking in at the chaos unfolding.
The old woman’s face hardens, and she shakes her head as the winds swirl around her, raising whorls of dust. The walls tremble. The cat scurries under the cot.
“That’s enough,” says Veteria, her voice nearly drowned out by the gale.
I clench my teeth, willing the storm to obey me, but it only grows stronger. I only meant to prove to her what I’m capable of, but the magic has a mind of its own.
“Control it,” says Veteria.
“I can’t,” I grit out, trying not to panic.
She bares her teeth in frustration, then spreads her arms wide and stomps her foot. The air calms, collected into her outstretched hands. She redirects the wind, thrusting it back into me. I stumble, falling back onto the cot. The Rings in my back settle into a calm hum.
I heave a ragged breath. The cat pokes its head out from under the cot, checking to see if it’s safe to come back. The door to the cabin swings open, and Aren appears in the threshold.
“What in the Goddess’ name was that?” she asks, her eyes as wide as the cat’s milk saucers.
Veteria stares at me with a ferocity that borders on anger, her gaze so intense, I shrink back.
“So, this is the shape of the curse you carry. You did not learn this magic, but somehow, it is a part of you.”
An unknowable emotion flits across her face. I wonder if she’ll toss me out, or even kill me. I’m too dangerous to allow to live.
But it’s not Veteria I’m ultimately concerned about. Aren knows. She hasn’t bolted for the door, but she hasn’t moved an inch, either.
“I didn’t ask for this. I never meant for any of this to happen. I don’t know how to wield it or stop it. You’re the only one left who can help me. Please.” I’m so utterly fraught, my voice catches on the last word. I must make her understand.
That single word—please—seems to have an effect. I know how desperate I must sound, and maybe she feels sorry for me. She groans and rubs her temples.
“Tell me, boy,” she says. “How did you get this power?”
Though I’m a prince and a leader of men, in front of Veteria, I feel like I’m ten years old again.
I feel even more under a looking glass with Aren waiting eagerly for an answer.
“When I was young and stupid, I touched the Rings of Fate in my father’s war room.
When I woke up, the Rings were gone, but I had this.
” I turn and yank the back of my shirt between my shoulder blades, exposing the interlocking circles scarred into my flesh.
She reaches over and touches them with her papery fingers. Her eyebrows furrow. “The Rings chose you then.”
I hear Aren inhale sharply. “Rings?” she murmurs.
“Is that what happened?” I ask Veteria directly, ignoring Aren.
“The wind will go where it finds purpose. Clearly, it found purpose within your soul.”
Well, shit, that doesn’t sound ominous at all. “The Rings are sentient?” I ask incredulously. What in Albion have I gotten myself into?
“The Whisting is never wrong.”
“It’s wrong this time. I need to get rid of it, to give the Rings back to my father the king.”
Veteria frowns at me. “You come crawling to me for help, yet you question what I tell you?”
I bite back a retort. She’s right; she knows more about it than I do—than my father and his advisors, even.
She’s the only person I’ve ever met who describes the ancient ways like this.
But why did this befall me, when it has never happened to any of my royal ancestors? There must be another explanation.
“You are meant to fulfill a purpose, dear boy,” she says. Then, with a sigh, she continues:
“The Rings of Fate were crafted in secret by the Oracle of Alba to contain the power of the wind spirits, the Anemoi, to defeat Lord Boreas. Otherwise Albion would have fallen to the evils of the Unseen Death and the Kilandrar—both born of perverted magic at Boreas’ hand.
But this dark magic is back. It is in the very air we breathe.
Only the bearer of the Rings can defeat it. ”
“All of Boreas’s knowledge of the Unseen Death was supposed to have been destroyed with him, along with the Kilandrar,” I say.
“If you actually believe that, I have a bridge to Penrith to sell you,” she says, alluding to the broken bridge between Penrith and Alarice that was destroyed in the third epoch. She cackles.
“The Kilandrar are real? Not some child’s tale?” Aren asks, clearly just as rattled as I am.
“As real as the very clothes on your back.” The old woman pauses. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help to you,” Veteria says.
It sounds so final—a dismissal. I have to keep trying to convince her to help me.
“If the Usurper has supposedly reanimated the Kilandrar and is amassing an army of foul creatures, like you’re suggesting, and my father marches into battle without the Rings of Fate, he and the army won’t survive.
Loegria will fall. And if Loegria falls, so will Alarice.
I’m alone in this, and I can’t save both kingdoms by myself. ”
She resumes her seat at the fire again. “But he does have the Rings of Fate. You.” She points a withered finger in my direction as her gaze roams sightlessly around the room.
The look on Aren’s face is one I cannot totally discern, but I think she may be concerned.
It warms me slightly to think that she may care about me in the slightest.
I try one final plea. “Please. As you can see, I can’t control it. I’ve got to get them out of me.” Desperation spills out of me like the magic I can’t control. “Is there nothing your magic can do to save my people?”
“What about King Osian?” Aren pipes up. Her look is innocent enough, but Veteria is clearly shaken by the question.
“Don’t you speak his name in my home!” she roars. It’s almost unbelievable that such a small woman could make such a large, imposing sound. “He is a traitor to the cause. He is no gentleman. He styles himself a king, the Great Waste his dominion, but he is mad and ruthless. Do not seek him out.”
Aren wrings the corner of her cape uneasily.
