CHAPTER 35
Sakura
The little dragon was delightfully curious, sitting up taller on Keenan’s shoulder to peer at something on Oliver’s back, then crouching down to examine Sakura’s earrings and the way they swayed as she walked.
“How do you persuade those to hang from your ears?” the dragon chirped in her creaky voice. “Is it some strange small magic – an illusion, perhaps? Or a special type of glue?”
“They’re pierced,” Sakura explained. She carefully removed the earring and held it up for inspection. “You see? It hangs from the hole.”
“Humans have an extra hole in their ear?” Cherry’s long neck bunched as she turned to examine the ear she was perched next to. “I don’t see one in his.”
“It isn’t naturally occurring.” Keenan tilted his head away from the wisps of smoke blowing in his face. “The women who wish to wear earrings stab their earlobes with a hot needle. Or so I’ve always understood.”
The dragon recoiled. “On purpose?”
“Yes,” Sakura laughed, “on purpose. It only hurts for a little while, and then it heals around the earring and the hole becomes permanent.”
“I had no idea humans were so barbaric,” Cherry muttered. She wrapped her tail around her feet. “No wonder we’ve avoided them for so long.”
“Having second thoughts about helping us?”
“I do not believe that you three are so bad,” Cherry said slowly. “Mother said—”
She cut off, lifting one clawed hand to swipe at her own ear.
“What did your mother say?” Sakura asked.
The little dragon stretched her neck forward. “Oliver the Fae, what kind of magic do you possess? You claim weakness, but I sense more about you than just the water that you used to such great effect yesterday.”
Oliver glanced over his shoulder. “Only an eighth fae. And I am weak.”
“Compared to some, perhaps.” Cherry’s eyes narrowed to slits as she examined his back. “But your aura has more than green about it. I can see bits of it poke out every now and then, but it’s like it’s hiding. Is that intentional?”
“You can see it?”
Cherry ruffled her wings. “Of course I can. I’m a dragon!”
Oliver’s steps slowed, and he turned to study her. The way the torch’s light flickered over his dark eyes and tapered ears made him look very other.
Sakura resisted the urge to shudder. She knew Oliver. The fact that it was not purely human blood in his veins did not change who he was.
He gave his head a slight shake and began walking again. Cherry brightened. “Yellow! Very pretty.”
“Do the colors mean something?” Sakura asked.
“It’s the type of magic that he has.” Cherry straightened, rolling her shoulders back and looking very much like Sakura’s old governess preparing to give a lecture. “Red for fire, blue for air, green for water.”
“And yellow?”
“Living creatures. Is that why you joined the competition?”
Sakura tilted her head. What did the guard’s magical affinities have to do with his decision to follow them?
“I’m a protector,” Oliver said gruffly, repeating the words he’d told Keenan before they left the cavern. “And I couldn’t do my job from the surface.”
“Interesting,” Cherry said, echoing Sakura’s thoughts. But instead of pursuing a more complete answer, the dragon curled her neck around to poke her snout in Keenan’s chest, right over his heart. “What about you? I missed it at first, but there is the tiniest bit of orange curling about you.”
Sakura’s eyes shot to Keenan. He was a magic-user, too?
“What?” he sputtered. “I don’t have magic. Look at me—I’m as normal as they come!”
Cherry’s snout moved to his ears. “It’s true, I don’t sense any concealing magic. That must be why your aura is so faint.”
“That’s impossible,” Keenan protested. “I’d know if I had magic. Wouldn’t I?”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a weapon-smith.”
“And you create all kinds?” Cherry asked shrewdly.
Keenan hesitated. “Master Elias taught me to make both bows and blades, but I’ve mostly left the bows to Geoffrey the last couple of years. I prefer blades.”
Oliver, who had turned to face them, nodded at him. “The ones he’s carrying are his work.”
Cherry swung her neck around to inspect his weapons. Then she tilted her head at Oliver’s waist. “But not yours.”
Oliver nodded.
“No doubt about it,” she declared. “It’s no more than a whisper, but the color of your aura doesn’t lie. You have an affinity for metals and minerals.”
