Chapter Two #2
I glanced up at that, seeking Sorcha’s face, and was relieved to find her nodding, polite and unmoved.
She was a sensible girl. Life had never been easy for magic folk, but we’d survived thus far, and despite what Tanner and Roy and even my own brother might believe, we would endure whatever restrictions this new King placed upon us.
As we always did.
Tanner went on grumbling about the new King, cursing over the taxes he was rumoured to be bringing in for land owners in our borough. I half-listened and watched Sorcha for a time until, satisfied that she was unmoved by our resident doomsayer, I turned my attention back to more festive thoughts.
By lunchtime, The Mage and Rose was transformed.
The tree was my best yet, twisting lengths of red ribbon bright against the fresh green pine needles.
Little gold trinkets and bells hung from every branch, twinkling where they caught the light.
I’d strung ribbon and garlands from other surfaces too; across the front of the bar, over the hearth’s mantel, and around the doorway.
I’d even dusted off a dozen old glass baubles and – when Tanner and Roy weren’t watching – let my magic leap into them in tiny sparks, lighting them up from the inside so that they glowed like golden embers.
Those, I strung from the rafters; they looked like brightly burning stars above our heads.
“Roz,” Sorcha said in a hush. Her blue eyes were ringed with gold as she stared up at the twinkling ceiling.
Roy gave a soft, low whistle and Tanner said; “I’ll be eating my words now, no need for lunch.”
I beamed at them all, then turned my attention back to the tree.
All that was left was to place the star on top.
That had always been my job, as the youngest in our family of four.
My father would lift me on his shoulders when I was too small to reach, both of us glowing from the Flame outward with the soft, simple joy of the moment.
I hugged the star tight to my chest at the memory.
I was just trying to find a way to get the heavy gold base to sit atop the thin little branch jutting out of the tree’s crown, when footsteps crunched up the snowy pathway outside. Lots of footsteps.
I froze.
A glance over my shoulder told me the others had frozen too, and my magic swooped uneasily in my ribcage. I hugged the star tighter to my chest, a shield to my nervous Flame as the door swung open –
– and a cluster of Kingsmen marched wordlessly inside.
I forgot to breathe. My lungs and magic burned in tandem, and the panicked swell of heat in my ribs shocked me into clenching down hard, so hard I imagined I could hear my Flame squeal as I locked it down. My chest went painfully cold, a cavern of ice at the centre of my being.
“Can we help you?”
My voice came out in a shiver and much more timid than I would have liked, but none of the dozen or so men seemed to have heard me anyway.
They filed to either side of the door, shoulder to shoulder in their shining bronze armour and bloodred cloaks.
The soldiers formed two neat lines before their hands moved in eerie unison to their foreheads, a rigid salute.
Sorcha wrung her hands. Roy’s gaze flitted from soldier to soldier, his frail shoulders curving in on themselves bit by bit. To my surprise, Tanner had gone entirely still, stiff as a hunted animal. He was barely even breathing.
And when I finally inched forward to follow Tanner’s gaze, peering around the line of Kingsmen closest to me, I could see why.
The man in my doorway was too large. There was no other way of putting it; he didn’t fit through the entry made for our short and stocky Stormsby farmers.
The door cut him off midbrow, and my first impression was nothing but broad shoulders in shining steel, and a vicious scar above a thick beard.
Then he ducked through the entryway, and the edges of the gold star dug into my fingers as I clutched it tighter.
He could have stepped from the pages of a storybook.
A prince who had offended some vain and wicked fairy with his beauty, driven her mad enough with jealousy to try and dull its shine.
The silverwhite scar tugged one corner of his lip, extended past jarringly green eyes, and disappeared beneath the dark hair that spilled over his forehead.
He swept it absently out of his eyes as he straightened, and it settled in a gentle crest of waves that seemed at odds with his scarred smirk and generally chaotic air.
The man stood between the unmoving lines of Kingsmen for a long moment, seeming to revel in their deference as he took in the tavern around him.
It was only when his lips tilted higher, wry and discerning, that it struck me how my little tavern might appear to fresh eyes.
Eyes accustomed to the sleek, modern establishments of Kingsborough.
Not cosy, but quaint. Not rich with quiet character, but cluttered and worn down.
I didn’t like it at all; the way he looked around like everything about The Mage and Rose amused him, from my mother’s handwoven rugs underfoot, to the fresh garlands strung across my chipped and battered counter.
Didn’t like the wild green glint in his eye, or the way he was smirking. Didn’t like him, I decided.
When I spoke this time my voice did not shiver; it was sharp as a shard of ice.
“Can I help you?”
His gaze slid from a tabletop thick with overlapping water rings, and when our eyes met, his dark brows twitched up with lazy interest.
“At ease,” he said mildly, and the men on either side of him dropped their arms, a few of them huffing with relief. His eyes never left mine. “I’d appreciate that, Miss…?”
“I’m Rosaleen.”
He grinned, incisors flashing wickedly in the candlelight.
“Rosaleen,” he said, and I caught his familiar accent for the first time in the way my name seemed to roll off his tongue before he bit off the end.
He was from the Isles, if I had to guess – maybe not the exact same isle as my father, but certainly a close neighbour.
He bowed over one arm, shallow enough that he could still hold my eye as he bent.
“Captain Caelan, of His Majesty’s Northern Battalion. ”
He rose, and seemed to pause a moment, as though allowing for my reaction to this grand introduction. Instead I asked, for the third time now; “What can I do for you?”
The Captain finally dropped my gaze for just a moment to take another assessing look around the room.
“I’ll need to speak to the owner of this… fine establishment.”
“I am the owner.”
“Are you?”
That ‘R’ sound rolled out with delighted abandon. He sounded positively tickled, like I was a five year old who’d just announced I was the Sugar Plum Saint. My brow twitched, but I managed not raise it at him. Instead, I forced a sweet smile.
“I fear I’m running out of ways to ask what you’re doing here, Captain.”
Over by the bar, Sorcha snorted and quickly hid the sound with a dainty cough.
Roy was openly staring, but Tanner still had not moved so much as a finger.
The Captain, on the other hand, seemed almost as amused as Sorcha; one wide hand spread across his jaw and dragged over his beard, as though he’d wipe the smile from his own face.
Without turning, he beckoned vaguely over his shoulder with two fingers. “Brennan.”
One of the men nearest the door pushed forward and arrived at the Captain’s side.
He beamed at me; a boyishly handsome smile, cheeks smooth and golden brown, tinged pink with the cold.
His bronze armour was polished and pristine, the neat line of his close-cropped black curls framing his clean shaven face.
Beside him, the Captain looked even larger, his edges even more jagged.
Brennan reached beneath his cloak and pulled out a roll of parchment, which he held out to me.
I shifted the star to one hand and took it, then unfurled it to skim the brief, neat words above the crown shaped stamp of gold wax.
Shock drained my limbs and my fingers went weak, fumbling the parchment so it almost slipped from my hand.
Though I hadn’t heard her move, Sorcha was at my side in an instant, carefully tugging the letter from my hand.
“You can’t be serious,” I breathed.
They couldn’t do this.
They couldn’t do this. Yule was the busiest time of year, and with travellers filtering through Stormsby for the coronation, we might have seen more than a handful of patrons and guests through our doors, if given half a chance.
Sorcha’s head whipped up from the parchment, and the young soldier reeled back as though she’d struck him.
“You’re commandeering The Mage and Rose?”
Brennan’s cheeks flushed deeper still, but he managed to get out; “N-not the tavern. Just the inn.” He turned to me and added kindly; “Temporarily.”