Chapter 26
“MAGDA!” Kaelan ripped her off of Gur’s back and crushed her in his arms, jarring her from the trance she’d been in since she’d left Endreas.
At some point, Gur had wanted to know where she wished to go. All she could give him, all she could find within, besides the hollow pain of leaving Endreas, was Kaelan. His scent, his looks, what little she knew about the last place she’d seen him.
Somehow, in the multitudes of islands dotting the gulf, Gur had found him.
“I thought you dead,” he said into her hair. His hand touched her cheek, jolting her. “You’re freezing.” Warmth began to spill into her from his hands.
She squirmed away. Not ready to be touched, to be filled, by another Prince. Not with the loss of Endreas so fresh.
“I’m fine,” she said thickly. “Just tired and . . . hungry.”
A familiar scrabbling tug pulled at her jeans. Whiskers tickled her chin. She almost smiled.
“Hero,” she said, scratching his head. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
“And you.”
Gur growled. Hero scrambled behind her collar and to her other shoulder.
“Be nice,” she scolded.
The lion-semargl yawned, exposing his very long, very sharp teeth and then circled, trampling the low-lying ferns of the dense forest where they’d found Kaelan.
He lay down, eyes closing. Pinkish dawn light colored the mist meandering around them.
Strange birds called, squawking and singing.
Among the deep shadows of the trees, she spied palms—she hadn’t seen a palm since she’d left California.
“What is that? Where did you get this coat? What happened?” Kaelan asked.
“I know where she got that coat,” a haughty voice declared. “And I know what that beast is and where it came from as well.”
From within the earthen shelter, almost invisible for the tree growing above it and the roots hanging over its lichen-encrusted door, Kirk emerged.
“He saved you, didn’t he?” Kirk said, accusing. “Master Python was right. He has seduced you.”
“Who?” Kaelan asked.
“The Crowned Prince,” Kirk said, “Endreas. Your brother.”
Magda took a menacing step towards Kirk, whose tiny shoulders twitched, belying his stoic expression.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t smear you under my shoe.”
Kaelan grasped her arm. “Magda, Kirk helped me. He brought me here so I could recover until I was strong enough to travel on my own again. He explained to me what happened, who I am.”
She ran her hands over her face. “They want you to start a war, Kaelan.”
“I know.”
She shook her head. “No, please. Listen.”
“Is Kirk right?” he asked. “Has the Prince—my brother—seduced you?”
She grabbed his tunic and yanked him closer. “I almost died fighting him to defend you while you were lying there helpless.” She unbuttoned the coat, holding it open to show him her ripped and blood-stained clothes. “Look at me.”
“Your wounds are healed,” he said softly. “And you’re alive, because he saved you. Why?”
She seized his chin with her fingers. “Because he wants to use me, the same way that odious little man”—she jabbed her finger at Kirk.
This time, the brownie flinched noticeably—“and his master want to use you. You’re not an imp anymore, Kaelan.
You’re not a Pixie. You’re an Elf and your father is the King.
And he wants you dead. And soon he will be sending his assassins to make it so.
Welcome to the life of nobility. Everyone either wants you dead or wants something from you. Don’t trust any of them.”
“Including you?” Kaelan asked archly.
“Especially me,” she shot back. “I’m tempted to kill you and Endreas and then myself, then what will happen to all of these so-called prophecies? Hm?”
Kaelan plucked at her arm. “You’re just tired, Magda. Why don’t you—?”
“Of course I’m tired. I told you I was tired. I almost died to defend you and for what? What is any of this for? Everyone in Alfheim is cruel and evil and a liar. They’re all guilty of something . . . what am I trying to save? What am I fighting for?”
Soft, furry warmth brushed her jawline. “For me.”
Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. She brushed Hero’s head with her fingertips.
Kaelan’s hand wrapped around her upper arm, firm, but gentle. “Come inside, Magda. You need to sleep.”
All the fire drained out of her and she nodded, allowing him to guide her into the dim hut. There, she collapsed onto a reed mat and into sleep.
“How long have I been out?” Drowsy still, she pushed up from the mat where she had been curled, surprised at how deeply and comfortably she’d slept.
“Through the day and night. It’s almost dawn,” Kaelan said from the other side of the room.