Keenan’s blank stare tugged at the corners of Sakura’s lips. For some reason, it was incredibly amusing to see him flummoxed. No one could accuse him of hiding the truth as Oliver had; Keenan was clearly as unaware as she had been.
But maybe not as much as Oliver. The guard looked as if he’d had a suspicion confirmed.
“So…I’m only good at my job because I have magic?” Keenan finally managed. “That seems like cheating.”
“Many of the finest artisans have a bit of magic in their blood, whether they know it or not,” Oliver told him. “There was a time in Roumaterra’s history when magic was not so greatly feared.”
“What does it mean then?” Keenan asked, still looking a bit dazed. “I don’t know how to use it.”
“Probably nothing.” Oliver gave his arm a pat and started walking down the tunnel again.
“You use it instinctively when working metal, but there are few with so little magical blood who have conscious control of their magic. It reveals itself in small ways, like the details you manage on your swords.”
“What about you, I wonder?” Cherry mused, turning her eyes on Sakura. “Has the Ryunic royal line been contaminated with magical blood?”
Keenan looked horrified. “Contaminated?”
Oliver shook his head. “Don’t scare the boy, Churippu. There’s nothing wrong with fae heritage, in a royal family or otherwise.”
“He’s right,” she admitted brightly. “But the Koyoshu family is so snobby that I expect they would see it that way.” Cherry leaned dangerously to the side, stuffing her snout against Sakura’s chest this time.
“You might have an aura, but I don’t see any colors.
Since you’re the only humans I’ve met, I don’t know if that’s normal or not. ”
Sakura smiled at the dragon head bobbing in front of her. “Thank you for clearing that up,” she said. “My mother might have gone into hysterics if I’d had to inform her that I wasn’t fully human.”
“Why? There’s very little difference between humans and fae,” Cherry said comfortably. “I can’t imagine that she would care.”
“Have you met a fae, then?”
Cherry tilted her head, which looked very funny hanging just below Sakura’s chin while her body still sat atop Keenan’s shoulder. “No. Should I have?”
“Then how do you know there is little difference?”
Cherry sat up, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling.
“That is a good point. But it is what my mother told me, and I believe she has made the acquaintance of a human or fae or two.” She looked back at Sakura.
“But you have your companions, do you not? Have you observed a difference between yourself and them? Outside of Oliver’s ears, of course,” she added absently.
“No,” Sakura admitted, though her eyes lingered on the guard’s exposed ears. “But I cannot freeze water, nor can I give prophecies couched in the form of a blessing but that may as well be a curse.”
“No one can give prophecies.” Cherry’s head was tilted so far it was nearly upside down. “Where did you get such an idea?”
Sakura’s feet slowed. “That’s not right. You just haven’t heard of it.”
Oliver looked over his shoulder. His eyebrows were slightly scrunched.
“Churippu is right, Your Highness. Those with a deep connection to magic sometimes have a sense of something that will happen, some place they need to be. Maybe the approach of someone they shouldn’t ignore.
But there’s no such thing as prophecy such as you might see in some tales. ”
“So if a magic-user told the princess that she would marry a common soldier…” Keenan trailed off. Sakura saw his eyes skip over to her, but she was too invested in the answer to pay him much mind.
“It’s a load of gryphon dung,” Cherry pronounced firmly. “Magic doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t predict events, and it can’t force outcomes without a bargain or a curse. And either of those would have to be more specific than that.”
“Specific?” Sakura echoed faintly.
“A specific person,” Oliver supplied. “If the magic-user cursed you to marry Mori, it would happen unless you managed to trigger the counter-curse or found someone strong enough to break it. But that vague?” He shook his head. “It was a hoax.”
She’d spent three years isolated at the winter castle, away from her brother and her friends, for a hoax?
“That’s good news, isn’t it, Princess?” Keenan asked. There was a strange note in his voice, but she couldn’t process it. “That means your father can go ahead and make you the crown princess.”