“But I’ve heard travelers whispering about Osian’s powerful dark magic. Maybe he could help,” Aren adds, trying to defend her suggestion. She really does see and hear everything in that pub.
I have heard the same tales, and to be honest, Osian was on my list if Veteria failed me.
“You are no match for him, young man,” Veteria warns me. “You must not seek his counsel.”
“But I have no choice if you don’t help me.”
I can’t imagine going back to court and telling my father, his generals, his councilors, and everyone who matters that I failed.
My mother already thinks I’m a disgrace, a pitiful excuse for a prince.
She more than anyone believes in the mask I wear to keep everyone away and safe from the danger I carry within.
My facade as a hapless, immature charmer is an illusion almost as great as the magic trapped in my body.
I can’t go running empty-handed back to my father.
I can’t tell him that multiple kingdoms are in peril because his stupid, selfish son failed at his one assigned task.
No, this is my problem to solve. I will do it, or I will die trying and let my friends cut the Rings from my corpse as my last sacrifice for my people.
“I must find this King Osian, and perhaps…” My mind gallops with a half-formed plan, and my breath quickens with desperation. “Osian rules over the Great Waste, does he not?”
“In the city of Engel is what the rumors say,” Aren chimes in. Veteria shoots her a look that would kill one of fainter heart—but not Aren.
I’ve come all this way only to learn I must journey halfway across the world again. So, I need cover. People will wonder what business the Crown Prince of Loegria has in the Great Waste. Word would surely get back to the Usurper.
I came to Evandale pretending to seek a bride in order to seek a mage. Perhaps the solution is simply another charade.
“The Wedding March,” I murmur, proud of my own quick thinking.
Once I choose a bride, we will have to travel through Alarice and Loegria to seek the blessing of the ancient Oracle of Alba for the union, as royal tradition demands.
Alba is close to the fallen kingdom of Estyrion, and once I’m there, I can slip across the border into the Great Waste.
I turn back to the sorceress. “You are certain this King Osian is alive?”
“No good can come of this, dear prince. Go home, find another way to defeat the Usurper, and set yourself free.”
But I’m not listening. I’m too distracted by hope, at long last. “Surely, for the good of the entire land…” I begin.
But from her scowl, it’s clear Veteria has run out of patience. Her pearly eyes gleam.
“I’ve told you what I know, so now begone. The both of you,” she says, twirling her wrist. A great gust of wind lifts me into the air.
…
The next moment, I’m standing on solid ground, the wind dissipating to a gentle breeze. Aren is trying to regain her balance on the cobblestones. The sorceress’s cottage is gone, and I realize I’m back in Evandale.
It’s barely dusk, so it’s almost time for Aren to open the Raven’s Beak. I’m sure there will be quite the crowd tonight to celebrate the engagement.
“Thank you,” I say a little too softly.
“Like I said, it’s my duty, I suppose.” She turns to look me in the eye, and my cheeks begin to heat from her gaze. I clear my throat, suddenly parched.
“I don’t know much you saw, or heard, but please. Do not breathe a word. Many lives are at stake.” She must see me entirely different now. Not some spoiled prince but a cursed man, pathetic and doomed.
“Not a soul,” she replies. Her lack of barbs gives me a niggling feeling that I’m right.
She holds her skirt hem out of the mud as she turns and walks up the front steps of the Beak.
I imagine that skirt a fine silk, only the best, like she provided for her sisters.
But knowing her a little better now, I bet it’s plain cotton. She saves luxuries for those she loves.
Aren silently turns around and gives me a meager smile before disappearing into the tavern.
…
Laughter pours out of the Raven’s Beak, and the sound of it is almost alien to me. I decided to take a walk after we returned to Evandale, conceive of a plan. But now, I’m back among people.
The wind bangs the door open as I step into the tavern, and all heads turn to see who it is before conversation picks up again.
No one gives me a second look in my shabby cloak and hat.
I’m just another traveler stopping in for a bite.
I haven’t eaten since I entered the forest, and I’m as ravenous as a bear.
But Aren, behind the bar, doesn’t look away. She lifts an eyebrow at me as she pours a mug of ale.
I feel even more unmoored, like I’m adrift at sea. She knows. I wave a dazed hand in her direction before heading to the same table I occupied just a few nights prior. I fall into the chair, the fire crackling at my back, lending me comfort I didn’t realize I needed.
I ruminate on what the sorceress told me.
My quest isn’t over—and continuing it might kill more than just me.
The road to the lost kingdom of Estyrion is treacherous, especially with the looming threat of war.
If the Usurper or his agents found me, I’d make an excellent hostage.
I’ll need the Wedding March for cover to continue traveling through Alarice and Loegria.
It’s the only way to hide my true purpose from Penrith’s spies.
A royal marriage must be blessed by the Oracle of Alba.
“You all right?” Aren asks, approaching with a mug brimming with frothy ale. She sets it down on my table. “You look like you need a drink.”
“I do, thank you,” I say, then gulp it greedily. It doesn’t seem as strong as the ale she served me the first time—or maybe I’m in need of more liquid courage after my meeting with Veteria—so I ask for another, and then another and another as my plan starts to take shape.
It looks like I’ll have to choose a bride after all. A bride who is fearless, smart, and capable. Someone who knows the world in ways that can’t be taught by scrolls and masters. I’ll have to find this person soon.
The last thing I remember before passing out on the table is that it’s going to be a long way to the Great Waste if I don’t like the person I’m traveling with.