The shelter was little more than an underground hole, the floors laid with flat stone.
A small hearth was built into one wall, dusty from disuse.
Pale light shafted through a vent in the domed ceiling, which was high enough at the center for her to stand upright.
Near the walls, she could barely sit up without scraping her head on the branch-work panels that covered the interior.
“What are you doing up so early?” she asked, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
Kaelan’s hands worked loose branches together in a quick, effortless motion, weaving them into a flat square.
“I can’t seem to sleep very well,” he said.
She shoved off Endreas’s coat, which had served as her blanket, and reached for a cup and pitcher sitting on a low bench near the rounded door. “Where’s Hero? And Kirk?”
“I don’t know where Hero is,” he said, one brow arching. “I can’t speak to rats.”
She drank. Gritty and warm. Nowhere near as thirst-quenching as the water Endreas had given her. Ignoring the dull twinge in her stomach inspired by the thought of him, she emptied the stoneware cup and filled another. Stretching her neck, she felt better, stronger.
“Kirk left those for you,” he said, lifting his chin towards a set of clothes and boots sitting on the hearth. “He said you should dress like a proper Ljósálfr or you’ll be laughed out of the Spire before you have a chance to challenge Lavana. Also, he said, you should bathe.”
She sniffed, her nose wrinkling. “He’s right. I stink.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. His attention dropped again to his weaving.
“He went to check in with his master,” he said. “There’s some food here.”
He picked up a basket from beside him and held it out to her. She took it and flipped up the top. Grabbing a hunk of brown bread, she devoured it in seconds.
“You shouldn’t eat so quickly,” he said, “if you haven’t eaten in a while, which I assume you haven’t.”
She gulped down another cup of water. “I’ve been busy.”
“You’ve gotten too thin,” he said as if thinking aloud.
She smirked as she pulled an apple from the basket. “Put a couple of pizzas in front of me and I’ll gain it all back, I promise.”
“You don’t look healthy,” he said, stern.
The flesh of the apple was soft, but the sweet singing flavor remained.
She slumped back against the wall, relishing the sugar buzzing over her tongue and the sticky juice on her lips.
She chomped a few more bites before returning her attention to Kaelan.
He had twisted around and was weaving the patch he’d constructed into a bare spot on the wall, where dirt and roots had poked through, mending the hut that clearly had not been tended with any real care for some time.
“How are you?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. His face was somber, his eyes violet-shadowed, sleepless. He turned back to securing the patch into the wall.
“I’ve made a decision,” he stated.
“And that is?”
“I’m going with you. I will help you become Radiant.”
She took another bite of the apple, chewing slowly, before she asked, “And then?”
His hands stopped knotting the branches together. His jaw touched his shoulder as he looked at her. “Do you love him?”
Apple flesh lodged in her throat.
He turned those sharp green eyes back to the wall, weaving more slowly. “I know you miss him.”
“I don’t even know him.” Her stomach heaved as if it might push out all the bread and apple she’d just eaten.
He made an indistinct noise.
The juice of the apple dripped over her fingers.
“What do you think peace means, Kaelan?” she asked.
He finished the patch and shifted around, facing her again, hooking his arms around his knees. “Peace for Alfheim or peace for me?”
“Are they different?” she asked.
His head tilted. His gaze turned up towards the ceiling as he seemed to ponder the question. “I don’t know. I suppose the only way I’ll know peace now is if there’s peace in Alfheim.” His eyes fell back to her. “Now, that I am a Prince.”
“You’ve always been a Prince. You just didn’t know it.”
He ran his hand over his palm as if attempting to read his own future in the lines there. “And I am the Prince who is meant to bring war.” His smile was rueful. “To make the Elf King bow before me.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Do you want to be Radiant?”
“I want to go back to my tiny, messy trailer, live on take-out pizza and cheap wine, and spend my days idle on the beach.” She plunked the half-eaten apple on top of the basket.
“But what I want doesn’t matter. I have a responsibility to the Lands and the small folk.
When I was forced into exile, in shame, I thought my life was over.
Now that I’ve returned, all I want is to go back. ”
“Was it so much better there?”
She shrugged. “In the mortal world, I grew soft and weak and lazy. I was poor and selfish.” She fanned her fingers.