“But why?” she asked. “What reason could someone possibly have for faking such a thing?”
“Whoever stands to gain from it.” Keenan shrugged, looking away as he started walking again. “But that would be Prince Hatori, and you said he doesn’t want to be king.”
“He doesn’t.” She shook her head slowly. “Maybe someone who hopes Hari would be easier to control?”
But who?
“Our turn is just ahead,” Cherry said abruptly. “Left at the…no, wait. Three choices. We want the middle path.”
Sakura only half paid attention, barely registering the change in their surroundings as they entered a cave with a slight blue glow.
The soft tinkling sound of a tiny waterfall broke the silence as it dribbled out of the wall.
She glanced sideways to see if Keenan had noticed.
Would he comment on their accident the last time they were near a waterfall?
His face was mostly hidden behind Cherry’s body, but she saw his hand rubbing at his forehead. He’d been doing that a lot since they descended through the tree.
“Keenan? Are you all right?” she ventured.
He dropped his hand. “Fine,” he said brusquely.
Sakura frowned. That didn’t sound fine, but she didn’t want to push him. She didn’t have the right to insert herself into his moods whenever she wished. Especially since…
Her mind drifted back to the other problem revealed by the fact that the prophecy was a fake.
If there was no magical fate requiring her to marry a common soldier – or someone filling the role of one, as she could argue Keenan was – then she had no excuse for being attracted to a weapon-smith. Her own poor judgment was all to blame.
She didn’t like to think of it that way. She’d seen plenty of evidence that Keenan was a good man, regardless of his social status. But her parents wouldn’t care how good a person he was. Neither would the heartless law which demanded someone of noble or royal blood if she was to sit on the throne.
And she couldn’t foist the crown off onto Hari if it wasn’t fate.
She needed to do the logical thing, the practical thing that was expected of her. The prophecy wasn’t real. As long as she was betrothed to someone appropriate before Hari’s birthday, her father would be justified in naming her the heir without a wedding.
Unfortunately, she no longer wanted to settle for whichever noble would marry her on short notice. None of them had stepped forward to help her escape the prophecy. Even though it would have come with a crown.
Her eyes skated over to Keenan. He’d protected her even when he didn’t like her.
Instead of expecting her to maintain her perfect image, he’d encouraged her interests and teased her like she was any other young woman.
And though he had nothing to gain, he had promised to help her find a way around the prophecy.
So she could help her brother, not because he desired the throne.
Offering himself as her groom wouldn’t work in his case.
Keeping him around sounded much better than casting her affections upon…anyone else, really, and bother expectations. But she couldn’t pursue a relationship with him and protect her brother from the throne.
Unless…
If the tinderbox would have allowed Sakura to inherit the throne if she married a common soldier because of a prophecy, why could it not do the same if she married one of her own free will?
She angled her steps toward him. When they were almost touching, she extended her fingers, letting them catch against his.
When he spread his fingers, she fit hers between them. The pads of her fingers slid lightly over his rough skin, sending a thrill up her arm. How could such a small, simple touch affect her so much? It was only a few square inches of contact, but it was intoxicating.
Her thumb reached up to caress the back of his hand, and his rose to meet it.
If Sakura had known his fingers could be so blissful, she would have given up the fight and admitted her attraction days ago.
Forget the law and the expectations of Ryunic royalty; her weapon-smith was everything she needed.
Cherry launched herself off his shoulder, perching on Oliver instead as she pestered him about something. Sakura smiled up at Keenan, but he stared straight ahead, the muscles along his jaw standing out.
The smile slid off her face. “Keenan, what’s the matter?”
He closed his eyes, then jerked his hand away. Her fingers didn’t come loose, and she stumbled into him, dropping the torch so she could catch herself against his chest.
Keenan stopped walking and set a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, his fingers spread across her back as if in a caress, but then they stiffened. He carefully shoved her away. “This isn’t a game, Your Highness.”
The change in address felt like a slap across the face. She hadn’t realized how familiar his “Princess” had become until he dropped it.
And she didn’t understand what she’d just done to lose it.