The carved figures of her sheaths caught the growing light slipping through the hole in the ceiling.
“For a time, I hated myself, what I had become, my failure. But now, I look back on who I was before, so hard and cold and driven and arrogant . . . I feel sorry for that girl, her self-righteousness, her pride. She thought that spilling blood was better than compromise, than showing weakness, than yielding. But now I am back and everything is the same. Here I am, turning hard and cold and . . . killing. I’m becoming her again and I hate it, and yet, I don’t know how to stop it. ”
He leaned back against his patch. If the new branches hadn't been so much darker, fresher, it would’ve been impossible to tell where the patch started and the old weaving began.
“I keep telling myself that I won’t change,” he said.
“That I can help you. That I can be a Prince, even an Elf, and still be who I always was.” A wavy swath of golden hair fell over his eyes as his head bowed.
“But . . . my mother always told me that the things that do not grow are things that are dead. I would rather risk changing myself for a just cause, than cling to the past and serve no one.”
“That’s a noble thought,” she said. “But I can’t promise you that helping me is a just cause.
You might be better served remaining with your family, with Honey, and defending them there, than coming with me to the Spire.
The King will be hunting you, and Endreas .
. .”—her chest hitched—“wants you dead. The oracles think that you will somehow bring about a war. Maybe helping me is how that happens.” Her voice lowered and hardened as she thought about Endreas.
“Staying with me might put you in greater danger.”
“And would a war not be just?” he asked. “After the crimes the King has perpetrated?”
Her head fell back against the wall. “One man’s crime is another man’s just cause.”
“Then you don’t want my help—”
She leaned forward. “Didn’t you hear me? It’s not about what I want anymore. I need you. It’s not as though I’m likely to find any other willing Princes, no matter how many dungeons I get myself thrown into. And I am going to vie for Radiant.”
“But not because you want to?”
“That girl inside of me, the Rae, wants it, as much as she always did, but me? I just want a feta cheese, green olive, and pineapple pizza.”
“You talk about pizza a lot.”
“I like to eat.”
“It must be very good.”
“The best.”
“And what about him?”
She wasn’t thrown by his abrupt change in topic, only saddened. “His name is Endreas.”
Kaelan’s eyes narrowed. “What will he do?”
“Kirk didn’t tell you about the other prophecy?”
“About uniting the Lands in peace? It will never happen. The King will never rule equally with the Crown.”
Although she tended to agree, she asked, “You don’t think you might be biased?”
“You mean because the King tried to kill me, his own son? Yes, I’m biased.”
“I’m glad you see that.”
“It doesn’t change my opinion. You don’t intend on allowing it, do you?”
“You mean, joining with the King? Should I somehow manage to take the Crown?”
“Would you?”
She clenched and unclenched her hands, feeling their strength and their weakness. “If I were the Crown, I would do whatever I thought best for my Lands and for everyone in them.”
He leaned forward. “I know your heart, Magda. I’ve felt it. You’re not like Lavana, and I’m guessing that you’re not like the other Raes either. That’s what Alfheim needs now, something different. Things have to change or there will only be more death.”
“Isn’t death what you want? Don’t you agree with Python that there needs to be war?”
“Do you think the King will stop hunting me if I ask nicely? What does Endreas say? Is he ready to welcome me into the family if I promise not to fulfill the prophecy they so dread?”
She chewed her lip, her heart sinking.
“What other choice do I have?” he asked. “Please, tell me. I’m not a warrior. I was raised an imp. But you can’t ask me not to defend myself or my family or my home. I have to try.”
“I know, but I’m not sure you’re prepared for what that means.”
His brow furrowed, his head hung. “You’re worried that you will have to protect me again?”
“I will have to protect you again,” she said, “but that doesn’t worry me. What worries me is that I might fail.”
The air grew heavy. Neither of them looked at the other.
“Are we friends, Magda?” he asked finally.
“By no fault of our own,” she said with a feeble smile.
He smiled and shifted, leaning towards the door and meeting her eye. “I will bring you more water, because as your friend, I have to tell you, you really do smell awful.”
She snatched up her half-eaten apple and lobbed it at him. “Get out of here.”
A hoarse, ringing scream of a bird echoed through the earthen walls.